The Third Floor

by The Third Floor (epub)

  "Jack?" she murmured. When he didn't answer, she decided it was Joey. She smiled in her sleep and felt fine.

  She woke up later when she heard Jack coming down the hall and the crinkle of grocery sacks in his arms. She rolled off her side of the bed, stretched, and looked down at the empty spot where she’d expected to see Joey. Where was he?

  He must have heard Jack coming and got up, too.

  Liz wandered into the kitchen to put the groceries away while Jack finished carrying them in. She stopped in the doorway and her fingers came away from her eyes, suddenly clear, her vision fine.

  Joey lay sleeping on the couch, his two fingers still hanging from his mouth.

  He must have come back in here after I fell asleep, she thought. That had to be it. Because she knew she felt someone on the bed; the mattress squeaked, and she felt the weight behind her. Then again, there was every possibility she’d dreamed it.

  Liz pushed it away and went into the kitchen to make sure Jack hadn't forgotten the traps.

  "So what do you really think?" he asked, pulling a package of traps from the bag.

  Liz took the traps and opened them, knowing this would be the only time she touched them. Once set, they were Jack's domain. And once used, she didn't want to see them.

  "Think about what?" she asked.

  "The house? Honestly?"

  He pulled a jar of peanut butter from the bag, handed it over.

  "I told you. I think it's big." She set the peanut butter on the counter next to an unwrapped trap. "God, I just realized I haven't even been upstairs yet. All I've seen are the few rooms down here. Why don't you finish with the traps and I'll go see the rest."

  Liz rounded the first landing and saw the huge open room in the middle of the second floor.

  "Wow," she said. "That's a big room."

  She continued up and wandered the second floor, marveling at the spaciousness of the rooms. Each room boasted high ceilings, clean white walls. There was a door leading off from the main room. Liz opened it to find the perfect study. Even though the room was empty, one wall held a five-shelf built-in bookcase and Jack could move his desk in here and have an official home office.

  There were two windows in the room, one looking out on the front yard, the other on the front porch. Liz was leaned over, watching the houses across the street when she heard thumping. She stood up straight and listened. It came again, from above. Joey was upstairs? She hadn't heard him coming up, but she heard him now, and he sounded like he was having fun up there.

  She poked her head out of the room. The stairs were there in front of her and the space was open all the way to the third floor ceiling. She heard him making play noises, the rrrrrrrrrr of an imaginary car engine. He chuckled. She smiled. He made another sound, something she couldn't distinguish, and then he screamed, loud and high. Liz leaped up the stairs three at a time, yanking herself around the post when she reached the landing, then up to the top.

  When she reached the third floor, she found herself confronted with four choices. Each door was closed and Joey was nowhere. She entered the first door on the left and found an empty room. Another door in here led to a corner room. It too was empty. Liz went into the next room and found nothing except ugly yellow walls. Then another empty room, and finally a dirty, but no less empty, bathroom.

  So where was he? She made the rounds of the rooms again, calling, "Joey. Come on out. What's the matter?"

  He wasn't up here. But she'd heard him.

  Just like you felt him get into bed with you?

  But I did feel him, she told herself.

  So where is he?

  I don't know, she thought.

  Then, before Liz could move, the scream came again, directly behind her. She whirled, expecting to see Joey lying half-dead, by the sound of that scream. But she was alone.

  Liz turned and went down the stairs quicker than she'd come up them.

  When she got to the bottom floor, she found Jack in the hall, shining a flashlight down into the cold air vent.

  "I gotta get my keys out of there," he said.

  "Where's Joey?" she asked, ignoring his search.

  "On the couch, last I saw. He was waking up a bit, but he was still in there. Why, you find something upstairs he'd like?" Again she didn't respond, but if Jack had bothered to look up, he would have wondered why his wife was staring at him like he'd just crushed her cat's head with a hammer.

  Liz went into the living room. Joey was awake, a toy car in his hand, driving it along the edge of the cushion.

