“Aye,” several voices replied. I don’t know how many, but at least no one said, “No.”
Jerry said, “Okay,” crossly.
He, Red, and Mr. Waller pushed against the door. It was a strong door; when Jerry had his shoulder against it, it gave a little, but the lock held.
“Wait,” Mr. Kistler suggested. “There’s a hatchet around here somewhere. I’ve seen Lady Garr herself chopping kindling.”
They hunted until they found the toolbox under a laundry tub. Jerry took a small ax out of it and soon splintered the lock out of the door; when it came free the door swung inward.
Instantly the three cats shot out and scattered from under our feet. The dog came, too, standing at bay for a moment in the door, then slinking fast around the group of us.
“God! It’s a zoo!” Jerry said. “Smells like one, too.” He pushed the door farther open, purposefully. The room ahead was completely dark; he slid his flashlight from his pocket and played the light ahead. He took two steps forward; his light seemed to draw us; we all moved forward, too.
“See, there ain’t anybody in—” he began confidently. Then his voice stopped, as if it had been pushed back into his throat, and there was an odd, electric instant of silence.
“Jesus Christ!” he whispered. “Get out of here! Get—”
His arm went up in front of his eyes, as if he were warding something off; the beam of the flashlight accompanied the gesture with a wild parabola of light. He came backward, staggering; he turned on us blindly.
“Red! You—where—you—”
His face was pea-green in the light from the one bulb in the furnace room. Again we gave way as he lurched away from the kitchen door, leaving it ajar as it was; he reached the furnace, caught at that.
“Jesus Christ! I—God!”
He gagged, turned frantically, and was thoroughly sick in the ash barrel.
The furnace room was suddenly full of movement then. Red wheeled, grabbed Jerry’s flashlight from his limp hand, whirled toward the kitchen. Mr. Kistler and Mr. Waller, too, leaped to look over his shoulder. They didn’t go in; they just peered around the edge of that quarter-open door, then backed away quickly.
Their faces were pea-green, too, when they turned to us again.
Mr. Kistler looked as if he wanted to be sick but wouldn’t be. The rest of us stared back at them. I don’t think we thought much; it was as if something in the air suspended both time and thought. Somewhere inside my head a ticker tape began running of its own volition, a tape that repeated incessantly: “What is it? What is it? What is it?”
Then Mrs. Halloran began screaming steadily, one shrill shriek after the other. I went over to her, slapped her, pulled her away from the group to the foot of the stairs, where I pushed her down until she sat on a step. She began panting then, and the screams subsided into little blubbering noises: “Oh-hu. Oh-hu. Oh-hu.”
Scared, I can remember thinking. I looked around to see what the others were doing. Red had gone over to Jerry and stood clapping him on the back. Miss Sands and Mrs. Waller walked over to stand near me at the foot of the steps. Mr. Grant and Mr. Buffingham were looking uncertainly from the door to Mr. Waller and Mr. Kistler.
“My God almighty,” Mr. Waller was whispering over and over to himself, reverently.
His wife whispered back, from beside me, “What is it, Joe? What is it?”
“Her.” Mr. Waller’s voice answered tonelessly. “My God. Even her. Jesus.”
“You mean she’s dead?” I whispered, too.
For a moment there wasn’t any answer. Then Mr. Kistler said shortly:
“Yeah. She’s dead. She’s dead, all right.”
Mr. Waller came over to the stairs to sit beside Mrs. Halloran. Mrs. Waller held on to his shoulder.
No longer sick, Jerry leaned against the furnace, glaring at Red.
“If you ever let a peep out of you . . .”
“Hell no.” Red avoided looking at him.
“What a hell of a mess that was to walk in on. Well, I guess I know what a cop gets in for now, all right.” Jerry grinned around at us wryly. He stood a moment longer, hesitating as if he didn’t know what to do; then he squared his shoulders for action.
“What do you say, Red? Gosh, we gotta put in a call! I’ll do it—you stay here by them.”
He walked heavily toward the group of us at the foot of the stairs. Mr. Waller stood up to let him by; Mrs. Halloran was still weakly sobbing.
Mr. Kistler handed Jerry his flashlight, and he started up the stairs, flashing it ahead of himself as he went, although it was half light in the room ahead, from the light in the hall. Halfway up he stumbled, fell back a couple of steps and stood there, lurching.
“Get out!” he yelled. “Get out! Beat it!”
We looked up. One of the cats was crouching at the top of the stairs, looking down, its eyes catching and reflecting the light from the flashlight. When Jerry yelled, it backed away, and he went up again, cursing steadily under his breath.
We could hear his voice at the telephone above, but not what he said. We just stayed where we were, not saying anything, as if all our normal actions were stopped, as if on the outsides of ourselves a thick layer had been frozen by the horror in the air, and only a little warm life trickled through inside.
“What is it? What is it? What is it?” My mind continued ticking from down in my stomach somewhere, where it had retreated for safety.
Jerry had again regained his pose of imperturbable policeman when he returned to us.
“They’ll be here in a minute. You folks go on upstairs now,” he ordered. “Red—”
“Yeah.”
“Think anybody ought to . . . ?”
“Naw. What’s the use now?”
Both policemen came upstairs with us. Right at our heels.
We were all herded into my living room; we stood apart there, as if
