So he had to see. Had to find out if he should leave, or even could leave.
He leaned over. His fists turned into tight balls with hunks of blanket at the center of each one. He felt like a mountain climber looking over the side of a volcano.
Farther.
Farther….
The scratching got louder.
The dark below his bed was blacker than anything he'd ever seen.
He thought about pulling himself up. And didn't know if he could. His body was already halfway over the edge. His fists barely holding him up.
He learned about gravity in school, and thought it was a cool idea. But right now he hated it. Because he felt it pulling/dragging/yanking him down.
He looked deeper under the bed.
The sound turned into a chitter. Suddenly so, so familiar.
The sound of legs, of mouths clicking.
He leaned farther. Nothing else to do.
The chitters fell together, like snowflakes packing into one big ball.
Not scratching….
(And he started to slide now. Holding the blanket, holding for life.)
Not whispers….
(And he was fully falling. Hands scrambling. Panicking. Failing. Couldn't stop. Gravity had him; wouldn't let him go.)
One whisper. One voice….
"Help me help me help me help me help me…."
Mal fell. He had time for the shortest scream in the history of everything, then his head thudded on the floor, then his chest and legs followed.
His hand fell into the darkest place. The place under the bed.
The whispers stopped.
Mal froze. Just couldn't move. Not even if you'd promised him every Transformer ever made and unlimited cartoons forever and no school.
His hand stayed in the black.
Then he got his strength. A little.
He started to pull his hand back.
Something grabbed it.
And something flew out of the blackness. Something gray, something horrible, something that wanted him.
It took hold, it pulled Mal into the dark.
Its mouth opened wide….
Mal scrambled back….
His head hit the wall….
Wall?
He looked around.
He had slammed into the headboard.
Which meant….
I'm in bed?
Light was everywhere. Sounds of morning: birds outside; the thumping of people moving in the house; the tinny, tiny sound of pans as Mommy or Daddy got breakfast together downstairs.
His eyes fluttered like moth wings.
He looked at Jesus. He was still screaming, but the scream was to Heaven again. Not to the floor, or whatever was below the floor.
Mal sighed.
Looked at the door.
It was closed.
Mal shuddered.
He stayed on the bed a long time. Wondering if it would be just kind of dim underneath…
… or fully and completely dark.
SILENT LAUGHTER
The house still stands. Alone, quiet.
Alive.
The fact that there are plastic strips, clipped together to form a colorful circus tent over its form, does not change the sense that there is something important in this place.
And that is good. It is right. It is as it should be.
Things are in motion.
All this time. All this waiting. Gathering strength, bit by bit, year by year.
Waiting to begin again. As begun they have. And they will not stop.
Outside this place, three men speak. One is called Tommy. He has come to kill the things inside the house.
They cannot be killed. You cannot kill something like this.
And even if you could, he has set his sights on the wrong things. The wrong monsters. He is looking for things that slither, that crawl, that bite.
There are things far worse that hide in dark places of houses, hearts, and minds.
Two other men stand with him. One is dark and old, one is light and young. Two opposites, in age and countenance, if to represent the better and worse sides of Tommy's nature, though of course that is nonsense. As the house – the things in and of the house – knows, there is no better, no worse. There is only the weak, the strong. The ugly, the beautiful. The possessor, and the possessed.
Tommy says, Nothing came out?
The dark man says, Nada. Turned on the gas yesterday, left the stuff under the fans, everything like normal. Came back this morning and the gas was off, there was no smell from the warning agents. Like everything either stopped working –
Or just up and disappeared, says the light man.
The dark man looks at the light man like he is disgusted. Like he wishes the light man would not speak foolishness. Or wishes he would go away. Or just die.
The house, the things inside, almost laugh.
What do we do, boss? says the dark man.
Tommy thinks. Then he says, We start everything up again.
The other men, light and dark, agree in their expressions: they hoped for a different answer.
The light man says, Boss, I don't want to sound like an idiot, but –
And now it is the dark man's turn to interrupt: Shut up, kid!
Tommy looks at the light man. What, Troy? he says. You want to tell me the place is haunted? You think ghosts messed with the equipment?
The house shifts slightly on its foundation. A quarter of a quarter of a quarter of an inch. So minute a change that the naked human eye cannot see. But the human soul can sense a not rightness. A shift in the way things should be.
This makes the things inside happy. To send the men without its walls into circles of fear. Madness.
Tommy looks at the house. Even tented, he suddenly knows something is wrong. Call the rest of the guys, he says.
What? says the dark man. He is surprised at this turn. But also happy.
The rest of the team, says Tommy. Call 'em in. Reset everything. But everyone works in pairs. Everyone, at all times. No one goes anywhere alone. Someone takes a piss, he's got a buddy to hold his hand.
Tommy turns to go to the truck in which he arrived. But he freezes.
The house knows what he sees.
The covering over the house is not a single tent. It is sheets of plastic, held together by powerful metal clips.
