A light flashed below the TV, and Kelly looked to see it was eight o’clock. She flipped the page and saw Allison genuinely smiling. Charles leaning back, staring at the empty chair (a new one) as though their son had done something funny.
Five.
Kelly looked to the clock.
8:01.
Make sure Danny’s in bed by nine!
Kelly looked over her shoulder, to the bottom of the stairs. Suddenly it felt like she couldn’t look anywhere. If she looked to the kitchen, she thought of the thermostat and how cold it felt in there. The front door reminded her that she was alone. The bottom of the stairs led to the top of the stairs, and at the top of the stairs was that dark hallway.
She flipped a page, looked down.
Six.
She flipped another one.
Seven.
Another one.
Eight.
In this one Allison was clearly older. Charles still had his pretty smile, but the corners of his eyes were beginning to droop.
And in the chair between them . . . emptiness. Kelly stared into the emptiness for a long time. She was trying to make out a face. Make out a shoulder. She didn’t like that she was doing that.
She flipped the page.
Nine.
Nine? Kelly thought. How old was he?
Breathing deeply, she turned the pages.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Thirteen.
Fourteen.
Fifteen.
At fifteen, the Donaldses looked more like they did now than they did at the beginning of the book. Kelly felt a chill wash over her body. Fifteen was as old as she was.
She looked to the stairs and to the top of them, and she no longer imagined a little boy up there. Now she imagined something closer to a man.
She flipped the pages.
Sixteen.
Seventeen.
Eighteen.
Nineteen.
A man. In this house. A man. Not a boy.
Kelly flipped the page, wide-eyed, and saw the next one was blank. But the last one, the nineteenth, was definitely taken in this house. The child’s birthday cake was on the marble-topped island in the kitchen.
Kelly looked to the entrance of the kitchen.
A man.
She imagined facial hair. A certain look in his eye.
But it’s not a man. Look at the photos again. They were all children’s birthday cakes. Not a man. Just the same imaginary child for nineteen years.
Kelly closed the book quickly and rose. She placed the album back where she’d found it and returned to the couch.
Forty dollars, she thought. Then she looked once more to the front door. To her boots on the rug. Just getting to them, the short way across the white tile, looked like a long way to walk.
And the rug was near the bottom of those stairs.
She told herself to calm down. Told herself she was just housesitting, but the word carried less steam than it did before.
The digital clock beneath the TV told her it was already 8:30, and Kelly thought that meant she had another two and a half hours here. In this house. She didn’t want to stay that long. She got up. She turned to face her boots.
Sit down, she told herself. Watch TV. Watch a movie. By the time it’s over, they’ll be home.
This sounded reasonable. This sounded like a plan she could hang on to. This was her first job and she wanted to handle it well.
Kelly sat down on the couch again and intentionally turned her back on the front door, the stairs, and the rest of the white house. She flipped the channels, trying to find the beginning of a movie. Any movie. Anything that might give her two hours. Her eyes traveled down the length of the TV screen, to the shelf beneath the screen and to the spine, again, of the photo album.
Birthdays.
She recalled the way Allison and Charles aged in the pictures. How their features had hardened. How their eyes seem to turn a bit gray through the years.
Birthdays.
She looked back to the screen to find that she was at the beginning of a movie after all. It was the opening credits, though she’d missed the title. She turned the volume up, just a little bit, enough to make her feel like she wasn’t so on edge.
It wasn’t a comedy, but it wasn’t scary either, and Kelly was fine with that. A drama, she understood, about a family (that was fine), though she didn’t yet know where the story was going to go. That was okay too, as Kelly wanted to watch it, get into it, and find out where the story went.
She watched TV.
If you’re watching television, he may curl up next to you on the couch.
Kelly tried to push this out of her mind. But the thought made her shiver, and Kelly couldn’t help but look over her shoulder, quickly, once more to the foot of the stairs. She followed them up, how could she not, and stared into the darkness there. She imagined a child. Then a man. A child. Then a man. She saw the photos flash across her mind’s eye and truly imagined the couple setting the photos up, setting the timers on the cameras, telling each other to get ready, telling their son to do the same.
Make sure Danny’s in bed by nine!
Kelly looked to the clock.
9:07.
She looked back to the darkness at the top of the stairs. What could she do? Did they expect her to go upstairs? To enter that dark hallway and tuck him in?
She tried to shrug it off. She did shrug it off, enough so that she was able to watch the movie again, though she’d missed a bit. But what did it matter? Every minute that passed was a minute closer to the Donaldses coming home. And that moment, far away as it seemed, was getting closer.
Kelly watched TV.
The movie was dull, but it continued, and the minutes passed.
She sunk into the couch. She began to understand what was happening in the movie. She checked her phone. She looked to the window and the snowstorm outside. She thought of Dad. She thought of Mom.
And she heard a second creaking come from upstairs.
Kelly sat upright and looked to the ceiling. But the sound she’d heard hadn’t come from directly above her like the other one had. This one had come from farther along the ceiling. Closer to the top of the stairs.
He likes to peer his head around the corner of doorways, make a face at you.
