At least the sun’s out today.
A pale slab of light pressed the concrete.
First time in weeks.
Slamming the car door, she surveyed the empty sidewalk.
Not that it feels any warmer.
Once this neighborhood had been the business hub of Edgeharbor, and she still remembered it seething with activity. A sheet of newspaper clutched at her ankles, then ghosted away down the street. Solemn gusts clutched at the bit of paper in her hand.
Scanning addresses, she peered at a shop window. A hand-lettered placard proclaimed
USED BOOKS,
and the whitened covers of comics curled amid a clutter of souvenir pennants and plastic fish, tiny dolls with bulging foreheads. Farther down the street, a sign swayed above what had once been a candy shop. The doctor’s office beside it, she knew, still opened for a few hours each week during the summer months, the doctor—well into his eighties now—dispensing little beyond tetanus shots and bandages.
She paused to peer at each storefront. Few of the doorways sported legible numbers. Checking the slip of paper again, she crossed the street.
A square of raw wood patched the grimy door of what apparently had once been a real estate office. The window had been soaped, and sharp angles of light splintered against the translucent film, bright patches sliding rectangles of grime down the far wall. She found a clear crevice but could make out only bailed papers within. Dimly reflected, the whole of the desolate street floated behind her, and a plastic bag drifted along the sidewalk like a jellyfish.
Remnants of cellophane tape still clung to the row of buttons, and she tried each of the silent buzzers in turn. A second door, hung with venetian blinds, angled into the frame. Cupping her hands, she squinted through a gap. Gradually, stairs coalesced from the gloom. Behind the stairs, at the far end of a hallway, daylight pried around the frame of another door: a rear entrance.
Well…here goes. If someone spots me, I stick to my story—I’m checking out a report of a break-in.
Strolling around the side of the building, she tried to look somehow both casual and official.
Not that I expect anyone to see me. This has got to be the most deserted part of town these days.
The empty lot could have accommodated half a dozen cars, and her shoes scuffed at the gravel.
Hell.
Crushed stones bounced, clattering.
So much for sneaking up.
No windows interrupted the blankness of the stucco.
At least, no one in there can look out.
At the back, a gate swung, the rusted padlock uselessly clasped through a link in the fence.
As she stepped into the shade behind the building, dried leaves skated up against a row of metal trash cans from which painted addresses flaked away. It wouldn’t be the first time a cop jimmied open a door, she reasoned, but the knob turned easily, the hinge whistling. Only as the door grated inward did she notice the cracks. Half the lock dangled from a broken wood screw.
Allowing dim light to stream in around her, she took a cautious step. The break-in could have occurred long ago, she told herself. She unzipped her jacket, and her hand moved to her holster.
No reason to get nervous.
She wore the gun all the time now.
Behind her, the door tapped the wall, and venetian blinds clanked at the other end of the corridor as a faint gust stirred up the musty smell of the carpet. Cautiously, she crept forward and checked a door beneath the stairs. Locked—broom closet or stairs to the cellar, she guessed, moving on.
Stepping on a smear of light, she peered out through the blinds of the front door. Across the street, a thin layer of sunshine coated the jeep, still the only vehicle in sight. If anyone did notice it, at least the broken door would enhance the credibility of her story, she decided.
Still, I’d better be quick.
Letting the blinds click back into place, she turned to the stairs. “Police,” she called, flicking reflexively at a useless light switch. “Is anyone there?” The first step groaned softly beneath her tread. “Did you know your back door was open?” Linoleum had worn through to pine planks, and paint splintered from the wobbling banister at her touch. “Can anyone hear me?”
The tracery of age mapped the plaster walls, and a dank chill filled the stairwell.
First, I sneak into the courthouse.
The unseen strands of a spider’s web melted across her lower lip, and she rubbed her knuckles against the withered taste.
Now, I’m breaking into an office.
Through thickening haze, she ascended, thoughts scurrying in her skull like mice.
Who would have believed it could get so much easier so fast?
A thin smear of dust coated her teeth, and she took her hand from the banister to rub her gritty palm on her jacket.
Why would Chandler have an office in a dump like this?
She became aware of the barest tickling of a pulse in her throat, and by the time she reached the upper hall, she’d grown accustomed to the muddy dimness. A wan gleam illuminated curtains that appeared to be made of vinyl, and she could smell old rain. Concentric blurs on the carpet marked where puddles had dried around the grime-matted radiator.
One of the doors sported a stained card that read
A sigh stirred behind her, a rustling cough of wind in the curtains.
So I’d better be quick.
