The Collection

'Ed!' Bobbette called from outside. Her voice was loud, a little too loud, and there was a hint of panic in it.

Grateful for a reason to leave the cabin, he stepped back into the sunlight. The girls followed silently. They hurried over to where Bobette stood reading the rest of the sign. 'What is it?'

'The cabin was made with human skin,' she said. 'Not animal skin. Read this.'

He scanned the rest of the text. According to the sign, the Chapman House was one of a series of homes and buildings constructed from human skin in this part of Wyoming dur­ing the late 1800s. The builders of the dwellings were not known. He looked at Bobette.

She shivered. 'Let's get out of here,' she said.

He nodded, motioning for the girls to get into the car. Be­fore closing his own door, he snapped a photograph of the cabin. He didn't really want the picture, but he'd been tak­ing photos of every place they had stopped at and he took this one out of habit, for completeness.

They drove silently back to the highway. Ed tried to con­centrate on his driving, but he found himself thinking of the small round patch of skin he had seen near the window of the cabin. He couldn't get it out of his mind, and he couldn't help thinking that the skin had come from the head of a child. The thought disturbed him, and he drove without speaking, speeding along the highway, passing other cars, as if trying to get as far away from the cabin as possible.

A-little farther on, they saw another small brown histori­cal landmark sign by the side of the road. Ed sped by, but not before Pam had made out the message. ' 'Bone House One Mile,'' she read.

'Can we stop?' Eda asked.

'Not today,' Bobette told her. 'You and your sister just find something to do for a while.'

Bone House, Ed thought. It didn't take much imagination to figure out the material from which that building was

made.

He felt the skin prickling on the back of his neck.

The station wagon sped down the highway through the forest. It was late afternoon, and according to his calcula­tions they would reach Singleton by five. He'd made reser­vations there at a Best Western, and check-in time was supposed to be at four, but he figured they'd hold the room for an extra hour. From Singleton, it was a five-hour drive to Yellowstone, where they'd made reservations at the Old Faithful Inn for four nights.

He felt tired already, worn out, and he couldn't wait until they got to the motel and his head hit the mattress. He just wanted to sleep. He just wanted this day to be over. They drove into the outskirts of Singleton just before five. The town was tiny, a few homes scattered amongst the trees, an Exxon station, a Shell station, a restaurant, their hotel, a few stores. It was the sort of picturesque town they had been looking for when planning their itinerary-a post­card community.

But there is something a little off about the buildings, Ed thought, as he pulled into the parking lot. Something is wrong. And looking up at the wall of the motel he knew ex­ actly what it was.

The buildings were made of skin and bone.

And the bricks used here and there in construction had a peculiarly red tinge.

He backed up immediately, swinging onto the highway.

'What are you doing?' Bobette demanded, grabbing on to the armrest as the car swerved in reverse. 'You'll get us all killed.'

'We're getting out of here.'

'But we have reservations!'

He glanced at their daughters in the backseat. 'Look at the buildings,' he whispered quietly. 'Look at what they're made out of.'

Bobette peered out the window then turned back to him, her face bleached white. 'This can't be happening.'

A man walking down the sidewalk, wearing farmer's overalls and a plaid shirt, waved at them.

'We're getting out of here,' Ed said. 'I don't care if we have to drive all night.'

Their vacation ended early. They went on to Yellowstone, but somehow the geysers and bears and natural beauty did not interest them as much as they'd thought it was going to a few days before, and they returned home after two days in­stead of four.

They took a different route back, bypassing Singleton en­tirely.

Usually, after a trip, it was depressing to come home. The house inevitably seemed small and confining after the great outdoors, the neighborhood dull and moribund. But this time they were glad to be back, and both the house and neighborhood seemed cheerful and welcoming. They settled in almost immediately, the temporary communal spirit which had possessed them on the trip-in the comfortable space' of the car and in the unfamiliar territories through which they'd traveled-dissipating as they reached familiar ground. They returned to their normal individualized living status: Ed and Bobette holding court in the living room and kitchen, Pam and Eda in their respective bedrooms.

In the past, they'd talked about their vacations almost nonstop for several days after they had ended, Pam in par­ticular, trying to hold on to the feelings they'd experienced, but this time no one made any mention of the trip, and Ed was glad. He dutifully turned in both rolls of film he had taken, and when he got them back a few days later he sorted through them in the car. And there it was.

He stared at the photo. The Chapman House lay low and dark against the background of trees, the brownish skin in the picture looking almost like wood. He could see clearly the small door and smaller window and saw in his mind's eye that tiny patch of round infant skin. He tore the photo into little pieces, dropping them out the car window onto the drugstore parking lot, before heading home.

Neither of the girls had been acting much like themselves since they'd returned from the trip, but Eda was quieter than usual that night, as was Pam, and though Bobette tried to get them to talk during dinner, both refused to answer in any­thing except mumbled monosyllables. After eating, they f both went directly to their rooms.

'I don't know what's going on with them,' Bobette said, clearing the dishes. 'I tried to talk to them today while you were gone but they ignored me, stared right past me as if I wasn't there. I thought maybe you could try to get them to talk. I mean, I know it wasn't the greatest vacation in the world. I know we ran into some strange scary stuff, but nothing actually happened. It's not the end of the world.'

Ed nodded slowly, sitting up. 'I'll talk to them.'

She looked up, dishes in hand. 'Thanks, I-'

But he was already out of the room and moving down the hall.

Ed stood outside Eda's closed door, listening, but heard no music, no TV, no talking, no sounds whatsoever. He shuf­fled across the hall to Pam's door and listened again. He heard whispering from inside the room.

Whispering and a strange whisklike sound.

He pushed open the door.

The girls were both on Pam's bed, holding steak knives they had obviously taken from the kitchen. The classified ad section of the newspaper had been spread over the bed be­tween them, and on top of the newspaper was a partially gut­ted cat. He stared silently. Large portions of the animal's black-and-white fur had been scraped off, leaving the skin whitish pink. He recognized the cat as Mrs. Miller's pet Jake.

The two girls looked at him, caught, cat blood all over their hands.

He was going to scream at them, to beat them, to tell them that tomorrow the whole damn family was going to see a psychiatrist, but his voice, when it came out, was calm and even. 'What are you girls doing?' 'Making a dollhouse,' Eda said. He nodded. 'Clean up before you go to bed.' He closed the door behind him, heard them lock it, then went out to the kitchen to tell Bobette nothing was wrong.

Two days later, he caught Pam in the garage with the Jancek's dog. This animal was bigger, and she was having trouble with the knife. Next to her, on the floor, was the doll-house. She and Eda had taken apart their old dollhouse and had stretched over the plastic frame the still-wet skin of Mrs. Miller's cat.

'How's it going?' he asked.

She looked up, startled. Something like horror or disgust passed over her face for a second, then was gone. She re­turned to her work. 'We're learning,' she said. 'Where's Eda?'

Pam giggled. 'Getting more building materials. She's kind of slow, though.' 'You girls be careful.' 'We will,