Kelly stared at the darkness at the top of the stairs. She looked to the entrance to the kitchen. She heard another creaking.
She almost stood up. She didn’t know what else to do. Her phone was in her hand, and she didn’t even remember picking it up. Maybe she was about to call Dad. She didn’t know. Her boots lay waiting by the front door.
Kelly looked to the window and saw a blanket of white. It looked soft. Very soft. Like she could enter it and start walking and get home safely without a problem.
She heard a fourth creaking and this time believed it was coming from someplace closer.
On the stairs.
The three words came to her so naturally that, at first, she saw them only as a point of fact.
They have an imaginary child, she told herself. They do it because they’re sad. Please, Kelly, understand that. The Donaldses are sad. But you can’t let their sadness scare you.
This sounded right to her, and yet she stared at the stairs. Not at the dark hallway where they led and not at the ceiling above her, but directly at the white stairs themselves.
She looked to the TV. She tried to settle into the couch again. She tried to get back into the movie. If she could just get into it, time would pass and the Donaldses would be home and then she would be home soon too.
She waited for another sound. She waited a long time.
None came.
Wind tickled the window by the TV and instead of frightening Kelly it calmed her down. A little. It reminded her that snowstorms make sounds. Snowstorms cause houses to creak.
Kelly reached for the controller, to turn the volume down, or up, it didn’t matter. She tried both.
S
he turned once more, toward the stairs, then back to the TV and set the controller down next to her and felt someone’s naked leg beside her.
Kelly leapt from the couch.
It was a body it wasn’t a body it was a body it wasn’t a body it was a body it wasn’t.
She stared, trembling, at the open space on the couch.
If you’re watching television, he may curl up next to you on the couch.
Danny likes to play games.
Sometimes I have to call him four, five times before he shows himself.
Kelly crossed the room, nearly running, and stumbled, putting her boots on. She put her jacket on too and then opened the front door and exited the house and entered the snowstorm.
She checked her pockets. She had her phone. She looked back to the house and didn’t care anymore about forty dollars, didn’t care anymore what Dad or Mom might say. She was leaving, she’d left, and she’d call Dad from the road.
Then she stopped halfway down the long drive and looked back to the house. To the windows and the front door.
At the end of the long drive a pair of headlights popped up in the snowy distance, and Kelly quickly hid, kneeling half in a ditch that began behind a low row of white bushes.
She watched the car approaching and knew it was them before they reached her. They were home early. But they didn’t see her, of this she was sure, as they turned slowly into the drive and the soft snow crunched beneath their tires as they rolled to the house, lighting up every window on the way.
Kelly knew she should go, should continue into the storm.
She watched as the Donaldses parked their car, then got out and walked through the snow to the front door. At the door Charles put his arm around Allison. He held the door open for her and they entered. The door closed behind them.
Kelly stared at the house. She waited. She stared.
She stomped quickly through the snow, back to the house. It took her forever, and it felt like the light above the front door exposed the entire world. But she made it to the side of the house quickly, ducking beneath low-hanging branches of frosted evergreens.
Light poured onto the snow through the window that she knew was the window next to the TV, and Kelly stepped into the light and up to the window and looked into the house.
She wanted to see them. Wanted to see how they’d react when they found out the babysitter had left their child . . . all alone.
She saw them. Saw a look of incredulity upon Allison’s face, saw Charles trying to calm his wife down. Where is she? Kelly heard Allison say, desperation, horror in her voice. Neither had taken off their coat yet. Charles went to the foot of the stairs and began to ascend, but Allison stopped him with a sudden shriek.
Kelly watched as Allison took a step backward, closer to the window, and gestured toward the entrance of the kitchen.
“Danny,” Kelly heard Allison say. “Why aren’t you in bed? Where is your babysitter?”
Charles, with one foot still on the first white step, looked to his wife, then to the entrance of the kitchen. Kelly couldn’t see into the entrance. Couldn’t see what they were seeing. But she believed they were mad, in a way, pretending for so long, until it felt real.
“What did you say?” Charles said, and his voice was muffled by the glass. “She’s where?”
“Right where?” Allison asked.
They turned their worried faces toward Kelly at the same time. As if someone had told them that the babysitter was outside, looking in through the window.
Kelly ran. Into the storm she ran. Down the long drive. When she got to the main road, she continued to run. She called Dad. He’d come for her. But until he got to her, she ran.
Josh Malerman is the author of the novel Bird Box and the novella A House at the Bottom of the Lake. Malerman is also the songwriter/guitarist for the Detroit rock band The High Strung, whose song “The Luck You Got” is the theme song for Showtime’s hit show Shameless.
Twitter: @JoshMalerman
Facebook: facebook.com/JoshMalerman
* * *
Make It Right
MADELEINE ROUX
* * *
Right, um, I’d like to report a murder.”
The cop was staring back at me like I’d just burst into the station doing a tap dancing routine. No jazz hands, I guess, but for my part I couldn’t stop thinking about my hands. Hot, hot, too hot and needly, like someone was poking them over and over again or holding them over a range.
