by Ed
"Well," she whispered, "I'd rather it wasn't an old funeral home, but...it'll be all right, you know that as well as I do."
"Oh, yeah, I know. I'm not worried about"—a small, breathy chuckle—"ghosts, or anything, but what about Stephen? He can't sleep on the sofa forever."
"Don't worry about him. Like you said, he's been under a lot of stress. Once he's been here a while, he'll get over it. And when Michael gets back, he'll forget all about it. I think he misses Michael. Must be kinda tough on him to see his brother go off to Grandma's for the summer while he has to stay behind and be sick."
Hearing a slight noise, Carmen pulled away and turned around to see Stephen standing just outside the living-room doorway rubbing his sleepy eyes. His tank top and boxers seemed too big for his bony frame and his dark-blond hair sprouted in every direction.
"You guys call me?" he asked, voice hoarse and thick with sleep.
Carmen went to him, smiling. "Uh-uh. I was just saying goodbye to your dad. He's on his way back to New York."
"When're you coming back?" Stephen asked through a yawn.
"I'll be back at the end of the week." He went to Stephen's side and gave his frail shoulder a squeeze. "Take care of your mom while I'm gone. And do what the doctors tell you, okay?"
Stephen nodded. "Drive safe."
"No other way, kiddo."
Al and Carmen said their good-byes, then Al was gone.
Stephen headed for the kitchen and Carmen followed, hoping she wouldn't be able to hear Al drive away in there. Stephen got a glass of water and Carmen sat down to her breakfast again. Suddenly, she was no longer hungry; in fact, she wasn't sure she'd been hungry in the first place.
"You want some breakfast, Stephen?" she asked. "I just made this for myself, but I don't really want it." She got up and Stephen took her seat, still looking as though he were half asleep. "You awake enough to eat?"
He shrugged.
Standing behind him, Carmen put her hands on his shoulders and said, "I'm gonna take a shower, okay?"
He nodded, staring at the food.
As she started out of the kitchen, Stephen said, "Were you talking about me, or something?"
Carmen turned to him. "Maybe. Why?"
"I thought I heard...well, somebody called me. Woke me up."
"You probably just heard me mention your name." But, she wondered, what else did he hear? She hoped he hadn't heard her talking with Al about the house. "Well, I'm hitting the showers. You can watch TV if you want, just don't wake Peter and Stephanie. It's still early yet."
Carmen went into the bathroom and closed the door, but didn't start the shower right away. She sat on the edge of the tub, frowning, hoping Stephen had not overheard them talking about the house's background. He didn't need that little tidbit for his imagination to chew on.
"He would've said something," she breathed to herself. "Yeah, he would've said something if he'd heard that."
She stood, turned on the shower, and began to undress.
Stephen stared down at the breakfast through bleary eyes. The sausages looked like bruised, swollen fingers and the sight of the fried eggs—although he usually loved eggs for breakfast—made him wince slightly. He pushed away from the table and stood with his glass of water. He put the glass on the kitchen counter, and looked out the window. It was another white Colonial, just like their house and the house on the other side of them. Their new house...with new neighbors...in a new town...even a new state...all because of him.
Stephen supposed it was easier on everyone to be close to the hospital so they wouldn't have to make such a long trip every day, but still...he felt as if he'd uprooted his entire family from New York and transplanted them here in Connecticut all by himself.
As if that weren't bad enough, he hated the house to which his illness had brought them. It was an attractive house, yes, with lots of space and a room all his own. But it was a room he did not want.
He knew Mom and Dad didn't believe him when he said the house was evil. He knew that, when he said he didn't want to sleep in that room downstairs, at least not alone, they humored him because he was sick. They didn't really say anything like that, of course, but he knew that was what they thought; he could tell by the way they'd talked to him and looked at him when he'd told them.
But that didn't change anything. He still felt—knew—that there was something wrong with the house, that there was something bad about it, he just wasn't sure what that something was...and he wanted to find out.
He'd known the moment he went downstairs to see his room for the first time. He'd seen nothing, he'd smelled nothing other than a musty old basement odor, but something had been wrong enough down there to spontaneously raise goose bumps all over the upper half of his body. Something about the very air in his room had stiffened the fine hair on the back of his neck and had given him an odd queasy sensation, as if he were about to become nauseated. The room had a bad, dark feeling about it...a secret feeling.
And he'd had the unshakable feeling that he was not alone, that he was being watched, that if he were to spin around, he would find someone—or something—in the room with him, moving toward him silently, smoothly...rapidly. He had spun around...but nothing was there. The fact that he saw nothing did not comfort him, however. His heartbeat quickened, his palms grew clammy, and his breaths came quickly. He'd gone back upstairs, fighting the urge to run, and had told—or tried to tell— his mother.
Of course, she hadn't believed him. But that didn't mean it wasn't so.
There was something very bad in the house, something bad about it.
And Stephen's family had moved into it because of him.
He stared out the window wondering what kind of people the neighbors were, wondering if they had any kids his age...wondering if they knew there was something wrong with the house.
Early morning sunlight shone through the treetops and dappled the ground outside with a half-hearted brightness, as if it were still too early to turn the light on high.
