by Ed
"Well, what I mean is," she'd said, "maybe he doesn't know what he's doing."
"He's gotten weird, but he hasn't gotten stupid."
"No, I mean...well, Father Wheatley suggested that maybe, um...maybe Stephen should get some therapy."
He barked out a couple of sharp, cold laughs. "Therapy? You know what that costs? An hour?”
"But if there's something wrong, it might be worth it."
"If there's anything wrong, it's that damned kid he hangs around with, but you think he should be able to have his friends, you think that'll help him. No. I don't believe in hiring somebody to do what a family should be able to do on its own."
"Well, so far, we haven't been about to do it on our own."
"Oh, okay, so I suppose you think that's my fault, or something?"
"I didn't say that. I'm just worried about him. There's something wrong with him, and I keep thinking there's something we should be doing. Mom says he's going through a stage, but she hasn't spent any time with him lately like we have. And how can this be a stage, he's just acting too weird, he's not even the same person anymore, and I don't think—"
"Well, I hope it is a stage," Al said, rolling over and turning his back to her. "And if it is, he'd better get through it fast, or I'm gonna kick his butt through it."
Carmen had lain awake for a long while that night, worrying about Stephen.
And now she was worrying about him once again.
But Stephen was not her only worry....
There were the voices.
They were never quite loud enough for her to be certain she'd actually heard, rather than imagined, them. They were never quite identifiable, either, though they always sounded familiar.
Sometimes they whispered her name. Sometimes they laughed at her. At other times, she thought she could hear a small child calling her from somewhere in the house when she knew she was alone. Still other times, their murmurings sounded angry, threatening. She still thought she saw things now and then, too, things that flitted around her quickly but were gone the moment she turned to them; once, she'd hurried into her bedroom to get something from her dresser and, for just an instant, she could have sworn she'd seen a figure—it appeared to be a man, but it was impossible to tell—sitting at the foot of her bed, but it was gone when she stopped and turned toward it.
Then again, it could have been Willy skittering around the house, or a squirrel chattering in the backyard, or children playing in the neighborhood, or even her own troubled imagination, which was working overtime on the possibility that Stephen did need therapy, that perhaps he was mentally ill, that maybe his relationship with Al would never heal, that Al would just go on drinking until it became a real problem and he was just as much a stranger to her as Stephen had become.
And in the middle of all her worrying, she kept remembering Stephen's words on their first day in the house:
Mom, we have to leave this house. There's something evil here...something evil...something evil...evil...
Carmen needed someone to talk to. She'd tried talking to Al, but that hadn't worked. She used to be able to talk to Stephen about almost anything, but, those days seemed to be over. Of course, there was always Tanya—if Carmen could get her to hold still long enough to have a conversation.
Ever since leaving the house in such a hurry that one evening a few months ago, Tanya had kept herself busy enough so she wouldn't be able to talk at length with Carmen. For a while, Carmen had been hurt. Then she began to get angry, wondering why she was suddenly getting such chilly treatment from her friend. It was partially her fault, though, for not pinning Tanya down and talking with her. But she hadn't done that because she was afraid to talk with Tanya. Just before leaving, Tanya had said something about seeing things in the house, about the house making her uncomfortable. Carmen missed the time they used to spend together, the talks they used to have...but she didn't want to hear Tanya's explanation for what she'd said.
She stood from the desk and went into the living room. Peter was in his bedroom napping, the others were still at school. She stood in the living room a moment, staring through the window at Tanya's house.
How bad could it be? she wondered. What could she say that would be so awful?
After checking on Peter to make sure he was still sound asleep, she went over to Tanya's.
As soon as Tanya opened the door, Carmen said, "Okay, let's sit down and talk."
"Oh, hi, Carm. Gee, you caught me at a bad time. I was just going to—"
"Really, Tanya. We need to talk. I need to talk. Please?"
Tanya stood in the doorway chewing on a thumbnail. "Something wrong?"
"That's what I'd like to know. One day you run out of my house like it's on fire and we've hardly talked to each other since. So...what's wrong? What happened?"
Tanya sighed and gave Carmen a sad smile. "Yeah, I suppose we do need to talk. C'mon in."
They sat at the small kitchen table and Tanya poured them coffee. The baby was sleeping in the living room and a talk show was playing low on a small AM radio on the table.
For a few minutes, they made nervous small talk, then Carmen asked her exactly what had happened that day she'd left the house so suddenly.
"I haven't said anything because...well, I knew how stupid I would sound," Tanya said hesitantly.
"Said anything about what? If it'll explain why you hurried away that day without any explanation, I don't care how stupid it sounds, I want to hear it."
"Well, your house...I was very uncomfortable in there. I didn't want to say anything because...well, because of what the kids had been telling you for so long, I knew how much that had bothered you, and..."
"You said you kept seeing things."
"Yeah. In the corner of my eye, like someone, or something, was hurrying through another part of the room, or the house. But there was no one there. And I felt...I just didn't feel right."
"So, you think the house really is—"
"Absolutely not, and that's exactly why I didn't want to say anything. I knew that you'd think that I thought that the house was haunted, and I don't, okay? I think...well, I just think that..."
