The Third Floor Part 6

"But I haven't even had lunch yet."

"Yes, you did," Liz said. "Now come on, it's naptime. Go pee first."

"Are you going to take a nap?"

"I don't know. I just might take one after my bath."

Joey dragged his feet into the bathroom, then across the hall to his bedroom, making whining noises in his throat. He climbed onto his bed and turned toward the wall, still making noises.

"That's enough, Joe," Liz said.

She filled the tub, then sank into warm water, dunking herself under, closing off the world. She came up, breathed, and wiped water from her face. She rested her head against the back of the tub and let the water surround her.

She was trying to relax and not think about the house or the noises or anything else.

But the voice she'd heard upstairs wouldn't leave her head.

(Forgive me--pant, pant--Forgive me--pant, pant--Forgive me) She'd heard it so clearly, she knew she hadn't imagined it. Had she? Was this the onset of schizophrenia? She couldn't believe that. So who the f.u.c.k was in her house? How did they get in? That was something else to consider. They kept the front door locked. She'd been in the living room all day. The living room was next to the kitchen, so she knew no one had come in the back door. How did they get up there?

She remembered Joey's reaction their first day in the house.

"Who lives up there?" he had asked.

No one. But something was very wrong. Liz's mind began to work the equation, adding in the footsteps last night--they'd walked right past her, she heard them going up the stairs. And that look the cops had exchanged. What was that about?

And there were other things. The phone calls Jack got. And he said he'd heard something thump upstairs.

She lay in the tub, her eyes open, but glazed, as she drifted off into her memory. The room dissolved around her. The yellow walls darkened to stale peach and the ceiling crawled with a billion specks of blurred motion. Liz didn't see any of it.

What she did see was herself on the third floor their first day in the house. Like Jack, Liz had explained the happenings in the house rationally, if not convincingly. Hadn't she heard a scream up there that day? And when she'd fallen asleep while Jack went to the store. Someone had sat on the edge of the bed.

Later, while she was unpacking the bedroom stuff, the front door had opened and closed. Twice.

What else?

The hands that touched her last night, calling her name, asking if they could get into bed with her and Jack. And on the second floor, someone had called her name at least half a dozen times.

All of these things she'd told herself were dreams, because that's what Jack would have done. But she was a horrible liar, especially to herself.

Liz bolted up and climbed out of the tub, wrapping herself in her towel and putting her hand to her face, cradling her chin while she rested the elbow on the other arm. She paced the bathroom, trying to sort out all these memories. How could she not have admitted it before?

Because one of the things she'd fallen in love with Jack for was his mind. He could explain anything and it always made sense, even if the memory of your senses told you otherwise. She loved his rationale and had been trying to emulate that.

But her eyes were open now. The question was how to convince Jack?

He'll rationalize everything you tell him.

She knew that was the truth. Jack's world consisted of facts and right angles and a place for everything.

She stood over the sink, staring into the mirror, trying to figure out what to say to make Jack see what had been happening. Telling him what she'd seen and heard wouldn't do it. But he'd heard things, too. That wouldn't matter, though. Unless it punched him in the b.a.l.l.s, Jack wouldn't accept it. And even then he'd give some other explanation for it.

I just pulled a groin muscle, he'd say.

Liz chuckled, knowing that's probably exactly what he'd say.

She suddenly had an idea. Whether it would do the job or not, she wasn't sure. But it would be a first step, and she wouldn't have to tell Jack a thing.

She smiled at her reflection, proud of herself, but the reflection made her wince back, heart thumping, a lump in her throat.

As soon as possible, she told herself. Do it today if you can.

She turned away and stopped, staring into the tub. She hadn't drained the water when she got out. And though it wasn't making a sound, the water inside was . . . moving, as if with the weight of a body. Someone was in the tub, but Liz couldn't see them. She imagined them seeing her and she s.h.i.+vered again. She looked around at the walls and thought, What the h.e.l.l did we wake up when we came here?

The water stopped moving. She stared at it. A s.h.i.+mmer ran through it, then it stilled again.

