The Stake

He didn’t seem to hear her. He vanished into the darkness.

Lane frowned. Maybe I should just go back in, she thought. But what if he isn’t okay?

What’s he doing in the garage, anyway?

The wind parted her robe below the cloth belt and swept it away from her legs. She liked how the caresses felt, supposed that the cold didn’t bother her because she was still heated from the bath.

What if Dad can see me?

Reluctantly, she pulled the robe shut. She clamped its soft fabric between her thighs.

Something suddenly glowed white inside the darkness of the garage. The light seemed to be moving. Lane realized it must be the battery lantern that she’d given Dad for Father’s Day. It had a fluorescent tube instead of a regular flashlight bulb.

Is he looking for something? she wondered.

Because of her bare feet, Lane stayed off the grass. She walked across the concrete sun deck. She was nearly to the garage door when she saw him.

He had the lantern in one hand. He was standing on the small wooden platform beneath the trapdoor to the attic, his head tilted up, his back to Lane. His other hand waved overhead in an attempt to catch the dangling rope.

The wind tossed Lane’s hair across her eyes. It bared her right side, curling gently over her skin. As she halted to close her robe again, she saw her father grab the cord and pull the trapdoor down. He set the lantern on the platform at his feet. He unfolded the ladder.

“Dad?”

Acting as if he didn’t hear her, he picked up the lantern and began to climb.

Is he deaf?

She hurried toward him, afraid he might fall.

It wasn’t like Dad to ignore her. Something was definitely wrong with him. Either drunk senseless or... sleepwalking?

She stopped beneath the ladder. He was almost to, the top.

Maybe I’d better get Mom, she thought. If he’s walking in his sleep, this is serious. What if he finishes whatever he’s doing up there and doesn’t know he’s in the attic and falls right through the opening?

He could do that while I’m going for Mom, she realized.

Dad scrambled off the ladder and crawled out of sight.

Lane started to climb.

What’II I do?

Somewhere, she’d heard that sleepwalkers often dropped dead if you woke them up. Probably just a stupid myth. What if it’s true, though?

I’d better just keep an eye on him, try to keep him from getting hurt.

Through the opening above her, Lane saw the garage’s slanted roof, its crossbeams casting bands of shadow against the ceiling planks. The lantern had to be nearby, but she couldn’t see her father.

She climbed higher. The rungs pressed into the bottoms of her feet. She noticed that her legs were shaking.

When she stepped onto the next rung, her head lifted above the attic floor. She stopped. Not much more than a yard in front of her face was a long, wooden box.

A coffin?

No way. That’s ridiculous.

But shivers crawled up her back. Her heart began to thud, pumping throbs of pain through her body. She felt as if her muscles, already sore and trembling, were melting into warm mush. She clutched the ladder’s top rung in case her legs should give out.

And gazed at her father.

He was standing at one end of the box.

It can’t be a coffin!

Standing there, staring down into it. The lantern, held close to the side of his chest with his one hand, left smudges of darkness on his face.

“I know,” he said.

The words seemed to suck out Lane’s breath. She knew he wasn’t talking to her.

“I’ve missed you, too,” he said. “So much.”

He nodded as if he heard a voice in his head. Then he straddled the box and sat down on its end. He rested the lantern on his left knee.

“Forever?” he asked. After a moment he said, “That would be so wonderful, Bonnie.”

Lane forced herself to climb higher. Dad didn’t seem to notice.

She knelt on the attic floor.

She saw over the edge of the box.

She went numb.

It wasa coffin, and it wasn’t empty, and the thing inside looked like a fucking Egyptian mummythat someone had unwrapped — a girlmummy with a horrible grin, a stub of wood jutting out of her chest between breasts that look like oblong flaps of leather. She didn’t wear a stitch. And Dad was sitting above her feet where he could see everything, and he was staring at her and talkingto her!

This can’t be happening, Lane thought. I must be sleeping, and...

He’sthe one sleeping.

“I know,” he said, but not to Lane. “But I’m afraid.”

He nodded.

He scooted forward on the edges of the coffin. Just above the mummy’s pelvis, he stopped. If Lane reached out, she could touch his left leg.

“I love you, too,” he said. There was agony in his voice. “But I love my wife and daughter. I can’t give them up, not even for you.”

Those words seemed to scatter the fog in Lane’s mind.

“Do you promise?” he asked.

He’s talking to a corpse! About me and Mom!

“If you do anything to hurt them...”

Again, he nodded. “All right. I’ll do it.” Leaning forward, he reached down toward the chest of the mummy with his right hand. His fingers wrapped around the stake.

“Dad!” Lane punched the side of his knee. The impact shot his leg inward. The lantern tumbled off. Dad’s leg slammed the coffin. The lantern struck the attic floor. It went out.

Black fell across Lane’s eyes. She scurried forward.

“Huh?” Dad’s voice. Confused. Then he bellowed, “Yeeeeeahhhh!”

Lane found his leg. He flinched rigid and his yell turned into a shriek. She wrapped her arms around his waist. “Dad,” she gasped as he tried to twist free. “Dad, it’s me. It’s Lane. You’re okay.”

He stopped screaming, stopped trying to struggle free. He made choked, whimpering noises.

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “It’s all right.”

She felt a hand press against her back. Another hand touched the side of her head, moved forward and