Michael R Collings

by The Slab- A Novel of Horror (retail) (epub)

  So, for now at least, all three boys were together, the older two in the bunks, Sams in the little box trundle-bed that each of the boys had slept in until they turned four or five. She stepped down the hall.

  Thump.

  She stopped, waiting for the sound to return and give her some idea of what it was, where it came from. When it didn’t she continued. There was no sound, no movement in Suze’s room. Catherine flicked the light on, just long enough to see the top of the six-year-old’s head sticking out of a bundle of quilts, blankets, stuffed animals, and favorite clothing that somehow had not gotten hung up that evening and that—Catherine knew ruefully from past experience—would somehow never quite make it to a closet or dresser drawer. Suze was short for Susan; the Huntley’s first girl-child had been named after Catherine’s grandmother.

  Catherine breathed in relief.

  Suze was fast asleep. And safe.

  Catherine turned the light off. The sudden darkness seemed deeper, colder. She shivered. Even though the forced-air furnace was on, the house still felt damp, unlived in.

  It would probably be all right in a couple of days, though, she reassured herself.

  Thump.

  The sound jerked her from her stasis and reminded her that she had a job. Mother’s responsibility number 483—investigating strange but undoubtedly harmless noises in the dead of darkness on cold December nights.

  She paused by the bathroom door but heard nothing there. Again she flicked on the light.

  And again everything was normal.

  The storage bedroom was next to the bathroom. Enough moonlight filtered through the dusty but curtainless windows for her to make out most of the shapes—again, boxes and cartons, things they wouldn’t need for the next few days, pushed into this room as soon as the boys announced their decision that Will was going to have to sleep with them for a while. The room was silent.

  That left the boys’ room. She swallowed tightly and looked across the dark hallway. To her imagination, the open door into the back corner bedroom seemed unaccountably threatening, like an open mouth of impenetrable darkness against the faint gray of the hall.

  For a frightening instant, she didn’t want to walk through that opening—it would be too much like stalking down a demon’s throat.

  Don’t be absurd, Catherine Huntley, she told herself sternly. You’ve play enough mind-games tonight already. It’s just a room.

  She crossed the hallway and entered.

  2.

  A shard of moonlight glowed in the room.

  It hadn’t seemed this bright from the hallway, she thought with a tinge of wonder. Then even that suggestion of strangeness disappeared and she returned to the business at hand—being a mother, protecting her boys from..., well, to be honest, she thought, from funny noises in the night—like funny noises in the car, she added mentally, that in the comic strips only wives hear but that husbands must eventually pay for when the funny, imaginary noises suddenly transform into reality and become cracked blocks or stripped brakes or exploding radiators or expiring transmissions.

  She stopped.

  She didn’t like the direction her thoughts were heading. She looked around.

  She could define the outlines of the bunk beds, the box bed against the far wall, the dressers. She crossed to the dresser and turned on a small Mickey Mouse table lamp. It had been Will’s, but he had recently announced that it was “baby-stuff,” and Burt had inherited it by default. In the soft golden glow of the 40-watt bulb, she studied the room.

  Sams was curled up against the wall, swaddled in his favorite blanket, the satin edging stuffed into his mouth like a surrogate thumb. It was in fact a surrogate thumb, and sometimes he sucked on the edging until it was so wet and filthy and smelly that Catherine wanted to burn it. But each time it went into the wash, Sams would stand solitary guard over the machine until it came out, then transfer his attention to the dryer.

  Somehow, she never quite found the courage to get rid of the thing.

  She leaned over and pulled the edging out of his mouth, shivering when she felt how clammy the material was. But she knew that even asleep Sams would have it in his mouth again in a matter of seconds.

  Sure enough, before she had straightened, his hand flailed for a moment, made contact, and retrieved the grungy satin.

  Oh well, she sighed silently.

  She turned her attention to the other boys.

