As he neared the top, the laughter came once more. But this time the tone of it was different, suggesting mourning rather than pleasure, a curious sobbing sound.
Tightening his grip on the banister, he went up the rest of the stairs, coming to the landing, which was filled with shadows, and letting himself be trapped inside them, like water that was over his head.
He pulled his service revolver from his shoulder holster. He was ready. He had no idea for what.
At the top of the stairs, he saw the outline of the hallway, and proceeded in that direction. Again, he had to be careful of where he walked because of the junk that had been strewn everywhere. The smell of human excrement — warm, oppressive-was in the air.
Two doors down, he heard the laughter once more. Thankful that he finally had a direction, he edged through the gloom of the hallway toward the noise.
Reaching the door, he pressed his ear to the wood, listening. Again, he thought of an orgy, for there were the sounds of moist sexual pleasure, of small sighs and groans of ecstasy, and, over all that, the laughter again. The mourning gone now, the laughter was lewd. He put his hand to the doorknob, turned.
As he did so, he saw along the bottom of the door the stroboscopic green flashes of light. In the shadows, even this thin line of light was almost blinding.
He turned the doorknob.
And that was when the laughter inside the room turned into the shrieks of the insane. As if he had been seized by invisible hands, he was pushed back against the far wall, his senses filled with it all now-the strong odor of excrement, the green light, the mad laughter that was somehow the worst of it all.
And then a voice he did not recognize said, 'Mr. Clark wants to join us but he's afraid. Poor Mr. Clark. If only he knew what was going on here.'
More laughter, followed by movements that suggested sexual satisfaction.
Spinning away from the wall, not knowing what to do next, he heard the voice say, 'Don't be afraid, Mr. Clark. Soon you will be one of us and then you will know no fear whatsoever.'
Laughter came as his eyes searched through the darkness for some clue as to where the voice originated. The hallway? One of the rooms down the hall? Where?
Knowing he needed to get out of this house and call for help, Clark started back down the hallway. Groping his way along the wall, knowing that his fingers were sliding through swaths of human feces, his trembling legs took him all the way to the top of the staircase before he heard screams and then the sound of the door opening back down the hall.
Even this far away, the green light bathed him. He glanced down at his arms. They were green.
More screams were followed, by the slapping of feet against the carpeting. Terrified to turn back to see what was coming for him, he clenched his service revolver tighter in his hand.
Just as he spun around, they leaped for him, Mindy and Jeff, completely naked in the stroboscopic green light, deep wounds pouring blood from various parts of their bodies, leprosy-like sores streaming pus. Mindy had no hair, her teeth were little more than black stubs, and her breath was fetid. One of Jeff's eyes had been ripped from its socket and the wound dripped blood. He carried a butcher knife that seemed to be as long as a spear. He raised it above Clark's head, about to bring it down, when Clark fired.
Three shots went into Jeff McCay's face.
His reaction was to keep on laughing.
Diane had been asleep two hours, when her bedroom curtains began making a rustling noise, as if someone were rubbing them together, sibilant as a snake.
She awakened to a room dark except for moonlight through yellow curtains. Her first impulse was to check the luminous face of her digital nightstand clock. Her second impulse was to draw the electric blanket up tighter around her chest. She had a sense she was not alone.
Shortly after her husband had died, Diane had begun having dreams in which he appeared to her in the form of a ghost. Diane did not have strong feelings either way about the possibility of the supernatural-it might well exist, it might well not. Boldly, she'd always told people that she wanted some kind of occult experience. That way she would become convinced that there was a life beyond this one. But now, leaning up in her bed, her entire body tense beneath her soft blue cotton nightgown, she knew that for all her brave talk, an occult experience would frighten her.
The curtains rustled again. She snapped her head in their direction.
'Aunt Diane.'
In the silence of her bedroom, the clarity and plaintiveness of the voice was unmistakable. Jenny.
'Aunt Diane.'
Hard as she looked, Diane saw no little girl anywhere in the room. All she noticed was a slight cooling of the air, and a faint sweet smell.
'Aunt Diane.'
From behind the curtains she came, a little girl not quite formed yet, her body like that of an unfinished painting. But she was quickly being filled in as she stood there in the moonlight. All Diane could ludicrously think of was the transition stage of being 'beamed up' on the old 'Star Trek.'
At last, then, a complete Jenny stood before her in a dark dress and white socks and black patent-leather strap shoes. Her hair hung in blond pigtails and her eyes gave an impression of unbearable sorrow.
'Jenny,' Diane breathed, throwing back the covers and starting toward the girl.
'No,' Jenny said, 'stay there.'
'But-'
'It will be better, Aunt Diane, believe me.'
The girl Diane had seen earlier that night had been sitcom sweet. This girl was more like the Jenny Diane had always known-reflective, intelligent, and mature far beyond her years.
'You saw what just happened? How I appeared to you, Aunt Diane?'
'Yes.'
'So you understand what's…happened to me.'
'Not completely, Jenny.'
'I'm dead, Aunt Diane. And I have been dead since this summer.'
'Oh.' How stupid, even smug, that sounded: 'Oh.' But she had absolutely no idea of what else to say. 'Do you know how I died?'
'They killed me.'
'They?'
Jenny pointed to the window. 'Mindy and Jeff.'
'But they love you.'
Jenny shook her head sadly. 'Maybe they did at one time, Aunt Diane. But they went through Mindy's part of the inheritance. The only way they could get my part of the money was to murder me, which they did.'
Sitting there, hearing the words so clear in the shadows of the bedroom, Diane had no choice but to accept their reality. Several minutes ago she had convinced herself that this was no dream or nightmare. Jenny really had appeared in Diane's bedroom. And now Jenny was telling her, in effect, that she was a ghost.
'I want to die, Aunt Diane.'
'But I thought-'
Jenny's head tilted downward. 'My soul hasn't passed into heaven yet. A…demon took hold of me. A demon that wants vengeance.' She parted the curtains, stared for a time at the moon. 'You'd think that's what I'd want- vengeance. When I realized what they had done to me, I was very, very angry. I wanted to kill them myself. But then I walked down a long, white tunnel and I felt a great peace as I neared the end. I forgave them. I began to understand how petty most human concerns are, especially ugly ones such as murder and vengeance. But then, as I neared the end of the tunnel and I saw a huge door opening to receive me, I could feel the demon inside me struggling for dominance. All around me, the white light began to fade and I saw the door start to close. Before, there had been very gentle music, but now there was just this…terrible silence. I don't know how else to describe it. And when I touched my flesh, realized that it was no longer my flesh. It was gray and scaly and slimy. It was the demon's flesh and she wanted me to go back to earth and return to Mindy and Jeff. But before I killed them, she wanted me to torture them every way possible. And that's what I've been doing since that day you found me wandering around on the hill. I've destroyed their lives in every way I could through physical torture, mental torture,
