“DAD? Dad? Where are you?”
They’ d only taken about twenty steps into the House ofHorrors, and already Christopher sounded like he was heading for a meltdown.
“I’m right behind you, buddy. Don’t worry-you can’t get lost.” The “tour,” John belatedly understood, took place entirely in the dark. It was so completely black they couldn’t see one another, although John knew Gordon was in the lead, guided by tiny pinpricks of red light. Miriam followed, then Grace and Christopher. John brought up the rear, keeping a reassuring hand on his son’s shoulder.
“Augh! Something grabbed me!” Gordon screamed.
Christopher clutched his father’s hand. “Help him, Dad!”
“He’s okay. There are people behind curtains who reach out and touch you, that’s all.”
Indeed, Gordon was now laughing. “This is insane. Wait’ll you guys get to this next part.”
A bright light flashed, revealing a noir tableau: a man in a grave, covered by writhing snakes.
This time John choked back a scream. He hated snakes, even fake ones. His heart rate ratcheted up; beads of cold sweat broke out on his neck. “How are you doing up there, Grace?” he asked when his blood stopped pounding in his ears.
“I’m fine.” Her reedy voice sounded steadier than anyone else’s.
Next the solid floor gave way to something squishy that sucked at their shoes.
Christopher reared back. “What’s that?”
John nudged him forward. “Soft plastic. You’re imagining something worse. That’s what makes it scary.” John congratulated himself on sounding so calm. Truth was, he hated not knowing what would happen next, hated feeling out of control. Whoever designed the House of Horrors knew what they were doing. He was afraid.
Bang! Another brilliant flash revealed a leering face and a smoking gun.
“Aieee!”
Miriam, screeching like a banshee. John wondered how close they were to the end. He listened for sounds of the teenagers ahead of them, but heard nothing. Maybe it was almost over.
More grasping hands, more slimy surfaces. They felt their way across a rocking bridge, squeezed though a passageway where growling animals exhaled on them, and finally turned a corner into the light.
“We made it!” Christopher shouted as he stepped into the lobby.
“Awesome! That rocked!” Gordon said.
“Yeah, it was really cool.” The daylight restored Christopher’s bravado. “What was your favorite part? I bet yours was the snakes, Dad.”
“Oh, definitely the snakes.” John put his hand on Grace’s shoulder. “How about you, honey? Are you mad at the boys for taking you into that awful place?”
She looked up at him soberly. “I’m not mad. None of it was real.”
“Let’s see our picture,” Christopher shouted, running over to the computer monitors.
John followed his wife and children, passing the group of now-quiet teenagers waiting restlessly near the exit. The blond boy wasn’t with them. The prettiest of the girls complained to the others. “Oh my God, can we just go? Shane’s stunts are getting so old.”
“There we are. Number seven.” Gordon pointed out their group.
They studied the monitors, laughing and pointing out their ridiculous expressions.
John stood silent. There was something off about that picture. Then it clicked.
Grace wasn’t in it.
MIRIAM and Grace napped in the back of the minivan; Christopher played with his Game Boy; Gordon rode shotgun with John, controlling the radio as they drove home.
John still stewed over Grace’s absence from the House of Horrors photo. “Why does it bother you so much?” Miriam had asked as they packed to leave. “We weren’t going to buy the picture anyway.”
“I just don’t understand how she could have gotten cut out. She was right in the middle of the group.”
“She must’ve slipped ahead of Gordon at one point.” Miriam’s voice held no concern. “It was so dark, and things kept brushing up against me. I wouldn’t have noticed.”
John wanted to accept the logical explanation, yet remained troubled. Of the five of them, why did it have to be Grace who was omitted from the family photo? It was as if the House of Horrors knew she was a foster child, not a real Harrigan. She didn’t act like it bothered her, but who knew? She held her emotions close. No drama queen, Grace.
Is that why he had trouble warming up to her? Because she was so unlike his image of what a little girl-a daughter-should be? Where were the giggles and hugs and silly songs? The tears and pouts and stomped feet? Maybe that’s the daughter he would have gotten if he had let Miriam go through another pregnancy as she pushed forty. But John was a student of statistics, and he simply couldn’t accept the risk. Down syndrome… prematurity… respiratory failure… cerebral palsy-the “Advanced Maternal Age” chapter in the pregnancy handbook offered twenty pages of nightmare scenarios.
They had argued for months about having a third child. And Grace had been the compromise. Perfectly healthy, obviously bright, in need of a home after enduring some hard knocks. A chance to save a life instead of create a new one that might go horribly awry.
John remembered how she looked when they first brought her home: hair that seemed to have been cut by a blind man with a dull penknife, pathetically skinny ankles sprouting from outgrown jeans, her only toy a mournful one-eyed stuffed dog. Of course he felt compassion for her-anyone would. But love? Even after Miriam spruced the child up and made her look, outwardly, like every other little girl in the neighborhood, there was something off-putting about Grace. Something that kept John at bay.
“Hey, Dad, listen to this,” Gordon’s excited voice brought John out of his funk. His son cranked up the radio, and a newscaster’s voice filled the minivan.
“New Jersey State Police are investigating the disappearance of sixteen-year-old Shane Malone. The teenager was last seen at a popular tourist attraction, the House of Horrors, in Seaside Heights. According to authorities, Malone apparently entered the dark, mazelike haunted house and never emerged. A search of the building revealed no signs of foul play. Pretty strange stuff, folks. Please keep an eye out for Shane. He’s five ten, one hundred fifty pounds, blond hair, blue eyes. And now, here’s the Red Hot Chili Peppers…”
“DID you see how much Grace ate for breakfast this morning?” John said as he helped load the dishwasher the following Saturday morning. “Three big pancakes and four strips of bacon, and she’s still as thin as a rail.”
“It must be a holdover from her babyhood. Do you think she remembers being hungry?” It wasn’t the first time Miriam had asked this. She was plagued by what she knew of her foster daughter’s past. The five days Grace had spent as a toddler alone in her apartment with Mittens the cat, sharing dry kibble from a bag Mittens had resourcefully clawed open. CAT SAVES ABANDONED TYKE-John and Miriam remembered reading the headlines six years ago, never suspecting at the time that the traumatized child in the story would one day live with them.
If Grace remembered, she never spoke of it. She acted as if her life began when she walked through their door.
“Just keep pumping her full of food, honey,” John told his wife. “Buy her a hot dog at the game today.”
“I don’t like baseball,” a light voice piped.
John spun around to find Grace standing the in kitchen doorway.
“Can I please stay home?” she asked.
“Not all alone.” John grabbed the Windex and started spraying the counters.
Miriam and Grace both stared at him quizzically. “She wouldn’t be alone,” Miriam said. “You said at breakfast you were staying home to do some yard work.”