“Come on,” she said, afraid the sound indicated that the twisted and forgotten hallway could no longer endure the stress of their intrusion. But as she guided Garrett to the door, something else occurred to her. Although she had not realized it before, it struck her suddenly that the creaking, now so immediate and menacing, was the same sound which had awakened her the night before.
Given the creaking had started only after they had entered the hallway, she wondered if the previous night these sounds had also been caused by some sudden and unexpected stress. If this was the case, she wondered what had caused that stress. But again there came a groaning of timbers somewhere deep within the corridor and she realized they had already ventured too far, and they hastily retreated.
When they arrived back in the out-of-kilter drawing room her thoughts were in such tumult, she had to stop and collect herself. She was beginning to think Garrett was right. There was a method to Sarah Balfram’s madness, and the house did seem to be some sort of gigantic puzzle. The real question was, what was the solution to that puzzle? Was the disused corridor all that the house concealed, or did it harbor something more? And if so, what?
The discovery of the derelict hallway and bedroom had filled her with such a sense of foreboding she felt she should not waste another second before telling Stephen about it.
When they arrived downstairs, she burst into the coachmen’s waiting room, a thousand and one things ready to tumble from her mouth. But to her surprise, instead of finding Stephen, she found only a note taped to the receiver of the portable telephone:
Dear Lauren:
The telephone is acting up, so I decided to go to Clearwater Lodge to finish my calls. I will be back in a couple of hours.
Love,
Stephen
She crumpled the note in her hand. “Damn,” she murmured. But when she turned back around she saw Garrett looking at her with concern.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said, feeling it might frighten him if he knew how upset she really was.
“Then why did you say ‘damn’?”
“Because I wanted to talk to Stephen about something, and he’s gone out on an errand.”
“You mean about the part of the house we discovered?”
“No, I wanted to talk to him about what we should have for dinner tonight,” she lied.
“Oh,” he said. He started to walk away, but she stopped him.
“Garrett?”
“Yes, Mom?”
“You know the part of the house we were in just now?”
“Yes?”
“Well, I think it would be a good idea if you stayed away from it. I think it might be a little unsafe, and I don’t want you getting hurt, okay?”
“Okay, Mom.”
She breathed a sigh of relief, satisfied that she had made her point without making the forgotten hallway seem so forbidden that it became alluring to him. And after he walked away she went and sat out on the veranda to wait for Stephen.
She waited for over an hour, and when Stephen still hadn’t shown up she decided to go inside and prepare dinner. However, it wasn’t until after she and Garrett had eaten and night had fallen that she finally heard his car pull up in front of the house. She raced to the front door and opened it just as he was coming up the steps.
“My God, Stephen, where have you been?”
He looked at her quizzically. “At Clearwater Lodge. Didn’t you get my note?”
“Yes, but I thought you’d be back by now. I was getting really worried.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s just that one call seemed to lead to another and I couldn’t get away until now.”
“Well, you won’t believe what Garrett and I discovered—”
“Wait!” he said, stopping her in midsentence. “Before I do anything else, the first thing I’ve got to do is go for a swim.”
At first she thought he was kidding. “But Stephen—” He held up his hand. “No, listen, I’ve had a day like you wouldn’t believe, and for the last two hours all I’ve thought about is coming home and relaxing by taking a dip in the lake.” He started up the stairs, but then stopped. “So why don’t you come with me?”
“But what about Garrett?” she asked.
“What about him?”
“He’s in the drawing room watching television. Should I ask him if he wants to come with us?”
“Nah, let’s just the two of us go.”
She started to object, but he quickly intervened.
“Come on—you said that if I started agreeing to do more things as a family, you wouldn’t complain on those occasions when I just want the two of us to be alone. Well, this is one of those times.”
He gave her one of his beguilingly boyish smiles, and she sighed and gave in. “Okay.”
They both went upstairs and changed into their swimming suits, and when they went outside she saw that the moon had formed a ribbon of light on the lake. Stephen charged full-speed into the water and then dove in.
“Aahhh,” he said happily as he resurfaced about fifteen feet out and shook his mane of dark ringlets.
Lauren opted for a more tentative approach and started to immerse herself gingerly in the water. But then Stephen raced forward and began dragging her in.
“No, Stephen! No!” she shouted, but before she could stop him he had pulled her in. At first the water felt icy, but after she resurfaced and swam forward a few feet, it felt wonderful.
“That wasn’t fair,” she complained.
“Well, you can’t enter a lake like this by taking little baby steps. You’ve got to do it all the way.”
He disappeared under the water again and then reappeared still farther out in the lake. She was still anxious to tell him about her discovery of the forgotten hallway, and she realized she had no choice but to follow after him.
When she reached him she stopped and treaded water beside him. “Now can I tell you?”
“Well, I guess if even a moonlight swim hasn’t made you forget about whatever it is, it must be important, so go ahead.”