Closing the door behind her, she just stood for a moment in near darkness, then groped for the outline of a window shade. She banged her knee on something. “Shit!” Her outstretched hand touched a stiffly yielding and scratchy mass, and she knelt on it to reach the window. At first the shade resisted her tugging, then it hissed and rustled to the floor.
Sunlight flooded the office, and dust motes ignited. Dry as a leaf, a dead moth spiraled to the carpet. The sofa she crouched on all but filled the cramped space, wedged between a pair of gray file cabinets and an old wooden desk, lumpish with disordered paperwork.
This is Chandler’s office?
No trophies or civic awards. No pictures on the dingy green walls, no framed photographs on the desk. She noticed faded rectangles on the walls, however, as though things had been removed.
I’d better put this back up, just in case.
Clambering onto the back of the sofa, she hooked the shade, lowered it partway. As she did so her glance settled on the empty street below. Only the gritty wind stirred.
The shade hung crookedly above an ugly orange sofa. Cheap-looking, it seemed to be the sort that folded down flat to form a kind of lumpy cot, and she noticed stains on the ugly fabric that seemed to radiate musty dampness.
Hell, it’s freezing in here. I can practically see my breath.
One of the cabinet drawers stood open and empty. She moved to the desk, feeling the thin carpet slide and crumble beneath her feet. Stacks of canceled checks had been strewn with old insurance documents and leases, and they mounded on the desk, cascading to the floor behind it. Examining papers at random, she lifted a sheet of torn notebook paper. Numbers covered it, columns of figures penciled so precisely they might have been typeset.
Wind clanked at the window, shifting dust. Strands of cobweb that threaded the ceiling waved like tentacles.
The middle desk drawer snarled open, empty save for a single frayed and wrinkled envelope. Even before she fumbled the flap open, her fingers had identified the contents as snapshots. She slid them into the open drawer, expecting to find photos of various properties.
She blinked. One hand covered her mouth.
Polaroids. Thirty or so. Yellowed. Images fuzzy and poorly lit. In some, the children wore T-shirts or socks, the brown sediment of the shadows seeming to engulf their pale bodies. But in others…
Many different children. Often bound. She blinked again. No. Not different children. The same three over and over, at different ages. In some, the little girl seemed scarcely more than an infant. In the last few, the biggest boy was already old enough to…
Stop shaking.
She covered the photos with her hands.
Get hold of yourself. Be a cop.
She forced herself to look at them again, this time slowly. Different rooms appeared in the backgrounds; nothing remarkable except that in several the predominant color seemed to be an unusual blue. She froze. In one, the corner of a mirror had captured the photographer himself. The flash obscured his face, but his chest could be made out through the glare, the body hair so thick he might have been covered with fur. Several shots of the little girl looked different from the others. She was photographed alone, deeply asleep. Or drugged.
With a start, she recognized the sofa on which the child lay as the one by the window. Fighting nausea, she flipped back to the last photograph. The oldest boy covered one of the other children, impossible to tell which one. The older one’s body had already thickened into fat. She felt dizzy.
Evidence.
Sickened, she slammed the drawer.
I’ll have to take them with me.
But she wondered if she could even force herself to open that drawer again.
Wanting to put her fist through something, she looked about wildly.
Something hung above the file cabinets: rows of empty hooks studded the Peg-Board, each hook bearing a number on a bit of tape, all in that same perfect script. Glancing down at the strewn pages, she began to spread them. A three-digit number caught her eye, and she glanced up at the board.
Yes.
She sorted through more papers. The number repeated—a lease from four summers ago. An electric bill from last year. She pawed through more documents. Dozens of different addresses appeared over and over, sometimes with different units referenced, and a labeled hook corresponded to each number.
An actual clue.
She carried a handful of papers closer to the light of the window.
Face pressed to the scratchy fabric, the boy lay on the sofa, a blanket twisted around him like a cocoon. Even asleep, he tensed, listening for the droning hiss of her breath from the next room. Daylight bled in around the shade, and he shivered, his eyelids twitching.
The sound that had awakened him scratched in the air again. Kicking free, he stumbled up from the sofa, nearly tripping on the blanket as he shuffled into the bedroom. The floor felt like ice through his socks.
Even in the sealed room, some sunlight filtered in, and a streak of it touched her face. She twisted in hot, fitful sleep, her corn silk hair writhing on the pillow, coils of it igniting with the faint radiance. As he watched, she kept trying to twist over on her side, but cloth bandages bound her wrists to the headboard. Through painclenched lips, she groaned. Her eyes looked puffy. The dusty dimness played tricks—her lashes looked longer and darker, and rosy welts stood out angrily where she’d somehow managed to scratch her cheek. Or had he been hitting her last night? He couldn’t remember, but he wished she wouldn’t make him hurt her.
