The House

by Bentley Little

  He hated the bitch.

  He wanted her dead.

  "Why am I here?" he asked his mother. "Is this where I'm supposed to spend my ... afterlife?"

  She picked up a rose from somewhere in the nest to the right of her and chewed on it thoughtfully.

  "You're still in the House," she said. "It doesn't seem to want to let you go."

  "Is that good or bad?"

  "It's . . . interesting."

  "What happened to you?"

  "After I was killed?"

  He nodded.

  "I was freed instantly."

  "Did you go ... here?"

  She shook her head, laughing, and her laugh was like music. "I am not here even now."

  "Where are you?"

  "I am on the Other Side."

  "Where is this, then? I thought this was the Other Side."

  "The border. The Other Side of the border, but the border nevertheless. Until you are fully on the Other Side, you can still go back. You may be dead, but you are not yet completely free from . . . that world. That's what makes it interesting."

  "I thought the Houses were charged up again. I

  thought the barrier was in place and you ... we ...

  couldn't go back and forth."

  "You're still part of the House." She looked at him.

  "You're not bound by the border. Apparently, the House still needs you."

  "But the barrier is up, right? Things aren't. .leakm out anymore, are they?"

  "No." She stroked his hair.

  "What about those . . . things thatkiliied me?"

  "They must've been trapped out there when the border closed."

  He blinked. "Jesus, Margot and Tony!"

  She placed a calming hand on his. "Those creatures probably burnt themselves out fighting you. They're like fish out of water there. They don't last long. The worlds . . . aren't really compatible." She smiled at him.

  "Good."

  She nodded. "Yes."

  "So where's Billings?"

  His mother's face fell, and for the first time, she looked worried. "He's gone."

  "I know he's dead. I mean, where's his ghost or his spirit or--"

  "He's gone," she said. "There's nothing left of him."

  "He--"

  "They're not like us, the butler and the girl."

  Understanding dawned on him. "Then if he can be killed, she can be killed."

  His mother nodded.

  "Is that why I'm still part of the House?"

  "Perhaps," she mused. She thought for a moment.

  "You can capture her, you know."

  "Can I kill her?"

  She shook her head. "No. Not anymore. You could have if you were alive. But dead you can only hold her, restrain her. You can still bring her back, though. You can return her to the House and keep her here, keep her away from your wife and son." She looked at him as though she'd just thought of it for the first time.

  "Your son," she said wonderingly. "My grandson."

  He smiled at her. "Tony."

  "Tony."

  "I think you'd like him, Mom."

  "I'm sure I will."

  The egg shook, rumbled, and Daniel leaped to his feet, tottering on the unstable branches of the nest. His mother moved off the egg, and helped him out of the nest.

  It shook again, vibrated, jerked.

  Suddenly the egg cracked open, and from it emerged ... nothing.

  A beatific smile crossed his mother's face, and she started to fade. As she grew slowly insubstantial, her hair seemed to return, and she looked more like the mother he remembered. He reached out to her, but their hands passed through each other.

  "I love you," his mother said. "We all love you."

  "I love you, too."

  "I'll see you in--" she began.

  And she was gone.

  The House darkened, the interior dimming as if a light had been switched off, the blank world outside growing indistinct. He felt panicky, didn't know what he was supposed to do, but he thought of Margot, thought of Tony and he was back home, in their bedroom, standing at If the foot of the bed and staring down at a sleeping Margot.

  He felt lost, confused. He supposed, in the back of hisli mind, despite all of the surface layers of skepticism mod- fern life had heaped on him, he had assumed that all would be revealed after death, that the answers to the cosmic questions and metaphysical concerns that had bedeviled mankind since the beginning of history and provided the impetus for every religion would be instantly supplied to him and he would become some sort of wise, enlightened, loving being, far different and far superior to the ordinary average guy he'd been.

  But he was the same person as before, no different, if no smarter, no more enlightened.

  Just dead.

  Piecing together what he knew and what he could infer, Doneen had driven out or killed all of the residents of all of the Houses, leaving the Houses empty, in an attempt to bring down the barrier and open the border, allowing the dead and various beings from the Other Side to invade the material, physical world. Billings, the attendant of the Houses, had doggedly kept on, plugging away as the Houses faded, the barrier weakened, entirely unaware of the girl's existence. Despite Doneen's best efforts to scare them and keep them away, Billings and the Houses had called them back, and once again the integrity of the border was restored, the two worlds separated. But the girl had killed Billings and was now systematically trying to destroy the rest of them. Why? What was the reason? What did she hope to gain? What were her ultimate goals? He didn't know, couldn't say.

  He thought of what Mark had said: Magic isn't logical. The observation was wiser than he'd given it credit for being, and he had the feeling that there was no rational reason for what she was doing, that her object was not something he could ever hope to understand.

  Whatever her purpose, though, he knew it was evil, knew it was wrong.

  He wondered what had happened to Mark, to Stormy and Norton, to Laurie. Had they all been tricked into death as he had been? Had they all been murdered? His mother said that Doneen could not be killed by someone who was dead, that it would take a living human being to stop her, and he assumed that Doneen's immediate plan was to kill them all, to make sure they could not harm her. Why she hadn't murdered them outright, why she'd let them get this far, why she hadn't killed them before they even returned to their Houses, was a mystery.

