The Haunted

And it appeared to be emanating from the fireplace.

Once the most impressive aspect of the living room, perhaps of the entire house, the oversize fireplace now just seemed threatening. The opening was like a maw, and it was much blacker than it should have been at this time of day, black enough that it seemed to go back farther than the wall of the house, black enough to hide the presence of unspeakable creatures. Julian reached out and switched on the ceiling light, but it did nothing to further reveal what lay hidden in that space.

Slowly, nervously, cautiously, he stepped forward.

He heard the voices. They were male and female, young and old, but they weren’t James and Claire. They weren’t even speaking real sentences. Like the man’s voice he had heard in Megan’s room, they were saying actual words but not in a way that made sense.

“. . . mail slot luggage …”

“. . . first come table slime …”

It was a conversation between crazy people, delivered in competing monotones, and it was coming from within the fireplace. Close now to the hearth, Julian crouched down to peer into the opening.

A whoosh of air flew over him, around him, past him.

Only …

It wasn’t air. There was volume to it, heft, and a sentience that he sensed but did not understand.

Then it was over. The room was back to normal; the fireplace was just a fireplace; there were no more voices. Seconds later, the front door opened, and Claire and James did walk in. Julian went over to greet them, grateful and unexpectedly elated that they were here and alive.

Claire frowned at him. “What’s wrong with your hair?”

James laughed.

Julian reached up and patted the top of his head. His hair was sticking up where that thing had blown over him. He used his fingers to comb it back down. “Wind,” he lied.

“It wasn’t windy—” Claire started to say, but she caught his look over James’s head and cut herself off. “Oh.”

They discussed it later, though he downplayed his description of the event and left out his real reaction completely. The kids were in another room, and before Claire could quiz him further, he quickly told her what he had learned at the library. She seemed excited to hear that there was a history of death and violence on their street, though he had no idea how she could possibly use that information to help solve their problem, and for the first time her sense of hope seemed stronger than her fear.

He almost told her about the face on his computer screen, but at the last moment decided against it. Enough had happened today already, and he chose to let it go.

They made love that night, and it was normal, tender, comfortable, the way it used to be. There were no bizarre urges, no inexplicable compulsions, no external pressure of any kind. He could almost believe some of their more recent encounters had never happened, and they fell asleep holding each other, happy.

*   *   *

Julian was awakened after midnight by the sound of laughing. It was soft, whispery, and might in other circumstances have been mistaken for the rustling of wind outside. But he knew it for what it was and sat up in bed, listening to the eerie laughter as it swirled around their bedroom, then left through the door and moved down the hall.

There was nothing he wanted more than to hide his head under the covers, the way he had as a child, and wait for morning. But Megan and James were upstairs alone, and he immediately pushed off the covers and hurried after the noise.

It was in the kitchen now, and he went there, turning on the lights as he did so. He saw nothing in the kitchen, but the door to the basement was open, and from the room down there he heard laughter. It was louder now, less whispery, and though he had not been able to determine anything about its character before, the laughter definitely sounded masculine to him now.

Julian looked around for a weapon. It obviously wouldn’t help against something unseen, but it would make him feel braver, and he opened the middle drawer and settled on that old standby: the carving knife.

He was about to proceed to the basement door when something outside caught his eye. Through the window above the sink he saw movement, and he flipped on the patio lights just in time to see the little garage door close. He stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do. The smart thing would be to call the police. But he wasn’t sure this was something the police could help with, wasn’t sure that whatever had gone into the garage was … human. Of course, if it wasn’t human, the smartest thing to do would be to stay here in the house.

But he had a knife in his hand, his adrenaline was up, and Julian unlocked the back door and stepped outside. He was barefoot and in his pajamas, but that didn’t slow him down. The dead grass was cool beneath his toes as he moved stealthily toward the garage. He glanced from side to side as he approached, making sure nothing else was out here, looking up to see whether the lights in the garage had been turned on.

He opened the door, then stepped back quickly, knife extended, but nothing leaped out at him. After waiting a beat, he moved forward, walking into the garage and turning on the light. He glanced around. Everything seemed to be in order; nothing looked out of place. Since the van was parked in the driveway, and the lawn mower and most of the gardening implements were in the storage shed, the garage was relatively bare. With the light on, it was easy to see everything within the open area, and Julian wondered whether he had been lured in here purposely. His grip on the knife tightened.

No. Whoever—whatever—had gone into the garage had not known that he was watching. He’d caught someone—something—sneaking in and closing the door. It had not been part of some elaborate show put on for his benefit.

Although the laughter had lured him into the kitchen …

No. Something was here in the garage. He just couldn’t figure out where it had gone.

His eyes alighted on the ladder.

Upstairs.

Julian’s heart started thumping. He knew he shouldn’t go up there. It was stupid. Possibly dangerous. He didn’t even want to do it. But he found himself walking over to the wall where the wooden ladder was attached. He looked up.

The trapdoor was open.

Why hadn’t he noticed that before?

Upstairs it was dark. Beyond the square entrance to the loft, he could see nothing, only blackness. It was impossible for him to climb the ladder and still hold the knife in such a manner that it could be used, and he had decided to quit, go back to the house, and return in the morning, when he could see and it would be safer. But he felt a drop of warm wetness hit his forehead, and he touched it with his finger and it was blood.

Someone or something was bleeding up there.

What if it’s James?

The thought had not even occurred to him before this moment, but he realized with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he had not checked on the children after being awakened by the laughter. It could be James. The area upstairs was where he and his friend played, their “headquarters.” He could have been the one sneaking into the garage and closing the door behind him.

Julian wiped the blood from his forehead with his palm. A half-formed plan to wake Claire and call 911 was jettisoned immediately, and he quickly shifted the knife to his left hand, placing it in the crook next to his thumb so he could use his other fingers to grasp the ladder’s rungs. He sped up to the top, and only then, only when his head and shoulders were protruding from the floor of the loft and he was at his most vulnerable, did he realize that it couldn’t have been James. The back door of the house had been locked. If James had gone out first, the door would have been unlocked.

Julian braced himself for a blow, but even as he winced in expectation, he was pushing himself up into the loft and frantically searching for a light switch or a pull chain attached to a bulb. He’d been up here only in the daytime, and only on a few occasions, so he didn’t even know whether there was a light in the loft.

Nothing hit him as he got to his feet, and since he was next to a wall already, he pressed his right hand