The Third Floor Part 2

"You want a sandwich?"

"No. Thanks. I'll get something later."

Liz turned away, leaving Jack to his keys. In the kitchen, she made Joey a peanut b.u.t.ter and jelly, set it on a plate next to a couple of cookies and called him into the kitchen.

"But there's no table," he said.

Liz realized he was right and looked around. Surely with all these boxes, he could sit on something other than the couch.

"Can I eat outside?"

Liz smiled at his ingenuity. "Yes, that's a good idea. It's an awful nice day."

The backyard had two levels and they sat together on the step from the higher to the lower. Liz wondered at the huge back yard that included the empty lot next to their house. Jack will have a ball mowing this thing, she thought.

Joey chewed loudly, mostly playing with his sandwich and munching the cookies.

"Put the cookies down," she said. "You can eat those after your sandwich."

"Just one more?"

"No. Now eat."

Joey nibbled the bread. A drop of jelly oozed from the bottom and dropped to his leg. He didn't notice it.

She turned around to stare at the house and noticed for the first time another door, about ten feet to the left of the back door. She got up, asking, "Where's this go?"

Joey sat staring at his food. He stayed put as she reached the door, turned the handle. It was locked, but she pushed against the door anyway. It didn't budge.

Just then Joey laughed and pointed.

"Look, Liz," he said, smiling, "a naked woman!"

Liz looked and sure enough there was a naked woman, an old naked woman from the looks, staring at them from the window of her apartment in the building just across the alley from the Kitch house.

"Joey, don't look at that!" She tried not to laugh. Liz covered Joey's face and the old woman ducked behind her curtain. Her face peeked out again, just enough for her to see Liz was still trying not to watch.

"Come on," Liz said. "I think we can go inside now."

"Did you see her?" Joey laughed. "She was naked." He laughed with childish hilarity and almost dropped his plate. A cookie slid toward the side, but stuck in a smear of peanut b.u.t.ter. Joey kept laughing as Liz carried him in and set him on the couch. She plugged in the television, then went looking through the maze of junk for the DVD player and Joey*s cartoons.

Jack came into the room, tossing the flashlight onto the couch, asking, "What's so funny?" She told him and Jack said, "Great. Nice to know we picked the good neighborhood."

"Did you find your keys?"

"No. I'm going to have to take the vent cover off and get down there myself. Those keys are down there, I just can't see them from up here."

"Why don't you just make copies of mine?"

"Because my keys would still be down there and it would bug me."

"I see," she said. She spotted the DVD player and pulled it from the box it had been stuffed into. She was unraveling the cord when she remembered, "Do you know where that other door outside leads?"

"What other door?"

She told him and Jack said, "That goes to the laundry room. It's downstairs."

"There's another floor?" she asked.

"Two, actually," he explained. "The bas.e.m.e.nt has two levels. The laundry room on one, and then another level down to the furnace and the water heater."

"This house is just too big. And you have to go outside to get to it?"

"No," he laughed. "You can get outside from the laundry room. There's a door by the stairs in the hall that leads down."

Liz shook her head at the floor and asked, "How did I miss all this stuff? I was up before you, I looked around. I was even outside earlier this morning. I'm just not paying attention to anything." She searched for an outlet to plug the television into.

"There's one by the window," Jack said, then. "You just gotta realize, babe, I got the brains of the marriage, you got the body."

"Oh, so I'm stupid, but hot, right?" She plugged in the television, then set the DVD player on top of it, hooked it up, and plugged it in.

"Hey, I didn't say stupid."

"You didn't have to." As she talked, she tried to find the box with Joey's cartoons. She should have packed them with the DVD player.

"What I meant was, um, see, uh, what I--"

"That's okay," Liz smiled. "I know what you were trying to say. We'll just leave it like it is for now." Jack groaned and frowned at Liz. She raised her eyebrows at him, then turned toward the bedroom. "You can look for Joey's movies. I'm gonna do some unpacking."

"Do you want to go out for a little bit instead?" Jack asked.

Liz stopped in the doorway. "What did you have in mind?"

Jack shrugged. "Just a drive around. I've got a week until I start work, we might as well get as used to Angel Hill as we can."

Liz shook her head. "Naw, I'd just as soon get this mess out of the way. But why don't you take Joey for a ride around town? When you get back, I should have the bedrooms livable and then I'll start dinner."

Jack asked Joey if he wanted to go and Joey leapt at the chance.

Liz started by shoving her dresser into place against the wall and filling it with her clothes. Jack's dresser would go against the opposite wall, on his side of the bed. She put the clothes away and made the bed. She was about to start on the bedside table, setting the clock, locating outlets for the lamps, when the front door slid open then clicked shut. She yelled, "You guys are back soon. I'll be done here in a minute. Why don't you start on Joey's room while I'm cooking?"

She'd found an outlet on her side of the bed for the clock and now her lamp stood next to it on the table. Jack's side didn't have an outlet. She'd either have to get an extension cord to another outlet, or he'd have to forego his bedside lamp.