  Perhaps Billings had been protecting them. Perhaps the Houses had. Maybe her power to inflict harm did not extend beyond the Houses' walls.

  He looked down at Margot, sleeping soundly, completely unaware of the fact that he was dead and would never return. He was filled with a deep profound sadness, and he felt like crying, but he was not sure if it was for her or himself. It was for both of them, he supposed, for the forced death of their relationship.

  He could not cry, though. The emotion was there, but not the physical capability, and he stood there looking down at her, unable to express what he was experiencing.

  He reached down to stroke her cheek. His hand did not pass through her, his fingers were stopped by her skin, but there was no sensation of feeling. He felt I

  neither the warmth of her body nor the softness of her face. Her cheek was merely an impediment to him. But there was no more wall between them, and though he could no longer feel her the way he had in that split second before he'd been pulled back to the House, just the fact that he could be close to her made him feel better, made him feel good.

  He bent down even farther to kiss her, and he realized that when he pressed his cheek to hers, he could hear her sleeping thoughts. She was dreaming about him, planning their reunion, thinking about their future life together, and he had to pull away; it was too painful, too raw. He wished he could talk to her, wished he could communicate, but when he tried to nudge her and wake her up, he found that he could not move her. He could touch her form but was unable to exert any pressure against it. He said her name. Softly first, then louder, but she did not awa
ken.

  He straightened, turned toward the door. Tony was the real reason he'd returned, Tony and Doneen , and he took one last look at Margot's sleeping form, then § walked out of the bedroom. He could not only pass *

  through the door now but through the wall, and he walked directly into Tony's room through the back of the closet.

  Doneen was on the bed talking to Tony, sitting next to him. The boy could obviously see her, obviously hear her, and there was an expression on his son's face as he listened to the girl that made Daniel feel extremely uneasy.

  It was a look he'd never seen before, an insidious, unwholesomely cunning look that seemed totally out of place on Tony and only served to accentuate the influence Doneen was exerting on him.

  A doll lay between the two of them.

  "Tony!" Daniel yelled.

  The boy gave no indication that he could hear.

  "Tony!"

  Doneen's eyes flicked up at him for a brief second, but she continued talking to his son in a low, steady, even voice, not pausing, and the boy did not turn or even flinch when he screamed his name again.

  "TONY!"

  Daniel moved closer, grabbed his son's arm, but though his hand closed around the boy's wrist, he could not move the arm, no matter how hard he tried. He put all of his muscles, all of his weight into it, but it was like trying to lift a mountain, he was not able to pull his son even a fraction of an inch.

  "Use your mother's teeth for the mouth next time,"

  Doneenwas saying. She pointed to the figure's half finished face. "Knock them out while she's asleep and use as many of them as you can on the project."

  For the first time since he'd come into the room, Daniel saw hesitancy in his son's face.

  "No, Tony!" he yelled, though he knew his son could not hear him. "Don't listen to her!"

  "I don't want to do that," Tony said.

  "That's okay,"Doneen assured him quickly. "That's all right. Maybe the teeth of someone else. Someone you don't like. Someone at school, maybe."

  "Maybe," he said, doubtfully.

  She patted his hand, reached between his legs, and gave his crotch a small squeeze. "Just keep on doing what you're doing," she said. "It's a fine job."

  "Okay."

  Doneenlooked up at Daniel again. "You can work on the hands a bit," she told Tony. "I'll be back in a minute."

  He nodded mechanically.

  Doneenstood, walked over to the desk. Daniel let go of his son's arm and followed her.

  She turned to face him. "I thought I had you killed,"

  she said softly, and even though he was already dead, there was something about her tone of voice that frightened him. He could not be threatened with death or physical harm anymore, but in the core of his being he feared her, and he moved back a step.

  "What do you think you can do to me? Why are you here?" She stared at him fiercely. "I eat ghosts like you for breakfast."

  He kept his voice steady. "You lied. You said you'd leave him alone."

  "Yes. I lied."

  He reached out and slapped her. His hand connected with her cheek, and her head rocked back.

  A look of doubt crossed her features, disappearing as quickly as it had come.

  He stared at the red imprint of his hand across her cheek, and thought of what his mother had said.

  He could bring her back to the House.

  He wasn't exactly sure how to do that. He wasn't sure how he had come back here, for one thing. He'd simply thought about being home and . . . here he was. Was that all there was to it? Could he just think about the House and be returned there?

  It was worth a try.

  Doneen was scowling at him, and Daniel realized that he might have only one chance.

  He'd better make it count.

  "I'll kill--" she began.

  And he lunged forward.

  He grabbed her, tackled her. Concentrating hard, he cleared his mind and thought about where he wanted to go.

  They were sucked out of the house and out of the world to the Other Side.

  Laurie They walked together into the woods, holding hands.