Stephen turned from the window and left the kitchen with a long yawn, wondering if there was anything good on television so early in the morning. In the hall, he could hear the shower hissing from the bathroom, could hear his mother's voice briefly, talking to herself the way she sometimes did when she dropped the soap or grabbed the wrong shampoo. He walked along the staircase and had started into the living room when a strong male voice called, "Stephen?"
He jerked to a halt, frozen in place. The voice had not come from the bathroom, and certainly not from the shower. His mother's voice could never sound that deep, anyway.
It was a man's voice.
"Stephen?"
He turned around slowly. Waited.
"Stephen?"
The voice sounded impatient.
It wasn't very loud, but it was crystal clear.
"Come here, Stephen!"
Slowly, cautiously, he walked back along the staircase, a trembling hand on the banister, toward the bathroom.
"Stephen?"
He stopped and looked over the banister at the stairs that led down to the basement...down to his room.
The voice was coming from down there.
Insistent. Losing patience with him.
The shower continued to hiss.
"Stephen, come down here."
Mouth open, thin, white-knuckled hands clutching the banister, eyes widening slowly, he leaned a little farther over. His mouth became cotton-dry almost instantly.
"Stephen?" A laugh now, low and conspiratorial, a secret laugh. "Come down here, Stephen, you've gotta see this."
He turned to the bathroom. He could still hear the shower.
"Come here, Stephen. I want to show you something."
Peter and Stephanie were sound asleep in their rooms, and neither of them could sound like that, anyway.
There was no one downstairs. At least, there wasn't supposed to be anyone downstairs.
He tried to move forward to the top of the stairs so he cou
ld look down to the landing below but he felt goose bumps rising on his skin and the vague churning in his stomach that he'd felt when he'd gone downstairs before and—
"Stephen?"
He thought of the feeling he'd had down there, the feeling of being watched, of not being alone and, wondering if he'd been right, wondering if whatever had been down there just a couple days ago had declined to speak up, he began to walk backward instead, stumbling as he turned around and went into the living room and sat on the sofa.
Fainter now with distance, but no less distinct. "Stephen, come down here."
He leaned forward and slapped his hands over his ears, but it didn't help; the voice was muffled, but still there. He stood, went to the television and turned it on, turned the volume up louder than he normally would, then returned to the sofa and curled up beneath the blankets, pulling them up over his ears.
On the television, Bugs Bunny was arguing with Daffy Duck about whether it was rabbit season or duck season...and downstairs, the voice continued to call him.
"Rrrabbit season!"
"Stephen?"
"Duck season."
"Stephen, come down here."
"Rrrabbit season!"
"I said come here, Stephen."
"Duck—"
"What're you doing?” A voice, in the room with him now. Stephen gasped and jerked the covers all the way over his head and clenched his eyes shut. The television was silenced suddenly and the voice said, "I told you not to wake the kids."
Silence. "Stephen? What's the matter?" He realized, through the pounding of his heart in his ears, that it wasn't the voice. Something was different. He pulled the covers down slowly and opened his eyes to see his mother standing over him in her blue terrycloth robe with her hair wrapped in a towel.
She was frowning, but the anger was gone from her voice when she spoke again: "You okay?"
He nodded.
"Why'd you have the television so loud?"
"It didn't wake them."
"I know, but why?”
He licked his lips, and tried to hide the trembling in his hands as he thought of something to say. He finally settled on the truth. "I heard, um...a voice."
"A voice? You mean, one of the kids?"
He shook his head. "A...man."
"Oh, it was probably me, hon, I was talking to myself in—"
He shook his head insistently and said, "No, it came from downstairs. And it was calling me down there. Calling my name."
She stared at him a moment, hands on her hips, then seated herself on the edge of the sofa. "Well, that's just silly. Isn't it?"
He didn't respond.
"Well, think about it, Stephen. There's nobody down there."
Again, no response.
"Right? I mean, I was in the shower and the kids're asleep...I think. Anyway, we know there's no one downstairs. Right?"
"It...wasn't a person. And it was t-trying to get me to"—his voice quaked for a moment and a chilly feeling crawled over his shoulders—"to go down there."
"What was?"
"Whatever's down there."
"There's nobody down there, Stephen."
"I said...it's not...a person.”
Mom's frown deepened and she closed her eyes a moment, at a loss. Then: "I thought you said you heard a voice."
"Yeah, but...I know there's nobody down there. But I also know that there's something wrong with this house...something evil. I think there was a—"
"Oh, stop it, Stephen! We talked about this. Houses aren't evil. And there's no such thing as ghosts and voices don't come out of nowhere."
Stephen looked away from her, frustrated and still a little frightened...because what if no one ever believed what he knew to be true?
"This house is evil," he whispered, staring at the back of the sofa. "I don't know why, but it is.”
His mother released a long quiet sigh, then said, "You know what I think's wrong here? I think you were lying in here a while ago, maybe half asleep, and you overheard your dad and me talking in the hall. Talking about the house."
Stephen looked at her again, curious. "What about the house?"