She told him everything, about the palindrome, about the existence of the disused hallway, and about the book they had found in Sarah Balfram’s room, and when she finished she waited expectantly for his reaction.
“You mean you found a part of the house that hasn’t been cleaned?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that really pisses me off.”
She didn’t quite understand. “What pisses you off?”
“I told Marty I wanted the entire house cleaned before we moved in. I mean, I fucking paid for the entire house to be cleaned. But from what you’re telling me it sounds like they didn’t.”
She gave a nervous and incredulous laugh. “Stephen, I can’t believe that’s all you’re upset about.”
“Why? What else should I be upset about?”
“Well, for starters I don’t think the floor in that place was very safe. I mean, you should have heard how it creaked when we walked across it.”
“Honey, the house is a hundred years old. I don’t think a few creaking floors mean we necessarily have to hang a condemned sign on the door.”
“But you should have seen the place. It looked like it was sculpted out of clay and then caught in a cyclone before it had a chance to dry.”
“I don’t see why that’s such a surprise,” he said, swimming another few feet. “I told you when we first moved in, the place is a bit strange here and there.”
Somehow she felt she wasn’t getting through to him. “No, Stephen, it’s more than strange. Don’t you hear what I’m telling you? There’s a subtle rhyme and reason to the way the house is laid out. It’s a sort of labyrinth or something. Only I think there’s more to the labyrinth than just madness. I think Sarah Balfram built the house the way she did for some very specific reason.”
“Like what kind of reason?”
“I don’t know. Like maybe she intended it to be some kind of giant puzz
le or something,” she said, feeling a little guilty about saying this after the way she had reacted when Garrett had first suggested the idea.
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Why is that so ridiculous?”
“Because if the house were some kind of giant puzzle, Marty would have told me about it.”
“But if he didn’t even know about the existence of the secret hallway, what makes you think he would know about the house being a puzzle?”
“Because the broker who rented the house would have told him.”
“Maybe the broker didn’t know.”
Her persistence in the matter nettled him. “Oh, come on, Lauren. Don’t you think if Sarah Balfram had designed the house to be some sort of grand and imposing riddle, somewhere along the line someone would know about it and would have told us by now?”
“Maybe not,” she said, also becoming a bit ruffled. “Maybe it’s something that just isn’t that commonly known. I mean, I wouldn’t have figured it out if Garrett hadn’t—”
“Garrett!” he cried. “So that’s who’s behind all of this. I should have known!”
“Listen,” she said angrily, “that kid was the first to notice there was even an inscription over the door. You certainly didn’t notice. And that kid was also the first to figure out it read the same forward as it did backward. Neither you nor I caught that one. Given his track record so far, I don’t think it’s so absurd to listen to what else he has to say.” She started to swim briskly toward the shore.
“Hey, wait a minute!” Stephen called after her. She heard him thrashing around vigorously in the water behind her, and before she knew it, he had swum up beside her. “Will you just wait a minute?” he soothed again as he reached out and playfully jiggled her shoulder with one hand. “I don’t want to fight with you, Lauren. Jesus, it seems that all we’ve been doing lately is fighting about something.” His words caused a mingling of both astonishment and remorse to pass through her as she realized he was right. “I know,” she said, looking down unhappily at the sparkling surface of the water between them.
“So look up at the stars,” he murmured as he swam around behind her. “Look at how beautiful the night is. Do you really think we should be arguing with all this beauty around us?” He put his arms around her, and for a moment it felt as if the dark waters of the lake were engulfing her. But she felt unmistakably that some sort of wall had started to form between her and Stephen.
“Yes, it is a beautiful night,” she said, hoping he did not detect the distance in her voice.
She pulled away from him and once again started toward the shore. Then suddenly she thought of something else. “Oh, by the way, did you and Marty figure out what to do about that singer you were worried about?”
“Yeah, we did.”
“What?”
“We signed him to a six-year contract with this record company I own. Only he doesn’t know I own it. He thinks we’re going to give him the big push, but we’re just going to let his career die on the vine. You know, talk him into recording songs we know are lousy. Send him on tour before he’s ready. That sort of stuff. We had to offer him an awful lot of money to get him to sign so quickly, but it was worth it. At least this way I know he’ll no longer be a threat.” He nuzzled up against her. “Pretty clever of your main squeeze, huh?”
She drew back in horror. “But Stephen, that’s terrible!”
“Why?” he asked with surprise.
“It’s just so cold-blooded, so Machiavellian. I mean, when you told me about getting that junior exec fired, that was bad enough. But this is a person’s life you’re talking about. All his hopes and dreams. Is it really so easy for you to just snuff it out like that?”
“You’re damn right it is!” he snarled. “What you just don’t seem to realize is we’re playing in the big leagues here. You got to do it to them before they do it to you. And besides, you know it’s real easy for you to point out how cold and calculating and deplorable what I’m doing is, but I don’t see you refusing any of the benefits that result from it. I mean, look around you, at this house, at the lake and the two hundred acres of land surrounding it. How the hell do you think I got it all, anyway?”
