At the old house: “The steaks are doing just fine,” said Uncle Mose. “I want to check something out. Bring some flashlights and come along.” He walked into the house with long strides, and what he wanted to check out was soon revealed. “Nothing in this trap, nothing in that one. Let’s take a look in the cellar. nothing. Traps are clean as a whistle. As near as I can see, there isn’t a rat in the whole place.”
Elsa said, of course, that she was delighted to hear it. “And I’m pleased to see how thick the walls are. It’ll stay cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. My mother always said that high ceilings and thick walls are healthy.”
Nestor moved his huge head delicately. Nestor had been doing his own checking-out, and was still alert.
Bella said, “This is our new house.” The grown-ups were pleased. Yes, they said, this was their new house. Without changing her slow and level tone, Bella said, “I don’t like it.” Then she repeated, “I don’t like it.” Nor did she say anymore.
When the steaks were ready, they took their seats on the front steps. The steaks were tender and very, very good.
Later, upstairs in the rose-papered room, sleeping bags side by side, Elsa said, “You know, for an old bachelor, my uncle knows a thing or two. The gentle way he convinced Bella to share the downstairs room tonight, without a single protest. He must know this is a sort of special honeymoon thing. You and me.”
Vlad did not immediately answer. He rolled over so his sleeping-bag slightly overlapped hers. “Your place or mine,” he whispered.
Afterwards, Vlad went down to use the antique toilet behind the stairs. The door of one room opened a crack; lamplight and shadow. “Vlad?” said Uncle Mose.
The door opened wider. The great St Hubert hound appeared, his master close behind. “Would you be kind enough to let Nestor out the front door for a minute? Same errand as you. Let him back in when you’re ready. Didn’t want to leave Bella alone in case she woke up, first time in a strange house.”
“Sure. Let’s go, Nestor.” The dog came forward, gave Vlad a sociable sniff, waited until the front door was opened, and ambled off into the night. Vlad turned back, flashlight in hand, toward the water closet under the stairs.
“Oh, by the way, Uncle Mose; that funny sound we heard that time, when we were listening at the wall? The rustling and, uh, clicking? I heard it again a few minutes ago, when I happened to have my ear against the floor.”
“Look into it in the morning. On about your business now, your wife might be nervous alone upstairs. G’night.” The older man nodded, retreated into his chamber. Those two words were the last ones Vlad would ever hear him clearly say.
The plumbing rushed and gurgled loudly. Vlad stood by to make sure the ancient equipment suffered no overflowing; then went to the front door. Nestor appeared at once. “Good boy.” Light still showed beneath the closed door of Mose’s room.
Then the things began to happen.
In what order did the things happen? Some things happened simultaneously, and there was no time to pause and think. The first thing was absolutely astonishing in itself. Nestor flung himself into the air, absolutely vertically; his feet even left the floor. Then he hurled himself, still upright, against the closed door with the crack of light beneath it. Before his immense body slammed against the door, Bella began to scream in a thin and terribly high tone which Vlad had never heard from her before. At once there was an answering scream from Elsa upstairs and, more or less at the same time, Nestor’s body slammed against the door. Uncle Mose roared and his feet ran, tramping, inside the room which had gone dark. Nestor howled and tried to break down the door. Vlad flung himself upon the door, and fell against Nestor instead. He tried to hold his light steady to see and grasp the doorknob.
Still Nestor howled, still the old man stumbled inside the closed room, and still Bella screamed. - And the door opened and Vlad staggered into the room and tried desperately not to lose his balance. The noises Uncle Mose made were not roars any longer; Uncle Mose it was who staggered, lurched, fell upon his back and rolled to his side. Bella had stopped screaming, and was utterly silent. Nestor flung himself across the room and the house shook.
Elsa came screaming in, and then she did absolutely the worst thing she could possibly have done — and somehow Vlad knew absolutely that she was going to do it. She seized the arm of the hand in which he held the flashlight, and she tugged down on it as she called her daughter’s name, and the flashlight swung wildly up and down until he managed to get it into the other hand.
Nestor was throwing himself against the wall and clawing at the wall, howling and slathering, and something fell from his mouth. Vlad reeled as he tried to dislodge his wife and to focus the flashlight. Then Elsa let go of Vlad’s arm and ran to pick up her child, who was arching and thrashing and kicking and making sharp howling sounds. Elsa picked her up, but Bella’s arms and legs still moved and jerked convulsively.
What else was in the room? Something else had been in the room. Someone else had been in the room. Something. someone filthy and frightful and foul had been in the room.
There to one side was the Coleman lamp, and Vlad forced himself to calm his hands and to relight the lamp, and the room filled with hissing light. No one else and nothing else was in the room now.
Still the huge dog flung himself against the wall. Then it stopped.
Bella stopped her frightful convulsions. She hung limp in her mother’s arms, even when Elsa had fallen on her knees onto the sleeping bag, pressed her ear against the tiny chest, lifted her horrified face to him and nodded slightly.
Nestor stepped delicately on huge feet to his master, nuzzled him and licked him, and began to utter a deep and moaning lament. Was the old man dead? Vlad slowly got down beside the body and said, “Uncle Mose? Nestor? Uncle Mose?” Slowly he placed his ear against the fallen man’s chest. There was no rustling sound he heard, no clicking. He heard no sound at all. Nestor sniffed again and began to howl.
The long, slow, cold nightmare continued. Call the police, deputy sheriffs, sheriff’s deputies. The hospitaclass="underline" “Well, it’s shock, basically. Your little girl is of course the most affected, but your wife too is in shock. I’m afraid you aren’t in too good shape yourself.” — Take these. sign these. tell us again, Professor, exactly what happened: questions asked by the doctors and by the police.
Shock, Professor. Your only child has ceased to be a little girl who stood in a doorway and turned your heart with a single look. She became a wind-up doll which screamed and thrashed, except when the doll wound down and looked dully out of unfocused eyes. Shock, to use simple language, short-circuits the nervous system.
“What did she see that caused this shock? What sort of creature, sir? It is difficult for us to believe, you see, because your wife doesn’t report anything like that. Don’t be offended, sir, but you too have suffered a severe shock of some sort. ”
“What the hell, Branch, what the hell?”
Vlad’s old friend, and fellow Professor of Folklore David Branch looked at him and said, “Nobody knows what the hell, Vlad. We have to take this one step at a time.”
“Why was Uncle Mose’s funeral and cremation over so quickly. why was his collar so high?” Then another thought sprang into Vlad’s mind. “Where’s Nestor?”
“He’s at Dean Jorgenson’s farm; it’s in the next county, so the sheriff can’t get him to shoot.”
“What? Why would they shoot Nestor?”
“Well, mainly because they were afraid of him. This great brute was leaping around, terribly upset, and next thing a deputy got the idea that, well, maybe Nestor had killed the old man — Impossible? Why, impossible?”