Part 14 (1/2)

The bathroom door closed. Liz looked into the darkness toward the sound. She moved down the hall to the door. She touched the handle and found it freezing. Something whispered in the dark, incomprehensible words, sounds, noises, she wasn't sure what. All she was sure of was that she hadn't made them.

Whatever had been roaming the house two weeks ago was still here.

Her head told her body to climb back into bed, bury her face against Jack, squeeze her eyes shut until dawn, and spend the night praying. Her body told her mind to go to h.e.l.l. She was at the foot of the stairs. She climbed to the landing and looked up. The second floor was black. Not even outside light filtered in.

What are you doing? her mind asked. Get downstairs and deal with this in the morning.

”I'm not going to be scared out of my own house,” she told no one. I've waited too long, suffered through too much s.h.i.+t, to get to this point. I've got a good family, a good house, and a good life and I'm not giving it up. ”This is my house now,” she said. The house responded with a crack of wood overhead.

Liz was on the stairs to the third floor landing, ignorant to everything around her except the noises and the cold. Up here it was even colder.

Her feet were numb from the stairs and her fingers wouldn't grasp the banister right, they were so stiff from cold. She breathed icicles, exhaled mist.

”You're not scaring me out,” she said. ”This is my house now.”

Another crack of wood from the third floor. She stood on the landing, staring up. She'd braved the dark and the cold past the first two floors, but nothing could make her take that last flight to the top. She just stood in the dark, looking up at it, thinking hatred at it, telling it to go away. Below her, she heard music. A piano played light, cheery notes in the main second floor room. She drew in breath and moved down the stairs.

The notes sounded until Liz reached the main room. When they stopped, the silence was worse than the phantom music. At least with the music playing, she might not hear the whispers. And while she didn't hear them now, she knew they were coming, and when they did, with nothing to drown them out, she'd hear them loud and clear.

She rubbed her hands together, flexed her fingers, and popped the knuckles.

What was coming next? The waiting was just as bad as finding out. The antic.i.p.ation, the wonder, the uncertainty.

A child giggled overhead, then someone bounded down the steps, rounded the second floor and the footsteps vanished downstairs. The bathroom door opened, then slammed. The study door closed, quietly with a simple click. The door separating the main room from the dining room swung shut.

Liz stood in the middle of the room. The temperature dropped again. She thought she could feel her blood freezing, it was so cold. And she was in her underwear and a T-s.h.i.+rt. That's when she felt the hands on her legs, dozens of them, caressing her skin, running the length of her calf, her thigh, over the k.n.o.b of her knee. Her hands brushed at them, found nothing, and she stepped away from where she'd been standing. Then the whispers did come.

”You can't save yourself.”

”Forgive me--pant, pant--forgive me.”

”Everyone will suffer now.”

Liz turned around, found a light switch behind her, and flipped it. The room was flooded with dull light. The shadows were gone and so, she hoped, were the hands, the voices. It even seemed warmer now. The circulation was restored and her goose b.u.mps were gone. The house was still.

What am I doing up in the middle of the night?

”I don't know,” she answered herself. ”But I'm going back to bed right now. And nothing can touch us. This is our house now.”

She went downstairs, climbed into bed. Her bravado was a front, she knew it. Under the safety of the sheet, she moved against Jack. He shrugged away from her, sticky with heat and sweat. She burrowed into herself, closed her eyes, and tried to keep the house and the things in it from invading her thoughts before she was able to force herself to sleep.

As she finally slipped away, she thought she heard, faintly, from far away, a piano sounding out single hollow notes.

For the third time, Liz woke up.

Did I dream all that? she wondered. She wiped her eyes clean and rolled her feet onto the floor. Christ, I hope so.

As soon as she hit the living room, Joey asked if they were going to find horses today, and Liz remembered she said they'd keep the car and do something.

”We'll try, Joe,” she said on her way to the kitchen. She got coffee and heard Jack coming out of the bathroom. She headed for the hall and the blessed toilet. When her bladder was quiet and she'd brushed her teeth, she felt much better, but she was still wondering about last night.

I got the house blessed. I haven't heard a noise or seen a shadow for weeks. It's supposed to be over. Please tell me I dreamed it.

But she couldn't be sure.

”Do you mind if we take you to work and keep the car today?” she asked.

”How come?”

”No reason. I just thought Joe and I could get out of the house for a day. See the city for a change.”

”Okay.”

When they'd dropped him off and Jack had reminded her for the fifth time to pick him up, she glanced back at Joey in the mirror and asked, ”So what do you wanna do?”

”Let's find the horses.”

”Okay,” she said. ”I guess we drive around until we find horses.”

”I know where they are,” he said. ”I'll tell you where to go.”

Liz smiled and said okay, thinking she was going to spend the day driving in circles. But she didn't have any other plans, so circles were fine with her. At least they weren't in the house. And at the least car had air conditioning.

Jack decided he hated Harris Wilde. Harris was the buyer for the western division of Fett Technologies in Boulder, Colorado. Harris called at least three times a week with a rush order of control boxes and cables he needed sent next day air to the plant in Boulder. And Harris wanted all this made extra, in addition to the regular schedule of work already going to Colorado. But Harris never called in with his ”emergency order” until right before lunch, which gave them only three hours to get it filled and s.h.i.+pped in time to make the UPS pick-up.

Jack brought two work orders to the cable cell and gave them to Wanda, the cell leader. He took another three to the box cell.

”These are for next day air to Harris Wilde,” he said.

”c.o.c.ksucker,” Charley said. ”Would it be too much to ask that he pull this c.r.a.p early enough to give us time to actually get it done without rus.h.i.+ng?”

”And he's surprised when he gets parts that end up not working and have to be sent back,” Jack said.

”Hey,” Charley said, ”you wanna come over some time this weekend and play?”

”I don't know,” Jack said. ”Sat.u.r.day?”

”Yeah.”

”Okay. I'm sure I can squeeze it into my hectic not-at-work schedule, somewhere between the sitting around and the doing nothing.”

”Cool.”

”Now I have to call s.h.i.+pping and tell them there's gonna be a last minute next day load.”

”Again,” Charley said.