The Third Floor Part 20

I have to.

A few hours, and a couple more cups of tea later, Liz went to bed.

The night hung sticky over them and the air conditioner wasn't doing any good. Through a light sleep, Liz felt the sheet stick to her like another skin and she kept turning, hoping the next position would be the one to take her further under. Hours must have pa.s.sed by the time she felt a small hand nudge her arm.

"Mama, can I get in bed with you?"

She vaguely registered that Joey had called her Mama for the first time. She wanted to jump and clap and squeal with joy, but she was so tired and hot, she'd do it in the morning, she decided.

"Come on," she mumbled, and scooted closer to Jack to make room.

She felt him climb onto the bed and settle in. She rested her hand on his arm, kissed the back of his head, and sighed, hoping to fall finally into a deeper sleep.

"Mama?" he asked.

Her heart warmed again, but still she was too tired to celebrate.

"Yeah, babe?"

"Why did my daddy kill me?"

Liz's eyes shot open and she sat up, staring down at a dead boy lying next to her.

Liz screamed and brushed her hand through the boy, like knocking a bug off the edge of the counter, but he vanished as Liz's hand pa.s.sed through him.

Jack sat up, clicked on the lamp next to the bed and asked, "What? What's wrong?"

Liz looked at the bare spot on the mattress, then looked at Jack, and knew he wouldn't believe her.

"What is it?"

"Nothing," she said. "I was just having a dream. I think I almost fell off the edge of the bed."

"Be careful," he said. "Why don't you move over here?"

"I will," she said, "in a minute." She went to the bathroom and the door clicked behind her. Jack shut off the lamp and went back to sleep.

She sat sideways on the toilet with the lid closed, her face in her hands, trying to keep from crying.

There's nothing to cry about, she told herself. It's nothing that can hurt you. The most it can do is make noises and move stuff. But it can't hurt you. This is your house now.

Is it? She wondered.

She rubbed her eyes, then went to the sink to splash cold water on her face. She avoided the mirror by keeping her face down. She remembered the demon-Liz that had sneered back at her a few weeks ago. She didn't want to go through that again, not right now.

I just want some sleep, and when I get up in the morning, then I'll figure something else out. I have to; I can't keep doing this night after night. Not on my own.

Maybe if Jack had some kind of proof, he'd wake up and see things as they are, too. Then you'd have someone on your side.

That's not going to happen. I can't control how and when things happen. And unless the girl or the man swung him around by the nuts, I don't see him believing.

You're probably right, she thought.

Of course. His rational mind was one of the things you liked about him in the beginning.

I know. G.o.d, I can't believe that thing touched me. Worse, I kissed it. Christ, if this whole thing weren't bad enough, I'm going to have nightmares about it for a month now.

s.h.i.t, she thought. She just remembered the doll Jack had brought downstairs. What did he do with it? Was it still sitting on the kitchen counter?

She dried her face and turned away from the mirror without looking into it, then left the bathroom. She found the doll where Jack left it, staring up with its painted face. She grabbed it, keeping her mind on what to have for dinner tomorrow night, or who was supposed to be on Oprah tomorrow afternoon, anything that wasn't this doll.

She carried it to the second floor and wouldn't let herself go any further. Liz flung the doll up the stairs to let the house have it back and if she came up to check tomorrow and it was gone, well, she'd deal with that nervous breakdown when it came.

Back in bed, Jack was already fast asleep. Liz slid in next to him, keeping a little closer to him. She tried to find a middle ground where, on the one hand, she wouldn't be close enough to the edge of the bed that the boy could touch her again, and on the other hand, there wouldn't be enough room for it to lay next to her again.

Joey felt his way along the staircase in the dark.

He'd run up here to get away from the man, again. He'd expected to find the children up here, but this time the third floor was empty. And even though all the lights in the house on the first two floors were burning and glaring, the third floor was black.

He heard something creeping on the stairs above him. He moved down a step. Then he heard something coming up toward him from below. He froze, his six-year-old heart ready to burst, and a short, quiet whimper escaped him.

Suddenly the man roared above him, "Come here, boy!" At the same time, the little dead girl appeared glowing from the darkness below him. She held her hand out to him, clutching a doll. "Take it Adam," she said. "It will protect you."

Joey moved to avoid touching either of them, stumbled on the stairs, and fell.

He woke up crying on the floor in his room.

Liz came in to see what was wrong.

Chapter Thirteen.

Liz looked at the shirt Joey wore and when it didn't come down as far as it should, she thought, I guess it's time for some new clothes.

She tied his shoes, despite his protest that, "I know how to tie them. Cross over, pull through."

"I know you do," she said. "But I like doing things for you." He winced at the tightness of the shoes and she asked, "Are your feet getting too big for them?"

"I don't know."

She kissed his head and reminded him not to leave the backyard, and not to look at the old woman across the alley. He said okay and ran out the back door. Before the clang of the closing screen door faded, Liz heard the knocking on the front door and thought, We've got to either get a doorbell or a sign that says to come to the back. But her frustration faded when she saw the two Angel Gla.s.s-uniformed men standing outside.

