The House Read online

  There were footsteps other than his own on the stairs as he took the steps two at a time, but he ignored them as well.

  Of course the front door was locked, but he'd known that would be the case, and after a quick cursory try he headed down the dark corridor that led past the dining room, kitchen, pantry to the den. The air was cold but he was sweating, perspiring more from nervous tension than fear. If he'd known where Daniel and Stormy and Laurie were sleeping, where their bedrooms were, he would've tried to rouse them, but he didn't feel he had time to hunt them down. The House was too big and this was too good an opportunity to waste.

  He could come back for them later, rescue them.

  Rescue them?

  Who was he kidding? That was a crock and he knew it. He was running now on pure coward's energy, and despite all of his moral superiority, his lofty talk about sacrificing individual desires for the greater good, when push came to shove he was just like anyone else. A good Nazi. Willing to save his own ass at the expense of others.

  Hell, at any cost.

  He walked faster.

  He'd been the one playing devil's advocate, taking Billings' side, defending the purpose of the Houses, suggesting that they be content with their lot, that they accept the roles fate selected for them because they had been chosen to do important work, to not only save the free world but to protect the structural integrity of the entire universe. Had it all been rationalization, merely his own way of attempting to make the best of a bad situation? He didn't think so. He had believed it--at least some of it. But he also had to admit that the prospect of escaping, of actually being able to get away from this prison filled him with a joy and hope he had not experienced in ... years.

  If ever.

  Freedom became so much more precious when it was taken away.

  He stopped in front of the den. The door was open and through the windows of the room he could see the lights of the next farm over.

  It was as if a great weight had been lifted from his chest.

  He walked quickly into the den, not bothering to turn on the light. The door he'd gone through before was locked, but he could still see farmland through the windows, hay bales lit blue by the moon. He remembered what Stormy had told them about trying to break a window, and though it hadn't worked for Stormy, Norton figured it was worth another try. He glanced around the den, looking for something he could use to smash the glass. His gaze alighted on a small three-legged table next to a high-backed leather smoking chair. There was a heavy ashtray atop the table, and he tried that first, cocking his arm back and throwing the ashtray as hard as he could at one of the windows.

  It sank into the glass, reappeared on top of the table.

  He picked up the table itself, letting the ashtray fall to the floor. Using both hands to grasp two of the table's legs, he stationed himself to the left of the window, pulled back, and swung the table as hard as he could into the glass. He did not let go of the legs, and there was a strangeliquidy tremor as the tabletop hit the window, a wobbling transmitted by the wooden legs that he could feel throughout his entire body.

  A portion of the table reappeared next to the chair.

  He stared at the window. He could still see farmland, hay bales, the Iowa sky, but everything was blurry, indistinct, as though the glass had been soaped over or smeared with Vaseline. The legs of the table and one corner of its top were still visible on this side of the window, but they had no counterpart beyond it, and he released his grip, let the legs go. The rest of the table was immediately sucked into the window and the entire piece of furniture returned to its normal location in the room.

  His spirits sank. It was a mirage, an illusion. There was no Iowa outside. There was no way he could escape from the House into that farmland and make his way back to Oakdale.

  He turned. There were new shadows in the den now, shadows that had not been there before, sleek, furtive swaths of darkness that had no distinct features but that he knew were watching him. One on top of a bookcase.

  One in the fireplace. One beneath the pool table. They moved, switched positions, changed shape.

  Something passed by him, brushed him.

  He felt tickling hairs, whiskers.

  He instinctively backed up, not screaming only through a sheer effort of will.

  The light was switched on.

  Billings was standing in the doorway.

  The butler was smiling at him, and something in that smile made Norton take a step back. His heart was pounding painfully and he wondered if he was having a heart attack.

  It would serve him right if he did.

  "Is the door locked?" Billings asked.

  Norton stared at him.

  "It's not supposed to be. Not at this hour."

  The butler strode across the room, removing a full key chain from his pocket. Sorting through keys, he found the one he was looking for and placed it in the small keyhole beneath the doorknob, turning it.

  He pocketed the key chain. "It's open," he said, gesturing toward the door.

  Norton remained unmoving. This was a trick. It had to be.

  Billings smiled at him.

  Norton swiveled around, reached out, grasped the knob. It turned in his hand.

  He yanked open the door, felt the coolness of night on his face, smelled the fertile scent of a newly plowed field.

  There was a jolt like a small earthquake, a tremor that passed through the house, swinging the chandelier, knocking a bust of Plato to the floor. It was accompanied by an electronic hum, a low sustained tone that hurt his ears and made his stomach feel queasy.

  Billings smiled. "The House is ready," he said, and his skin appeared suddenly tanned. His eyes were sparkling.

  "It has finally regained its full strength."

  He bowed toward Norton. "Thank you."

  It was then that the doors and windows were sealed shut.

  Daniel They met in the entryway.

  They'd all been awakened by the shaking of the House, by the earthquake or whatever it was, and they'd rushed downstairs, panicked and frightened. A veteran of several major California quakes, Laurie appeared to be a little less rattled than the rest of them, but the fact that the shaking had occurred here, in the House, had obviously put her on guard as well.