  Will, Jr., on the top bunk, was nothing more than a heap of bedding. She knew that he must be in there somewhere, but it took a bit of probing to find a scrawny, warm arm connected to an equally scrawny shoulder that led to neck and head. His forehead felt a bit warm, but Catherine put that up to the excitement of moving.

  On the lower bunk, Burt presented an opposite picture. Most of him was exposed to the cold. His legs were clearly visible, encased in flannel pjs that had pulled up almost to his knees; his stomach was similarly exposed almost to his chest. But his head was covered. For Burt, that always seemed enough, no matter how cold it might get. She shook her head, tugged his pajama tops to his waist, and pulled the pant legs to his ankles. She unwrapped the mound at his head, straightening the blanket and tucking it around his body and wondering as she did so how the kid had managed to avoid a fatal case of pneumonia during any of his eight winters. But he never even had so much as an ear infection or a light case of croup.

  She shrugged.

  There was no understanding kids. But then, that was something she had learned long before. She leaned over and planted a kiss on Burt’s forehead, knowing full well that before she was out of the room the bedding would begin its inevitable trek upward, past shin and knee and tummy and chest, to wrap like a friendly serpent around his neck and head. Oh well, as long as....

  Thump.

  She straightened so suddenly that she cracked her head on the edge of Will’s bunk. This thump echoed the other ones, the mysterious sounds that had drawn her from her bed and sent her on this nighttime search. She pulled herself away from the bunks and stood in the center of the room.

  Eyes closed, ears strained, she concentrated. After what must have been minutes, she heard it again.

  Thump thump thump.

  It was coming from the roof! She was sure of it. She crossed to the window. The moon glowed faintly through a break in the cloud cover. The rain had stopped, but the wind was still high enough to rustle the elm in the corner of the lot.

  Behind the tree, through its December-naked branches, she saw the lights of traffic on the freeway. Even at this hour, she thought, still as busy as ever.

  Thump.

  Now she had a handle on the sound.

  She left the boys’ room and went into Suze’s. She slid the newly hung curtains open and watched as the wind fingered through a line of black yew trees bordering the property next door. The branches seemed dipped in silver and sable, at once intriguing and subtly frightening in the intensity of light and shadow. Catherine shuddered.

  Thump.

  Yes, that had to be it.

  She left Suze’s room, with a final glance at the mound that hid her daughter, and returned to her own bedroom. Willard hadn’t moved. She stepped out of her scuffs and, still wearing the flannel robe, slipped beneath the covers, feeling their clammy chill where they had been turned back, the lingering warmth of her own body further down. Willard seemed to be radiating waves of heat, but Catherine knew that it was only because she had become chilled from her little trip. She put her feet on Willard’s calves. Part of her wanted him to wake up, at least enough to reach for her, perhaps enough to want to do more.

  But another part urged him to remain asleep. She didn’t want to tell him what she had done.

  She didn’t want to admit that the thumping of seedpods dropping from the yews onto the roof had nearly freaked her out as badly as had the hot water expanding pipes over a decade before. She didn’t want him to know that she had been nervous and upset her first night in the house...in their house. She snuggled
against him.

  Mentally she thanked the previous owners for being so desperate to move to their new, custom-built house in Newton Park, at the eastern edge of the Valley, that they took a deep cut in their asking price. After all, escrow had fallen through on two previous attempts to sell the house, and if it fell through a third time, Chuck Maxwell had explained, the other family stood a real chance of losing their new place. They had to sell.

  And she thanked Chuck as well, with his creative approach to real estate that had gotten them just past the money requirements for the house. A five-thousand dollar landscaping allowance for the bare back yard, paid by the Merricks as part of the deal, had given them just the edge...and the house at 1066 Oleander was theirs.

  Theirs.

  The word made her feel snug and safe. She nestled against Willard’s back and, her arm resting across his shoulder, finally drifted into sleep.