"Is this the Kitch residence?" asked the first.

She told him it was and invited them in, telling them how happy she was to see them.

"I can imagine," said the other one.

She led them downstairs, telling them where the broken window was. They followed, making small talk about the heat and "nice house", but she could tell by their voices that they weren't thrilled with being here.

"So, how long have you lived here?" asked the first man.

"Only a couple of months," Liz answered. "We moved up from Houston."

"'We'?"

The second man went to the plastic-covered pane and measured it.

"Yeah," Liz said. "Me, my husband, and our son Joe."

"Only three of you?"

"Lots of s.p.a.ce here for only three people," the second man commented.

"That it is," Liz agreed.

While Liz entertained the gla.s.s repairmen, Jack stood against the wall of the break room during the monthly Fett Technologies communications meeting.

"As you've all noticed, no doubt," Bill Sten said, "things have slowed down a bit here . . ."

Like h.e.l.l, Jack thought. Maybe they've slowed down in the other departments, but we've got plenty of work to go around if you want to send some people our way.

" . . . And that is mostly due to one of our biggest customers having gone bankrupt. In all, Fett Tech is out just under a million dollars with the loss of this one customer."

The talk around the plant lately had been about a cut in hours, which was supposed to last at least six months. The upside was that the hour cut was instead of a layoff. For that Jack was glad. He may have a fairly important position, but he was still the new guy.

"On the bright side," Bill Sten continued, "we had a tour come through here just a few days ago. A customer we've been dealing with for a good three or four years brought in a busload of people to show them where he gets his product. One of the gentlemen on this tour commented to me about how impressed he was with what he saw."

Just get to the point, Jack wanted to say.

"He was impressed, not only with the way things are run here, but he said it was mostly with the people we've got working here at Fett Technologies. He was impressed with their level of motivation and with the general att.i.tude throughout the plant."

Blah, blah, blah, Jack thought. I've got a load of start/stop modules that need to be on the way to Aurora in two hours, so let's get to the d.a.m.ned point.

It was all Jack could do to keep from sighing out loud. Finally, Bill Sten made his point.

"What this means for all of us is that, within the next month to two months, Fett Tech should be able to regain some of that loss. However, until that time, the only way we can be able to keep our level of quality is by keeping the staff we've got. And the only way to do that is we're going to have to cut back our work week from forty to thirty-six hours."

The groan of four lost hours of pay flowed through the whole crowd.

"That means, instead of four nines and a four, we'll be working just the four nines for the next several weeks."

There goes that acoustic I've been wanting, Jack thought. At least for a while. I wonder if that's going to affect the people on salary. I do still have a house payment, after all.

As the meeting broke up and everyone ambled back to his or her areas, Jack caught up to Charley and asked, "We playing this weekend?"

"I don't know now," Charley said. "Looks like I might be out looking for a part-time job. I don't make the big bucks like you."

"Please, you've been here a lot longer than I have. I'm sure if you break it down hourly, you make a lot more than I do."

"Well, nevertheless, I'm not going get all the bills covered on thirty-six hours."

"And we're not going to get all the work-orders covered that way, either," Jack said. "I'm going to have to talk with him to see about that. 'Cause we get enough c.r.a.p from Aurora on forty hours. I don't need more p.i.s.sing and moaning from them because Fett Tech in general lost a customer; that's not my fault."

"Well, you see what you can do. I'm gonna get those start/stops finished up."

"You got an hour and a half."

As they packed up their tools and the first repairman, whose name was Art, wrote out the bill, Liz noticed the second man, whose name was Richard, seemed suddenly anxious. He shoved the last of his tools into his toolbox and had his keys out and ready before standing up.

"You ready?" he asked Art.

"Yeah, in a minute." Art didn't seem the least ill at ease.

Richard shivered and brushed at the back of his neck. Liz watched and felt sorry for him. She knew what was touching him, but how did you talk about something like that, and with people you didn't know, in your own house?

"With tax, that comes to--"

"I'm gonna wait outside," Richard said. He headed for the hallway and Art said, "Yeah, I'll be there in a second."

He handed Liz the bill. She got her purse from the hall table and dug out the checkbook. She heard Richard close the front door.

"He doesn't seem too eager to leave, does he?" She filled out the check.

"He's okay," Art said. "I guess it's really my fault. On the way over here, I was telling him stuff."

"About my house?" Liz asked.

"Oh, man, I'm sorry," Art said, realizing what he'd said. "No, it's just that, I mean, well, you know, you're new in town and, I really didn't mean anything, I was--."

"That's okay," Liz said. "I heard. Well, I heard something anyway."

Art appeared relaxed, but she could tell he was going to watch everything else he said the rest of the time he was there.

"So, you know what happened here?" she asked. "I mean, the whole story?"

"Uh, not really. Just what was in the papers, but that was a long time ago. And I'm sure the papers didn't know the whole story anyway. I mean, something like that doesn't just happen without a whole bunch of stuff leading up to it, you know?"

She signed the check, tore it out, and handed it over.

Art took it and filled out the receipt.

"So what did the papers say?" she asked.