"Well...if I tell you, you have to promise you'll keep it to yourself. I do not want Peter and Stephanie to know. You're older, I think you can take it. In fact, it'd probably be best if you didn't tell Michael, either. Your dad and I wanted to keep quiet about it altogether, but I think it would explain your—"
"What!" Stephen asked impatiently, sitting up on the sofa.
"Well, this house...before we moved in...it used to be a funeral home."
Stephen's eyes widened.
A funeral home...
Somehow, it sounded right. Almost as if...well, it was impossible, of course, but it was almost as if Stephen had sort of known it all along, known it without actually knowing it. It sounded so right that Stephen found himself nodding slightly. "But it's not a funeral home anymore," his mother continued. "And, besides, no one actually died here, the bodies were just brought here to be prepared for burial. Nothing bad happened here, the bad things—I mean, the people dying —all happened somewhere else. So, see, there's nothing that—"
"What was downstairs?"
She blinked, stared at him. "What?"
"I mean, did they do it downstairs? All that stuff with the bodies?" "Well, I'm not sure yet, but I think..." Her voice softened. "Yes. I think they did."
Another slight nod from Stephen.
"What I'm saying is that there's nothing evil here. Okay? You believe me?"
He looked at her again but said nothing, did nothing. He knew...he knew he was right. What his mother had told him had not reassured him. It had merely convinced him.
3
Settling In
As the first week passed, the house began to look orderly as well as occupied. Carmen spent a good deal of her time seeing to it that the furniture was arranged just so. She took great care in hanging pictures and paintings and unpacking delicate knickknacks, some much older than she, and placing them in all the right rooms on all the right shelves.
It began to look like a home, like their home. The only things missing were Al...and Stephen's health.
She talked to Al every evening, but it simply wasn't the same. She wanted him home, with her, where his mere presence would remove some of the weight from her shoulders.
Stephen was continuing with his cobalt treatments. She took him to the hospital every day and waited for him on one of those antiseptic vinyl-covered sofas. He was always drained after undergoing the radiation, and he complained that the smell and taste of it—harsh and metallic and dry—clung to him throughout the day.
One afternoon, Carmen decided she didn't like the old Venetian blinds on the windows. They were keeping out the sunlight. At least, she thought it was the blinds.
The room seemed rather dim, although there was a lot of bright direct sunlight outside. But when she raised the blinds all the way, it made no difference. It would probably be a good idea to get rid of the blinds anyway. She'd have to talk to Mr. Lawson about it first. She remembered her promise to herself on the first day in the house: to wash the windows. So she put on her scrub clothes and went to work.
As she washed, Stephen came in with his friend Jason. She was happy to see Stephen make a friend so quickly. She'd been worried that the move would make him more introverted than the cancer already had, and she thought a new friend might help his spirits and—who knows?—maybe even his health. About the only time Stephen had gotten out of the house in the last few days was when she took him to the hospital for his treatment every morning. Now that he had a friend, she hoped he would stay out more, be a bit more active, and get plenty of fresh air.
Jason lived down the street. He was Stephen's age, a redheaded, stocky boy, full of nervous energy, but seldom smiling and with eyes as nervous as his fidgety hands and feet.
"What're you guys up to?" Carmen asked amiably as she knelt before the window, scrubbing up and down.
&
nbsp; "We're going downstairs," Stephen replied from the hall.
Her hand stopped moving on the glass and she stood. "Uh, Stephen...you wanna come here a second?"
Their footsteps stopped on the oak floor and their voices whispered, then one set of footsteps started back and Stephen appeared in the living room.
"Yeah?" he said, his eyebrows rising high over his shadowy, deep-set eyes.
"I thought you didn't like it downstairs," she whispered.
"I don't. But only when I'm alone."
"And you're going down there with Jason?"
He nodded. "I told him what the house used to be and" — Stephen grinned—"he thinks it's cool. So we're going downstairs to look around."
"I wish you wouldn't go around telling people about the house, Stephen. I know I said it wasn't evil, but...well, I don't think it's exactly cool, either."
"Don't worry, Mom, I won't."
He turned and left the room, and she heard their anxious voices and clattering footsteps fade down the stairs.
First it's evil and we have to leave, she thought. Now it's cool and he's showing it off.
Carmen smiled with relief as she went back to work. Stephen was already starting to get over his fear of the house.
Friday moved at an arduously slow crawl and Carmen thought the evening, when Al would come home for the weekend, would never arrive. She'd just finished making lunch for the kids— sandwiches and chips with milk and a variety of fruits—when Mr. Lawson dropped by.
"Just thought I'd stop by and see how you're coming along," he said with a smile after Carmen invited him in. Standing in the hall, he looked from the living room to the dining room and nodded. "Looks very nice. Looks like you've settled in."
"Not quite, but almost," Carmen said. She sounded a little distracted because she was thinking to herself that this would be a good time to get a few more questions answered.
"Well, is there anything you need?" he asked. "Anything I can do?"
"As a matter of fact, there is. Could you come downstairs with me?"
Mr. Lawson nodded and followed her down the hall, down the stairs to the room that would be Michael's when he returned, through Stephen's room, across the concrete floored hall and into the room that contained the chain-and-pulley device and the funneled pit.
