The Third Floor Part 27

And what the h.e.l.l was that crack about playing with himself all weekend?

How about if he took Lily and swung her into the side of Liz's smart-a.s.s mouth? No, he told himself. She's getting me p.i.s.sed off over nothing. She was just aggravated when she said that. There's something going on alright, Liz. It's not ghosts, but there is definitely something. You're acting too strange.

He grabbed the picture of Joey again and stared at it, comparing this two-dimensional boy to the son he had in his mind, the one he saw every day.

Yes, there was a difference. Joey was smaller in the picture, but he was how many months older now?

There was nothing wrong with Joey. And Jack knew there certainly wasn't anything wrong with himself. That only left Liz and he didn't have to think hard to make a list of her strange behavior lately.

He heard her in the kitchen banging things around as she made supper.

Then again, another part of him pointed out, you have to admit, you don't really see him that much. Not as much as Liz does.

All the more reason I'd notice changes in him, he reasoned. Because if the change is gradual, she won't see it if she's here all the time. But I would. It's like seeing a person gain or lose weight. If you're around them all the time, you don't notice the change until afterward when you're looking at the before picture.

He looked at the picture again, scanning the whole thing this time, looking at Joey, at the house, at the girl in the third floor window-- He blinked, furrowed his brow, and looked again.

Yes, there she was, faint and half-obscured by sun glare.

But I'll be d.a.m.ned if it doesn't look like there's someone standing in the window.

Is that what touched me last night?

Shut up. Nothing touched you. You dreamed that.

Right. I forgot.

He looked at the picture again and she was gone, if she'd ever been there. Yes, there was still something in the window, but now that he really studied it, it could be anything from reflected light to distortions in the gla.s.s or smudges on the camera lens when Liz snapped the photo, all of them made to look like a girl in the window by suggestions from Liz and Jack's subconscious working together.

Then he wondered if Liz had seen the image. Maybe unconsciously she had and that had been the seed of her ghost theory. That made sense, didn't it? And ever since, every noise or shadow suddenly becomes a ghost.

Yes, that was it. His wife wasn't crazy, just impressionable.

Everyone will suffer now.

You can't save yourself.

The words went through him via his spine, expelling themselves through the goose b.u.mps on his arms.

That had been his dream. And he'd heard it before, from the prank calls they'd gotten.

But that's all it was. Everything was fine. The world was normal. He'd figured it all out.

While his mind worked to convince him of this, Jack turned over and stared at Lily.

Liz had lost count of the dinners they'd eaten in silence.

While her frustration had begun to fade, she didn't know about Jack and if she tried to talk to him and he came back with a sarcastic or spiteful response, she knew she'd be right back to p.i.s.sed, too.

So she kept quiet, ate her pork chops, shoveled mashed potatoes into her mouth, and tried like crazy to think of something to say that would have nothing to do with ghosts.

Joey had eaten half of his mashed potatoes, a few kernels of corn, but hadn't touched the pork chop.

Jack and Liz noticed it simultaneously, and they both said, "Joey, eat your supper."

Joey laughed at the stereo quality, but still only brushed at the food with his fork. Jack and Liz chuckled, glanced at each other, then stopped and looked down at their plates.

Joey said, "I'm full."

"You're not full," Jack said. "Eat."

Joey poked his fork at a piece of corn, but couldn't pierce it.

"Scoop it up," Liz said, demonstrating with her own fork.

"I like doing it this way," Joey said, then continued to try to spear the kernels that eluded him.

The silence dragged on another few minutes before Liz said, "So did anyone say anything about you being gone so long today?"

"Who's to say anything?" Jack asked.

Liz shrugged. She cut off another bite of pork chop.

"No," Jack said. "The load wasn't leaving today, so everything went okay."

"No calls from Aurora?"

"Oh no, they called. They always call. G.o.d forbid a day goes by that they don't call half a dozen times with three dozen things they need next day."

"I can't believe no one says anything to them about that." She chewed her pork chop. Joey slid some of his corn toward the potatoes, trying to hide them. "Eat your corn," she said.

"Why would they?" Jack said. "They pay for the shipping and every part they get from us they have to buy, also. Each plant is individual and anything that goes from one place to another better come with a bill and a receipt."

"Is that normal?"

"I don't know, really. It makes sense, I guess."