  Dawn's fingers and palm felt slimy in hers, greasy, and Laurie wanted to pull away, but she dared not. She wasn't sure exactly where they were going or what they were going to do, but she was smart enough to know that if she kept quiet, kept her mouth shut and her eyes and ears open, she just might learn something.

  Around them, the trees and bushes grew thicker. The path on which they'd started walking had narrowed and dwindled until it was now less a clearly defined trail than a section of forest that was not quite as overgrown as the rest. They'd stopped talking several minutes before, and the only sounds were the crunching of their shoes on themulchy ground and the far-off calls of increasingly bizarre-sounding birds.

  Laurie didn't like the woods. She kept thinking she saw movement in the bushes to the sides, shadows amid the ferns, figures that ducked behind tree trunks whenever she turned in their direction. It was unsettling being here, and she was sorry she'd come.

  To her left, there was a face formed from the tangle of branches. She did not know if it was really there or if it was a trick of the leaf-filtered sunlight, but the small random shadows on the bare intertwined twigs highlighted a cruel, pointed-nosed face.

  She glanced over at Dawn.

  Who smiled.

  They continued deeper into the woods, and her apprehension increased.

  "We're almost there," Dawn said.

  "Where?"

  "You'll see."

  Laurie stopped. "I don't want to see," she said. "I

  want to go back. The fun's over."

  Dawn's smile took on a strange secretive quality. "The fun hasn't even started yet."

  "I'm out of here." Laurie turned, started back the way they'd come, but she immediately slipped on one of the slimy leaves, fell, and before she could get up, Dawn was crouching above her, squatting down. Laurie saw a pink-slittedvagina beneath the dirty tattered slip.

  Screaming, she rolled away, jumped to her feet.

  Dawn tapped the pull tab on her finger. "I'm your husband," she said.

  What the hell was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to get out of here? Laurie glanced quickly around, saw only thick brush and unfamiliar forest.

  Above, the sun was blocked by layers of tree leaves and branches.

  "It's time to do your wifely duty." The girl lifted the hem of her tattered garment, revealing the split-V of her crotch. "Get on your knees," she said. "And lick it. Lick it clean."

  Laurie took off.

  She wasn't going to learn anything here, she wasn't going to find out anything that would help her. She was going to end up dead, and she ran as fast as she could away from the girl, through a copse of overgrown man zanita, the red branches scraping the skin of her arms, the small thin leaves slapping against her face. She turned, ran parallel to the path on which they'd come, but nothing looked familiar to her, and when she adjusted her course, running at an angle to intercept the path, she found nothing.

  She stopped, breathing heavily, drenched with sweat from the humid air, and looked wildly about. Her sense of direction was completely screwed up, and she did not know which way was the House. Her heart leaped in her chest as she saw the figure of a man in a derby in her peripheral vision, but when she whirled to face the figure, she saw that it was only a skinny sapling with a bushy and irregularly shaped top. From somewhere behind her, Dawn called out her name in an amused, playful voice.

  "Laurie!"

  That's why her parents had forbid her to come here.

  The woods were hers.

  "Laurie!"

  She started running again, heading in the direction in which she thought they'd come. There was still no sign of the path, but whatever direction she was traveling, she was getting farther away from Dawn, and at this point that was the most important thing.

  Ahead was an indentation in the ground, what looked like a partially filled pit, and as
she raced around it, Laurie glanced in and saw the bones of cats and rats and other small animals emerging from furry reddish brown mud. There was a partially eviscerated goat as well, lying lengthwise across the bones, and the stem of a red rose protruded from between its clenched teeth.

  She continued on without slowing. She was horrendously out of shape, and not only did her lungs feel as though they were going to burst, but the muscles in her legs were cramping, and she knew she would not be able to go on much longer.

  "Laurie!" Dawn yelled.

  Her voice sounded closer.

  She was almost ready to give up and give in, to try to fight it out with the girl if it came to that, but ahead she saw light through the trees, a thinning of brush, and what looked like the black bulk of the House against the sky. She increased her speed, utilizing her last remaining reserves of strength, and ran out from between the trees.

  Both of her mothers and both of her fathers, standing on the ground next to the back steps of the porch, turned toward her as she dashed across the open space toward them. "Oh, there you are," her biological mother called out.

  Laurie turned around to see Dawn standing at the edge of the trees, stomping her feet, gnashing her teeth.

  And then she was gone.

  Laurie stared at the place where the girl had been and saw only overgrown weeds. She did not stop, did not slow down, kept running toward the House, but she could not help wondering what had happened. Had Dawn gone back into the woods? Had she somehow transported herself someplace else, back, to the House perhaps? Laurie had the feeling that the disappearance was not intentional, that it had been forced or imposed upon the girl rather than instigated by her, and she hoped that was true.

  She was almost to the back porch, and this close she could see that all four of the adults were frowning at her.

  "What's wrong?" her biological father asked.

  "Oh, Mother!" Laurie cried, but she ran into the arms of Josh's mom, not her own birth mother. She recognized the feel of the woman as she hugged her, the smell of her, and a whole host of memories flooded back, and whether it was that or the release of tension from her escape in the woods, she started crying. She sobbed into her mother's blouse, and the woman held her, patted her back, told her everything was all right.