  "What'cha doing?" she asked. She sat next to him, just behind his outstretched feet.

  "Playing."

  "Did you have a good nap?"

  "Uh-huh." She nudged his feet and he kicked back, a game they had.

  "Did you just wake up?"

  "No, I been awake fifteen hours already. I'm hungry."

  "We'll eat in a bit. Did you go upstairs to play when you got up?"

  "Huh-uh." He rolled his car along the couch and didn't bother to look back when he said, "I don't like it upstairs."

  "You don't?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I know I don’t like it up there.”

  “I meant, are you sure you didn’t go up there?”

  Of course he’s sure, she told herself. What’s he going to do, forget? Stupid question. No, he said he hadn’t, so he hadn’t. Didn't explain what she’d just heard, but something would, she was sure. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since they left Houston three days ago; her mind was messing with her. It was a bird outside, or in the ceiling, that’s all it was.

  Didn’t sound like any bird I ever heard of.

  Then again, who knows what kinds of birds were common to Angel Hill. A Screaming Banshee bird might be a common sound in this town. She hoped not.

  Was it just a couple hours ago he’d come to her begging not to have to sleep up there? She wondered now if he’d heard something up there, too.

  You know, not all big houses are haunted, she told herself.

  “I don’t think they knew I was listening,” Joey said.

  “What?” She hadn’t been listening, either.

  “The ones upstairs, I don’t think they knew I was listening.”

  “There’s no one upstairs,” she told him.

  He didn’t respond, just turned back to his car and drove it over the bumps in the cushion.

  She wanted to continue with this and see what he meant, but instead she took a lesson from Jack and tried to think it through. He heard people upstairs. Of course he did, she thought, the movers were in and out. Maybe they were talking about something and didn’t know Joey was listening. It’s not impossible, is it? That’s what he meant.

  She didn’t ask what he’d heard, a conversation, a thump, a scream--bird, she reminded herself--and she wouldn’t ask because it was their first day in their new house, the first day of their new lives and right now the uneasy feeling in her gut had her so clenched--from a stupid bird?--she knew she’d be sore tomorrow.

  She put it aside and went into the hall

  Jack pointed the flashlight into the cold air vent in the floor, still searching for his keys.

  “Are you hungry?” Liz asked. He left the beam pointed where he had it and looked up.

  “What?”

  “You want a sandwich?”

  “No. Thanks. I’ll get something later.”

  Liz turned away, leaving Jack to his keys. In the kitchen, she made Joey a peanut butter and jelly, set it on a plate next to a couple of cookies and called him into the kitchen.

  "But there's no table," he said.

  Liz realized he was right and looked around. Surely with all these boxes, he could sit on something other than the couch.

  "Can I eat outside?"

  Liz smiled at his ingenuity. "Yes, that's a good idea. It's an awful nice day."

  The backyard had two levels and they sat together on the step from the higher to
the lower. Liz wondered at the huge back yard that included the empty lot next to their house. Jack will have a ball mowing this thing, she thought.

  Joey chewed loudly, mostly playing with his sandwich and munching the cookies.

  "Put the cookies down," she said. "You can eat those after your sandwich."

  "Just one more?"

  "No. Now eat."

  Joey nibbled the bread. A drop of jelly oozed from the bottom and dropped to his leg. He didn't notice it.

  She turned around to stare at the house and noticed for the first time another door, about ten feet to the left of the back door. She got up, asking, "Where's this go?"

  Joey sat staring at his food. He stayed put as she reached the door, turned the handle. It was locked, but she pushed against the door anyway. It didn't budge.

  Just then Joey laughed and pointed.

  "Look, Liz," he said, smiling, "a naked woman!"

  Liz looked and sure enough there was a naked woman, an old naked woman from the looks, staring at them from the window of her apartment in the building just across the alley from the Kitch house.

  "Joey, don't look at that!" She tried not to laugh. Liz covered Joey's face and the old woman ducked behind her curtain. Her face peeked out again, just enough for her to see Liz was still trying not to watch.

