Later

64

My legs were going to give out and the stairs were close, but I wasn’t going to sit on them with Liz Dutton’s broken body sprawled at their foot. I staggered to the conversation pit and collapsed into one of the chairs near it. I lowered my head and sobbed. Those were tears of horror and hysteria, but I think they were also—although I can’t remember for sure—tears of joy. I was alive. I was in a dark house at the end of a private road with two corpses and two leftovers (Marsden was looking down at me from the balcony), but I was alive.

“Three,” I said. “Three corpses and three leftovers. Don’t forget Teddy.”

I started laughing, but then I thought of Liz laughing pretty much the same way just before she died and made myself stop. I tried to think what I should do. I decided the first thing was to shut that fucking front door. Having those two revenants (a word I learned, you guessed it, later) staring at me wasn’t pleasant, but I was used to dead people seeing me seeing them. What I really didn’t like was the thought of Therriault out there somewhere, with the deadlight shining through his decaying skin. I’d told him to go, and he went… but what if he came back?

I walked past Liz and shut the door. When I came back I asked her what I should do. I didn’t expect an answer, but I got one. “Call your mother.”

I thought of the landline in the panic room, but I wasn’t going back up those stairs and into that room. Not for a million bucks.

“Do you have your phone, Liz?”

“Yes.” Sounding disinterested, like most of them do. Not all, though; Mrs. Burkett had had enough life left in her to offer criticism about the artistic merits of my turkey. And Donnie Bigs had tried to hide his stash of torture porn.

“Where is it?”

“In my jacket pocket.”

I went to her body and reached into the righthand pocket of her duffle coat. I touched the butt of the gun she’d used to end Donald Marsden’s life and drew my hand back as if I’d touched something hot. I tried the other one and got her phone. I turned it on.

“What’s the passcode?”

“2665.”

I punched it in, touched the New York City area code and the first three digits of Mom’s number, then changed my mind and made a different call.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“I’m in a house with two dead people,” I said. “One was murdered and the other one fell down the stairs.”

“Is this a joke, son?”

“I wish it was. The woman who fell down the stairs kidnapped me and brought me here.”

“What is your location?” Now the woman on the other end sounded engaged.

“It’s at the end of a private road outside of Renfield, ma’am. I don’t know how many miles or if there’s a street number.” Then I thought of what I should have said right away. “It’s Donald Marsden’s house. He’s the man the woman murdered. She’s the one who fell down the stairs. Her name is Liz Dutton. Elizabeth.”

She asked me if I was okay, then told me to sit tight, officers were on the way. I sat tight and called my mother. That was a much longer conversation, and not always too clear because both of us were blubbering. I told her everything except about the deadlight thing. She would have believed me, but one of us having nightmares was enough. I just said Liz tripped chasing me and fell and broke her neck.

During our conversation, Donald Marsden came down the stairs and stood by the wall. One dead with the top of his head gone, the other dead with her head on sideways. Quite the pair they made. I told you this was a horror story, you were warned about that, but I was able to look at them without too much distress, because the worst horror was gone. Unless I wanted it back, that was. If I did, it would come.

All I had to do was whistle.

After fifteen very long minutes, I began to hear whooping sirens in the distance. After twenty-five, red and blue lights filled the windows. There were at least half a dozen cops, a regular posse. At first they were only dark shapes filling the door, blotting out any last traces of daylight, assuming there were any left. One of them asked where the goddam light switches were. Another one said “Got ’em,” then swore when nothing happened.

“Who’s here?” another called. “Any persons here, identify yourselves!”

I stood up and raised my hands, although I doubted if they could see anything but a dark shape moving around. “I’m here! My hands are up! The lights went out! I’m the kid who called!”

Flashlights came on, conflicting beams that strobed around and then centered on me. One of the cops came forward. A woman. She swerved around Liz, surely without knowing why she was doing it. At first her hand was on the butt of her holstered gun, but when she saw me she let go of it. Which was a relief.

She took a knee. “Are you alone in the house, son?”

I looked at Liz. I looked at Marsden, standing well away from the woman who had killed him. Even Teddy had arrived. He stood in the doorway the cops had vacated, perhaps drawn by the commotion, maybe just on a whim. The Three Undead Stooges.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m the only one here.”