Liz stormed out of the bathroom, not bothering to shut off the light, and went into the bedroom. She put on different clothes--the ones she'd been wearing were still in the bathroom, and she wasn't going in after them. It wasn't the water that had made her abandon them. It was that reflection of hers. When she'd smiled at it, she was almost positive it had sneered back. Like it knew something she didn't.

Jack came home a few minutes late that evening, complaining about reed relays and they were supposed to receive eight hundred, but could only find two hundred and that would barely be enough for the day.

Liz had no idea what a reed relay was, nor what it did, but she listened, as she always had when Jack came home. She knew his complaining was a way to get it off his chest. That done, he could come back to reality and live.

"So how was your day?" he asked. "You work on the house?"

"Not much," she said.

"We had policemen here, Dad," Joey chimed in from the floor. Then he made a cras.h.i.+ng noise as his Spider-Man action figure pounded Green Goblin in the face.

Jack looked at Liz. "The police were here? What for?"

Liz waved it away. "I was upstairs," she explained, "and I thought I heard talking. I mean, I literally heard the voices, loud and clear. I ran downstairs and called the police."

"And?"

"Well, there was no one here, obviously."

"Then how did you hear voices if no one was in the house?"

"I don't know," she said. "Maybe the television was up louder than I thought and that's what I was hearing."

"Hmm," he said. "Maybe it came up through the vents."

"Could be," she said. "It doesn't really matter. After they came back out and said there was no one in the house, I felt like such a moron."

He chuckled, then said, "You're not a moron."

She kissed him, then went into the kitchen to finish supper.

Jack kissed his son, then disappeared into the bedroom. He was kicking off his shoes and lying down for a few minutes, messing with his guitar. Liz knew his routine as well as he did. She checked the spaghetti. It would be done in a few minutes.

She stirred the pasta and watched the water swirl. She thought of the bathtub and made another mental note to finish calling around tomorrow.

She wanted to get the house blessed and had called a couple churches earlier today, but so far hadn't found anyone who could do it. One church she'd called, the pastor said he'd never even heard of house blessing. She wanted to get it done with no one knowing about it. Jack wouldn't understand her plan and Joey, she knew, would spill it as soon as Jack was in the door.

Liz stirred the sauce, then jumped and flung hot tomato sauce onto the wall. The pressure on her neck had scared her. And the arms around her waist hadn't helped. But Jack was just kissing her.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to give you a heart attack."

"That's okay. We can just lick the walls for dinner tonight."

"It smells good."

"How come you're not in the bedroom?"

"I broke a string last night, remember? I didn't get off early enough to pick up another."

"I see."

"Don't forget," he said, "the guy's coming tomorrow to check out the third floor. I told him it's probably squirrels, but I wanted him to check for mice, too. Or anything else that might have gotten in."

"I'll be here," she said. "Did you tell him to come to the back door?"

"Uh-huh."

She'd forgotten about that. She'd have to remember to call after the exterminator left. She didn't want to be in the middle of making arrangements and have to stop to explain the noises coming from upstairs. Noises Liz wasn't even a hundred percent sure were from an animal anymore.

Slow down, she thought. You don't know what's causing the noises. It just might be animals.

That's right. The thumping and stomping up there might be squirrels, mice, rats, stray cats, anything. But the voice--("Forgive me,"--pant, pant--"Forgive me,"--pant, pant--"Forgive me.")--that had been a voice. It wasn't the television coming through the vent. Someone had been upstairs. Just because the police didn't find anyone--and Liz was sure she could go up there now and not find anyone, but she was also pretty sure once her back was turned, the voice would whisper in her ear--that didn't mean anything.

"Is this done," Jack asked, bringing her out of herself.

"What? Yeah, it's done." She leaned into the living room. "Joey, go pee and come get your plate."

As Jack filled his plate, he talked.

"So we also lost two boxes of hand controllers today. Well, they weren't really lost, they just came in under the wrong number. They were supposed to be thirty-eights, but someone back in receiving must have hit the wrong b.u.t.ton or something because they came in as eighty-eights. By the time we'd decided we were going to have to call the company we bought them from, someone noticed a box on the shelf with 'eighty-eight' marked on it and said, 'Hey, we don't even have an eighty-eight.' We popped open the box, and there were the twenty thirty-eights. That saved about five hundred bucks."