  "Come on," Liz said. "I think we can go inside now."

  "Did you see her?" Joey laughed. "She was naked." He laughed with childish hilarity and almost dropped his plate. A cookie slid toward the side, but stuck in a smear of peanut butter. Joey kept laughing as Liz carried him in and set him on the couch. She plugged in the television, then went looking through the maze of junk for the DVD player and Joey‘s cartoons.

  Jack came into the room, tossing the flashlight onto the couch, asking, "What's so funny?" She told him and Jack said, "Great. Nice to know we picked the good neighborhood."

  "Did you find your keys?"

  "No. I'm going to have to take the vent cover off and get down there myself. Those keys are down there, I just can't see them from up here."

  "Why don't you just make copies of mine?"

  "Because my keys would still be down there and it would bug me."

  "I see," she said. She spotted the DVD player and pulled it from the box it had been stuffed into. She was unraveling the cord when she remembered, "Do you know where that other door outside leads?"

  "What other door?"

  She told him and Jack said, "That goes to the laundry room. It's downstairs."

  "There's another floor?" she asked.

  "Two, actually," he explained. "The basement has two levels. The laundry room on one, and then another level down to the furnace and the water heater.”

  "This house is just too big. And you have to go outside to get to it?"

  "No," he laughed. "You can get outside from the laundry room. There's a door by the stairs in the hall that leads down."

  Liz shook her head at the floor and asked, "How did I miss all this stuff? I was up before you, I looked around. I was even outside earlier this morning. I'm just not paying attention to anything." She searched for an outlet to plug the television into.

  "There's one by the window," Jack said, then. "You just gotta realize, babe, I got the brains of the marriage, you got the body."

  "Oh, so I'm stupid, but hot, right?" She plugged in the television, then set the DVD player on top of it, hooked it up, and plugged it in.

  "Hey, I didn't say stupid."

  "You didn't have to." As she talked, she tried to find the box with Joey's cartoons. She should have packed them with the DVD player.

  "What I meant was, um, see, uh, what I--"

  "That's okay," Liz smiled. "I know what you were trying to say. We'll just leave it like it is for now." Jack groaned and frowned at Liz. She raised her eyebrows at him, then turned toward the bedroom. "You can look for Joey's movies. I'm gonna do some unpacking."

  "Do you want to go out for a little bit instead?" Jack asked.

  Liz stopped in the doorway. "What did you have in mind?"

  Jack shrugged. "Just a drive around. I've got a week until I start work, we might as well get as used to Angel Hill as we can."

  Liz shook her head. "Naw, I'd just as soon get this mess out of the way. But why don't you take Joey for a ride around town? When you get back, I should have the bedrooms livable and then I'll start dinner."

  Jack asked Joey if he wanted to go and Joey leapt at the chance.

  Liz started by shoving her dresser into place against the wall and filling it with her clothes. Jack's dresser would go against the opposite wall, on his side of the bed. She put the clothes away and made the bed. She was about to start on the bedside table, setting the clock, locating outlets for the lamps, when the front door slid open then clicked shut. She yelled, "You guys are back soon. I'll be done here in a minute. Why don't you start on Joey's room while I'm cooking?"

  She'd found an outlet on her side of the bed for the clock and now her lamp stood next to it on the table. Jack's side didn't have an outlet. She'd either have to get an extension cord to another outlet, or he'd have to forego his bedside lamp.

  She realized then that no one had come downstairs yet. She stepped into the hall and called out, "Are you guys coming down or what?"

  But no one answered and, in fact, when Liz listened, she didn't hear anything at all. No feet moved around upstairs, no boards creaked overhead. She walked closer to the stairs and listened again, then called, louder, "Are you guys coming down? I'm gonna be making dinner in a minute. What do you want?"

  Again there was no answer. She stepped up to the landing, annoyed that they were ignoring her. "Joey," she said, "who wants candy?" When Joey didn't come running and screaming, she decided Jack had told him to keep quiet and they'd scare her. But she was smarter than that.

