The Third Floor Part 11

"I only got a couple."

"Yeah, but what's the fascination?"

"They just looked interesting," she said.

He tossed them back onto the couch and went into the kitchen to get a c.o.ke.

"I'm gonna make me and Joey something for lunch. You hungry?"

"Didn't you just have ice cream?" he asked.

"That's not lunch, though."

"Yeah, make me something, too, since you didn't bring me anything nice back."

Chapter Seven.

It was Sunday and Liz was trying not to be too excited about tomorrow's blessing. She had prayed repeatedly last night and today that it would work.

Joey was asleep. Jack had gone to the music store.

She pulled a bundle of sheets from the dryer, dumping them into her basket. She put the wet clothes from the washer into the dryer, started a new load of wash, then grabbed the basket and headed upstairs.

She untangled the fitted sheet from all the others in the basket, and shook it out in front of her, trying to find the corner with the tag. She got it, and moved to the side of her bed. She raised the sheet over the mattress and let it glide down over the bed.

It fell and draped over the shape of a man. He seemed to be lying curled up on the mattress.

Liz gasped and moved back. She wanted to run, but couldn't. Was it fear or wonder that froze her? She didn't know.

The man's head rose and turned toward her. She saw no features, just the general shape of a body on its side, legs curled up. It leapt from the mattress in a flash, then fled down the hall, taking the sheet with it. Liz moved to the hall to watch. It moved soundlessly. It leapt up the stairs, dropped the sheet on the landing, and vanished.

She stood alone in the hall, praying again, "Please G.o.d let it work tomorrow. I can't do this much longer. Please let it work tomorrow."

While Liz prayed, Jack and Charley perused the guitars on the wall at Westgate Music. Charley needed a new amp cord and Jack just wanted to look.

Charley took a Gibson Firebird down off the wall and looked it over.

"What are you doing?" Jack asked. "That's the ugliest guitar in the world."

"Do what? These are cla.s.sics, man."

"Those are c.r.a.p. That one there," he pointed to a Flying V a few s.p.a.ces down, "that's a cla.s.sic."

"They're both ugly when you look at *em."

"Yeah, they are." They moved away toward the ba.s.ses and Charley looked up at a black Rickenbacker 4001.

"Sweet, isn't it?"

"Since when do you play ba.s.s?"

"Not yet, but she's pretty."

"Yeah. Hey, you wanna come over later on and we'll go upstairs and play?"

Charley didn't answer at first, but finally he nodded and said, "Sure, okay."

"Wait," Jack said. "c.r.a.p, I forgot, that floor needs re-wired or something. I went up there when we moved in and couldn't get anything to work. Had to settle for the first floor and the headphones."

Charley took the 4001 down and slapped a few notes. He wasn't very good.

"Man, these strings are like playing the streetlight cables outside my house." He looked up at Jack. "You sure it wasn't the ghosts up there keeping it from working?"

"If there were ghosts in my house, sure," Jack said. He grabbed a Fender Precision and plucked a few notes. He was even worse than Charley. "Just old wiring. House hasn't been lived in for how many years?"

"Six," Charley answered immediately. "Since those kids were killed."

"Right. Six years. We'll get that re-done as we work up to it. I just hope it doesn't turn out the entire house needs it. Hey, but you can come over anyway, we can take everything out back. I've got a huge back yard."

"Sweet," Charley said. "I got a couple things to do, but I can come over later."

"Okay. Any time, I'm not doing anything tonight."

Jack stopped and admired his white acoustic while Charley grabbed the amp cord he'd come for.

It was a couple hours later, while Jack sat watching something on the Discovery Channel and Liz sat at the other end of the couch leafing through one of her books, that Joey started screaming from his bedroom.

Liz dropped the book and Jack leapt from his seat. They darted down the hall and burst into Joey's room, but he wasn't there.

What the h.e.l.l, Liz thought. Is this what it takes to make Jack believe? Don't make it this.

"Joe?" Jack asked. "Where are you?"

He wasn't on his bed, or on the floor playing with his super-heroes. Liz looked under the bed, but he wasn't there, either. They stood wondering, and Liz finally heard something. Joey was crying, she could hear it clearly, but he wasn't anywhere. Then she saw his closet door was cracked.

She opened it and found Joey sitting against the wall, crying into his hands, his knees pulled to his chest. He looked up at the light, then at Liz and Jack, and started crying again.

Jack pulled him from the closet and Joey struggled, but Jack got him out. He sat on the edge of Joey's bed, his son cradled in his arms, rocking him, trying to calm him down.

"What's the matter, Joe?" he asked. Joey whined, but wouldn't say anything. They stayed with him to comfort him, and they were patient, until he finally stopped crying and just sat silent on Jack's lap, staring at the wall. "What's wrong, Joe?" Jack asked again.

"You scared me," Joey said.

"I'm sorry," Jack said. "We heard you crying. What were you crying for?"

"Because you scared me, I said."

"No," Jack said. "I mean what were you crying about the first time?" Joey sniffed, then his crying started again, just a few huffs, but Jack knew if he got started, it would go full-blown within seconds. "Calm down, babe. Tell me what happened."

"I was hiding in the closet," Joey said. "I was gonna scare you when you came in here, but you opened the door and scared me first."

"I know that," Jack said. He was beginning to get annoyed. Why couldn't Joey just tell him what had happened? "Okay, why did you scream, then?"

"Because you scared me when you got in the closet.

