The Haunted

in Tucson, parents dead, no brothers or sisters, house repossessed two years prior. The one thing no one seemed able to figure out, however, was why Swanson had decided to break into the house, take off his clothes and go into the basement. And the cause of death was still sketchy. “Organ failure” was the official explanation listed on the coroner’s report, but since the toxic screen came back clean and there was no evidence of any illness, the exact reason for the organ failure remained unclear.

What Julian had discovered was a good start, but that was all it was. A start. If they were ever going to find a way through this mess, they would need a lot more information, and Claire decided to start by seeing whether she could find Swanson’s ex-wife. The woman had apparently been divorced from her husband for twelve years before his death, so it was doubtful that she could shed any light on the details of his passing, but maybe Claire would be able to discover whether he had any previous connection to the house.

She started to type in the woman’s name, Elizabeth Swanson, but before she got past the z, her screen went black. For a second, she thought the power cord had come unplugged. Then, suddenly, the screen was filled with a single word: Don’t.

She frowned, perplexed and, at the same time, frightened. She wanted to believe that it was a technical glitch of some sort, totally unconnected to her. But it was a command, and it applied to what she was doing, and it made it seem as though something was trying to stop her. She was reminded, also, of the message on Megan’s phone—

Take off your pants.

—and she forced herself to calm down and breathe normally as she turned the machine off, then started it up again. The four-colored Windows logo appeared, all her little icons popped up … then the screen went black.

I told you.

The words appeared in the center of the screen and were instantly replaced by another message that filled the entire rectangular space.

DON’T.

Meekly, she shut off the laptop, closing it up. Her hands were shaking, and she went out to the living room, where Julian was reading Time magazine, James was reading a book and Megan was watching Access Hollywood. She tapped Julian on the shoulder, got his attention and motioned for him to follow her to the kitchen. Once there, she told him what had happened. He believed her without seeing proof, which was good, because she wasn’t about to turn on that laptop again. Who could tell what type of response she’d get if she attempted to access the Internet one more time?

“Nothing from the house,” he said, and she shivered, feeling cold, because he was whispering. He, too, was worried that their conversation might be overheard. “Look things up at your office or the library or one of those wi-fi cafes.”

“You, too,” she told him.

Julian nodded.

She wanted to say more. She was starting to feel like a prisoner, constantly under surveillance, and her gut reaction was to fight back, to say whatever the hell she wanted, to confront the ghost in this house by threatening it. But that wasn’t a smart move, she knew, and she stared into Julian’s eyes, telling him everything she could with that one meaningful look, and he nodded and kissed her, and the two of them left the kitchen and went out to the living room to watch over their children.

Nineteen

Megan awoke with the dawn and quickly checked to make sure nothing had happened to her during the night. No. She was okay. Still wrapped up like a mummy, comforter tucked into the sides of the bed, blanket and sheet tucked in below that, sleeping bag still zipped.

She emerged from her cocoon, sweating. Her parents did not know it, but she’d taken to wearing her clothes to bed rather than her pajamas. Why? Because pajama bottoms were pull-ups—pants had snaps and zippers and belts. Pajama tops were pullovers—regular shirts could be buttoned and sealed in with sweaters.

She needed the extra protection. That thing she’d seen the night her friends had come over, the formless camouflaged shape that had detached itself from the wall to examine and assault the other girls, had never been far from her mind.

Take off your pants.

Nor had the text message that had been sent to her and James.

I will kill you both.

Her life was a nightmare of fear and worry, and the worst part of it was that her options for dealing with the situation were so constricted. She could not tell her parents. She could not tell her friends. There was no one she could go to for help, and the creature that lived in this house could be anywhere, watching her at any time.

She had to go to the bathroom, and it was with a feeling of dread that Megan went into the one on the other side of James’s bedroom. She would have preferred to use the one by her parents’ room, but for some reason her mom had put that off-limits. As always, she closed and locked the door behind her, then took a towel from the rack and held it in front of her with one hand while, with the other, she pulled her pants down the bare minimum. She placed the towel on her lap while she used the toilet, so nothing could see her, then quickly pulled her pants back up when she was finished and sped downstairs, washing her hands in the kitchen.

She had never felt so much stress in her life as she had the past two weeks, and it was a wonder she hadn’t snapped. This was what they never showed in movies, the contorted and convoluted rituals that had to be instituted in order to deal with everyday life in a haunted house.

After breakfast, after everyone was up and there was noise in the house, after the sun was high and night was truly vanquished, after the house was as safe as it could possibly be, it was time for Megan to take a quick sponge bath and get dressed. Six days a week, she took only sponge baths, not wanting to use the tub or shower, not wanting the glass in the bathroom to become fogged up. She was down to a single hot shower a week, and that one she took on Sunday afternoon, in the warmest, brightest part of the day. Her mom thought that was strange and had asked her about it, but her questioning had seemed more nervous than concerned, the queries of someone worried not because she didn’t understand but because she did. Megan had almost broken down and told her mom everything. But she’d flashed on that message—

I will kill you both.

—and saw in her mind’s eye an amorphous shape disengaging itself from the wall and killing both her mother and herself, and had purposefully thought up a lie, saying that she’d read that Sunday afternoon was the best time to take a shower because it required less energy to heat the water and was good for the environment.

Now she went back up to her bedroom, picked out a new T-shirt and underwear (she was planning to wear the same jeans) and carried her clothes into the bathroom. She let the tap run until the water was warm, then stopped up the sink, filled it, and tossed in a washcloth, getting everything ready so she could take her sponge bath as quickly as possible. She always bathed in shifts—bottom half, then top half—so that a portion of her body was always covered and she was never completely naked.

She did her usual swift survey, making sure nothing was out of place, confirming that there was nothing creepy or unusual within sight distance, before deciding to work today from the bottom up. Pulling down her pants, she was shocked to see cuts on her legs, long red slashes that she had not noticed earlier. Where had they come from? Had they been there while she was going to the bathroom? If so, she hadn’t seen them. Her legs suddenly hurt, though they hadn’t only seconds before. Seeing the wounds had made her aware of them, and she felt the pain, though the cuts were not deep and there was virtually no blood, only a thin dried line over each slash.

Using the washcloth but not using soap, she gently dabbed at the cuts with warm water before patting her legs dry with a towel. She found some Neosporin in the drawer and, using her finger, carefully smeared the medicine on the wounds. After changing her underwear and putting her pants back on, she took off her old T-shirt, washed the top half of her body, put on deodorant and quickly slipped into her new T-shirt.

The cuts bothered her.