No One's Home Page 8

  Myron sensed it too and stiffened his shoulders, lifted his chin. “Yeah. Just, you know, tired. Long day. You do anything interesting?”

  Hunter shrugged again. He’d left the house for an hour after lunch, walking south down Lee Road toward the grocery store and library. He’d come back smelling of old books and soda pop. “I dunno. Not really.”

  Myron relaxed now that his son’s laser focus seemed to dim. Or perhaps it was the effect of the pills he’d taken. “You gonna put together another coding club out here?”

  The boy sat there slumped in his leather chair a moment, debating something in his mind. “I dunno. Maybe . . . Hey, Dad?”

  The little-boy lilt in his son’s voice squeezed Myron’s heart. He’s still so young. “What’s up?”

  Hunter stared at the plastic gun in his hand, flexing and unflexing his fingers as though working something loose. Something that was determined to stay stuck. Finally, he gave up and muttered, “Nothing.”

  “Okay.” Myron’s expression closed again, and his eyes clouded over with annoyance and unfocused irritation. He turned to leave. A faint light filtered into the hallway from the attic, casting a glow onto the dark wood floor. The sight made him pause. Hadn’t he just turned it off? “Say, Hunter, do me a favor?”

  “Yeah, Dad?”

  “When you go up to the attic, please remember to turn off the light.”

  Hunter scowled at him. But I didn’t.

  Myron held up his hand as if he’d heard the silent protest. “Seriously. Every time I come home lately, that damn light is on. Now, you’re the one always asking about our gas mileage and the heating bills and being ‘green’ and all that, right? Can we agree that leaving lights on wastes electricity?”

  The man’s voice had shifted just enough, his vowels growing just long enough, for Hunter to hear the difference. The boy stared at the far wall with annoyance and just nodded his head. Drunk, his dull expression concluded. The man’s drunk. There was no use arguing with him. “Sure, Dad.”

  “Okay.” Myron tapped the door. “Good night. Don’t stay up too late.”

  After closing his son’s door, he sauntered over to the attic entrance and made a show of flipping off the light switch at the foot of the stairs for no one. After he’d swung the door shut and floated languidly back down the hall toward his own bedroom, Myron stopped as if remembering the reason he’d ventured out in the first place. His eyes shifted to the ceiling again. The new paint didn’t hide the waves and ripples in the plaster or the finer cracks. He glared up at them, daring the wood to creak again. Debating whether to go up there, he pivoted toward the attic door.

  A shadow stood in the back hallway. It hovered twenty feet down the handwoven carpet runner from where he stood. The shape of a girl.

  “Jesus!” Stumbling back, he nearly fell. The walls reeled as he caught himself. He sucked in a breath as though he’d seen the devil himself. “What the hell?” A ghost? No. That’s crazy. But—

  It was gone. There was nothing there but a shapeless darkness now that the sun had set.

  “Hey.” He took eight cautious steps after it, whatever it was, down the back corridor that led to the rooms over the garage. It was empty. Five steps farther and around the corner, the doors lining the hall were all shut just as he’d left them moments earlier. He stood listening a moment to the sound of his own hitched breathing. What exactly had he seen?

  He cleared his throat and looked down at himself and then back toward the faint glow of the large window over the foyer. The trees outside the house shifted in the wind, and the shadows of their branches on the wall next to him moved with them. Shadows.

  “Jesus, Myron. Get a grip.”

  He shuffled back into the master bedroom and shut the door.

  14

  The Martin Family

  December 5, 2012

  Little Toby sat on the floor of his big-boy room, hugging his knees, waiting. Waiting for daylight or for someone to open the door. He hated his room. It was enormous and dark and cold and scary. And lonely. He’d been in there all alone for hours. Only seven years old, Toby hated being alone.

  A sliver of moon hung outside his windows over the snowy backyard, peeking at him from behind the naked trees, watching. Pressing his nose to the frostbitten glass, he imagined the big oaks whispering to one another, their gnarled claws stretching out toward his window. One great gust of wind, and they’d be through the glass. Snowdrifts covered the patio furniture and bushes below in shallow graves, their ghostly forms rising and falling over the yard.

  It was late. He should be sleeping.

  A passing wind rattled the window sashes against the frame. The walls creaked above him, threatening to drop the ceiling on his head. The boy shivered, wishing he could find his way back home. Wherever that was.

  His door was locked.

  It’s just to keep you safe, sweetie, Mama Martin had explained. We can’t have you wandering this big house at night. You could get hurt.

