While a toy commercial played on the television, Joey moved toward the door, listening into the hall, hoping to hear his dad coming down the stairs.
But dad comes in the back door.
And the noise came again, right above him.
Liz was taking a bath, dad was gone. Joey was right here.
The man was upstairs. Or the girl. Or one of the other kids.
And whomever it was up there, they'd find him, because they'd been looking for him since they moved here and they'd find him sooner or later.
Justice League came back on. Down the hall, Liz splashed water.
Joey stepped into the hall. Another noise came right above him again. He moved toward the stairs, and the noise followed.
The best way to get over something that's scaring you is just to face it.
Was Liz right? He had the feeling she'd seen things, too. And she didn't act afraid. Had something happened to her here and she faced it and now she was fine?
Joey went to the stairs and listened.
He didn't hear anything this time, so he stepped up, quietly so Liz wouldn't hear. She'd wonder what he was doing and he didn't want to tell her. If he was wrong and she hadn't seen anything in the house, he didn't want to tell her what was up there because ghosts were scary and he didn't want her to be scared like he was.
He could hear her humming a song in the bathroom as he crept up. He got to the front door landing and turned to look up. The noise had been right above him, so if there were anything up here, it would be on this floor. But he couldn't make himself keep going.
He was trying to be brave and face it like Liz said, but his legs wouldn't go any further.
He looked up the stairs. The lights were on. He stood on his tiptoes, but couldn't see very far past the top of the stairs. He listened again, but still didn't hear anything.
He turned to go back downstairs, and then he heard it.
Something creaked above him. Not on the second floor, higher. Joey moved on the landing so he could see between the railings, up to the third floor.
He dreaded what might be staring back at him, but Liz said "Most of the time, you realize that whatever it is, it’s really nothing that can hurt you."
I hope not, Joey thought.
He looked up, focused on the dark, heard the creak again, and saw the boots moving back and forth in a tiny circle.
Something whispered "Adam," into his ear, and Joey screamed and bolted down the stairs, tripped in his rush, and fell face-first to the floor, tumbling over and over until he came to hit the back of his head on the hardwood hallway floor.
Liz heard the thumping, and plunged her head under the water to keep the ghosts out. If she couldn't hear them, their noise wouldn't bother her and if the noise didn't bother her, she might pass five seconds without thinking about them. She was already paranoid enough half the time just undressing, knowing someone or something could be watching and she wouldn't know for sure.
She'd heard the television in the front room and wondered if Joey'd heard the thumping on the stairs. She was pretty sure he knew what was in the house, too, but she also thought he was trying to keep the reality of it out of the front of his mind. He was like Jack sometimes in that, if he didn't think about it, it wasn't there. Except Joey wasn't the straight-arrow thinker Jack was. Not yet. He still had his perfect childish logic where anything he thought could be real.
Liz decided those few seconds under water were enough--God forbid she open her eyes and find something dead grinning down at her--and she sat up, swept water and hair away from her face, and rubbed her eyes with the rag.
She'd better get dressed before Jack got home so she could grab the food and eat as soon as he walked in the door.
She unplugged the tub, dried herself, and dressed in a pair of sweat shorts and a T-shirt. She ran the brush through her hair and cleaned the water from her ears. She opened the door to head toward the living room, and froze in horror when she saw Joey lying unconscious on the floor.
"Oh, Jesus Christ!" she yelled. She leaned to wake him up, then remembered something about not moving someone who's unconscious in case they've broken something.
She ran to the phone instead to call 911. What would she tell them? That she wasn't watching her six-year-old son? That in her negligence he'd fallen down the stairs? Was that even what had happened? Yes, she told herself.
Shit, she thought. And I heard it happen, too.
But you thought it was ghosts, she heard Jack saying. How stupid are you?
I'm sorry, I just heard noises, I hear them all the time, I didn't realize it was Joey.
Then maybe you're not stupid. Maybe you're crazy. Maybe that's the problem.
No, she protested. Joey's seen things, too. Ask him.
I would, but he's unconscious at the bottom of the stairs.
Fuck, get an ambulance. She remembered, but before she could dial, Jack walked in the back door with the pizza.
"Jack," she said.
He didn't notice the look on her face and he said, "Are you starving?"
"Joey."
"Huh? I'll get him. You get the plates."
"No, Jack," she said. "Joey. He's in the hall. He fell or something, I don't know, I was taking a bath and I heard something in the hall and by the time I got out, Joey was--"
"What happened to him?" he asked, dropping the pizza on the table and rushing toward the hall. He found him at the foot of the stairs as Liz had left him and was immediately on his knees, trying to shake him awake.
"What the hell happened to him?" he yelled over his shoulder. "What happened to him?" a third time.
"I don't know," she said. "I told you, I was in the tub. I heard the television, I thought he was in the living room. I don't know what he was doing upstairs."
"Did you call an ambulance?"
"No," Liz said. He looked back at her. "I was about to when you walked in the door."
They both waited for the other one, but neither moved nor spoke.
"Well do it, then!" he shouted.
Liz jumped and ran for the phone.
While she dialed, Jack shook Joey's shoulder as if waking him up from a nap.