  From the Tamarind Valley Times, 5 November 1989:

  SEARCH CONTINUES FOR

  MISSING VALLEY BUSINESSMAN

  The investigation into the disappearance of Bryan Sidney, the Tamarind Valley realtor and construction executive missing since last Friday, expanded today to include county agencies. Sidney, 47, senior partner in Ace-High Construction and co-founder of McCall/Sidney Realty, was reported missing on October 30 when he failed to appear at a meeting of the County Realtors’ Association annual meeting in Santa Barbara, at which he was to deliver the opening address. A full investigation has been launched, said a County Sheriff spokesman today, although there are no substantive leads as yet.

  A long-time bachelor, Sidney was last seen by his secretary when he closed his office Thursday evening. He had no scheduled appointments for that night, she claimed, but it was possible that he might have gone....

  Chapter Three

  The Huntleys, January 2010

  Settling In

  1.

  Catherine Huntley jerked awake. She shot a glance at the luminous dial of the digital clock by her nightstand.

  It read 2:37 AM.

  “What...?” she began, and then her sleep-numbed mind registered two things.

  Sound...and movement.

  The sound was a constant muted roar, an irritating rumble that vibrated on her ears like the approach of a heavily loaded eighteen-wheeler careening out of control down a city road, distant as of yet but drawing closer and closer. The movement was more subtle but for all of that infinitely more frightening. The bed quivered. The windows above her head vibrated tightly in their aluminum frames. The silver slats of the Levelor blinds rattled against each other, clicking like dozens of dice being rattled in a metal cup. Old hand that she was to Southern California’s geologic vagaries, Catherine Huntley recognized the signs.

  Earthquake!

  The shade on the lamp by her bed was swaying now, back and forth, back and forth, as if someone had jostled it in passing. The movement of the bed had intensified to a clear shaking. The roar grew.

  The Big One!

  Without thinking, Catherine punched Willard in the shoulder. ”Get up!” she yelled, then she was out of bed and pulling on her robe as she swept through the door, calling over her shoulder again to Willard, “Get up! It’s an earthquake!”

  By the time she was halfway down the hall, the sound had stopped, the motion had stopped. The concrete slab again felt solid and stable beneath her feet.

  Her bare feet.

  She grinned in momentary embarrassment—she had broken rule one of Earthquake etiquette: NEVER WANDER AROUND BAREFOOT. There might be broken glass, broken tiles. All sorts of things that would not go well with bare feet. She could tell from the lack of sound behind her that Willard had remained dead to the world. As usual. Still, getting up at 5:00 AM Monday through Friday for the commute into L.A. wasn’t easy on him, so she shouldn’t complain.

  Anyway, the immediate crisis seemed to be over. She went down the hallway, straightening a favorite oil painting of a grey-and-brown rabbit huddling in unbelievably vivid green grass, done by a college friend years before. The nightlight in the bathroom shed enough light for her to see that the picture had been jostled well out of plumb by the temblor. With any luck, there wouldn’t be much more damage. Thank God they were still unpacking some of the moving boxes stored in the back bedroom. Grandma’s china and crystal were still safely crated away. If they had been on the shelves....

  She glanced in at Suze. Sleeping as usual. The kid could sleep through fire, flood, and famine. Catherine envied her daughter that ability. Since moving into the new house, she had slept restlessly, lightly. She was easily awakened by the slightest sounds. Her cheeks reddened as she remembered the yew trees and the wind less than a month before.

  The boys were also asleep. It seemed as if only Catherine had even felt the earthquake, let alone reacted to it. She was about to leave the room and make her way back to bed when one of the boys—probably Will—groaned. It was a long, fitful sound guaranteed to strike a chill up any certified mother’s spine. It was echoed by another moan, this time from the lower bunk.

  She bent over Burt’s bedding-swathed head. She touched his bare stomach. The skin was cold and damp, sweaty almost. She pulled the blankets away from his face and was startled to see that his hair was plastered to his forehead, thick and dark even in the filtered light from the bathroom. He tossed his head several times, his eyes flickering up and down beneath their lids.

  “Mmmnnhhh,” he murmured, as if trying to articulate a word.

