It was a fifteen-year-old vampire, Dracula-cape and all, its hair blackened for the occasion and slicked back.
Clark in costume.
Clark must have figured out what was going on in his father’s mind. “It’s my costume,” he said hurriedly. He backed a step toward the wall behind him. “For the Halloween party at school day after tomorrow. Mom was finishing it for me when the doorbell….”
Jack swept past his son, unaware of brushing the boy’s shoulder hard enough to force Clark further back into the wall. Clark groaned, but only a bit and mostly under his breath. He knew better.
Jack nearly ran down the hall. Now that the shock of seeing that damned costume was receding, excitement flooding through him in its place.
Slick was here. It had to be good news.
Five minutes later, the two of them were seated comfortably in the armchairs in Jack’s den. The overhead lights were on, as were the desk lamp on the top of the liquor cabinet and another on the small table he used as a make-shift desk. The room was harsh, stark, uncompromising in its brightness. Right now, Jack needed it that way.
“Yeah, this time the deal’s going through. No problemo,” Slick said, chuckling softly. “I gave them a sob story about how you had bid on a custom-built place in Newton Park and if you didn’t close on this house soon, you would lose it. They’re first-time buyers, excited by the prospect, eager, and above all gullible.”
“But you’re sure.”
“Positive. I took them through last weekend while you were in Palm Springs, and they burbled all the way about how perfect it was, what they were going to do with this room, who was going to sleep in that room. You could see her running up curtains in her mind and planning on ordering throw pillows to match the color of the living room walls.”
“They didn’t notice anything?”
“Nah. Oh, they tried to look nonchalant, even slightly disinterested, but you can’t kid a kidder. They’re hooked and they didn’t bother to check out anything too closely.”
“What happens if they find out about, you know, the real problems.”
Maxwell leaned over and slapped his old roommate’s knee. “Come on, Jack, have some faith in me. I’ve handled enough of these places, here and in Sunset Hills, to know how to protect myself…and, of course, you as well.
“I recommended an ‘outside inspector’ when they first got interested, even said I’d pay his fee. They took me up on the deal. Fred’s a good friend…and a good silent partner, emphasis on ‘silent.’” He chuckled. “He knows exactly how to word the reports. After all these years, and all the lawsuits, he’s a past master at saying things without actually saying them at all. Don’t worry about that.”
Jack relaxed into his chair. He grabbed another beer out of the fridge next to the chair, then grabbed a second and tossed it to Chuck Maxwell.
It wasn’t for nothing that his old friend had earned his nickname as far back as college.
“Slick,” indeed!
The two men clicked rims of their beers in a toast and laughed together.
From the Tamarind Valley Times, 25 April 2009:
LA COUNTY RUNS DRILL FOR “THE BIG ONE”
LA officials reported today that the recent county-wide earthquake-preparation drill was largely successful in increasing residents’ awareness of the importance of being ready should “the Big One” strike.
Volunteers at stations across the county arrived at “emergency centers,” to be made-up as victims of a major earthquake, such as could occur in Southern California at any time.
Scientists have warned for….
Chapter Eleven
The Huntleys, March-July, 2010
The Frog and the Cauldron
1.
It was like the old winter’s-tale of the frog and the cauldron.
If one were to place a living frog in a cauldron of boiling water, it would reflexively jump out, thus saving itself.
If, however, one were to place the same frog in a cauldron of cool water, then gradually increase the temperature, degree by degree, the frog would remain content to paddle in small circles until, without ever realizing what was happening, it died.
Boiled to death.
Gradually. Gradually.
Thus it was with the Huntleys. Gradually. Gradually.
And they would regret to their dying days that they did not truly notice it coming.
2.
The remaining weeks of March were frustrating and difficult for the entire family. Willard finally calmed down enough to realize that, while long-term solutions might seem—indeed might be—impossible given the family’s financial situation, there were some immediate, short term responses he could take.
First order of business, he had to dry the back bedroom floor completely. As soon as Sai left that afternoon, he hustled around the neighborhood and borrowed five high-powered box fans. It was lucky that the weather remained so warm, because he could open the window, set three fans up in the room and the hall to keep the air moving. Slowly, the dark sludge-like stain dissipated, although even after three or four days, the concrete was still several shades darker there than on the far side of the crack.
The fans helped a bit with the odor as well. Even though it never disappeared completely, it faded—gradually—until Willard had to focus his attention to detect it. Curiously, he thought several times, there was still no distinctly sewer-like smell. What he could smell seemed odd. He never could quite place it.
The carpet and padding were drying out fairly well in the nearly stifling garage, so it took only a day or two more with the remaining two fans to complete the job. The padding seemed fine, but there was still that unpleasant stiffness to the carpet nap. A couple of rounds with the vacuum should take care of that though.
Catherine was Catherine. Pretty much impossible to faze—except for roaches and such-like vermin. She was the primary stabilizing force in the family, even after Willard returned almost to normal. The only real difference in her actions during this interim was to grow gradually more protective about the children, watching them closely when they were in the house or playing in the yard, checking on them more frequently than usual after they went to sleep.