"Joe," he said. "You okay, babe? You alright? Did you hurt yourself? What happened, huh? You gonna get up?"
Joey's eyes fluttered and Jack wondered if he was having a seizure, but then he opened them and tried to sit up.
Jack put his hand on Joey's shoulder and kept him down.
"Don't get up, Joe. Just a second."
Joey went back down and began crying. Jack ran his hand over his son's head, through his hair, murmuring, "You're alright, Joe. I'm here. You're okay."
Liz came back and said the ambulance was on its way. Then she saw Joey was awake and asked if he was okay.
"I don't know," Jack said. "I'm hoping he's just scared. He's not bleeding anywhere I can see, at least."
Liz sighed and put her face in her hands. Jack exhaled and rubbed Joey's head.
By the time the ambulance got there, Joey's crying had calmed to a scared whimper.
They put the neck brace on him and loaded him into the ambulance. The trip to the emergency room was, for Jack and Liz, a week long. But when they got there, Joey was fine. The ER doctor, his nametag read “Owen Cambridge”, told them nothing was broken, nothing was bleeding, neither in- nor externally. Joey had a knot on his head and his body was sore. There was a bruise on his shoulder. They’d taken X-rays, but everything else was fine.
When we get home, Liz thought, he can have all the chips and cookies he wants.
When we get home, Jack thought, he can have all the Batman toys he wants.
Joey just wanted something to eat and to go to sleep.
They were going to let him stay the night. After all, he had passed out and you can never be too careful with kids. By the time he was admitted and in his own room, it was almost midnight.
Jack was going to stay, but Liz told him she would.
"It's already la
te, and you've got to work tomorrow. He's fine, so you can go home and get some sleep. If they let him go tomorrow before you go to lunch, I'll call you and let you know."
"Then I'll come and take you home then," he said.
Jack kissed his wife and son and went home. Liz asked the nurse if it was okay if Joey had a shower.
"He's been outside playing most of the day," she said.
"Of course," the nurse said, "as long as you help him."
"I will."
She led Liz and Joey to the shower, showed her the towels and the soap and left.
The shower was a stall. She stood outside while Joey washed his hair, then his body, and shut off the water. She wrapped a towel around him and drew him out.
He stood with his arms up to his chest, trying to draw himself close and keep warm, while Liz dried his hair, then moved to his face and neck, and down to his body. She knelt in front of him and dried his back and his legs. She happened to glance over and caught sight of something that made her drop the towel and back away.
Joey frowned, looking up at her, wondering what was wrong.
"Am I all done?" he asked.
She couldn't say anything, but she stared at him, into his eyes.
Joey asked, "What?"
She still didn't answer, but she managed to move a little closer.
"I'm cold. Am I done?"
"I think so," Liz said. She tossed him the towel and he wrapped it around himself. He pulled on his clothes and rubbed his eyes. Liz put the towel into a basket sitting outside the room and led Joey back to his bed.
He climbed up, got under the blanket, turned over, and was asleep within minutes.
Liz sat in the chair next to his bed, facing the window, not wanting to look at him, but still able to see his reflection in case he got up in the middle of the night and tried to touch her.
Jack turned over in bed. The sheet was drawn around him with the air conditioner on low. Still he was freezing.
He wondered, in a half-asleep way, if they had any blankets anywhere. But if they did, he was too tired to get them. He was practically asleep anyway. He'd doze off completely soon enough.
When he did, he dreamed it was a different night and Liz and Joey were home. Joey was playing in his room. Jack heard him walking around, moving toys and creaking the bed with his weight. Liz lay next to him, rubbing her hand up and down his arm.
He moved his feet to her side of the bed, rubbed his toes over her legs. She was cold, though, and he pulled them back.
"Christ, you're cold," he said.
She leaned into him and whispered in his ear, "Everyone will suffer now. You can't save yourself."
Jack jerked out of sleep and sat up, looking around, wondering what had just been touching his arm.
The room was dark, but he could see it was empty. He was just dreaming. Liz was still at the hospital with Joey. Lay back and go to sleep. Have to go to work in the morning.
He took one last glance around the room, then turned over to go back to sleep. Before he could begin to slip away, he was shivering so badly he had to get up and turn the air conditioner off altogether.
It's like winter in here, he thought.
He slid under the sheet again and pulled it close around him, burrowing into the bed, trying to force himself to sleep.
After ten minutes, he knew it was hopeless. He sat up again and scanned the room, trying to figure out where Liz had put the thin blanket they'd had on the bed when they moved here. There was no closet in their room, and Joey's closet was stuffed with toys.
He got up and looked under the bed, but the only thing under there was his guitar case. He checked the towel closet in the bathroom, but it wasn't there either. And he wasn't going to call Liz at the hospital to find out where it was. He'd just have to look for it because there was no way he was going to get to sleep if he couldn't stop shivering.
He stood in the middle of the hall, trying to decide where to look next. The sound of something pounding upstairs made up his mind for him.
“Something fell,” he told the house. He himself was a little unconvinced. A fall is a single sound. This had been over and over. Four, he thought.