The pressure in his bladder demanded release, but he kept the bathroom door open so he could hear her if she stirred. After the splashing stopped, he listened again. Silence in the next room. Running water in the sink, he flinched from the sight of himself in the mirror—the puny arms, the hairless chest. His sweatpants hung loosely. Tensing his shoulders, he tried to bulge out his muscles, tried it a number of different ways, but still looked emaciated and pale as a worm, his ribs actually showing. Some stud, he thought, and wanted to laugh, but his eyes looked charred, dead, and he backed away from the mirror.
One of his socks had fallen past his ankle and flapped over his foot with every step. The bedroom rug felt rough through the cloth. He bent to stare at her, drawing in the faint warm smell of her soft neck.
Wrenching her head from side to side, she whined softly.
Thinking she might be cold, he returned to the living room. When he tugged at it, the thinner of the blankets scraped across the rough fabric of the couch. He wrapped it around his shivering shoulders, then found the one he’d kicked to the floor and padded back to the bed, carefully draping it over her. As he yanked a corner down, she murmured.
Dumping soiled clothing out of it, he dragged a wicker chair up alongside the bed and pulled the blanket tighter about himself. The wicker creaked while he curled into the chair to watch the slow heave of her breasts. One of his hands strayed toward her, but after a moment, drowsiness began to claim him.
The sky had tarnished to the color of old silver.
Pardon me, sir, but is your homicidal son by any chance hiding in the attic?
The imposing house seemed to glare down at her.
Don’t you think I should check, sir?
She coasted the jeep into the driveway and just sat, gazing into the early twilight and wondering what she’d say to whomever answered her knock.
And by any chance could you explain that weird office you keep in town? Yes, sir, I did break in. No, sir, I don’t have a warrant. Or an attorney.
Across the paved road, only one other home faced her. Farther down the lane, another house peeked above a slight rise. The lawns looked brown and dead, and a frozen unfriendliness seemed to emanate even from the height of the evergreen hedges.
When she cracked the jeep door, the chill washed in.
Maybe I had better call the state cops.
Gravel crunched underfoot as she started up the walk.
Or at least wait to talk to Barry.
The lawn had grayed with frost in wide swathes, and close to the house, the corpses of flowers lay brown and rigid. Small pines bristled, and sharp yellow leaves flared among the curled rhododendrons that screened the porch.
Her shoes drummed up the stairs, and desiccated fronds rattled in a breeze. Along the wall, dead plants cleaved to clay pots, and yellowed circulars littered the porch floor.
The heavy drapes appeared tightly drawn. She checked her reflection in the glass of the storm door.
So I look nervous. So what?
She pressed the bell. Nothing happened. When she opened the outer door, a small avalanche of catalogs and circulars tumbled and slid.
No one has been here in quite a while.
She stacked them on the floor before trying the brass knocker. Finally, she pounded with her fist.
And now?
When she let go of it, the storm door hissed shut.
She regarded the row of evergreens.
Maybe the neighbors can tell me something.
As she moved to the stairs, wood throbbed faintly behind her.
Someone is in there.
She waited until she heard it again.
Don’t look around.
Faintly, a hinge creaked.
Someone is watching. Go down the walk. Pretend to leave.
Between the house and the hedge lay a crude path of worn earth. The tiny pines had gone dry, dead at the marrow, and brittle needles lanced her hands as she inched along the wall. She ducked as she passed a draped window, almost crawled. Flickering shade mottled the hard earth, and the bushes rattled like beetles.
Behind the house, a yard stretched in perfect flatness, as devoid of any semblance of occupancy as the rear of a movie set. No trellised vines. No covered pool. No sailboat beneath a tarp. Nothing.
The back door gaped brokenly, glass dangling in shards from the frame.
He’s here.
She touched her jacket, felt the gun beneath.
I should call for backup.
As she pried the door open farther, a fragment of pane dropped.
I should call.
She stepped up. On the single concrete step, a layer of dust coated the points of glass.
Unzipping her jacket, she reached for the holster. With a soft rush of air, dim sunlight swung in with her, and she panned the revolver across a large kitchen. A thick stench of spoiled meat hung in the air, making her grateful for the draft. Her heel scraped sharply on the tile. Blinking rapidly, she scanned every corner. Copper pots and utensils glinted on hooks beneath white cabinets and above a white counter. One drawer stood open.
Edging forward, she looked inside. Carving knives nestled in a rack. One empty slot. A large one.
Go back out to the jeep and call.
Her heart tripped raggedly.
Do it now.
Her gaze swung toward the next room. Beyond the doorway, the light held a viscous quality, stained blue through thick draperies.