He shook his head as he calmed down a little. “Listen, I’m sorry, but it’s just a bit much for me to work my ass off out there all day and then come back and have you criticize me for it. I’ve had too rough a day to stay out here and rag with you anymore. I’m going inside and going to bed. If you want to come in with me, fine.”
And with that he turned around and swam back to the shore.
For several seconds she was too shocked by his outburst to do anything but tread water. She wanted more than anything just to stop fighting with Stephen, to run up to him and by dint of some magic have all of their mounting differences just go away. But she still thought what he had done was reprehensible, and although she could understand how he might view her disapproval as ingratitude, she had to say how she felt. The honeymoon is really over, she thought sadly.
As she walked out of the water she noticed the evening had grown so cool her damp skin actually gave off steam in the night air. Wrapping herself in a towel, she went inside and put Garrett to bed. Then she went back downstairs to the drawing room to just be alone for a while.
She did not know how long she had been sitting and staring out the window when she became aware of the sensation. She had been so deep in thought she hadn’t even noticed that a mist had risen from the lake and had once again blanketed everything with fog. But as soon as she shifted the focus of her attention outward, she sensed it, the same uncanny feeling she was being watched.
Frightened, she went across the room and took a flashlight out of one of the desk drawers. Then she turned the lights off and returned to the window. The lake, the pines, all were as eerily still beneath the mantle of fog as if they had been captured in a picture postcard. And yet still, as she searched each break in the trees, each drift of shadow, she could feel the gaze of something boring down on her.
Her fear crescendoed into an almost mindless panic as she tried to figure out what to do. Should she get Stephen? Should she cry out? Finally, unable to bear the frustration of being victimized by something she could not see, she clicked the flashlight on and held it up to the window. At first as she passed the beam over the fog she saw nothing. But then suddenly in a swirl of mist at the far end of the lawn she saw what looked like the figure of a man. She could make out the outline of his head and the casual mien of his stance as he stood and watched her. But what made her blood run cold, what nearly caused her heart to stop, was the way his eyes caught the beam of the flashlight and reflected the light back at her. Only once before had she seen such a thing, when out West the eyes of a coyote glowed in the beam of her headlights. But even the coyote’s eyes, glittering and green as emeralds, paled beside the fire that seemed to stream from the eyes of her mysterious intruder.
She glimpsed him for only a moment before he vanished back into the fog, but one glimpse was enough. Swept with terror, she ran to make sure the front door was locked and upstairs to the bedroom. But to her horror she found that Stephen was already fast asleep. She deliberated, wondering whether she should wake him. Remembering the tone of their conversation when they had parted, she nearly decided against it. But then fear got the better of her and she shook him by the shoulder.
He frowned, grumbling something as he shifted his position slightly, but he did not waken.
“No, Stephen, please,” she begged as she jiggled him again, but still he remained unconscious.
Afraid to use any more aggressive action to wake him, she tiptoed over to the window and peeked through the curtain. This time when she surveyed the lawn, the sensation she was being watched did not occur. Concluding that the intruder had left, she undressed in the darkness and got into bed.
After he heard his mother retire, Garrett turned on a flashlight and opened one of his UFO books. But finding he was too fraught with an
ticipation to read, he turned the flashlight off and simply sat in his bed and waited. He was excited about meeting the thing again, but he was also worried. After their discovery of the forgotten hallway, he was even more convinced the house had been designed to protect the thing, and he hoped their intrusion had not disturbed or angered it.
Because he had had the day to think about it, he had also amassed quite a sizable list of questions he wanted to ask the thing, and he hoped his finding out of Fugate’s name would please it enough to consent to answer a few of them. Not the least on his list was his desire to know precisely what it was. He was still convinced it was either an extraterrestrial or a being from another dimension— but he did not know which. Because of its misty appearance he was leaning toward the latter, but without anything further to go on, he could not be sure.
He was also dying to know what it was doing in the house. If the house had been designed to protect it, that suggested that the thing had been around at least since the house’s construction, and that was a long time. In turn this made him wonder why it kept wandering the halls of Lake House. Why didn’t it just leave?
After waiting for the thing for over an hour he began to worry it might not come at all. He got out of bed and took up his vigil by the door. Finally he felt the familiar ineffable magnetism that meant it was coming, and, not wanting to be too close to it when it entered, he tiptoed back to the edge of the bed and sat down.
Before long the door burst open and the thing drifted into the room. When it entered he still experienced a wave of fear, but he tried to ignore it.
“Hello,” he stammered.
“Good evening,” it returned. “Have you obtained the information I requested?”
“Yes,” he said, beaming with pride. “The man’s name is Elton Fugate.”
It thought about this, but he could not tell whether the name held some special meaning for it, or if it was merely deciding what to do next.
Night Things: A Novel of Supernatural Terror Page 11
