She heard the priest going to the third floor. Somehow, down four flights of stairs and a hallway, she heard him muttering his prayers. She sat up with her head in her hands, wondering, for the first time, where they came from, these ghosts. Who were they? Why were they here? She'd never wondered that before. That surprised her. Now she wouldn't know. And she was glad. If it ended everything in the house, she'd give up the chance to know forever. Just end it.
She heard crying. Joey was awake.
What's happened now?
Joey lay curled in his bed, tangled in his sheet and sweating. He wasn't just crying, he was bawling, as if he'd just watched his favorite dog get obliterated by a semi. Liz asked what was wrong, but Joey ignored her and kept crying. She sat on the edge of his bed, rubbing his shoulder, his back, and his head.
"Joe, what's wrong?" she asked. Hadn't they done all this already? "Come on, Joe. Tell me what's the matter."
Then she noticed blood on his pillow. She looked at his face and saw his nose was bleeding. "Shit," she said, and went to the bathroom. She came back with a wad of toilet paper and held it to his nose. But the paper was soon soaked and the blood kept pouring out. She sat him up, still wailing. "Did you hit your nose on something?" He didn't answer, just let go another torrent of howls.
She tilted his head back and held another wad of paper to it, pinching him high on the nose. He squeezed his eyes shut and blood oozed out from between the pressed lids.
"What the hell?" Liz said.
The wad at his nose was full again. She left and came back with the entire roll, holding one wad to his nose while another wiped away the blood that had replaced his tears.
What's he done, she wondered. Was he crying so hard that he burst a vessel? What's going on?
Blood trickled out his ear. Drops of red dotted the sheet. Liz looked at him in horror.
She heard footsteps upstairs and knew this was punishment for bringing the priest.
"Fuck you," she said to the ceiling. "He'll be done soon and when he is you'll be gone. You can mess with us, but you can't really hurt us."
She picked up Joey and carried him outside, through the back door. She took him to the far end of the yard and sat cross-legged in the grass with Joey resting in her lap. He was still crying, still bleeding.
Liz looked back at the house. The man she'd seen on the porch, he was staring down at her from one of the third floor windows. He looked like he was smiling. She stared back at him, her face trying to throw back all the hate she felt, to make him feel it, trying to kill him all over again.
Who was this? Why was he in the house? What the fuck had happened here before they moved in? She decided she had to find out.
She rocked Joey in her lap. His cries were still wild, his nose, eyes, and ears still trickling blood. Then he coughed. She'd known that was coming. He'd cried himself sick. He leaned up and coughed again, a great, hacking cough, reaching down into his core and bringing up a wad of blood that flew from his mouth, hit the grass with a splash. She looked up at the window again and the man was gone. But the house itself stared back at her now and she realized, while the evil may be concentrated on the third floor, it had really penetrated every board and pane of glass, it was in the sheetrock, in the framing, the shingles on the roof.
The house loomed in front of her, daring her to re-enter.
She wondered if the priest had seen anything.
And what was taking so long?
Please hurry, she thought, I don't know if Joey can keep going. Please finish so it will all go away.
Joey hacked up another wad of blood, some of it dribbling down his chin. He was in pain, she could tell.
"Christ." She hugged him tighter. What else could she do? Take him to the hospital? For what, upsetting an already angry ghost? How could they treat that? She had to hold out until the priest was done.
And what if it doesn't stop? What then? How do you tell Jack his son bled out while you sat in the back yard and watched it?
"Please finish," she said again.
He stopped crying, leaned up out of her lap, onto his knees, and retched, a violent surge from his gut that brought a wave of vomit and blood all over the grass. It steamed and the smell hit Liz like a fist.
She looked at the house again.
Everything looked different.
It was just a house.
The priest was coming out the back door, smiling. Joey was asleep on the grass, the puddle of vomit inches from his head. She looked at the third floor window, but it was empty.
Was it over? Finally?
She wiped away the blood from Joey's ears and eyes.
The priest came over and said, "Is that your son?"
"Yes."
"Oh, is he okay?"
"He wasn't feeling good. I think the heat was getting to him. Got a nosebleed, then he threw up. I think he's okay now."
"Yeah, the summers in these parts aren't kind."
"I've noticed."
She picked him up. His head rested on her shoulder. The priest noticed the birthmark under his chin.
"That's a nasty scar he's got."
"No," she said. "It's just a birthmark, really."
"Oh? Well, it certainly is a strange one, then."
“Yes,” she agreed. Then she noticed the priest trying not to look over Liz’s shoulder and when she glanced back she saw the old naked woman duck behind her curtain again.
Liz laughed.
“Well, that’s something you don’t see every day, isn’t it?” he said.
“You do around here,” Liz said. “She’s always standing there like that. I have no idea why.”
They shared a chuckle and Liz carried Joey back to the house. She laid him on the couch, then turned to thank the priest. He said it was his pleasure. They talked another few minutes before he remembered another appointment.
"I hope you and your family have many good years here," he said, walking to the door.