But who would come?
She inched forward, steadying the gun.
The chief? Wouldn’t he just call the state cops?
In the next room, a floorboard creaked, muffled by carpet.
Right.
Talons of panic tore her.
This is it.
She edged along the kitchen wall.
Now!
As she launched herself through the doorway, something thudded near her head.
“Kit!”
“Barry!” The gun shook. “I almost shot you!”
“Lord, you scared me.”
“I almost…!” Her voice quavered.
“Quit pointing that thing at me.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Same as you probably.”
“You tried to…” She couldn’t look away from the deep wedge that splintered from the door frame.
“Don’t be an idiot.” He hefted a crowbar. “I thought you were him.”
She blinked. “This is breaking and entering. I should run you in.”
A pine branch rasped against the window.
Trembling, she holstered the gun. “Couldn’t you see it was me?” she demanded. She had a hard time forcing her fist to unclench, then a wave of relief pounded through each aching finger, sweeping up her arm in a numbing current.
“…didn’t break in. I swear it. The door already…” He looked down at the crowbar. “Okay, I’ll admit I came here intending to do whatever I had to. But somebody beat me to it.”
She opened her mouth to object but fell silent, remembering the dust on the broken glass.
He flexed his arms. “Anyway, before you arrest me, wouldn’t you like to know what smells like that?”
“Isn’t it…?” She gestured back at the kitchen.
“No, that refrigerator’s empty. And take a look at this.”
“Where are you going?” Whispering fiercely, she followed him through a dining room lined with glass shelves. “Come back here.” Chairs were lined up at the table with military precision.
“Relax. The electricity’s off. Nobody’s here. May as well check it out.”
“We shouldn’t be here either. If anyone…”
“Relax, I said. Nobody saw—those bushes outside were planted to keep anybody from seeing the house.” A heap of mail had mounded beneath the slot in the front door. “This is what I tripped over when I heard you at the door. Except I didn’t know it was you.” Light that filtered through turquoise curtains sank into an azure carpet. “There’s a family room sort of thing down that way, big circular fireplace and a wet bar. But no bottles. No glasses even. Then a bathroom and a door to the garage through there.”
The miasma of rotten meat seemed to permeate the walls of the parlor, clinging to drapes stiff with dust. She stepped farther in, feeling that she didn’t walk through the subaqueous gloom so much as float. Her gaze veered about wildly—transparent vinyl encased bulky aqua loveseats grouped around a teal sofa. Sectional pieces hemmed a glass coffee table. “What makes this room so…odd? Besides the colors, I mean.” Everything increased her edginess. She turned completely around, her gaze shifting across plastic flowers in a ceramic vase, across throw pillows and a framed clown print. She found herself unable to imagine people who would have chosen this combination of items for their home. “It’s not…not…”
“Convincing?”
“Right. Why is that?”
“Don’t know,” he answered softly. “But I had the same feeling in the other room. No books. No magazines. No television set. Like nobody really lives here.”
“The kitchen looks the same way.” She nodded. “Like a store display.” Her words trailed away. “The blue room in the photos. This must be it.” She edged closer to him. The vinyl runner on the floor made a shuffling crack, and air hissed beneath it.
She stood close enough to see a vein throb in his neck, then followed his intent gaze to the stairs. Dark matter had lumped and dribbled down two of the steps, and the same crust swirled thinly on the vinyl.
“What is that? Barry?”
“Did you hear something just then?”
“What?”
Ignoring her, he peered upward into the gloom, and a tic began to tremble his right eyelid.
“No. I didn’t hear anything. Barry? Don’t do anything. Please. We need help.” She moved away to pick up a baby blue phone. “Dead. Of course.”
Behind her, a stair squeaked.
“Please, Barry,” she spoke without turning. “Don’t go up there.” It felt like the beginning of an old, familiar nightmare. They would go upstairs, she knew. Nothing could stop them now. And nothing would ever be the same.
Barely aware of what she was doing, she followed him. Her feet moved, and the stairs croaked sluggishly. Her damp palm squealed on the banister, a thin treble.
“There’s more of it.” He gestured with the back of his hand, indicating a dark patch on the baseboard. The plastic runner ended at the top; so did the faint light. He stepped soundlessly onto thick carpeting.
She followed, straining her eyes in the dimness. Closed doors lined the hall. She swung her service revolver around like a flashlight.
“Stay behind me,” he whispered, brandishing the crowbar.
At the end of the hall, he swung open a door, and hinges shrilled. She followed him in, then paused, amazed.
