The Loveliest Dead

by Ray Garton

  Mom laughed. “He called you a puppy? Well, that’s kind of sweet, isn’t it?”

  “Not the way he said it. Can I come sleep with you? I don’t want to sleep in here.”

  Mom sighed and looked up at Dad.

  After a moment, Dad said, “Okay, but don’t get used to it. This is a one-time deal, okay? No more after this.”

  He bobbed his head up and down with vigor. “Okay. Okay.”

  Miles lay between them with his eyes wide open and stared into the dark long after they were both asleep. They thought he had a nightmare—they didn’t even have to say it out loud, it was an accepted fact. But he knew he had not been dreaming. He kept his eyes open until he finally dozed off a couple hours later. Miles no longer trusted the dark.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Friday, 1:38 P.M.

  The next day, Jenna spent the afternoon working on the living room. It was dark and dreary, and she hoped someday to be able to redecorate and brighten it up. It had been decorated last, she guessed, sometime in the seventies.

  There was a rust-colored shag carpet that hadn’t been vacuumed in a long time, and matching drapes on the picture window behind the large Mediterranean-style couch upholstered in brown crushed velvet. A matching coffee table stood in front of the couch with a centerpiece of wax fruit that was gray with dust. The couch was flanked by two matching end tables, and on each stood a hideous lamp with a cream-colored, chimney shade and a light in the fat round base of amber glass. There was an old wooden straight-back chair with a brown cushion tied to the seat and back. The brown vinyl-upholstered recliner had seen better days—David said it was comfortable, but tears in the upholstery made it an eyesore. Another end table stood beside the recliner, with another matching ugly lamp on it.

  First, Jenna threw the wax fruit in the garbage. She dusted everything and vacuumed the carpet. She put a tan-and-cream afghan Martha had crocheted over the back of the couch. On the mantel over the fireplace, which had been bare when they moved in, she set out a collection of handblown glass animals that had belonged to her grandmother. She found it odd that there were no photographs in the house—none on the walls in the living room or hallways, none on the mantel. She set out a few of their own framed pictures on top of the entertainment center, a black cabinet that held the television, VCR, DVD player, and an old stereo that included a turntable, all of which had been there when they arrived. Among the photographs, she set out a collection of ceramic elves she’d had since she was a girl. There were already a couple hooks in the ceiling just in front of the picture window, over the couch—no doubt the chains of a swag lamp once had hung from them— and she hung a potted philodendron from each one.

  A shelving unit built into the wall beside the entertainment center held a large collection of hardcover Reader’s Digest Condensed Books and a few dozen paperbacks, mostly westerns and science fiction novels. An impressive collection of Roseville pottery was lined up on the shelves in front of the rows of books. There were several old magazines—Modern Maturity, People, Popular Mechanics—inside the coffee table, and they joined the wax fruit in the garbage.

  David came home looking as dejected as he had the day before. This time, he didn’t even have any leads. Over dinner Jenna tried to cheer him up by making plans for the weekend.

  “Why don’t you and Miles work on cleaning out the garage so we can actually park the car and pickup in there?” she said.

  “Well, I guess you did paint the cupboards and hang pictures,” David said. “I suppose I should do something.” He turned to Miles. “What do you say, Tiger. Want to clean out the garage with me tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Might mean a couple trips to the dump,” David said.

  “Really? Cool!”

  “If I can find the dump.”

  After dinner, Jenna went to the kitchen to clean up while everyone else went to the living room. As she stacked the dishes in the dishwasher, she could hear them laughing with a studio audience at something on television.

  She heard something else. Leaning forward with a plate in her hand, she froze, cocked her head, and listened. She dropped the plate and it clattered against others as it fell into its slot in the rack.

  It was the music she’d heard in the early hours of Wednesday morning, the music she had thought was coming from Martha’s radio downstairs. But now it sounded nothing like music from a radio, and more like that of a music box.