  "It's not going to work, Jack," she said. "I'm going downstairs." With that, she clomped back down to the first floor and into the bedroom. She moved into Joey's room to start his unpacking.

  Before she even got started on his clothes, she heard the front door again.

  "Nice going," she yelled into the hall. "I can hear the door from down here, you know."

  "Liz?" a voice called down. It sounded like Joey, kind of. But he sounded odd. Had he hurt himself, she wondered. I'd better go see if he's okay, she thought.

  Liz dropped his clothes on the floor and went upstairs to the landing. They weren't here. Maybe Jack had taken him up to the second floor bathroom for whatever reason. The voice came again, "Liz," from upstairs. She went to the second floor bathroom, but it was dark, empty. The door stood open and as she leaned in to close it, the voice came again, "Liz," from behind her. She turned, expecting to see Joey in the open main room, but Joey wasn't there. No one was. But the voice had been right behind her. She let go of the bathroom door and stepped toward the main room when it came, "Liz," right behind her again. This time it had come from the bathroom and Liz could see clearly that the bathroom was dark and empty.

  Panic welled in her; her heart skipped a half dozen beats and her stomach wanted to hide in her knees. Her breath caught and she turned to dart down the stairs. She almost rounded the landing and leapt to the bottom floor, but she bolted through the front door instead. Liz sailed down the porch steps to the walkway, down the path across the long front yard and finally down another small set of steps leading to the street. She stopped and turned back to look at the house, expecting any of a dozen horror movie scenes to be playing out in front of her eyes. Instead, she saw their new house. Nothing else.

  The upper windows didn't glow with eerie light, nor did macabre figures stare out at her. She caught her breath, calmed herself down, and looked up at the house again. She stared at it then, waiting, daring something to show itself. When nothing did, she decided she had come all the way from Houston to live in Angel Hill with her husband and son and this was their house now. No matter what may lie in the shadows of this house, it was theirs now and if she heard a
noise every now and then, well, what house didn't make noises?

  How many houses call you by name?

  Shut up, she told this inner voice. Lots of things sound like Liz. There's biz, quiz, wiz, fizz. And when she thought about it, she wasn't entirely sure what she'd heard had been a voice. In all the recorded history of ghost hunting, no one had yet to supply any kind of proof solid enough to convince all the world's skeptics. Why was that? Because everything was always explainable some other way.

  Another Angel Hill bird. The Talking Liz bird maybe.

  But you heard the door open.

  No, she told the voice. I heard something. I've been in this house, what, fifteen hours, suddenly I know all its noises? No. I heard something, but that's all. It could have been a breeze blowing against the door.

  Just then, their Jeep rolled up behind her. The horn honked and Liz turned, glad to see Jack and Joey home again.

  "Wanna get some supper?" he asked. "We found a good restaurant."

  Liz ordered a pot roast dinner while Jack and Joey both had hamburgers. Liz thought about telling Jack about the noises, but decided it wouldn't be a good idea in front of Joey, so she kept quiet. They laughed and talked about the new town and Jack's new job. He would take part of tomorrow and go visit the plant, an electronics company that built control panels for utility trucks. After paying the check, Jack let Joey leave the tip and the six-year-old bounded back to them at the door. They drove around for a while, sightseeing and familiarizing themselves with their neighborhood. While it darkened outside, Joey dozed in the back seat. Jack said, "I wonder if there's a music store in town."

  “Didn’t you just change those strings a few weeks ago?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It was my last set, though. I like to have them on hand, just in case.”

  "Oh." Liz turned her attention back to the window. Angel Hill was now a blur of light and dark patches whizzing by.

  By the time Jack pulled up outside the house, Joey was asleep and Liz also felt exhaustion coming. Her head rested against the glass, enjoying the coolness of it after the summer heat of the city. All thoughts about the sound earlier that might have been her name being called--or might have been the Talking Liz, native to Angel Hill--were forgotten.