She realized then that no one had come downstairs yet. She stepped into the hall and called out, "Are you guys coming down or what?"

But no one answered and, in fact, when Liz listened, she didn't hear anything at all. No feet moved around upstairs, no boards creaked overhead. She walked closer to the stairs and listened again, then called, louder, "Are you guys coming down? I'm gonna be making dinner in a minute. What do you want?"

Again there was no answer. She stepped up to the landing, annoyed that they were ignoring her. "Joey," she said, "who wants candy?" When Joey didn't come running and screaming, she decided Jack had told him to keep quiet and they'd scare her. But she was smarter than that.

"It's not going to work, Jack," she said. "I'm going downstairs." With that, she clomped back down to the first floor and into the bedroom. She moved into Joey's room to start his unpacking.

Before she even got started on his clothes, she heard the front door again.

"Nice going," she yelled into the hall. "I can hear the door from down here, you know."

"Liz?" a voice called down. It sounded like Joey, kind of. But he sounded odd. Had he hurt himself, she wondered. I'd better go see if he's okay, she thought.

Liz dropped his clothes on the floor and went upstairs to the landing. They weren't here. Maybe Jack had taken him up to the second floor bathroom for whatever reason. The voice came again, "Liz," from upstairs. She went to the second floor bathroom, but it was dark, empty. The door stood open and as she leaned in to close it, the voice came again, "Liz," from behind her. She turned, expecting to see Joey in the open main room, but Joey wasn't there. No one was. But the voice had been right behind her. She let go of the bathroom door and stepped toward the main room when it came, "Liz," right behind her again. This time it had come from the bathroom and Liz could see clearly that the bathroom was dark and empty.

Panic welled in her; her heart skipped a half dozen beats and her stomach wanted to hide in her knees. Her breath caught and she turned to dart down the stairs. She almost rounded the landing and leapt to the bottom floor, but she bolted through the front door instead. Liz sailed down the porch steps to the walkway, down the path across the long front yard and finally down another small set of steps leading to the street. She stopped and turned back to look at the house, expecting any of a dozen horror movie scenes to be playing out in front of her eyes. Instead, she saw their new house. Nothing else.

The upper windows didn't glow with eerie light, nor did macabre figures stare out at her. She caught her breath, calmed herself down, and looked up at the house again. She stared at it then, waiting, daring something to show itself. When nothing did, she decided she had come all the way from Houston to live in Angel Hill with her husband and son and this was their house now. No matter what may lie in the shadows of this house, it was theirs now and if she heard a noise every now and then, well, what house didn't make noises?

How many houses call you by name?

Shut up, she told this inner voice. Lots of things sound like Liz. There's biz, quiz, wiz, fizz. And when she thought about it, she wasn't entirely sure what she'd heard had been a voice. In all the recorded history of ghost hunting, no one had yet to supply any kind of proof solid enough to convince all the world's skeptics. Why was that? Because everything was always explainable some other way.

Another Angel Hill bird. The Talking Liz bird maybe.

But you heard the door open.

No, she told the voice. I heard something. I've been in this house, what, fifteen hours, suddenly I know all its noises? No. I heard something, but that's all. It could have been a breeze blowing against the door.

Just then, their Jeep rolled up behind her. The horn honked and Liz turned, glad to see Jack and Joey home again.

"Wanna get some supper?" he asked. "We found a good restaurant."

Liz ordered a pot roast dinner while Jack and Joey both had hamburgers. Liz thought about telling Jack about the noises, but decided it wouldn't be a good idea in front of Joey, so she kept quiet. They laughed and talked about the new town and Jack's new job. He would take part of tomorrow and go visit the plant, an electronics company that built control panels for utility trucks. After paying the check, Jack let Joey leave the tip and the six-year-old bounded back to them at the door. They drove around for a while, sightseeing and familiarizing themselves with their neighborhood. While it darkened outside, Joey dozed in the back seat. Jack said, "I wonder if there's a music store in town."

"Didn't you just change those strings a few weeks ago?"

"Yeah," he said. "It was my last set, though. I like to have them on hand, just in case."

"Oh." Liz turned her attention back to the window. Angel Hill was now a blur of light and dark patches whizzing by.

By the time Jack pulled up outside the house, Joey was asleep and Liz also felt exhaustion coming. Her head rested against the gla.s.s, enjoying the coolness of it after the summer heat of the city. All thoughts about the sound earlier that might have been her name being called--or might have been the Talking Liz, native to Angel Hill--were forgotten.

Jack got the door open and Liz carried Joey. They let him sleep with them since theirs was the only room close to done.

In the middle of the night, Jack roused just long enough to hear Joey coming back down the hall. While he was almost asleep again instantly, he was conscious enough to know he didn't remember feeling Joey actually climb onto the bed.

Chapter Two.

Over the next few weeks, the house became theirs. The first floor was unpacked and decorated, pictures on the walls, plants in the windows, the couch pushed against the wall and the cable hooked up.

