It was a chore for him to close the bed by himself, but he finally got the metal hasps on each side locked. After that, rolling the bed back into the closet was easy. He placed the sheets and pillows on top of the metal frame.
Finished, he turned and looked over the specimen room. He enjoyed the room. It brought back memories. Everything here was as it should be. Everything in place, just as always.
No, not quite everything.
A scrap of white cloth jutted out from beneath the desk opposite the closet.
Can’t have that, Abe thought. Got to get this place spick and span. I think I’ll have Ellen and…and…whatshisname…sleep in here this time. Let Jay and Linda have the good bed.
Still puzzled as to what the bit of cloth might be, Abe leaned over and picked it up. The movement made his ears buzz and a wave of dizziness made him stumble. He nearly struck his head against the sharp edge of the desk, but caught himself just in time.
He held the cloth out, studying it, turning it over and over in his hands until he finally recognized it-and felt embarrassed when he realized how puzzled he had been by something so simple as a pair of undershorts.
Probably one of the boys’ from last time they came.
But that was months ago. Abe was certain that he’d cleaned up since then. Why had he missed them all that time?
His hand closed over the material. It was oddly stiff in places, and for an instant Abe fluttered on the verge of remembering something more, something from his own youth so far back that he rarely ventured to visit there, even in memory.
He held the underwear in his hand and stared out the window for a long, long time.
Then he heard a sound. Two sounds, actually.
He turned toward the closet. The girls were sitting in there, sitting on the rollaway that he was sure he had closed up just moments before-but now their faces glowed with the vivid scarlet of a cloudy November sunset where the light poured through the window behind him.
Abe stiffened in horror.
The girls were naked. Sitting naked on the bed and crying, as if he had done something to them how could he have done anything he just came inhere to clean a minute ago then how come it’s dark outside old man, and how come they’re crying and cringing from you in terror in horror but he’d never even considered even thought of touching them not once not ever may God strike me dead this instant if I ever even thought but they were crying and the buzzing and the pain and the dizziness struck again with so much force that Abe stumbled backward, striking his back sharply against a filing cabinet. No no no no he wailed silently as the girls suddenly turned to face him, their eyes accusing and bright with hatred, their heads crowned with haloes of blood that ran slowly down their cheeks and dripped onto their bodies.
“No no no no no,” he wailed, but this time out loud as the buzzing increased until it was no longer inside his head but outside, in the room with him. His eyes darted around the room. Everything was moving. Wings fluttering, beaks clacking viciously, eyes opening and closing, talons stretching, paws extruding needle-sharp claws. The walls were a wash of movement, silent and threatening and angular. Shadow struggled with light, and even the once-familiar forms of ground squirrels and robins and sparrows enlarged and rustled toward him.
He tried to whirl away, but the pain and the dizziness came a third time. The last time.
This pain was an explosion that rocked his chest and hammered the breath from his body. He thrust his hand out to steady himself on the bookshelf. His fingers touched something hard and cold and ridged. The buzzing increased, only now it concentrated itself in a single focus.
As the rattlesnake struck-once, viciously, pumping poison from its glittering fangs into the old man’s frail wrist-Abe heard shrieks of laughter from the darkness that was the closet. He struggled to penetrate the darkness, to see whether the girls were gone, but he could not. Instead, the darkness reached out and touched him, penetrated his confusion and his terror and his loneliness.
And then there was only darkness.
And silence.
From the The Sun-San Bernardino and the Inland Empire, 1 November 1994:
YOUTH FOUND DEAD IN HOME, FOUL PLAY NOT SUSPECTED
The body of Brady Wilton, 12, was found in his Redlands home late last night by his parents, Frank and Julia Wilton, shortly after they returned from a costume party at Wilton’s company, Alexander and Wilton Electronics, in nearby Mentone.
“They were only away for an hour or so,” a neighbor, Benjamin Morely, revealed. “Frank owns the place, you know, and they really had to be there.” Brady was a careful and responsible young man, Morely added, fully capable of taking care of himself.
Another neighbor and a classmate of young Wilton’s, Roland Elkins, also 12, said, “He was moody sometimes, withdrawn. He could get angry easy, too, especially the last few weeks. He wouldn’t even go Trick-or-Treating with kids from the neighborhood.”
Preliminary reports from the coroner’s office suggest young Wilton may have died from a stroke. “It’s quite rare in children this young,” a county representative revealed, “but it does happen.”
The Wiltons, who moved with Brady to Redlands three years ago from Tamarind Valley, near Los Angeles, are not currently under investigation for any…
Chapter Nine
The Huntleys, March 2010
Further Complications
1
As matters turned out, Willard’s estimate of somewhere around a month before any action could be taken on the house was dead on.
After three weeks of abruptly summer-like weather, typical of the typically Quixotic California climate, the ground finally dried sufficiently to allow any sort of testing. Catherine called and made an appointment to have one of the city engineers come out and examine the slab. But before he could arrive, another, seemingly unrelated, crisis struck.
It began simply enough.
Midday Saturday was a lazy time, school work done for the week, chores done, and nothing much to do. The four children were playing in the back bedroom, immersed in their own fantasy worlds of toys and books.
Willard was watching football in the family room. Catherine was puttering around in the kitchen.
In the middle of a particularly exciting play, Willard glanced toward the door from the entry way, almost as if he had been called. Burt was standing there, expectantly, as if he had something to say.
“What?” Willard was irritated at the interruption, even though the boy had said nothing yet. His voice was sharp, his expression almost angry. “What?”
Burt remained silent for a second, then faded back into the duskiness as he slipped into the living room. Willard watched until his son disappeared, his forehead creased and his eyes narrowed, even though he was not aware of it.
That was his usual expression nowadays.
A moment or so later, he heard Burt’s thin voice in the kitchen. He couldn’t catch the words. Catherine responded, then Burt.
Willard settled back into the couch again, intent on the game.
Catherine came to the door between the kitchen and the family room.
“Burt says he can hear a funny noise.”
“Hmmm,” Willard said.
“He says it’s coming from the bathroom. Maybe you should…”
In the recesses of the house, Suze screamed, Will, Jr., yelped as if in surprise, and Sams, not to be outdone, started crying.
“Oh, for…! What’s going on now!” Willard was up and striding toward the hallway before Catherine even left the kitchen.