"Me too," Liz said. "And thanks again. I'm sure we'll be very happy here."
"God bless," he said. He walked out.
"Goodbye."
She closed the door and turned around to look at her house. Was it over? Had the blessing worked? She went up to the second floor, stood in the middle of the main room, and waited.
Nothing. She went to the third floor, stood up there a few minutes. She had to make herself stand still. She would probably be nervous coming up here for awhile. But she did it and she heard nothing, felt nothing.
Am I alone? she wondered. She thought she just might be.
"Thank God," she said out loud.
She took another look at the empty third floor, wondering what they'd put up here once the house was done. They really had more room than they needed.
We'll think of something, she thought as she went back down to the first floor.
She got a washcloth from the bathroom and wet it to wipe Joey's face. He was deep in sleep on the couch. Would he even remember any of it when he woke up? She hoped not.
She put the bloody rag in the dirty clothes, then put those in the washer.
She sat on the couch at Joey's feet, leafing through one of her decorating books from the library, at ease for the first time in weeks. Jack would be home in a few hours. She decided to enjoy the peace and solitude for the first real time since they moved in.
Joey slept. Liz relaxed.
Chapter Nine
In the two weeks that followed the blessing, Liz had finished three rooms on the second floor. Two actually, but she was nearly done with the dining room. She worked through the afternoons, setting up three fans on the second floor, while Joey played in the main room or took his nap.
The main room had gone quickly once she'd gone back to work on it. She wondered if Jack had even noticed she'd stopped. But it didn't matter now. The room was done, as was the bathroom, and now she was working on the dining room. Only the kitchen and study up here left to do, then it would be time to decide what to do with the th
ird floor.
Jack had suggested closing off the first floor from the rest of the house, put a wall up down there and add a door to the end of the hall at the side of the house. They could rent it out and the Kitches could live on the top two floors.
"It's not like there's not plenty of room for us up there. There are four bedrooms on the third floor and only three of us. And you and I share a room. What do you say?"
Liz had nodded at his idea, said it was something to think about, but hadn't really considered it.
No matter how long she went without hearing a thump or seeing a blurry figure pass down the hallway, she didn't know if she could bring herself to sleep up there. A hundred psychics could come through, tell her the house was clean, and she wouldn't be able to do it. She knew it like she knew the sun would set at dusk.
But it really was an awful lot of room. More than they needed.
"Forget it, " she said, turning away from her thoughts, and back to the wallpaper.
This would be a beautiful room when it was finished. All they needed now were people to impress with it. All this time in Angel Hill and still they hadn't made any friends. There was the guy at work, Charley, Jack talked to. But as of yet, at work was the only time they talked.
Jack had mentioned going to Charley's house some time to play guitar, but mention it was all he'd done. When the second floor was done, they would have to invite Charley and his family, if he had any, over for dinner.
She looked back through the door connecting the dining room to the main room. Joey was lying on his back, Superman flying above him, crashing down into the floor above Joey's head. Liz lost her concentration and the sheet of wallpaper she held fell back over her. She wrestled with it and climbed up a couple rungs on the ladder to reach the ceiling.
She was papering the last wall when she checked on Joey again and saw he was asleep in the middle of the floor. She'd trained one of the fans on him, but from here she could see he was still sweating.
Liz had taken a break from working and gone downstairs. Joey was asleep and would be, she figured, for a while longer. Joey woke up minutes after Liz was gone.
He climbed off the floor and looked around, wondering where everyone was, including himself. He wasn't used to waking up in the middle of the floor. After a few seconds, he realized where he was. They'd lived in the house over a month, but anything other than the first floor was still alien to him. He moved around the room, looking at Liz's decorations, not forming much of an opinion about them.
It looks a lot different, he thought.
A lot different than what?
He didn't know. He went into what would be the study. It was dark, the shadows keeping it cooler than the main room. This was their bedroom, he thought.
Whose?
The parents, the ones who had the house before us. Their bedroom was in here.
How did he know?
They'd told him, the voices. He hadn't heard them in a while, but they used to tell him things. And this was the parents' bedroom. The kids' rooms were upstairs. Up there was where all the bad stuff happened.
Joey went to the bottom of the stairs and stared up. He listened, but there was nothing. He wondered what had happened up there. And why didn't he hear them anymore? Not that he wanted to, but he had noticed, and was curious.
He took a step up and looked overhead to the high ceiling and then the top rail. Even though he didn't feel he was being watched anymore, he was still scared in the way children are of such places. Looming, dark, empty. He stepped back down and went downstairs, walking into the living room, rubbing his eyes.
"Did you just wake up?" Liz asked.
"Uh-huh," he said, nodding and climbing onto the couch beside her.
"Are you hungry?"
He shook his head and turned to the television. It wasn't cartoons, nor did it look like it was going to be. Liz was watching something Joey had no interest in. A few minutes passed before he got off the couch and went into his room.
"Tell me about the lizards," Jack said.
Charley smiled and nodded. "I remember that one. I was here for it."