  Norton was already downstairs. They were staring at where the front door had been when he emerge'! from the den, walking down the hall toward them. His face was white, his hands shaking, and he explained what had happened, describing his first view of Oakdale through the bedroom window, his attempt to wake up Mark, his experience in the den.

  Daniel looked around the entryway as Norton talked.

  Where window had been was only wall. The door had become a decorative piece of solid oak, an extension of the wainscoting.

  "So the doors and windows were just . . . sealed up?"

  Laurie asked. "The walls came down over them?"

  "Yeah. Basically."

  "But what caused it to happen? Did Billings say something or do something?"

  "I told you. I ... I just opened the door. And I guess that triggered it."

  Laurie shook her head. "But that doesn't make sense."

  "Like he said, it doesn't have to make sense." Mark's voice was low. "Magic isn't logical. It follows its own logic."

  They all turned toward him. He'd been so quiet until now, had spoken so rarely, that it was something of an event when he talked, and Daniel wondered if that wasn't on purpose.

  A passive-aggressive attention-grabber.

  Then he looked into the young man's face, saw the anguish there, and immediately felt guilty for harboring such a thought. They were all going through enough without ascribing petty motives to each other's words and actions. More than anything else, they needed to stick together.

  "Where did Billings go?" Daniel asked.

  Norton shrugged. "I don't know. One minute he was there and the next minute he was gone."

  Stormy snickered. "Was he wearing his PJs ?"

>   "I don't think he sleeps," Norton said. "He was wearing his uniform. As always." He paused. "Only ... he looked different. Tan. Happy."

  "He's been looking better ever since I got here," Daniel said.

  Stormy smiled. "I guess we've been charging his battery too, huh?"

  Daniel grinned at him. "Speak for yourself, nancy boy."

  There was another low rumble, more sound than movement this time. Lights in the House began switching on and off: the candle-shaped bulbs on the wall of the landing above them extinguishing, the swinging chandelier in the sitting room flicking on, the globe light in the hallway winking off, a light in the dining room flaring brightly.

  It should not have been that scary. They'd all been through much worse, and the fact that they were together should have offered some reassurance and comfort.

  But Daniel's pulse was racing, and more than at any time since he'd walked through the front door into the House, he wished he were out of here. The rapidly flickering lights had the effect of a strobe used in a Halloween haunted house, darkening everything around them, making the building--particularly the upstairs-- seem much bigger and more vast than it was.

  Noises accompanied the sudden light shifts.

  Whispers from the shadows.

  High-pitched laughter from above.

  There was another low rumble, and as quickly as it had started, everything stopped. The lights that were on stayed on, the lights that were off stayed off, and there was no more noise. The House was silent.

  "Come on," Laurie said, taking charge. "Let's check out the den."

  She started down the hall, lit now by only a brief sliver of yellow that spilled out from the partially open pantry door. Daniel quickly fell into step behind her, the others following.

  The den door was closed. Laurie tried to open it, Daniel tried, Stormy tried, Mark tried, even Norton tried, but it was locked and nothing they did could get it open.

  Stormy attempted to kick the door, warning everyone to stay back in typical movie fashion, but his cowboy boot had absolutely no effect and even the sound of contact was flat, muffled, and ineffectual.

  "Billings!" Norton called, pounding on the door with his fists.

  Stormy took up the cry: "Billings!"

  A door opened slowly at the far end of the hallway.

  Daniel stared, trying to ignore the feeling of fear that filled him as he watched the slowly opening door. He racked his brain, trying to remember what was in that room, but he had no childhood memory of it, he had not made it to that end of the hall in his earlier explorations, and he could not for the life of him figure out what was in there.

  The door was now open all the way, and through the rectangular entrance dark tangled shadows were visible against pale bluish light.

  This time, he was the one who took the lead.

  He realized what lay behind the door even before they reached it.

  It was a solarium.

  Or a lunarium .

  For the plants in it were obviously night-blooming.

  Daniel entered the room and stopped just inside the door. They were on the west side of the building, though he could not recall ever seeing anything like a greenhouse in that location before. The ceiling, a skylight, was two stories above their heads, the wall of windows opposite them frosted, translucent, letting in light but not offering a view. The plants, on rows of shelves and oversized pots, were all impossibly exotic, comprised of shapes and colors that did not match.

  He found himself wondering where they had come from.

  And who tended them.

  Slowly, the five of them began spreading out, drawn by their individual eyes and interests to particular flowers or shrubs. Daniel stood by a sort of cactus that looked like a headless human skeleton covered with yellowish skin and spiny needles.

  Stormy had walked over to the wall of windows and was gingerly touching the glass. "Feels solid," he said, looking back. He knocked on the glass, and Daniel heard a recognizable clink-clink-clink sound. "Might as well try." Stormy glanced around him, picked up a decent-sized potted plant, and threw it at the window.

  It disappeared.

  Reappeared.

  "What would happen if someone kicked one of those windowpanes?" Daniel wondered, walking over. "Would his foot get caught in that . . . whatever it is, and then show up again in here?"