He topped the flight to the second floor and the world seemed as if it had slowed down. Jack stepped off the last stair and moved toward the main room. The night hung thick about him, heavy with darkness and heat.
And I was just thinking of sleeping in my clothes to keep warm, he thought.
He checked the main room, but everything looked in place. He turned, still moving slowly, toward the kitchen. Nothing touched in there, either. The bathroom, the dining room, the study. Everything where they'd left it.
Echoes of his dream came again and he heard that voice in his ear, "Everyone will suffer now. You can't save yourself."
A shiver went up his back. He recalled Liz's talk of something in the house with them. Had she said it was strongest on the third floor? No, that wasn't Liz. It was another voice, an inner voice in his own mind. But he ignored it because there was nothing upstairs and if he started convincing himself otherwise, he'd be just as blind as Liz. The only things upstairs were the empty rooms, the broken door, and all the junk in the room behind the bathroom.
And there was his answer. Something up there had fallen. Something big, obviously, if he'd heard it downstairs. But there was so much crap up there, it wouldn't surprise him to hear it in the basement if it all fell. And Liz said the exterminator had said there were no animals in the house. Jack would bet Charley Clark's thirty-six hour paycheck the exterminator didn't check in there. He probably thought it was a closet and didn't bother.
Slack-ass, Jack thought.
He climbed the stairs again, still seeing the world crawl around him. But if everything was in slow motion now, when he reached the third floor, they were simply frozen. Everything was still. Even his breath, when he exhaled, hung suspended in the air around his head. A bead of sweat stuck to his temple, refusing to roll any further. He moved toward the bathroom, trudging across the floor as if through thick mud. He flipped on the light and everything jumped a second ahead. His breath caught and the sweat bead was gone. He looked around, fighting with himself over whether there was anyone behind him or not. His mind said No, his creeping flesh said Most definitely!
What am I doing up here? he wondered.
Trying to figure out what fell and if anything's broken, he answered. Then you're going back to bed and getting some sleep before it's too late.
He crossed the bathroom, freezing and moving back a step when the reflection that passed in front of the mirror wasn't his. He looked again, closer, blinked his eyes, and there was Jack Kitch looking back.
I'm tired, he thought.
He opened the door to the storage room and was wafted with cool air. His skin grew gooseflesh and his nose wrinkled with the smell coming from the dark.
He pressed the door back against the wall to let in more light, then peaked in. He scanned the room, the shelves, the stuff leaning against the walls. Nothing seemed out of place, but there was so much crap in here, it would be hard to tell. He searched, hoping, looking, willing something to be broken, something heavy that could have fallen from a shelf and made enough noise to be heard on the first floor. But, dammit, no matter how badly Jack wanted it, nothing in here had made that noise.
He pulled back, closed the door, and sat on the edge of the tub to think. He'd heard the noise. No, he'd heard a noise. Who was to say it came from upstairs? Who was to say it came from inside the house? No one. He'd assumed it had because of his dream, because of Liz, because of everything else in his life right then adding to his stress and wearing him down.
He went out into the middle room and everything was moving normally now. The room was hot, but the heat wasn't pressing in on him, the air didn't try to strangle him with its stillness. He stood center-room and thought, There's nothing up here but me. Liz is out of her mind and I need to stop letting her influence me because I'm alone up here,
the rest of the house is empty. It's just me.
That decided in his mind, he went to turn off the bathroom light. He caught another glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror, just a half-second flash, but it was a trick of the light and motion because Jack wasn't really beaten and bloody as the reflection suggested.
He flipped off the light, went to the stairs, and suddenly everything was again frozen. He looked behind him again, and he was still alone. But there was something touching his back. He could almost feel the individual fingers pressing and flexing on his skin.
A muscle spasm, he told himself.
The hand moved up to cup his shoulder muscle. It squeezed.
Jack was still frozen at the top of the stairs. The world had stopped around him, everything except his heartbeat which came double-time and pounding. More sweat formed on his brow, his back, under his arms, but none of it moved. The air around him stank like rot and hung thick in front of his face.
The hand on his shoulder squeezed tighter and he felt a rush of hot air against his ear. A voice was saying, "Forgive me--(pant, pant)--forgive me."
Suddenly the noise came again, that pounding, heavy, almost desperate, but not up here. Outside. Something on the roof, it sounded like.
Jack shook off the paralysis and darted down the stairs, rounding the landing and feeling the banister loosen in his grip as he used it to haul himself around the corner, then down to the first floor. He walked into the bedroom with heavy feet, slammed the door behind him, and slid into the bed. He pulled the sheet around his chin, buried his face in the pillow, squeezed his eyes shut, and stayed that way until he fell asleep. The last thing he heard was crickets outside, and nothing else that night banged upstairs, and Jack thanked God for it as he waited for sleep.
Chapter Fifteen
When Jack hadn't heard from Liz by eleven, he decided to go to the hospital at lunch anyway. It was halfway between Fett Tech and home, he could be there and back in half an hour. And if they weren’t ready to send Joey home, at least Jack could find out how he was feeling.
He found Joey alone in his room and figured Liz had gone to get him a snack or a drink.
The Third Floor Page 18