"No," Jack said. His anger was a knot in his stomach. "Joe, we were watching television. We heard you scream, then we came in here to see what happened. We found you in the closet, then I pulled you out and asked you what happened. So what happened that made you scream in the first place?"

Joey said, "I mean the first time you came in here, you scared me."

"I didn't come in here a first time," Jack said.

"Yeah," Joey said, "when I was hiding and you opened the door and scared me, then closed it again and left."

Jack looked at Liz and Liz hoped her face was showing confusion. She knew what had happened, but she didn't want to go over everything with him right now.

"Joe, I was watching TV," Jack said. "I never came in here. And I certainly wouldn't have scared you then left."

"You must have fallen asleep playing," Liz said. "You fell asleep in your closet, then had a bad dream and it woke you up." She hated saying that. She knew it wasn't the truth and she knew Joey'd never think of her as a mother if he didn't trust her.

"Yeah," Jack said. "That's what happened. Come on, we'll go watch cartoons. That'll make you feel better."

Joey looked at Liz as Jack carried him into the hall. Liz thought his face was pleading, telling her I didn't dream it. I didn't. Don't make me go with him. But no matter what Joey thought--and he and she both knew he hadn't dreamed it--she also knew Jack hadn't left the couch.

They went into the living room and Liz hung back. She put her head into the closet and stared at the walls. "Don't ever do that to him again," she whispered. "You can mess with me all you want. I'm not afraid of you, but he is and you'd better keep your f.u.c.king hands off him."

She closed the closet door and left the room. Tomorrow afternoon, she told herself for the thousandth time that day. She felt a chill in her spine and knew something moved behind her in the hall.

Suddenly something crashed and Liz jumped, but a hand to her chest, and whirled around. The sound came again. Not a crash, a loud knock on the front door.

Jack came out into the hall and slapped her a.s.s as he pa.s.sed her.

"Charley's here," he said. "We're gonna go out in back for a little bit."

"If you're gonna be loud, let me know and I'll take Joey shopping."

"His shoes are by the couch," Jack said before taking the stairs two at a time to the first landing.

They played for an hour before either needed a break, both showing off a slew of styles and techniques--Jack watched in silent admiration while Charley fingerpicked with a dexterity Jack knew he'd never achieve--and falling into rhythm with each other like they'd been at it for years.

Jack thought it felt great to have someone beside him, someone to play off of, someone to follow if he wanted to hang back a little, and someone who'd follow him if he had a line he wanted to show off. Watching him, Jack wondered why someone with Charley's talent was working the box cell in a place like Fett Tech.

Same reason you are, was the answer he came up with. Because this is fun, but it's not my real life.

Finally Charley lifted his guitar--that big fat Gretch White Falcon--over his head and said, "Okay, I gotta take a p.i.s.s. Where's your bathroom?"

Charley went inside, rested his guitar against the couch, and proceeded down the hall.

Afterward, he turned off the light, pulled the door closed behind him, and stood quiet in the hall. He heard Jack outside, still playing, but he tried to shut it out and listen to the house.

Stories around Angel Hill were myriad about this house, not just concerning the Denglers, but there were still stories about the first family to live here, the Keepers. The preacher, his wife, and their twins. This place hadn't been good to the families who'd lived here.

Charley wondered briefly how long he'd been gone, then he heard Jack outside again and wondered if he was even missed.

He went upstairs to the second floor.

It was definitely summer in Angel Hill. Even with the open grand room, the air was thick.

"Nothing up here," he said, and turned to go up to the third floor.

Rounding the stairs on the final landing, he glanced back and thought, That's where he hung, then.

At the top of the stairs, he looked around. He took a deep breath, but the air up here was almost too thick to breathe. It hung around him like a plastic bag and his arms were immediately covered in a wet sheet of sweat.

"This is it," he said. He moved through the other rooms, stopping for a second in the corner room to stare at the wall and wonder how horrible it must have been to see those children, dead, lined up along the wall. He shivered despite the stifling heat.

"G.o.d, those poor kids," he said. "What the h.e.l.l made you do something like that, Milo?"

He couldn't answer that. No one in Angel Hill could. Milo'd left no note. And Angel Hill wasn't so small that everyone knew everyone's business. Most of the town had never even heard of Milo Dengler until the day the story hit the news. And the house, it wasn't the only big house in town. But it was definitely the most infamous now.

Charley wandered back to the center room and stood back by the wall.

"How could you?" he asked.

Suddenly a rapid pounding came from above. He looked up and saw he was standing under the crawls.p.a.ce door. The sound came in a fierce pattern, almost desperate, and it scared him with its intensity.

"f.u.c.k that," he said, and hauled a.s.s back down the stairs and out the back door.

He had to go back inside to grab his guitar, but when he got outside he told Jack, "Hey, I gotta take off. I didn't see it was so late."

"Okay," Jack said. "I'll see you at work."

"Cool." He put his guitar in its case, unplugged his amp and wound the cord, then headed to his car.

Charley drove home as quickly as he could without getting pulled over. He went into the house, put his guitar on the couch and his amp on the floor. Without a word to his wife, he grabbed the phone and dialed.

His sister answered and without a word of greeting, Charley said, "I was in the house."

She didn't have to ask what house, they'd talked about it since Charley told her he worked with the man who bought it.

"And?" she asked.

"And that place is haunted, I don't care what anyone else thinks. I was up on that third floor and I'm telling you I heard some stuff that almost gave me a heart attack."