Suze was like her mother, solid and resilient.
The boys…ah, the boys. They was a different story.
Almost immediately after the carpet was re-laid and Willard had moved the boys back into their bedroom, they began fussing more and more about little, inconsequential things.
First it was Sams’ tantrum when Catherine began dismantling the make-shift tent in the family room.
“No!” Sams screamed when she pulled off the first sheet. “No” seemed to be his favorite word recently, and he used it with full force this time. “No! I want the tent!” He went so far as to drop his blanket unheeded on the floor and race across the room to start a lopsided tug-of-war with Catherine, grabbing the tail of the sheet, wrapping it around his waist, and struggling to pull it out of her hand.
“Sams!” Catherine sounded almost as upset as he was. “Let go of that. You’re a big boy now. You know you sleep in your bedroom, in your own bed. This was only a…a just-for-now.”
The tussle lasted for several moments before Willard finally showed up at the doorway, took the problem in at a glance, gritted his teeth, swept Sams off his feet, and literally unrolled the sheet from his waist. He kept a kicking and screaming Sams pinned tightly in his arms until Catherine had finished putting away the sheets, blankets, and chairs, and nothing at all was left of the tent but a bare spot on the carpet.
“No,” Sams wailed, but this time it was a soft moan, almost a whimper, as if he had used up all of his strength. “I want the tent.”
“Come on, Sams,” Willard urged. “Your bed’s all set up for you and waiting. Just the way you like it.”
Sams shook his head. “No.” This time it was a whisper.
Willard leaned over and retrieved Sams’ blanket. To his surprise, the boy stared at it
for a long moment, as if he didn’t recognize what it was. Even when Willard held it up to Sams’ cheek, the boy still wouldn’t take it.
Willard looked to Catherine for an explanation. This had never happened before. She shrugged.
It wasn’t until Willard actually laid Sams in the little box bed and settled the blanket next to him that Sams reached out for it, touched it several times as if to remind himself of what it was, and pulled it toward his face.
When Willard left the room, the baby was half asleep, worn out by the intense emotions of the past half hour.
Later that night, long after Willard and Catherine figured the children should be asleep, they heard an odd, snuffling sound from the back of the house. Catherine went to check.
By the time she reached the end of the hall, the noise had stopped.
She looked first in Suze’s room. Nothing. Suze was curled up, a sweet smile on her lips, deeply asleep.
Catherine continued on into the boys’ room. Sams was asleep as well, his face covered by his blanket. As usual, the satin edging was again sodden and sour-smelling, but beneath it his chest was moving up and down with clock-like regularity. She felt his cheek. Warm, but not too warm. He was fine.
She turned toward the bunk beds.
“Don’t…don’t…leave me alone. No….”
It was Will, Jr., in the top bunk, talking in his sleep so quietly that the sounds came out more like an extended moan than meaningful, articulate words.
“Will,” Catherine whispered, shaking him gently by the shoulder. “Will, honey, wake up. You’re having a bad dream.”
“Leave me alone…alone…. What?” He sat up so suddenly that he nearly struck Catherine’s nose with his forehead. “What do you …?”
“Will,” she whispered again.
“Mommy?”
Catherine was startled. Will hadn’t called her that for a couple of years. He considered the word the ultimate in baby-talk and refused to use anything but Mom.
“You’re all right, sweetie.”
Mommy…. Mom…bad dream. There was a…man…bloody….”
“Shhhhh.” She laid a hand on his chest and gently pressed back. His heart was thudding like a captive bird’s, throbbing more rapidly than she had ever felt it. Still, he settled without further murmuring into his bed again, asleep before his head even touched the pillow.
Catherine leaned down to check on Burt. Stomach and legs bare as usual, covers swathing his head as usual. She straightened the sheet and tucked it around him. He didn’t move, beyond a small twitch with one hand when she touched it.
“Everything all right back there?” Willard was engrossed in the paper and barely looked up as she entered the room.
“I…I think so.”
He looked closely at her. “Think?”
“Will…. No, everything’s fine. Will was just mumbling in his sleep. A dream, probably. It’s been a stressful few days around here.”
Willard nodded absently and kept on reading.
3.
The next days and weeks proved that things were indeed not fine.
Catherine figured that things would settle down. But by the beginning of April, she admitted to herself that she was becoming concerned.
First, Sams seemed to end up sleeping on the floor every night, almost in the middle of the room. She would go in first thing in the morning to get the older boys up for school, and there he would be, nose pressed to the carpet, blanket resting on his cheek, with no covers over him at all, fast asleep.
Then both Will, Jr., and Burt began having bouts of sleeplessness. Initially, it was only Burt. Catherine would wake suddenly, frequently from unusually vivid dreams that, while they seemed to carry over for a few moments into the waking world, she could never recall. Her eyes would abruptly open, she would undergo a few seconds of utter confusion as to who she was and where she was, then she would roll over, her back to Willard, to face the wall.
And see Burt standing there, silent, eyes wide and fearful.
“I woke up,” he would say.
When she checked the clock on the night stand, it would read 2:00, or 3: 23, or 4:05—never quite the same time but always in the deepest, darkest part of the night.