Skirted dolls ranged along a window seat, and ashen light soaked through the curtains, turning the whole room a deep pink that matched the ruffled bed canopy. He yanked open the closet door, then knelt to peer under the bed. “Watch your back,” he told her.
He pushed past her back into the hall and paused at the next door as though steeling himself, then jerked it open. Hanging from the ceiling, a model plane tilted in the sudden breeze. Squeezing in behind him, she saw pennants on the walls, a neat stack of baseball cards on a shelf above a small desk. Again, she watched him give the room a cursory search. “It’s trying too hard,” she prompted. “Same as the others. Like somebody’s idea of how a boy’s room should look.”
“I said, watch your back. This isn’t a game.”
She gritted her teeth and followed as he returned to the hall.
Faint illumination from the two open doorways fought back the shadows. In the huge bathroom, she glimpsed a glass-walled shower and a double sink, the floor padded with thick carpeting even here. As he checked the shower, she twisted a knob on one of the sinks, and the faucet hissed to silence. “Water’s off too,” she muttered. “I don’t get the feeling anyone’s ever planning on coming back here. Do you? Barry?” She wandered back into the hall. “Where’d you go?”
He stood at the next door, his shoulder pressed against the wood, and he pounded with his fist against the top of the frame.
“What is it? I can’t make it out. Oh.” Metal spikes angled deep into the wood. “Why would anyone nail a door shut?” In the shadows, she could barely see his face. “Barry?”
At the end of the hall, the remaining door sank in deepening murk.
“What time is it now?” Her voice broke. “I think we should leave.” She caught his sleeve as he moved toward it. “Look.” At their feet, smears on the carpet broadened and disappeared beneath the door. “You know what happened here, don’t you? Answer me.”
As he twisted the doorknob, he looked down to find her hand on his arm, small but surprisingly strong.
Fiercely, she whispered up at him. “Why won’t you tell me?”
The door swung open. Within lay madness. A dim blue glow suffused the room, but in the corners, shadows spread like mold. The massive headboard lay in splinters, strewn with hunks of mattress. A shattered bureau—drawers tilting crazily—oozed clotted garments across the carpet. Crusted palm prints splayed desperately up the speckled wallpaper, and she blinked at the brown imprints of spread fingers. A stain spread across the ceiling, and she stared up at the blur until she seemed to discern a shape.
“Worse than I thought.” His voice had become a hoarse creak.
She kept staring upward.
“Further along than I realized,” he continued. “There’ll be no collecting him. Have to be put down.”
“The shape.” She kept shaking her head and pointing at the ceiling. “It must be because the light’s so bad, right? I mean, nothing could throw someone to the ceiling like that, could it? Not even an ape or something, right?”
“Don’t look at it.” Taking her by the shoulder, he marched her out of the room, slamming the door behind them.
Even in the dark hallway, she could see that his face had gone terribly white. “Tell me what’s going on.” She held on to his jacket.
“I want you to go outside and wait in the jeep. Do you understand?” His eyes tracked to the nailed door. “There’s not much light left. I have to check that last room. If he comes back…”
“No.”
“I want you to…”
“No.” She broke away from him. “Whatever it is, you do it while I’m here.”
He only paused a moment. “It’s getting late.” Now almost no light filtered through the open doors at the end of the hall.
She watched him. The hollow blows echoed. Grunting, he struggled with the crowbar. A nail squealed out, plopped softly to the carpet, then another, and at last he hurled his weight against the frame. With a splintering crash, it burst.
“Wait! It’s too dark in there! Where are you?” Her footsteps clicked loudly as she followed him. “How can it be so black?” Gradually, she made out a mattress in the middle of a bare wooden floor. “Barry? Look—the windows are boarded up. And I think the glass is painted over.”
Across the room, a flashlight clicked on, and light rushed along the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Rafters had been crudely exposed, the wood blotched with plaster, and large hooks protruded from the beams. Near the mattress, clothing spilled out of a cardboard carton.
By the light of the flashlight, he examined the contents of a tight closet, and she watched him paw through huge sweatshirts and pants so broad in the seat as to appear comical.
Completely rigid, he stared at something on the back of the closet door.
“What is it?”
A worn-looking leather belt swayed on a nail. When she reached past him for it, he caught her wrist. She pulled her hand away but didn’t try to touch the strap again. Alongside it dangled four pieces of rough cord.
“Hold this,” he said. Passing her the flashlight, he unhooked a piece of the rawhide cord and tested its strength.
“Barry?”
He knelt by the mattress.
She moved the beam. Even in this dimness, she could see the stains…and the metal hook in the floor. She realized that other hooks had been screwed into the boards. The two at the bottom of the mattress had an extension cord twisted around them.