"I kind of figured company property meant company property no matter where it was."

"Maybe," Jack said, shrugging. "I don't know."

After Jack and Liz finished their food and Joey had convinced them he was done, too, Liz sent Joey in to take a bath.

After she put the dishes in the sink and threw away what little was left, she headed for the bathroom.

Jack was in the bedroom, leaning against the headboard with Lily resting against his knee. When he saw her pa.s.s by, he leaned toward the hall.

"I'm sure he's capable of washing his own hair."

"I'm sure he is," Liz said. "He's also capable of drowning if he slips and falls."

Jack went back to Lily, knowing he wasn't going to convince her of Joey's independence on this issue.

Liz closed the door and sat sideways on the toilet lid. Joey filled a plastic cup with bath water, then dumped it out, watching the silvery-clear stream fall.

Liz's breath caught and her vision blurred, then cleared and she wiped sweat off her forehead. The few stray strands of hair she'd found on Joey last night were thicker now, and there were more of them. She tried not to stare, and tried not to let it affect her like it had last night.

She'd had the day to think it over and she knew now that Joey was involved, too. She could handle this now.

She dumped water over his head, washed his hair, and rinsed it. He asked if she was going to wash him off, but Liz said, "No, I think you're old enough now to do that yourself."

He said okay and rubbed soap over his stomach from side to side like children do.

Liz stood in front of the sink, staring into the mirror, silently praying to be able to get through this without her reflection doing anything Liz herself wasn't doing, too.

She looked down into the sink and asked, "Joey? The day we went to find the horse rides . . . how did you know where they were?"

"Adam knows."

Her heart jumped a few beats and her stomach felt as if someone had shoved a large rock into the middle of it.

She took a deep breath, looked up into the mirror and asked, "Is Adam someone in the house?"

Joey was silent a second, then she heard the water pouring from the cup again. She glanced over her shoulder. Joey looked up. "Uh-huh."

Finally, she asked, "And when does Adam talk to you?"

"I don't know. Sometimes."

"What kind of stuff does he say to you?"

"I don't know. Stuff. He tells me about the people who used to live here."

"The Denglers?" Liz asked.

Joey nodded. "Uh-huh. But not just them. There was a preacher who lived here, too."

"And does he visit you, too?"

"No. But Adam tells me about him."

Liz felt her chin beginning to tremble and she ground her teeth together to stop it. She wiped her forehead again and sat back on the toilet seat.

"Like what?"

"They built the house for him."

"Who did?"

"The town," Joey said. He scrubbed at his face with a wet rag, then wiped his hand across his eyes. "Angel Hill. The preacher lived some place else, but Angel Hill wanted him to come here so they built the house for him as an insensitive."

"An incentive?"

"Uh-huh."

Liz heard something in the hall and she stood and moved toward the door. The noise faded and she heard Jack in the bedroom, strumming his guitar. Whatever had pa.s.sed outside was gone.

"And what else does Adam tell you?"

"The preacher had some kids and he made them leave."

"What for?"

"Cause they were doing bad things to each other."

Liz frowned. She guessed at what he was talking about, but the whole matter was too disturbing for her to be discussing with her six-year-old stepson.

"They were twins," Joey continued. "A girl and a boy and they slept upstairs all the way and he came up one night and caught them and they had to leave and he didn't see them anymore."

"Does Adam ever tell you things about us?"

She took another deep breath, half-dreading the answer, half-hopeful it would be a no.

"Yes."

Her stomach sank another three feet inside her.

"What does he say?"

"He told me you're going to have a baby."

At this, any thought of further revelations from Adam were out of the question.

It was true; Liz had missed her period. But she hadn't told Jack, she hadn't even said it out loud to herself. And she couldn't be more than a few weeks along, nowhere near showing.

How did he know?

He just told you. From Adam.

"Joey, who's Adam?"

"He's one of the boys who used to live upstairs before his dad killed him. He hit him in the head with a big board. But that didn't kill him, so when Adam came back, his dad swung it at him again and a nail cut his throat and he died."

She could feel the onset of hyperventilation. She hadn't expected this level of knowledge from him. She knew he'd seen things and heard things, but she hadn't known he was talking to them. She stifled the urge to lose it, got control of herself.

"And have you ever seen Adam?"

"Uh-huh."