  "You want to try it?" Stormy asked.

  Daniel held up his hands. "Not me. I'm just wondering."

  "I guess you'll keep on wondering. I'm not trying it either."

  "Hey, guys!"

  Both of them turned to see Norton standing before a peculiarly sparse bush with unusually large dark leaves.

  They walked over and saw as they drew closer that even though there was no wind in the greenhouse, no air conditioning, no breeze, the leaves of the bush were moving, twitching, twisting in the air.

  There seemed something obscene about the plant's movements, an unnatural and aggressive sexuality to the motions that reminded Daniel of Doneen He looked over at Norton, Stormy, and saw the same look of recognition in both of their eyes. Laurie and Mark were heading over as well, and he could tell from the expression on their faces that they had the same reaction to the plant.

  A branch reached for him, drew back, reached again, drew back, its strange leaves curving in on themselves invitingly. At the tip of the branch was a small round berry.

  Eve and the apple.

  That's what it reminded him of, and for the first time, he thought that perhaps their earlier talk of God and the devil wasn't that far off.

  "What's the point of this?" Laurie asked. "Why were we led here?"

  Daniel shrugged. "You got me."

  Behind Laurie, another plant was moving, a series of skinny stalks topped by orchidlike flowers. Following his gaze, she turned. The red engorged stamen of the closest flower wiggled at her, lengthened to its quivering full extension, a drop of dew dripping from its tip.

  "Let's get out of here," she said disgustedly.

  "Fine by me."

  "Let's hit it," Stormy agreed.

  All five of them moved back out the open doorway the way they'd come, Daniel bringing up the rear, keeping his eyes peeled for anything unusual, but nothing happened, even the plants had stopped moving, and when they were all back in the hallway the door slammed shut.

  "What was that all about?" Stormy asked. "Obviously we were supposed to go in there. Obviously we were supposed to see something. But what?"

  No one had an answer.

  It was still the dead of night--two o'clock according to one watch, three-thirty according to another--and they were all pretty tired, so after a short discussion in which they vowed to confront Billings in the morning and demand to know what had happened tonight, why the House had been sealed off, they returned to their rooms.

  "Anything unusual," Laurie said as they walked up the stairs, "call for help. Don't try to take on anything alone."

  "Anything unusual!" Stormy asked.

  Laurie smiled. "Anything more unusual than usual."

  Mark and Norton headed up to the third floor. Stormy stopped off at his room, and Daniel accompanied Laurie to her door before walking down to his own bedroom and locking the door behind him.

  He stripped off his clothes, hit the sheets, and fell asleep almost immediately.

  He dreamed of Doneen .

  He awoke, by the Batman clock on his dresser, at six.

  He heard the chime calling them to breakfast, sounding from its unspecific source somewhere nearby. There was no light other than the small desk lamp he'd turned on before sleeping because flat wood now covered the spot where his window used to be, and he realized that they were now living in a world without natural light.

  Maybe that's why they'd been shown the greenhouse --because it was the only room left that had windows.

  The chime sounded once again.

  Daniel remained in bed. Fuck Billings. He was going back to sleep. If punctual communal meals assis
ted the Houses in their regeneration of power, then he wasn't going to do anything to help. Besides, he was still tired and didn't want to wake up. And they'd have all day-- hell, all year--to interrogate the butler.

  There was a knock on his door. "Daniel?"

  Laurie.

  "Just a minute." Sighing, he got out of bed, pulled on his pants, and opened the door.

  She stood in the hall, dressed, hair combed, and he unconsciously ran a hand through his own hair. "May I

  come in?" she asked.

  He nodded, stepped back. She closed the door behind her, and his first thought was that he ought to remind her that he was married. But she seemed oblivious to that potential in the situation and pulled his small chair away from the desk, sitting down.

  "I know we haven't had a chance to talk one-on-one," she said. "None of us have. But I've been doing some thinking and . . .

  well . . ." She met his eyes. "What do you think of Mark?"

  "Mark? I ... I don't know. Why?"

  "Come on. Cut the crap. There's no reason to be diplomatic here. What are your feelings about Mark? Your gut reaction."

  "No reason to be diplomatic?" He smiled. "The way I see it, we may be stuck with each other for the rest of our lives. And beyond. I should try to get along with as many people as I can."

  "I'm being serious," Laurie said.

  He nodded, sitting down on the side of the unmade bed. "I know. What are you getting at?"

  "There's something . . . not right about him."

  "Well, he's not a real talkative guy, but--"

  "Not that." She sighed. "What if he's a spy?"

  "What?"

  "Just hear me out."

  "That's crazy."

  "Is it? I don't think he's been totally honest with us--"

  "Come on! Everyone has secrets. You think I'd completely spill my guts to a bunch of strangers? You think I told you guys everything about me?"

  "No, but I think you were honest enough to tell us everything that you thought pertained to this situation.

  I'm not so sure Mark did. I think he's keeping something from us."

  "And that makes him--what?--a House agent?"

  "I don't know. I'm not saying he's monitoring our conversations and reporting back to Billings or whoever.