“Go back to bed, honey, and you’ll go back to sleep.”
“Can’t.”
“Can’t get to sleep?”
“Can’t go back to bed.”
When Burt said this the first time, so softly that she had trouble hearing him, she sat up and half-lifted him up to the bed with her. “What’s the matter?”
“I been trying to sleep for a long, long time. But I can’t. Now I can’t go back to bed either.”
“Why not?”
But already his eyes were fluttering, his head nodding. And before she could say anything else, he was asleep.
She carried him to his bed and tucked him in, conscious of how heavy and how tall he was becoming. His feet thumped lightly against her shins as she walked, and she could barely manage to lean over and lay him on the lower bunk.
The next time she woke to see him standing beside her—it was only a day or two later—she didn’t invite him up. She let him talk for a couple of minutes, mostly repetitions of “I can’t sleep” or “I can’t go to bed,” then she would gently say, “All right, Burt. Everything is all right. You can go to bed now.”
And—amazingly, considering how adamant he had seemed the first night—he would toddle off. She followed him once or twice to make sure he got in bed all right. Then she would pick Sams up off the floor and settle him into his bed as well, and return to her own.
Sometimes, she went right to sleep herself. Sometimes she was still awake when the alarm jangled and Willard stumbled up at 5:00 to get ready for work.
After a week or so of that, she woke up in the middle of the night, rolled onto her side and saw...Will, Jr.
“Can’t you sleep, either?” she whispered.
He shook his head solemnly.
She let him sit on the edge of the bed for a few moments, stroking her hand up and down his arm, soothing him in the way that had worked so well when he was younger.
Then he stood, leaned over and kissed her, and went on his own back to bed.
That continued for a few more days, with Burt and Will alternating their deep night visits. They never came at the same time or on the same night.
4.
That phase came to a head at the beginning of the third week in April.
For four days in a row, all three boys visited their parent’s bedroom. Only this time, they did more than just stand by Catherine’s side until she woke.
“Mom! Mom!” Will was half-whispering, half-shouting in her ear, his voice urgent with fear and need. “Mom, wake up!”
She sat bold upright.
“Shhh. Don’t wake your father.”
“Too late,” Willard rumbled from the other side of the bed. “What’s going on?” He felt for his own alarm clock next to his side of the bed, and lifted it up close to his face. “Two-fifteen? What…?”
“It’s all right, Willard. Will just had a bad dream or something.”
“No, it wasn’t that,” Will whispered, as if afraid that someone else, someone not his father or his mother would hear. “I thought I saw...something...someone in my bedroom. A shadow by the closet. It moved. I’m scared.”
By this time Willard was sitting up as well. “There’s no one there, son, you must have been dreaming or....”
“No, I wasn’t asleep. I haven’t been asleep for...for the longest time now. I was just laying my bed looking up at the ceiling. Sometimes I see birds up there, I think. And I like to watch them fly in little circles. In little circles.” His voice too on a dreamy, muffled quality that Catherine found unsettling.
“Then that was it,” Willard said, laying back down and hunching under the covers. “You were dreaming. Go back to bed. I’ve got to get to sleep now.”
“Mom,” Will whispered again. “It wasn’t a dream. It
wasn’t like before, with the birds”—at the mention of the phantom birds, Catherine felt a chill along her spine—“this time there was something in there.”
“All right.” Catherine got out of bed, threw on her robe, and stepped into her slippers. “Let’s go see.”
As the two of them left the bedroom, she carefully, quietly closed the door. Willard really did need his sleep. The drive into L.A. was hard enough without doing it half-awake.
In the boys’ room, she picked up Sams and put him back in his bed, then flicked on the Mickey Mouse lamp. The dim light cast shadows across the room, shadows that danced with each movement she or Will made. She padded to the closet—there hadn’t been a door on the closet when they moved into the house and, in spite of his promises, Willard hadn’t yet installed a new one. She slid the row of shirts and coats back and forth, showing Will that there was nothing behind them. She even lifted some of the fallen clothing from the floor and stacked them onto the upper shelves.
“Nothing here.”
“No. Not now.”
“All right, then. Up you go.” She waited for Will to climb into the upper bunk and settle himself, then returned to her own bed.
She was still awake when she heard another whisper in her ear.
“Mommy?”
It was Burt this time, standing so close to her that she could smell his warmth and the slightly acrid sweat on his pajamas.
“Yes?”
“I saw something in my room. A monster, I think.”
Catherine sighed. It much be contagious. Monster-itis, or Something-spooky-in-the-dark-itis. And both boys had caught it.
“Catherine.” Willard didn’t move or say anything else, but she understood his message. Get him back to bed and let me sleep!
“Come on, Burt.”
Together they walked the length of the hallway and entered the back bedroom. Then she went through the same routine. Pick up Sams and put him in his bed. Turn on the light. Check the closet. Reassure Burt that everything was okay. Get him bundled into his bed. Check on Will, Jr., retrace her steps to the master bedroom. Slide into bed as quietly as possible so she didn’t disturb Willard again.
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