  Jenna stood up straight and turned toward the music—toward the laundry room, which opened off the kitchen near the back door. She crossed the kitchen slowly. The closer she got to the laundry room, the louder and clearer the music sounded. She hurried the last few steps and flipped on the light as she stepped inside.

  It was Brahms’s “Lullaby.” That was why it had sounded so familiar when she’d heard it Wednesday morning, probably half asleep. It was the song she had hummed to Josh just before he’d—

  Mommy—

  The memory made her chest grow cold, her fingertips numb. She thought of the hooded toddler that had stood at the end of the upstairs hallway the day before. In her mind, she returned to that brief but explosive certainty she’d experienced that Josh had tried to communicate with her.

  Hold it, Jenna thought. What mother hasn’t hummed Brahms’s “Lullaby” to her baby? I used to hum that tune to both the boys; all mothers sing that to their babies.

  She barely had time to think that much, though, because she was too busy focusing on the fact that she was hearing it. And it was coming from behind the basement door.

  She reached out and turned the basement door’s shaky old metal knob. The door was warped and she had to tug on it a couple times before it jerked open. She stepped into the doorway and looked down into the dark.

  There were two bare bulbs hanging over the narrow, steep wooden staircase that led down to the basement. Jenna had not been down there yet. She didn’t like the look of the exposed bulbs—she’d had a fear of electricity ever since a string of Christmas-tree lights had shocked her mother and knocked her across die living room when Jenna was seven.

  She reached in with her left hand and flipped the light switch. The bulbs came on only for an instant before throwing sparks and going dark with a couple dull pops. She gasped and stumbled backward.

  But the twinkling music continued to play down in the basement.

  Jenna stepped out of the laundry room and turned right. A long black Mag-Lite flashlight stood facedown, like a sentry, beside the back door. She picked it up and ducked back into the laundry room. She clicked the flashlight on, aimed the beam down the stairs, and made her way down.

  The music was much closer, clearer. Jenna stopped on the stairs and turned the light past the wooden railing to her right, down into the basement.

  The beam fell on the toddler in the hooded jacket standing in front of a pile of old damp, decaying cardboard boxes. In the light, Jenna saw that the jacket was navy blue. The child’s face was swallowed up in the shadow of the hood. He was hugging to his chest a brown teddy bear with a bright blue ribbon around its neck. The music was coming from the teddy bear, she was sure of it.

  She remembered that Josh had had a teddy bear. Martha had given it to him for his first birthday. But it had plush black and white fur and had not played music.

  Jenna tried to keep the flashlight trained on the child, but the beam shook with each step down. She lost the child and stopped again, sent the beam to the left through the dark.

  She found him again on the other side of the basement, still holding the bear. She did not move, did not even breathe for a moment. Her eyes teared up and her heart pounded hard against her ribs. She took in a breath.

  “Josh?” Her voice broke and she cleared her throat. “Josh? Is that you?”

  The hood moved slightly.

  Jenna stepped slowly down the stairs, keeping the light on the child. But he was gone. She gasped and stopped again, searched with the light.

  The child was s
tanding in the center of the basement, still holding the musical teddy bear, which continued to play its tune.

  “Josh? Please hold still. Hold still for Mommy, okay?”

  Two-thirds of the way down the stairs, she missed a step. Jenna screamed as she tumbled the rest of the way down. She landed on her back on the dirt floor with her feet up on the stairs, but she had not let go of the flashlight.

  Footsteps thundered overhead. David appeared in the basement doorway. He was joined seconds later by Miles.

  “Oh, my God, Jenna!” David raced down the stairs.

  “No, it’s all right,” she said as she sat up. “I’m fine. I’m not hurt. Help me up.” She reached her left hand up and David pulled her to her feet. She looked up the stairs at Miles, who was on his way down. “No, honey, why don’t you go watch TV with Grandma. I’m fine, really, I’m not hurt at all. I just tripped near the bottom, is all.”

  Miles stood on the stairs a moment, reluctant to go. “Okay,” he said. He turned and went back up the stairs as Martha appeared in the doorway.

