The Third Floor Part 17

"What was wrong with Joey?" he asked.

"Bad dream," she mumbled.

Jack was in the bathroom dressing for work the next morning when he heard Liz shout down the hall, "What the h.e.l.l is this mess?"

He tucked in his s.h.i.+rt, swept his hair to the side with his hand, and came out into the hall.

"That's the gla.s.s you heard last night."

"What are you talking about? I didn't hear any gla.s.s last night. I heard Joey crying."

"No," Jack said. "You woke me up saying something had broken. You were half-asleep still, so you probably don't remember it, but you did."

"I remember going to Joey's room because he'd had a bad dream."

"And I came in a bit later because I'd been in here fixing this." He put his keys in his pocket and slid into his shoes. "I'm gonna call someone today to come and fix it right."

"Did you get--?"

"Yes. I got . . . well I got as much as I could. I'm pretty sure I got it all. If there's anything left, it's dust. If you want, I can vacuum it up before I go."

"No," she said. "Never mind. I just didn't sleep that well. I was dreaming something about swimming, but it was so hot last night."

He kissed Joey goodbye. Joey wiped his cheek and went back to his cartoons, slurping cereal from his spoon.

"What are you talking about? It was the coolest night it's been in weeks."

"I don't know. I don't. Forget it. I'm just still tired."

"Well, when he takes a nap, go lay down."

"I'm sure I will."

Jack kissed his wife and went to work. Liz told Joey to watch cartoons while she took a bath, and then they'd find something to do.

For the first time in forever, Joey wanted to go to the park. If Liz had known Joey's dreams, she'd have guessed it was because the terror in them had moved from the park to the house. So for Joey Upper Hill Park was no longer a threat, but his own house was.

Liz watched him from the corner of her eye while focusing most of her attention on a book. After taking the haunted house and remodeling books back to the library, she'd grabbed a few paperbacks and was making her way through them. One sat finished on top of the television, one sat untouched next to it. One rested in her hands, spread open.

Joey yelled at her from the top of the slide and she waved at him before he vanished behind the guard and began the swirl to the bottom.

She turned her eyes back to her book and found her place just as a voice from beside her said, "Cute boy."

Liz looked up and over to see the grinning idiot smiling at her. She smiled back and said, "Yeah, we're fond of him." She went back to her book. The grinner persisted.

"Yeah, he's gonna have a hundred girlfriends when he gets older."

"Yep."

"How old is he?"

"Six."

"Oh, he's big for his age."

"Uh-huh."

Liz chided herself for being rude. You've been here how many months already? You don't know anyone here. You have no one to talk to except your husband and stepson, and this woman--who's perfectly nice--is trying to say h.e.l.lo, and you're brus.h.i.+ng her off.

That's because, nice or not, she's a grinning idiot. Do I want her hanging out with me all the time? No.

"I kinda figured he was yours," the woman said. Her grin, so far, had yet to decrease in width. "I wasn't too sure with his hair, but it's almost darkened to your shade. It'll be there before too long."

Liz had found her place and reread the same line three times.

"I'm sorry?" she asked. "What?"

"His hair," the woman pointed to him. "It'll be there 'fore too long."

Liz smiled and nodded, then looked at Joey. And she saw the woman was right. His hair was darker. It was no longer the bright blonde it was when they moved here. Now he sported dirty strawberry-blonde hair. She watched him play for a few minutes, laughing and running, and wondered when that had happened. She thought hair was supposed to lighten in the summertime.

"You live just a few houses down, don't you?"

Liz looked at her for a second, trying to figure out if she recognized this woman.

"You live in the big house? Next to the empty lot."

"Right," Liz said. "Yeah, we just moved in. You live across the street?"

"Across the street and up the hill a little way," the woman said. "I think you'll like it here. This is a good neighborhood, for the most part."

"Is it? You've been here a while?"

"Of course. I grew up in Angel Hill. Used to live in the West End, but that's no good over there, too many hoodlums. I've been in North End almost twenty years now--ten of it right there in the same house--and you couldn't get me to move back even if it was rent-free."

Liz yelled for Joey and he came over.

"We're gonna go home in a minute, okay? It's about time for lunch."

He protested, whining a little.

"But I'm not ready to go home yet. Can't I have a few more minutes?"

She agreed and they stayed a little longer, then finally gathered their things--Liz's book, her keys, Joey's shoes which he'd taken off soon after they got to the park--and walked the block and a half home.

After lunch, Joey fell asleep quickly, despite his struggles to stay awake. And in his bed, with the air conditioner from his parents' room cooling him, he dreamed.

The same dream; Joey ran through the black house, trying to find something, the best hiding place, or, if he were really lucky, Jack or Liz. He'd covered the bottom floor and found only locked rooms. On the second floor, it was the same. The bathroom was locked; the door between the main room and the dining room was closed and locked as well. Through the beveled gla.s.s in the door, he saw people sitting around the dining room table, eating a fancy dinner with candles and bottles of wine, laughing and talking and not realizing he was there. He didn't know these people, had never seen them before, and he found himself stuck between trusting that they were better than the man chasing him, and the fear that they might be the same as him. He watched, but only for a second, trying to decide. Finally he decided that in this place he wouldn't trust anyone, except his dad or Liz.

He turned toward the stairs again and went to the third floor.

Halfway up, he decided this had to be safer; there was light up here. All the rooms downstairs were dark, except for the candles in the dining room.