When Tanya didn't go on for a moment, Carmen asked, "What do you think, Tanya?"
She laughed nervously. "Well, I'm not sure. It was probably just, you know, what you'd told me about what the kids had said, and the history of the house...knowing what it used to be...that's all, I'm sure that's all."
Carmen thought about that a while, sipped her coffee, lit a cigarette. "If that's all it is," she said, "then why don't you ever come over? Why have you been avoiding me?"
"Well, like I said, I was embarrassed. And I don't want to impose on you with the baby and—"
"You know it's no imposition."
"The house just makes me uncomfortable, Carmen," she sighed. "That's all. It's stupid. It's childish. But I know what it used to be and I think about what used to go on there...and it makes me uncomfortable."
"You're afraid of my house."
Tanya's sudden laughter sounded rather forced as she took her coffee mug to the sink and rinsed it.
"You are," Carmen said, following her. "You're afraid of it."
"Carmen, please stop it."
"Well, what if I told you I feel the same way sometimes? What if I told you that I see things sometimes? That I hear voices sometimes? Or that I—"
Tanya turned around suddenly and interrupted: "You're joking, aren't you?"
"Not at all. Sometimes I think I'm going nuts over there. And Stephen...well, you say he's going through a stage, but it's a stage that didn't start until right after we moved into that house."
Tanya's eyes narrowed and she whispered, "You really hear voices?"
Carmen nodded.
"So, do you think the house is...y'know, haunted?"
"I haven't let myself use that word yet and I'm not sure I want to hear myself use it. But I'd be lying if I said it hadn't crossed my mind."
"What about Al?"
Carmen shrugged. "We haven't talked about it. I don't know what he thinks—or if he has an opinion about it at all. I'm afraid he'd think I was nuts. And we've already talked about getting a therapist for Stephen, so...one in the family's enough, thanks."
Tanya leaned against the bar that separated the kitchen from the dining room. "So, what are you gonna do?"
"What can I do? I can't talk to Al, and the last thing the kids need is for their mother to tell them the house is haunted. They've heard that enough from Stephen. But I had to tell somebody. That's why I came over. It feels good to...well, spill my guts."
"Makes me feel a little better, too," Tanya chuckled. "At least I wasn't imagining things."
Carmen lit another cigarette. "I don't know. Maybe it is just imagination. Things haven't been going well over there for any of us, that's for sure. I think everyone's kind of tense. I know I am. And, like you said, the house does have a pretty strange background. That alone is creepy."
They were silent for a while. Voices droned through the ghostly static on the radio.
Suddenly, Tanya drummed her fingers on the tabletop decisively. "You ever listen to this show?" she asked, nodding toward the radio.
Carmen shook her head. "I don't think so."
"I like it better than most talk shows because they get some really interesting guests most of the time. Really bizarre guests, you know? And just the other day, they had a couple on who might be able to help you."
"What?" Carmen laughed. "Why would they be able to help me?"
"They're this married couple, see, the Warrens. And they're, well, ghostbusters, I guess. Only for real, none of that Bill Murray stuff," she laughed.
"You're kidding, right?"
"No, no, really. That's not the first time I've heard of them, either. I read an article that—" She snapped her fingers and stood. "In fact..."
She left the kitchen and Carmen heard her shuffling around in the living room. When she returned, Tanya was paging quickly through a magazine. Once she was seated, she found what she wanted, folded the magazine open and slapped it down on the table.
"There they are," she said, pointing to a photograph.
Carmen picked up the magazine and studied the man and woman on the page, half her mouth curling up in amused disbelief.
"These people? You mean, these people are"—she laughed— "ghostbusters? But they look normal."
"They are normal. You should hear them. They're perfectly normal. Pleasant, intelligent, very un-nuts."
The man and woman in the picture wore broad smiles. Both in their sixties, the man, stocky and barrel-chested, had graying hair and wore metal-rimmed glasses, and the woman had sparkling eyes and dark hair that was drawn back in a bun. They looked pleasant, warm, like someone's favorite set of grandparents. The caption read, "Demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren reside in Connecticut, but travel extensively to lecture and continue their research."
"You can take it, if you want," Tanya said. "It's a real interesting article. They talk about all the signs of a haunting, you know, like sudden changes in temperature, things moving around the house by themselves or disappearing, flashing lights—'ghostlights' they call 'em—and all kinds of stuff. They say that children and animals are usually the first to notice 'cause they're really sensitive to things like that, y'know. They tell stories about some of the cases they've worked on, too, and they—"
"Children and animals?" Carmen asked quickly.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. They sense those things a lot better than adults."
Carmen frowned and stared at her hand on the table. "Children and animals." She thought of Stephen insisting from the very beginning that there was something wrong with the house, and of—
"That dog," she whispered to herself.
"Huh? What dog?"
"Oh, um, just...remember that dog that was barking outside almost every night for a while?"
"Oh, you heard him, too, huh? Yeah, I thought I'd go crazy. Why?"