Some of the clips have come undone and fallen to the ground.
They are the ones nearest the front door. Enough that a long slit has opened. Long enough and large enough to let someone in. Or out.
It is the spot directly in front of the front door.
And the plastic there flaps as if in a breeze. The air around the house is utterly still, but here at the front of the house, something unseen moves.
Tommy takes a step back.
Pairs, he says. Everyone, at all times. I don't want anyone going near this place alone.
The house – now part house, part things within, and part the mixing of both that has occurred over the long years – laughs. The plastic billows again.
And this time when Tommy steps back, so do both the light and dark men. Fear runs between them like electrical currents. The house reaches out and tastes their terror. Laps it up. It is delicious. It is good.
And there will be more.
SAD GOODBYES
Alyssa loved that Blake could often work from home. It was nice having him around, seeing him in his office, or even in their bedroom or the living room. He sat there making notes on architectural drawings, on notepads, sometimes reading books full of stuff that bored her to bits but that he seemed to find fascinating. He always looked tremendously studious and cute and it was usually all she could do not to jump him.
But she also loved that he worked "offsite" – at his office. She liked that she had her own space that way – time to do work around the house, pay bills, things that she thought of as "her" workday. When Blake was home, he tended to take five from time to time, and
when he did he would come over and chat, or offer to take her out to lunch, or some other nice thing that she always enjoyed – but which inevitably threw off her daily schedule.
The best thing about Blake going to work, though, was that she got to see both of her boys out of the house. Not in the sense of kicking them out; she just loved seeing them walk out together, Blake holding whatever work he had brought home with him, Mal swinging his backback around with one hand and holding onto his sack lunch with the other. Blake often rested his hand on the back of Mal's neck, and it was in those moments that Alyssa most felt like she had a family.
It was in those moments that she was, perhaps, the very happiest.
There were dates with Blake, the times they spent together making love or just chatting over a beer with some chips and salsa. There were days where she and Mal went out for "special time" – little jaunts to McDonald's for an ice cream cone or a milkshake.
But watching her boys together. Their love, their fun. They were hers, she was theirs.
That was family. That was happiness.
She hoped that would bring some normalcy back to the day. That her favorite sight would bring some sense of hope to things, even in the midst of financial troubles, a new baby they had to be on constant watch around, and a house that had won a starring role in Bug Invasion From Hell Part II: This Time It's Personal.
But even this thing, this favorite thing, was tainted by all that was going on around them.
"You sure you don't mind dropping him off?" she said to Blake as he walked out the door. It was what she always said.
"Nah," he said. And that was what he always said. "I should at least stop by the office to make sure Marty hasn't blown anything up at the jobsite."
"You always say that. But Marty almost never blows up a jobsite."
Blake laughed. "He actually might this time. The contractor's doing a demo and he's going to blow up some footings. Marty's a bit too excited to work around the explosives."
Blake walked to the car, papers and drawings clasped in hands and rolled under arms.
Mal's turn. He was waiting behind his father, and now he hugged and kissed Alyssa. "Bye, Mal," she said. "Be good. Learn a lot."
Mal nodded, but didn't say anything. He had been withdrawn to the point of surliness all morning. Monosyllabic answers that finally drew out a rebuke from Blake for being rude. And after that: he kept on being nearly silent, nearly unresponsive. If he hadn't kissed her and, more importantly, Ruthie on the way out, Alyssa probably would have kept Mal home from school just on general principles.
He didn't swing his lunch. Didn't swing his bag around. Just marched to the car and opened the door.
Then he rushed back to her. This time the lunch and backpack both swung, but not in fun and games. He just didn't seem to notice them, didn't seem to care enough to keep them stable.
He hugged her again. Paused, still in her arms, looking up at her.
"Yeah?" she said.
"Be careful," he whispered.
Then he ran to the car. It pulled away and both her boys were gone.
She was alone.
The strangeness of the morning, the compounded oddness of the goodbye, stole the happiness she usually felt watching the two men in her life walk away together. Now there was only a sense of offness. A sense that all was not right. Everything was strange. Everyone was acting weird.
The receiver to the baby monitor was clipped to her belt. She had set the volume low when saying goodbye to Mal and Blake, but now she turned it up higher. She heard only the low staticky hissssssss that said Ruthie was still asleep.
That and the clock. Tick-tock, tick-tock.
She had absolutely never heard – or heard of – a clock that ticked this loud. How could the owners of this place have slept? She had turned and twisted all night long, the sound of the pendulum like rocks trapped in her skull. She didn't want to close the bedroom door, either. Not with Ruthie in constant danger of an attack. Nothing major had happened since the hospital – thank God for that – but she still couldn't bring herself to close her door. Ruthie's, yes, or else the clock would have kept the baby up all night, too. But not hers.
Blake slept soundly. That surprised her. He was usually a pretty light sleeper. But he sawed his way through a forest's worth of logs, interrupted only by a few farts worthy of an entire logging camp of lumberjacks.