"So what happened?"
"Just what the book said. One morning, everyone woke up and found lizards. They were just wandering around, through peoples' yards, under cars. They filled the streets so badly, you couldn't drive anywhere without crushing hundreds of them." He finished his TV dinner lunch, wiped his mouth with a paper towel.
"Where'd they come from?" Jack's lunch was only half-eaten. The Outsider's Guide to Angel Hill lay open in front of him. He was going through the chapters, picking them at random, and asking for more details.
"I don't know. We went to sleep one night with no lizards. We woke up the next day with them." Charley had gone over three Angel Hill stories with him and was beginning to regret telling him about the book.
"What kinds were they?"
"All different kinds. They counted about sixty different types, just from the corpses. I don't know the names of any of them, but I remember seeing Angel Hill covered in them. It was pretty freaky."
"I'd imagine so," Jack said. He took a bite and noticed it wasn't as warm as it should be.
"It's getting cold."
“Yeah, it is. But they never figured out where they came from?"
"Nope. But, hell, they only spent about a week on it anyway. After that, they gave up, chalked it up to another Angel Hill Occurrence and forgot about it."
"See," Jack said, trying not to laugh, "this is why you're full of shit. I've been through this book and through it again--I haven't actually read all of it, but I've flipped through it--and I've found, maybe, two or three stories in here that are even remotely plausible. I can't believe thousands of lizards showed up in town one day and no one ever knew why."
"I can't help that. But I remember what I saw. If you're not gonna believe me, why do you keep asking me to tell you about them?"
Jack tossed his lunch, having decided it was too cold to eat and would be less trouble ditching instead of reheating it.
"Because I'm curious. I'll admit that. But I'm curious about details that might not be in the book. You were there for the lizards, you say. What else happened that day, or the day before, that's not in the book? Something else you remember in retrospect that might have possibly explained it."
"Nothing," Charley said. "The book's got all the details. He was very thorough. I can't tell you why, it just was."
"Nothing just is," Jack said. "Everything's got a logic behind it."
"Yeah, you'd think so, wouldn't you?" Charley said. "Forget it. Let's talk about something else. We've still got a few minutes left."
"Like what?"
"How about guitars?"
"That I can do."
They spent the next ten minutes doing just that.
Liz washed shampoo from Joey's hair while the boy squeezed his eyes shut, held his hands tight over them and kept asking, "How many more?" each time she dumped a cup of water over his head.
"Just one more." She wiped his face and told him to look up. She wiped off his neck, clearing shampoo bubbles away from his ragged pink birthmark. She got him out, dried him off, and sent him to bed.
"How about I take the day off working on the house tomorrow and we go have some fun?"
"Are we going to go see Uncle Allen?"
Liz laughed. "No, I don't think we will. He's all the way in Texas."
"So, how far is that?"
"Do you remember when we came to Angel Hill? When we were in the car all that time and driving all day and you ended up falling asleep?"
Joey nodded. "I like driving a lot. We can go see him."
"We might go down for Christmas, how's that? But not tomorrow. I was thinking maybe the park. Or maybe we could take Dad to work and keep the car and just go see what else we've got to do here."
"Yeah," Joey said. "Let's see if they've got horses."
"Horses, eh?" She covered him with a sheet and turned on his fan.
&nb
sp; "They used to keep horses in the house a long time ago."
"They kept them in the barn."
"Not this house. They used to keep them inside."
"Okay, Joe," she said, kissing his forehead and turning out his light. "Good night. We'll think of something good to do. Sweet dreams."
She closed the door and went back to the living room, wondering what he meant by saying they kept horses in the house. First, what did it mean and second, where did he hear it? Did he make it up? Of course he did, he's only six.
She woke up later in the dark, nighttime heat just as stifling as afternoon heat. She thought, We've got to get an air conditioner if nothing else. This is insane, this heat. Then she heard footsteps in the hall. She froze, listening. Not again, please, she thought. Now what do I do? Dammit!
Jack came back to bed, climbed in next to her and went back to sleep. Now that she saw it was only Jack, she realized she could hear the toilet running down the hall. She'd heard it flush, had heard the bathroom door open. But with the heat and her exhaustion, she hadn't paid any attention. She let her body relax again and tried to get back to sleep through the sweltering crap of Angel Hill summer. She drifted off finally, thinking, We've got to get an air conditioner. Jack's just gonna have to do some overtime or something to pay for it. How can he sleep in this? Then she, too, was gone.
When she woke up next, she was freezing.
The dark told her it was still the middle of the night, the sound of the fan told her it was still summer. She leaned her head up, peering at the foot of the bed. The fan was oscillating, but Liz felt as if ten of them were trained on her. She squeezed in closer to herself, then backed up to steal some of Jack's heat. She yawned and watched her breath vanish over her head. Why was it so cold? Why was it this cold? Even with half a dozen fans, it still had to be a good eighty-five degrees outside. She shouldn't be this cold.
The Third Floor Page 11