"Al finally wandered around the neighborhood one day a few weeks back until he found out who owned it and told them to keep it locked up at night. But it barked outside our house. Every night. It stood at the front corner on this side and barked like it was about to attack the wall."
Tanya cocked her head and frowned. "Really?"
"Yeah. It only woke me a couple times—I can sleep through just about anything most of the time—so I only saw it twice. But Al—it woke him up every time, I guess. Said it always stood right there, barking...at the house."
Tanya wore a troubled expression as she stared thoughtfully at Carmen for a while. Then she tapped a finger on the picture of the Warrens and said, "I think you should call them."
"Call them? Why? I mean, what would I say? I was just"—she laughed—"just making an observation, is all."
"What could it hurt? They just live over in Monroe. They have a museum there at the house, they hold lectures and teach classes there on demonology, and—well, it's all in the article. Take it, read it. You could at least ask them what they think of your situation."
Another laugh. "You know what Al would do if I he knew I called a couple of ghostbusters to tell them our house might be haunted? He'd pitch a fit."
"He doesn't have to know, does he?"
She scanned one column of the article, thinking. "No, I don't think so. I'm sure this just...well, I've been stressed out lately and...it's just me, Tanya, just us. Things are pretty tense with us these days, that's all."
"Is anything wrong?"
"Oh, nothing serious. I don't think, anyway."
"Well, at least take the magazine with you and read the article."
"Yeah, sure. Sounds interesting."
Carmen did take the magazine home with her, but, instead of reading it, she dropped it on top of a stack of other magazines beneath an end table in the living room. But she did not forget about it. Not quite...
Carmen was not the only one who had been giving a lot of thought to what Stephen had said that first day in the house. Al had been haunted by the boy's words, haunted the way the ghost of a murder victim might haunt its killer: with cruel and dogged persistence.
So he drank more. He was aware of it, and he didn't like it, but he didn't know what else to do. Sleep did not come easily at night, and neither did waking up in the morning. It was difficult keeping his mind on his work during the day and when he got home in the evening, he was almost too wound up and rundown just to hold the simplest conversation. So, some beers seemed to be the best solution.
All because of some phantom music at night, a damned barking dog (until a couple weeks ago, anyway), vibrations in the bed, and Stephen's claim that the house was evil—combined with what the house used to be.
And, of course, there were the disturbing changes in Stephen. Al didn't even like to look into the boy's eyes anymore; they were the cold eyes of a threatening stranger and they made Al's neck hairs bristle.
It wasn't just his eyes, though. The sound of his laughter coming up the stairs when he was alone in his room was unnerving, and his quiet mumblings as he walked along the hall. He didn't even spend as much time with Jason as he used to, and they had been inseparable. Jason still came over, they still went downstairs together and listened to that music. Sometimes Al caught them exchanging glances or whispering to one another in a way that made him think they shared some unhealthy secret.
One evening, the whole family had been watching television in the living room when Stephen had surprised them by coming in and joining them. He sat on the floor in the corner behind them and folded his knees up against his chest.
No one said anything to him; they just exchanged quick, surprised glances, then turned their attention back to the television.
Then he'd started mumbling to himself.
They'd ignored it at first—although Al had found that very difficult—but it continued.
His words were indistinguishable, his voice a low, throaty drone punctuated occasionally by a soft chuckle
. All the while, his distant eyes remained locked on the television screen.
Al's right hand began to squeeze the bottle of beer tighter and tighter until—
"Will you stop that goddamned mumbling!" Al shouted. "What the hell is wrong with you? You're acting like a crazy person, a sick person! Now, will you shut the hell up or go to your goddamned room!"
Everyone else in the room had stiffened at AFs shouting. Stephen just sat there a few moments longer, stared at the television, and continued to mumble to himself. Then, he stood and said quietly, "Okay." He left the room without looking at anyone, his lips twitching into an icy smirk as he passed Al.
They heard his footsteps as he went down the stairs...his footsteps and his quiet laughter.
Al hated it—Stephen's mumbling, his own shouting—but he didn't know what to do about it and had no idea where it had come from. It was so foreign. Their family had been so quiet and content before.
He kept hoping that it would pass, that it would just go away and things would be as they had always been.
Until then, he would do his best to ignore it.
The day Carmen had talked with Tanya about the house, Al came home from work feeling the way he usually felt—wrung out. He was looking forward to a good dinner and a few relaxing beers.
That was not what awaited him.
When he walked through the front door, he heard Carmen crying. He stepped into the dining room to find her seated in one of the chairs from the dining-room set; it had been turned to face the doorway to the kitchen. She was leaning forward, elbows on her thighs, chin resting in her palms with her hands over her cheeks as she stared into the kitchen and sobbed.
"Carm?"
She jerked upright and cried out in shock.
"What's the matter?" he asked, unable to hide his annoyance.
Trying to catch her breath, she wiped her eyes, then pointed into the kitchen. She tried to speak, but only sobbed again.
Al walked over to the doorway and looked into the kitchen. White chunks of crockery were scattered over the floor amid a pool of dried, sticky-looking maroon-colored juice and thick chunks of some unidentifiable substance that appeared to have crawled over the linoleum.
"What happened?" Al asked.