  “What the hell happened?” she said.

  “I’m fine, Mom. I just tripped and scared myself, that’s all.”

  “Well, you scared the crap out of us, too.” She left the doorway.

  Jenna sniffled and wiped her eyes with a knuckle.

  When David realized she was crying, he gripped her shoulders. “You are hurt!”

  “No, I’m not, I was crying before I fell.”

  “Why?”

  Jenna turned away from him and held the long, heavy flashlight in both hands. She passed it slowly through the basement, over the boxes and crates stacked against the cinder-block walls.

  “You’re not going to believe me,” she said, just as a sob escaped her.

  He turned to her and put a hand on her back. “What’s wrong?”

  She recognized the tone of his voice—he was a little irritated. Jenna turned to him and clutched his arm. The glow of the Mag-Lite oozed up over his face. “Honey, you’re going to think I’m crazy, but... Josh ... was just here.”

  The features of his face relaxed for a moment, then tensed into a painful mask as his eyes slowly widened. “What?”

  Jenna glanced up at the doorway to make sure it was empty. She didn’t want Miles or her mother to hear, not yet. She turned to David again and whispered rapidly, “This is the second time it’s happened. I saw him upstairs in the hallway yesterday. He just stood there at the end of the hall, watching me. And then he started to run toward me, but the phone rang and I turned away, and he disappeared. And just now, up in the kitchen, I heard music, and it was the same music I—”

  “What are you saying?” His voice was loud, but quavered. “Are you hearing what you’re saying, Jenna?”

  She placed her hand flat against his chest, over the blue sweatshirt he wore. “I know, honey, I know, but wait, just listen to me. It was the music I said I heard Wednesday morning. Remember, when I said I heard music in the middle of the night? It was Brahms’s “Lullaby,” honey—remember how I used to hum that to him all the time? And to Miles, both of them. And I was humming it to Josh when he ... just before he ... before we lost him. And down here, he was holding a teddy bear. Remember how much he loved his teddy—”

  “Every kid loves his teddy bear, Jenna!” David said. It sounded as much like a plea as a declaration.

  She closed her eyes a moment and nodded as she took a deep breath, tried to calm herself down. “You’re right. I know how this sounds. But listen to me, David—if it wasn’t Josh, then I’m crazy, because I saw him. I saw him. Does ... does that mean I’m crazy, David? Does it?” Cold fear gripped her, and she quaked with sobs.

  David took her in his arms. The light was smothered between them. “You’re not crazy. I know you’re not crazy. Don’t think that.”

  “But I saw him.”

  “I see him, too.” David took a trembling breath. “You think I don’t see him?”

  “But... I saw him in the hallway.”

  “He disappeared, didn’t he?”

  After a moment, Jenna nodded against his chest.

  “And he disappeared down here, too, didn’t he? I mean, if he were here, he’d still be here, right? He’d be here right now, wouldn’t he?”

  “I know, I know, it doesn’t make any sense, all I know is—”

  He held her upper arms gently as he pushed her a few inches back and looked at her. “I’m saying it makes perfect sense, Jenna. I’ve been thinking about it because I see him, too. And I think it’s because we’ve moved to a new place, and we couldn’t bring him with us. So we’re missing him even more than usual. Have you had that feeling?”

  A fresh round of sobs came when Jenna realized she had been feeling that way, but had been unaware—or unwilling to be aware of it—until now.

  He held her to him again. “That’s all it is, honey. We’re just missing him all over again.”

  Jenna stood there and cried on his shirt for a long time. After a while, she became quiet. They turned and started up the stairs, Jenna first.

  “Be careful, okay?” David said.

  Jenna looked up at the dead bulbs. “Those bulbs must be old. They blew out as soon as I turned them on.”

  “I’ll have to replace them. I’m gonna have to come down here and clean up this mess sooner or later anyway. Might as well have light.”

  She stopped on the stairs and looked over her shoulder at him. “Will you do it tomorrow?”