Tick-tock.
No wonder they only charge forty bucks a night. It's like living in a sledgehammer testing facility.
She sighed. Decided to get the dishes done before Ruthie woke and doing that particular chore became more difficult.
She moved down the hall.
Plik.
Alyssa froze.
The sound had come and gone quickly, not nearly as loudly as the overpowering sound of the clock. But it was instantly recognizable.
The music box. A single metallic note as the drum turned enough for a tooth of the comb to click over one of the pins.
She spun around, nearly at the same moment the note sounded.
The music box was mute. No one was near it.
She looked at the baby monitor again. The motion was automatic. Whether logical or not, a good mother's first concern will always be whether or not her baby is safe.
Hissssssss. Nothing. The sound was low and measured. The lights that were a visual cue if the baby was making noise were dim as well.
Alyssa reversed course anyway. She passed the music box. Her whole body grew so tense she worried she might seize up and be unable to move.
She passed it. Passed the clock, tick-tock.
Upstairs. Toward Ruthie's room. Whether logical or not, a good mother's first concern will always be whether or not her baby is safe.
Hisssssssss….
HANDS ON THE WHEEL
"You okay, bud?"
The drive to Mal's school was longer than usual. Long enough that it was impossible for Blake not to notice that his kid was acting strange. Usually it was tough to get Mal to stop talking: Blake could recite the contents of entire seasons of Justice League, he knew the particulars of every character in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Even if he hadn't been listening, Mal talked about things like that so much on the way to school that Blake would have memorized them by simple osmosis.
Now, Mal was silent.
Blake glanced at his son. "What's up"
Still no answer. And Blake supposed that wasn't much of a surprise.
Giant bugs attacking him at night. A new sister with a disease that makes her much more important than even your average new sister. And he's gotta be picking up on everything else that's going on, too.
"You wanna talk about it?"
Mal finally turned to look at him. Blake felt a surge of relief that surprised him. Like the very fact that his son was going to talk things out meant that they would be fixed in the end. Or maybe like the talk meant that Blake would end up fixed in the end.
Mal stared at him. Stared and stared and stared.
Then turned back to look out the side window.
Sudden anger rushed through Blake. He felt like –
(beating crushing KILLING)
– yelling at Mal. But he tamped down the feeling. Pushed it deep down, to join the writhing mass of all the other times he hadn't yelled, hadn't screamed, hadn't –
(slapped or punched)
– hollered at his kid. Sure, he'd yelled occasionally, and he always felt terrible about that. Worse than most parents, he suspected. But in his saner moments, the moments when he was judging himself as Blake Douglas, architect, father, husband, business owner, member of the community, and not as Hal Douglas, alcoholic, drug addict, beater of wife and child… in those moments Blake knew he yelled no more than most parents, and less than a great many.
He loved his boy. His little girl. Adored his wife.
So why… why did he suddenly feel so angry?
His hands tightened on the wheel. He made a right turn and the cheap plastic
circle actually bent under his hands.
"Talk to me, kid," he said. His teeth were clamped together.
Mal didn't speak.
"Bud, please don't run from me."
And now Blake froze.
Don't you run from me, you little bastard! Little shit!
The words ran through his head, over and over and over. And he couldn't be sure if they belonged to Hal, or to himself.
The question locked him up. Chained him in a cage where he couldn't be sure if he was alone, or with his father, or if being alone and with his father was the same thing.
Frozen. Unable to move.
The car ahead of him – a little red import – slowed down. Red brake lights flashed but didn't register in his mind until he was almost riding into the tiny car's exhaust pipe.
Blake screamed. He slammed the brakes but knew he wasn't going to have time to stop. He spun the wheel to the side, hand over hand. No time to even check if the next lane over was empty. Just blind terror leading to unthinking movement.
The lane was empty. He skidded, his tires shrieking as he braked right past the red car. The driver – a woman in her fifties with bright purple hair – flipped him the bird and sped off.
Blake managed to flip on his turn signal and get to the shoulder of the freeway.
Mal was trembling, and Blake grabbed him. Hugged him and didn't let go.
"You okay, bud?"
He felt Mal's nod. The boy still didn't speak, but the anger Blake had felt was gone. Fled with the accident. Hopefully for good.
Blake didn't let go of Mal. Both of them were trembling. Mal because of the accident.
Blake was shaking because of their close call, too. But there was more. There was the near-miss. There was also the rage and the thoughts that he had had, the words that were both his and his father's.
And then there was the other thing. The last thing. The thing he saw when he cranked the wheel, hand over hand.
For just a second, just a moment, one of the hands he saw on the wheel wasn't his.
He kept looking at his hands, gripping Mal on the back. Checking them both. Looking closely. Counting to five over and over and over and over.
Because the hand on the wheel had not been Blake's. But it had seemed so real, he must be going insane. Either that or he had actually seen it.
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