There were no bright fluorescent lights, only dim flame shaped yellow bulbs on silver fixtures spaced far apart on opposite walls, and he took a few steps forward, squinting, trying to make out what it was.
It looked like a dead body.
He thought he saw the black-on-white of a formal butler's uniform.
Daniel ran down the hallway. Even running at full speed, it took him a minute or so to reach the body, and the end of the hallway was still nowhere in sight. Breathing heavily, he stared down at the form on the floor.
It was Billings. The butler was lyingfaceup , and while there were no visible signs of violence and the white shirt remained unsoiled, the hardwood floor around the body was soaked with drying blood.Billings's eyes were wide open, as was his mouth. There was a small lipstick kiss on his white forehead.
God is dead, Daniel thought crazily. God is dead.
Satan lives.
Where was the girl? Where wasDoneen ? He looked anxiously around, expecting to see her jump out at any moment, to leap from behind one of the doors or come running up from the murk shrouding the far end of the hall. But there was no sign of her, and he dropped to one knee and picked up the butler's cold right hand to feel for a pulse.
Nothing.
Had there ever been a pulse? Daniel didn't know.
Billings claimed to have been here as long as the House had, and all five of them had remembered him from their childhoods and he had not changed one bit. Perhaps he had never been alive. He was certainly not human.
What could kill him?
That was something he didn't even want to think about, and with a last look at thepuddled blood on the floor, Daniel stood. He was about to start walking back up the hall when something caught his eye. A dark spot in the blood by Billings' left foot.
Daniel bent down, looked closely.
Hair and lint.
In the shape of a small footprint.
From somewhere in the House came an echo of high laughter.
He had to get out of here. Whether that meant finding a legitimate exit or exorcisingDoneen or taking apart this fucking House board by board, he had to escape.
He had to extricate himself from this situation and get his butt back to Margot and Tony.
There had to be an answer or a clue or a hint or something behind one of these doors, and he walked over to the closest one, grabbed the handle, and yanked it open.
A mirror stared back at him, reflecting his own anguished face.
He strode down to the next door, pulled it open.
A linen closet. ''
The next: a library/.
He crossed the hall, pulled open a door on the opposite side.
And therewa & his mother's Victorian bedroom.
She was lying in bed, next to his father, and they were both alive, both young, younger than he was right now.
His father whispered something, and his mother laughed.
He had not heard her laugh since he was in grammar school, and the sound brought back an entire world to him. Chills passed through his body, chills not of fear but of pure raw emotion: love, longing, recognition, remembrance, discovery.
"Hey, Daniel." His father waved him over. "Come in.
Shut the door."
His mother smiled at him, and he smiled back.
He wanted to go in, wanted to jump on the bed the way he had as a child and snuggle between the two of them, but he was acutely aware of the fact that he was an adult, older than they were, and that they were probably naked under the heavy blankets.
Besides, what was this? A time tunnel? A vision? A
joke? His gut told him that these were his real parents and they were calling to him, but his mind could not quite buy it. He thought it was probably a trick of the House. They weren't seriously altered, the way Laurie and Stormy said their mothers had been in the House on the Other Side, and they didn't have the insubstantial forms of ghosts. They looked exactly the way they had thirty years ago, and that made Daniel suspicious.
His mother held out her arms. "Danny."
He closed the door on them.
He had the sense that he was doing something wrong, that he should be in there, talking to them, that taking this tack would not lead him where he wanted to go, but he had nothing he really wanted to say to his parents--if those figures were his parents--and he ignored that section of his mind and the nagging doubt lapsed into silence.
He moved on to the next door. Behind it was a small anteroom and yet another door. He walked in, opened the second door and was home, in Pennsylvania, in Tyler, in his kitchen. Tony was sitting at the dinner table doing his homework and Margot was stirring a pot on the stove.
He could smell the delicious aroma of beef stew, could feel the warmth from the stove. Outside it was raining, and the windows were fogged with condensation.
There was no doubt here, no suspicion in his mind.
This seemed completely real to him, on all levels, and he tried to rush over to Margot and hug her, but was stopped by what felt like a Plexiglas wall. He moved toward Tony, was stopped again.
He began pounding on the invisible barrier. "Margot!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. He started jumping up and down, waving his arms wildly. "Margot!
Tony!"
They couldn't see him or hear him.
Maybe he was a ghost.
Maybe they were the ghosts.
The thought sent a chill through his heart.
No. Most likely, the House had not transported him back home but was simply allowing him to see, to smell, to hear, to experience what was happening there.
But why?
He folded his arms, stood in place, watched, listened.
Tony looked up from his homework. "When's Dad coming back?" he asked.
He saw the look of worried concern that crossed Margot's face, and his heart ached for her. "I
don't know,"
she said.
"He didn't . . . leave us, did he?"
Margot turned around. "What made you think that?"
He shrugged. "I don't know."
"Of course not. I told you, your father's visiting his old house in Maine for a few days."
"How come he didn't take us?"
"Because I have to work and you have school."
"How come he doesn't call?"
"I don't know," Margot admitted.
"Maybe something happened to him."
"Don't even joke about something like that."
"I'm not joking."
Margot turned down the heat on the stove, her mouth tightening. "Put your books away," she told him. "And wash up. It's time to eat."
Tony folded his homework, put it in his history text book, picked up his pen and pencil, and carried everything back to his room. He returned a moment later, helped his mother set the table, poured himself a glass of milk, and the two of them sat down to eat.
Daniel walked around the table, periodically reaching out and trying to touch either his wife or his son, but the barrier was always there. Margot and Tony ate dinner in silence, the only noise the occasional clink of silverware against plate and the quiet sounds of chewing and swallowing.
The unspoken emotion between them was heartrending.
Tired, frustrated, Daniel sat down on the floor of the kitchen. He felt almost like crying, and it was only the fact that he had to keep his wits about him and remain sharp, ready for anything, that kept him from doing so.
Immediately after finishing his meal, Tony excused himself and went out to the living room to watch TV.
Margot sighed, stared down into her nearly empty bowl, pushed a piece of carrot around with her spoon.
Daniel concentrated hard. "Margot," he said, thought.
No response.
He kept trying as she cleared the table, washed the dishes, but there was no contact and he only ended up with a headache.
He walked out with her to the living room, and together he, his wife, and his son watched an old Humphrey Bogart movie.