The Guardians

Nobody there. But by the time I came back down, she was gone. I figured she'd changed her mind and left. On my way out, though, I noticed the door to the celar was open, and it definitely wasn't when we first came in. Down I go. And there's Heather. Had time to put her panties on, but that's about al.'

The coach grinned fondly now, shook his head as though at an amusing turn in a practised anecdote.

''Hey, dol,' I said. Never caled a woman that before. But she looked like a dol. Those big glass eyes staring at me but not seeing anything. I didn't want to touch her. She was soiled. I was having a good old time with pretty Heather, and now she disgusted me. Trembling lips, chin al folded up. So scared she was sickening.

These were the kind of thoughts I had. But they weren't my thoughts.'

'Whose were they?'

The coach rubbed his chin in a stage gesture of deep thought.

'You're both men, give or take, right? You know those naughty little whispers that you hear al the time, but that you're able to hold down, hold in place? Wel, those naughty whispers became al I could hear.'

'And they told you to bash her head in.'

'They told me nothing realy counted. Not here.'

'So?'

'There was a piece of wood on the ground. I didn't notice it before. A long piece of wood with a screw in it. I think Heather knew what I was going to do before I did.'

'You hit her.'

'Once. Maybe twice.'

'It was enough to kil her.'

'No, it wasn't. Because the next thing I knew—next thing I saw—the wood was on the ground and Heather was alive.'

'How did you know?'

'Because she was speaking.'

'What did she say?'

' I have to go home. I have to go home. I have to go home.'

'Then?'

'I hit her again.'

At that, the coach glanced over to the spot we'd buried her. It must have been a lucky guess, because you couldn't tel what we'd done just by looking. Unless you could hear her struggling to get out from beneath the soil. For a moment, maybe we al heard it.

'It's like I told Benji. You have to guard against places like this. Against people like me,' he said, and turned away from Heather's grave to face us. He was, as far as I could tel, the real coach again. 'That's what's realy dangerous, what'l surprise you. The things that have nothing inside.'

A noise from upstairs. Heavy thuds, as though someone was kicking the mud off his shoes. I remember the coach closing his eyes, chin raised, as though in anticipation of the first strains of a musical performance.

It is impossible to describe what came next.

Not music. Music's opposite. A noise in which I could discern the slide of a heavy piece of furniture slamming up against a doorframe. An animal grunt. A child's howl of pain.

Then silence again. The celar's perfect, entombed darkness.

'Nobody knows we're here,' I said.

The coach grinned. 'Too late for that.'

'Keep him quiet,' I said to Ben. 'I'l go up and see.'

I started away, but Ben's flashlight spiled through my legs. When I turned, he was right behind me.

'Don't go.'

'I'm not leaving you behind, Ben. I'm just going to see what's up there.'

'Maybe we should leave.'

'We wil.'

'So let's do it now.'

'Not yet.'

'Why?'

And then I said something I don't remember thinking, though once it was past my lips it had the familiarity of a long-held belief.

'Because there might be something in here we can't let out.'

I started up the celar stairs, the flashlight held at arm's length in front of me as though its beam was a rope I clung to, puling me higher. Ahead, the door I thought we'd closed was ajar, a half-foot band of moonlight running from the kitchen floor up the doorframe to the ceiling. It felt like it had taken me a ful minute—and maybe it had—to travel the thirty feet from where I'd stood with Ben to where I was now, partway up the narrow steps. I was being