  “Look, I’d rather you just didn’t come down here, okay? Miles, either. I’m afraid you’re going to fall from the top of these stairs, and then you’ll—”

  “Do it tomorrow. Please?”

  He smiled. “You and your electricity thing. Okay. I’ll do it tomorrow.” Outside the laundry room, he put the Mag-Lite back in its place beside the back door.

  Jenna woke at 2:41 with a full bladder. David snored beside her. Wind blew the rain against the windowpane above the headboard. She got up and shivered in the cold, slipped on David’s robe, and padded barefoot out of the bedroom. She went down the hall to the bathroom and relieved herself. When she stepped into the hallway again, she stopped and listened.

  She could hear David snoring in the bedroom, the wind and rain outside, but nothing else. The house was silent.

  She noticed Miles’s bedroom door was closed, which was odd. She and David always left his door open about a foot—Miles preferred it that way, always had. Light streamed out from under the closed door.

  Jenna went to his door and opened it a crack. Miles was sound asleep in his bed with the overhead light on.

  “Damned horror movies,” she whispered. She reached in, turned the light off, and left the door open several inches before going back to bed.

  Miles opened his eyes in the dark and was immediately wide awake. Was it because he’d heard the voice? Or was it only because one of his parents had noticed his door was closed and his light was on, and had turned it off? He’d closed the door hoping they wouldn’t notice his overhead light was on, but apparently someone had, and had left him in the dark.

  He was prepared. He reached beneath his pillow and removed a small Mag-Lite penlight. It had been in his Christmas stocking last year. He twisted the head to turn it on and trained it on the light switch beside the cracked-open door. He sat up on the edge of his bed and almost stood, but waited a moment. The digital clock on his bedstand, shaped like a flying saucer, read 3:04.

  Had he heard the voice? He waited several seconds but heard nothing. He looked over at the area by the shelf where he’d seen the fat man coming up through the floor once before, and he was tempted to follow with the powerful penlight. But he could not do it. He hadn’t heard anything, but that didn’t mean there was nothing there, and if there was, Miles wasn’t sure he wanted to see it.

  He turned to the light switch again, focused all his attention on it. He stood and started walking toward it. He was so afraid, he had trouble moving his legs.

 
; Miles wondered if the fat man could come up through the floor anywhere in the room. He wondered what it would be like if the man were suddenly to come up right under his feet, if his head were to rise beneath the oval rug on the hardwood floor beside his bed. Or would he come through the rug? Would he come straight up through the rug and into Miles? The thought only made him feel worse.

  He was halfway to the light switch when the rough, whispered voice said, “Where you goin’? Get over here and be a good puppy, now.”

  With his arm outstretched, hand reaching for the light switch, Miles turned his head toward the voice. He tripped over his own feet and fell flat on the floor. The penlight slipped from his hand and rolled away.

  “C’mon, y’fuckin’ puppy,” the voice said.

  Miles saw movement in the darkness to his right, over by the shelves. As he scrambled to his feet, he screamed. He didn’t want to, but could not help himself. His hand found the light switch and flipped it up.

  The room filled with light as the floor creaked down the hall in his parents’ bedroom. They spoke to each other as their footsteps drew nearer.

  Turning, Miles saw nothing by the shelves, not even a sign that anything had been there.

  Whatever it is, he thought, it doesn’t like the light.

  Mom and Dad came into the room and squinted against the light.

  “What’s going on?” Dad said.

  Miles was breathless when he said, “He was here again! That man!”

  Mom sighed.

  Dad said, “Miles, you can’t keep doing this. You’re just having bad dreams.”

  “It’s not a dream. I heard his voice. He keeps calling me a puppy.”

  “Two nights in a row from one stupid movie,” Mom said.

  Miles looked up at them and pleaded, “Can I come sleep with you again?”

  Dad shook his head. “No, I told you, that was a onetime deal. You’re a little old for this, aren’t you, Miles? Come on, now, Tiger, get back into bed.”

  “But you can’t turn the light out,” Miles said.