Liz hadn't listened to a word of it, but she'd heard him. What she did listen to, was the silence coming from the bathroom.

Going around the doorway and down the hall, the bathroom was located just on the other side of the wall from the kitchen. Whenever the toilet flushed, you could hear it in the other room. Liz noticed Joey'd been in there an awful long time. She banged on the wall and called, "Let's go, Joe. It's time to eat."

Jack was in the refrigerator getting a c.o.ke. Liz made Joey's plate and then her own. He still hadn't come back from the bathroom.

Finally, she set the plates on the table and went down the hall to get him.

She stopped outside the door and knocked. The light under the door went out.

"Come on, it's time to eat. Let's go."

She listened. If he were on the toilet, he'd say so. But she'd seen the light go out, so he wasn't sitting down. If he were doing something he wasn't supposed to, trying to cut his own hair for instance, he'd say nothing and quickly try to cover up whatever he was doing. Liz heard nothing.

She grabbed the handle as quietly as she could. If he heard her, he would have forewarning and be able to hide the evidence. Her head was down, her ears alert. She gripped the handle tighter and began to turn it.

"I'm coming in," she said. "Whatever you're doing better be put up."

"I'm starving," Joey said. Liz jumped and turned to see Joey behind her, a new toy in his hands.

"What are you doing out here?"

"I was getting a different toy to eat with," he said. "I already went to the bathroom but I didn't have to go."

Liz stood silent for a second, wondering where to go from here.

"Why didn't you answer when I called for you?" she asked.

"I was in my closet finding this," he said, holding up an inflatable Spider-Man bath toy.

"It's time to eat. Come on."

They were at the end of the hall when Liz heard something thump in the bathroom. She stopped and looked back, but she and Joey were already turning into the living room, headed for the kitchen, and supper was done, and she didn't want to get into it again. She just wanted to get it taken care of.

Day after tomorrow, she told herself. Get it done as soon as you can.

When everyone went to bed, Joey argued and whined, but in the end, he slept in his own bed. Since a door connected the two bedrooms, Jack told him they'd keep it open for him, but he had to sleep in his own bed. Joey gave in and finally, after too much tossing and turning, he dozed off.

Jack lay back and relaxed, letting the stress of work slough off, into the mattress, and through to the floor where it disappeared. Despite all the problems he faced every day, he had to admit, he enjoyed his job. The chips and relays went in the boards, the boards went into the boxes, the cables were connected, and the finished product was out the door. Jack could rest easy at night, knowing there was order to the world. He fell asleep quickly, his legs wrapped in Liz's.

Liz lay awake long after Jack's breathing had evened out. She stared at the ceiling, wondering what was upstairs. Something was, of that she had no doubt.

The noises, she thought. The voices and footsteps. It figures I had to move all this way to live in a haunted house.

She'd lived a full enough life in Houston. It was only fair that, after moving to Angel Hill and getting away from all that, from her dysfunctional parents, her even more screwed up ex-husband, and the depressing life she'd lived out in the years before meeting Jack, she should have some sanity in her life. Jack built his world on order. Why couldn't she?

But Jack lives here, too.

But he doesn't let himself see anything that's going on here.

And what's going on here?

She rolled onto her side and stared at the wall. She wanted to close her eyes, let herself drift off, but she knew the second she let her guard down, those hands would nudge her again. And what would she do then? Scream? Probably not. But she'd certainly lie awake all night.

She edged backward, pressing her back against Jack. He wrapped an arm around her and she grasped his fingers, holding him close, enjoying his warmth.

Resting against her husband, she tilted her head down and closed her eyes, forcing everything out, welcoming sleep and trying not to listen for b.u.mps or knocks in the walls.

Liz finally slept heavily. She dreamed of her first marriage. Except, in her dream, instead of asking for a divorce, Alex had looked into her face and screamed, "You can't save yourself, you can't save yourself, you can't save yourself--". She moved in her sleep, but didn't wake up that night.

Jack turned over and opened his eyes to darkness.