  “Burt,” Catherine said, whispering so as not to wake the others. “Burt, honey.” She shook him gently. “Wake up.”

  “Mommy?” His voice was dark and thick with sleep, deep and disturbing, not at all like his usual boy’s treble. “Mommy?”

  “Did you have a bad dream?”

  “Dream?”

  Catherine recognized the signs. He was awake and not awake. But she hoped that she had roused him enough to dispel whatever was frightening him in his sleep.

  “It’s okay,” she said, putting as much motherly soothing and reassurance as she could in her voice. “Go back to sleep.”

  “’Kay,” Burt murmured, then: “’Night.”

  “Goodnight, honey.” She kissed him and, careful to avoid the edge of the upper bunk, stood up.

  And gasped.

  Will was staring straight at her.

  For an instant, the dim light in the room had caught his face, sharpening planes and ridges and reflecting from eyes so dark as to seem black even in midday. For an instant he seemed a stranger, piercing her with eyes that burned cold and deep. For an instant, he looked dead.

  “Mommy?” he said, and the instant faded and it was just her son watching her from his bed.

  “Yes, dear.”

  “I dreamed I was at Disneyland. On the roller-coaster.”

  Catherine smiled. Let him think that it was a dream. Tomorrow would be time enough to discover—in the reassuring light of day—that he had just experienced an honest-to-goodness California quake. If she told him that now, he would probably want to stay up all night waiting for the inevitable after shocks.

  “Just a dream,” she said.

  “And the man tried to pull me out of the car,” he continued, slowly but without a noticeable break, as if he was finishing his thought without being aware that she had interrupted. “And then I tried to run away but he chased me.”

  She rubbed his arm the way she knew he liked. “It was just a dream. Go back to sleep.”

  He closed his eyes. She felt a twinge of relief when the blackness disappeared beneath eyelids drained of color by the dim light. She tucked the covers around him, noticing for the first time that his skin seemed cooler than usual—just the opposite of Burt’s. She shivered. The room was cold as well. There was no cloud cover tonight, and that meant that there was a real chance of temperatures dipping to the teens.

  Welcome to sunny California, and turn on the hot-air fans in the orange groves, folks. Come to think of it, turn up the heater
as well.

  Willard insisted that they set the thermostat as low as it would go at night. On the twenty-year-old furnace in this house, that meant somewhere in the forties. If it dipped below that, well, there were always more blankets and quilts, he insisted. But at around nineteen degrees, even quilts and blankets had a limited usefulness.

  So in spite of the probability that Willard would wake up grumpy and complaining of a mild headache from the heated air (they were real headaches, she knew, and she usually tried to accommodate to his need for cool air at night), she decided to turn on the heater. After all, it was nearly 3:00, and Willard had only another couple of hours of sleep. And anyway, she thought as she made her way down the hallway, she could always open the window in their room a crack and close the door and turn off the vent. At least that way the kids would sleep a bit more warmly.

  She followed the turn in the hall, already familiar with the feeling of the stiff-piled carpet beneath her bare toes. Their last place had been tiled, with only occasional throw rugs that rumpled so easily that were more bother than they were worth.

  In the living room, she turned on the lamp by the thermostat, gave the circular dial a twist that re-set it to fifty, waited for a second to hear the reassuring whoomp of the gas heater kicking in and, with a clarity that made her mouth convulse, suddenly realized how extraordinarily good a cup of steaming hot Sleepy Time tea would taste.

  It was the last time she ever associated Sleepy Time tea with pleasure.

  She wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the chill, wishing that she had thought to put on a robe, wishing that the heater was more efficient, wishing that the press releases for Southern California would include the fact that on the rare occasions when it got really cold—sub-freezing cold—the humidity coupled with the woefully insulated housing made it seem much worse than winter had been when she was a child in Montana. At least there, she thought ruefully, the cold was honest, and everyone knew it was coming and what to expect, and dressed warmly and built sturdily to keep the cold out and the warm in. Here the houses were cracker boxes, with no insulation to speak of.