At the top, he heard voices. And there were footsteps behind him--the man was coming.

Joey ducked into the closest room, closed the door, and heard voices again. There were children in the next room. He went in and watched them. He'd already forgotten his decision not to trust anyone. He went to one and asked, "Is it safe here?"

The boy looked up from his game of rolling a ball against the wall, then catching it when it bounced back. He smiled at Joey as if he knew him, then said, "Not safe anywhere."

"Then we have to hide," Joey said.

"No we don't," the boy said. He went back to his ball. Joey heard another voice across the room, this time crying.

He went toward it. Then he stopped. The sobs were coming from the dead girl. Except she wasn't dead now. At least, she didn't look dead. But it was definitely the girl who chased him through the park. She looked up from her wet hands and saw him. Joey was glad to see she wasn't rotten and cracked in here. She looked just like any other girl with big wet eyes and a red face.

"Why?" she asked him. "Why did my daddy kill me?"

Just then the door behind them burst open, the man strode into the room, grabbed the girl by the neck and flung her against the wall.

Joey woke up, then covered his head with his sheet, burrowing into himself, and cried.

Liz was in the living room, cleaning. REM's Murmur CD played while she worked. She wiped dust from the top of the television, cleaned the screen, put Joey's DVDs back on their shelf. She was bringing in gla.s.s cleaner for the windows (minus the broken one) when the phone rang.

She hit mute on the stereo and answered. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Why did my daddy kill me?" a small, terrified voice asked. Then the line went dead.

Liz hung up, her heart pounding. She picked up the phone again, turned it on. The line wasn't dead; she had a dial tone. She put it back on its base. Then she stood in the middle of the living room, motionless, positive someone was watching her. It was a good fifteen minutes before she could shake it, but she tried to go back to cleaning to get her mind off it. She couldn't deal with all that stuff again, not right now.

Charley Clark asked Jack if he'd finally finished The Outsider's Guide to Angel Hill.

"Not yet," Jack answered. "Fact, I haven't looked at it much lately. Just been busy, I guess."

The break room was half full, but there was s.p.a.ce enough so everyone was spread out. That was something Jack had noticed. As close as everyone seemed out on the floor, when given the chance, they all claimed their own s.p.a.ce.

"Did you ever tell your wife about the house?"

"No," Jack said. "The book's tucked under my side of the mattress and, G.o.d willing, she won't find it. We've only been here a couple of months and that's not nearly enough time for her to learn something like that. Especially when she's the one doing all the work upstairs. It'd probably freak her out too much. But I'll tell her eventually."

"And you haven't changed your mind about any of it?"

Jack finished a c.o.ke and set the empty can on the table with a hollow clang.

"What's to change my mind about?"

"About the strange s.h.i.+t that happens here sometimes."

"That," Jack said. As he stood to throw away his trash, he shook his head. "There's an explanation for all of it. I guarantee it. Maybe not always an obvious one like you and your brother and the b.a.l.l.s with the magnets--can't believe you thought I'd buy that--but nothing happens without a reason, you can believe that."

"Man, are you this close-minded about everything?"

"I'm not close-minded, " Jack said. "I'm rational. Weird things happen, sure. But nothing unexplainable happens. Everything can be explained, because everything is caused by something."

"Well, we'll see." Charley tossed away his own trash. "Now, I'm gonna take a p.i.s.s before I go back to work. Are we playing this weekend?"

"Of course," Jack said.

Liz called Jack at work and asked if he could pick up something for supper on the way home. Joey wanted Burger King, but that was in the west section of town and the Grand Prize Diner was on the way home. Jack called in an order before leaving and by the time he got home, he'd eaten half his fries already.

He pulled up in front of the house, got out, locked up, grabbed the food, and saw a light on the third floor go out as he stepped toward the house.

He watched the upper window as he strode toward the door, swallowing another fry and wondering who was upstairs.

Inside, he took the food into the living room and was surprised to find Liz and Joey both there, sitting down, watching television, as if they'd been there for hours.

"Did you call to get the window fixed?" Liz asked.

"Yeah. They said they could come by Friday to look at it."

"Friday?"

"I guess there's a lot of broken windows in Angel Hill right now. Anyway, did you get a lamp for upstairs?" he asked.

"A what?" Liz's attention came slightly away from the television.

"A lamp. I saw you turn it off when I got home."

"What are you talking about?" He was talking about the third floor, she knew it. And now her attention was his. "A light?"

"Yeah," he said. He nodded and looked at her as if they'd been discussing the actuality of two plus two equaling four. "There was a light on up on the third floor when I got home. I got out of the car, grabbed the food, and when I turned around, the light went out."

"No," she said. "I've been down here for a while. Anyway, I'm not even done with the second floor." She got up and pulled wrapped sandwiches and bags of fries from the Grand Prize Diner sack.

"Somebody was up there," he said. "I saw the light go out." Jack grabbed his sandwich and near-empty fry bag.

"Are you sure? There's a streetlight right outside the house. Might have been a reflection from that." Liz put Joey's food on the table and pulled out his chair.

"No," Jack said. "The streetlight's still on. I'd know if it had been a reflection."

Joey lifted himself off his stomach and went to the bathroom.

"Jack, there's no lights up there. None of the rooms above this floor have built-in lights."

"I know that. I asked if you'd put a lamp up there."

"No," she said. "I didn't."

"Well someone did and I don't think Joey's gonna be the one to do it, do you?"