The bedrooms were arranged and the sheets covered the mattresses. Joey only occasionally asked to sleep with Jack and Liz. Usually they let him. Sometimes they told him to sleep in his own room like a big boy.

The front door was usually locked, Jack and Liz opting to use the back door instead of dealing with the stairs, especially with an armload of groceries. Jack's keys were still lost, and it drove him crazy like he knew it would, but they simply couldn't be found. He'd copied Liz's and had been able to get another house key from the realtor's office.

Liz had begun making plans for the second floor restoration, spending as much time as she could at McCauley's Hardware, choosing paint colors, light fixtures, a good varnish for the hardwood floor that drew your attention in the open main room. It was easy to concentrate on the house; being new in town, they hadn't found time to meet anyone who might steal their free time. Jack had found a music store and found, not only new strings for his guitar, but a big white acoustic with a pearl pick guard and gold edging. He was thinking of buying it as soon as the big checks started coming in.

A week after moving in, he'd taken his guitar and amp to the third floor, thinking up here he could turn up the volume a little without blasting out his wife and son's eardrums. He plugged into the corner room wall socket, flipped the power switch and waited. When the amp never warmed up, he checked the plug. It was in, but nothing was coming out. He flipped the breaker in the bas.e.m.e.nt, but still the outlet didn't work. Nor did any of the other outlets on the third floor.

He went to the second floor, but the best he got there was a crackle with the intermittent whine of guitar strings. On the first floor, closed off in their bedroom, he played. The headphones were on, so all Joey and Liz heard was the strumming.

A couple weeks later, Liz had just finished the first coat of burgundy on one of the second floor's main room walls and was covered in red specks from the roller. She considered a bath, but didn't want to soak in a tub of red water. The shower was in the second floor bathroom, but she hadn't used it yet. In fact, after the name-calling incident, she'd not used the upstairs bathroom at all. But by now enough time had pa.s.sed, while she recalled the event, the emotional memory had faded quite a bit. In fact, that entire day was such a jumble of hustling and moving and noise and people through the house . . . she had been sleeping before it happened and now two weeks later, couldn't say with all certainty that hadn't been part of it.

She flipped on the light and found it brilliant.

"What the h.e.l.l wattage is that?" she asked. "Two million?"

Well, it was bright enough; whatever she hadn't liked about this room couldn't possibly be as sinister in this light. She brought her things from downstairs, towel, soap, robe, and closed the door. The bathroom was small and had no windows. It filled with steam quickly.

She lathered up and began to scrub at the paint freckles.

Joey lay sleeping in his bed. He'd finally dozed off with a truck in his hand, sleep claiming him just as the truck topped the crest of Pillow Hill. His leg twitched as he dreamed.

For years, Joey had dreamed about his mother, whom he'd never met. Although his dad never told him, Joey knew his mother had left very soon after he was born. He also knew Liz was just as good as a mother, even if she wasn't the real thing. But he dreamed about his mother a lot. Until recently, anyway.

Lately his naptime dreams had been scattered bits of weird. In the current dream, Joey was playing at the park a few blocks down the street from their house. He was playing hide and seek with some other kids from the park, and Joey was it. He covered his eyes and counted to ten, then yelled, "Ready or not," and twirled to see it was getting dark.

Joey walked around the park, alone and searching for someone, anyone else. For some reason, his parents weren't around, and when he yelled for the other kids to come on out, he couldn't find them. He went behind the bathrooms, but no one was hiding there. He checked in the tunnel on the jungle gym, but no one was hiding there, either. He climbed to the top of the slide, looking out over the entire park. The sky looked pale green, like it was going to storm, and a breeze chilled Joey's legs and arms where his clothes didn't cover.

Then he spotted someone. From the top of the slide, he could see a kid sitting on a bench by the water fountain. Joey slid down, leaped off the edge into the sand, and ran to the bench.

It was a girl. Her head was down and blonde hair hung in her face.

Joey asked, "Where did everyone go?"

She didn't answer, but her feet kicked back and forth, too short to touch the ground.

"I thought we were playing hide and go seek," Joey said. "I guess I'm not very good at it 'cause I can't find anybody." Joey glanced off to the parking lot and realized all the cars were gone. He was really alone at the park with just this little girl, and she wasn't even talking to him.

Joey slid toward the edge of the bench, ready to stand and leave.

"I think I'm gonna look for my dad," he said and leaned forward to hop to the ground.

The girl's head tilted up then and Joey saw her eyes were huge, like hardboiled eggs bulging from her head. Her skin was yellow and cracked and her hair, now that he saw it right, wasn't blonde, it was dirty and closer to brown. A damp leaf clung to it, a small twig sticking out from behind her ear. She opened her mouth and the lips split with long, red cuts.

"Your father's a murderer," she yelled into his face.

Joey flew off the bench and took off across the park, imagining he was wearing his fast shoes. He looked back and saw the girl get up and step up into the water fountain. Joey stopped running and watched, wondering.