“Could you repeat that?” He was lumpy and short, like maybe he had to be standing on a box to see over the counter. Wasn’t sure he was even a cop. No hat. Rumpled uniform. But there was a badge, yeah? So he had to count.
“I’d like to report a murder.”
My voice came out less shaky and weird that time.
Skeptical. But of course. I hate that look. That look adults give you when they think you’re full of shit for no other reason than they’ve seen a few more years than you. I made my face real hard. I know things, buddy, things that’d make your hair fall out.
“Start from the beginning,” he said, finally maybe believing me just a bit. The station was dim and brown, used tea bag brown, a brick box with phones blaring off like a seagull screech every once in a while. Not all that many folks calling in at midday. More than you might think, though.
Area’s gone to shit. That’s what my uncle would say.
Anyway, the beginning. I’ll go back and start from there for you, too. Hard to know where the beginning’s at, looking at it here from now. But it starts round about when I moved to Bramhall to live with my uncle.
Uncle Sid is a twat. And yeah, that’s the kind of rough language that got me sent there in the first place. The social services people, also a bunch of twats, thought I wasn’t doing so well living with my dad. They got called a few times, like, because of drugs or whatever. Not mine, his. Or because I cut school a few days. But I didn’t mind his rotating list of girlfriends, so give me points for that at least. Some of them were even sort of nice. One called Molly had big red blotches all over her tits and forearms, but she snuck me cigarettes once in a while, so she couldn’t be all bad.
But the social workers weren’t pleased, and when they ain’t pleased, things go bad for you. Worse for my dad, sure, but bad for me, too, because they shipped me off to live with Uncle Sid in Bramhall—a “nice” town with “nice” people—to straighten out a girl like me.
“You should be happy,” the lady social worker they sent over said. “Bramhall is lovely, so much nicer than Moss Side. You’ll see, Lauren, this is a place where you can really flourish.”
Right. I flourished on over to Uncle Sid’s with all my shit, looking at how everything in the world I owned fit into, like, two squashed cardboard boxes. Depressing. I’m not a Make the Most of It kind of girl, but maybe, I thought, it could be better. Watching Dad waste away wasn’t fun, sure, but he’s my dad. You make it work.
I’d make it work with Sid, too. The social workers had to take me over to Bramhall because it was a drive, and they told my dad to get me over there, but then he never bothered, so they finally arranged for me to get picked up. Bramhall’s not like Moss Side. Bramhall is green, lots of old, white cottagey buildings everywhere, like maybe Shakespeare wandered around here ages ago writing his things. That’s what it made me think of when it went by out the window—posh idiots in wigs and funny outfits dancing about on the village green, holding hands and singing or whatever. But Sid didn’t live in a nice cottagey place, his dump was farther outside town, a council block set a nice appropriate distance from the fancier housing. At least that made me feel a little more at home.
Sid’s place is short and dumpy, like that cop at the station, but not lumpy, just a crumbling brick rectangle with the bare minimum effort put into the lawn. Weeds and crumpled up cans of lager and patches of dirt with yellowing cig butts stuck here and there like pimples. I remember the sky was cement gray that first day and that Sid wasn’t anywhere to gre
et me.
Turns out he was inside on the fluffy chair with his feet up on the table, watching whatever wasn’t ads. I’m not sure Sid ever saw a whole show, just clicked around to avoid the adverts. The social worker lady with me made him look at some paperwork and took my uncle’s grunts for agreement. Guardianship. What a laugh. Someone called a guardian should be tall and strong, right? Sword, shield, bright, shiny armor that can actually deflect a thing or two. Looked like anything you chucked at Sid would just sink right into his blobby body and get absorbed, like one of them amoeba things I got tested on in science.
The neighborhood seemed to go on forever in one direction, other brown, slumping buildings clustered on either side. Right before the lady left, I heard a bunch of nasty idiots walk by, cursing and laughing. Kids my age that thought they were real tough, picking up whatever rubbish they had found on the street and hurling it at neighboring houses. A can hit the bricks on Sid’s house, and I watched his face go splotchy and red, all one color, so that his thin lips and stump of a nose disappeared into one spit-mad circle.
Sid’s a builder, so his hands look like a boxer’s. That’s also why he looked so incredibly stupid trying to scribble down his name, the pen disappearing into his giant fist like it was a toothpick.
“Bloody kids,” he muttered, then he remembered the lady was still there and signed his name on the papers she had given him. He glanced at me, standing there like a total idiot with nothing to do, two cardboard boxes stacked in front of me like a little wall. “Suppose you’re not like that,” he added. No telling if it was a question.
I didn’t actually want the lady to go. I didn’t know her, right, didn’t care about her, but she at least felt safe and like something that might put a little fence between me and Sid. She smelled like the makeup corner at Boots, and men—my dad, Sid—got real quiet and weird when she was around, like a dog that’s just done a piss in the corner and got caught.
When she went, though, Sid was different right away. He glared at me, pointed at the boxes and then to the stairway. Shit, but it was narrow. I wasn’t even sure if my boxes would fit through. Couldn’t even imagine Sid stuffing his whole lumpy bulk though it, cookie dough through a bendy straw.
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