  She never said it, but he knew the real reason. Toby had tried to run away once. When he’d first come to Rawlingswood, he’d climbed down the back stairs in the middle of the night and slipped out the side door. He’d only been four at the time and couldn’t remember a thing about it except wanting to go back home to his old house.

  Mama and Papa had taken to locking his room after his disappearance. I’ll be right down the hall. You know that, honey. Just call if you need me. But the enormous house swallowed up his voice whenever he woke with nightmares. Startled and clutching the sheets to his damp skin, he would sit up in the cavern of his bedroom, too terrified to call out. Terrified the monsters might hear.

  Next to him, the closet door stood wide open to keep unwanted beasts from roosting inside. Brand-new clothes hung from the hangers, but none of them smelled like his. Many of them still had the tags.

  He clutched an old flannel shirt to his chest—Bobo, his security blanket. He didn’t remember where Bobo had come from; he just knew it was his. It smelled of another place he didn’t remember. During the day, he kept it hidden beneath his bed. Every few weeks he’d have to rescue it from one of Mama’s hampers.

  Whenever he felt scared or nervous, his fingers worried along the edges of the flannel and down the long scar that ran across his forehead. Rocking back and forth there on the floor, he rubbed the bumpy and smooth and puckered skin. He’d had it the day he’d arrived at Rawlingswood but couldn’t remember where it had come from. Just touching it sent waves of revulsion through him. It proved he wasn’t like the other boys at school.

  There was something wrong with him.

  Toby heard the whispers about him through walls, through closed doors, through veiled arguments around the dinner table. The harder his parents attempted to hide something, the keener his little ears became. The overheard conversations haunted him there in the dark. Will he ever be normal? Not “normal” but healthy? I mean, these nightmares. The discipline issues. I’m worried he’ll never settle in. Surely there’s something more we can do?

  It was a conversation he’d overheard between Mama and a strange woman years earlier. The stranger had tried to reassure her. These things take time, Mrs. Martin. Toby has been through a lot. The best thing you can do for him is love him and give him time to adjust. Kids are very resilient, and I know you are doing a wonderful job. Here, call this number if you’d like to schedule an appointment, but don’t lose faith . . .

  Toby hadn’t understood what they were saying at the time. He still didn’t understand much about it except the words Will he ever be normal? There was something terribly wrong with him, but no one would tell him what it might be. He’d met with counselors many times at the house, but none of them made him feel any more normal. The well-meaning young men would ask him stupid questions like, How are you feeling today, Toby? How are you liking school? Do you want to draw a picture of your family? Do you feel worried about anything?

  I’m worried that a monster is going to come and e
at me, he thought. But he never would tell them that. If he told them something like that, they would take him away someplace horrible. Of that, he was fairly certain. Boys who weren’t normal got taken away.

  Determined to be more normal, he clasped his hands together the way Mama had taught him and tried to pray. “Dear God,” he whispered. “Don’t let the monsters eat me . . .”

  The faint urrrick urrrick of approaching feet in the hallway silenced the prayer. A shadow moved beneath his bedroom door, and he began to shake. “Ava?” he whispered inaudibly. Is that you? Please be you.

  He unfolded his hands and legs, unsure of whether to run or hide or scream or wait. The footsteps stopped, and he could feel the weight of another person on the other side of the door.

  “You okay, Toby?” a voice whispered through the keyhole.

  It was his sister. He released the breath he’d been holding and whispered back, “I’m okay.” He truly wished he were and wished he could see her. He had no idea how she’d gotten out but was relieved to hear her voice.

  “Stay still,” she whispered back. “Don’t make a sound.”

  The shush and click of metal against metal rattled the lockset gently back and forth, and he realized what she meant to do. Biting his lip, he backed away from the door, ears perked for the sound of his parents’ footsteps. Papa Martin would be furious to find either one of them out of bed.

  “This is a bad idea,” he hissed under his breath, his anxiety growing with each second. We’re going to get caught. “Ava, you shouldn—”

  The door clicked open before he could finish the thought. His big sister stood in the opening with a thin screwdriver and awl in her hand, grinning in triumph. She silently closed the door behind her. “I knew you’d be awake. You hungry?”

  Toby was always hungry. She pulled a pack of graham crackers from the sleeve of her nightgown and clicked on the closet light. The two sat down in the yellow rectangle, munching the crackers. After several minutes, Toby began to notice something was off. His sister’s eyes and lips seemed puffy and swollen, like she’d been crying.

  He stiffened in alarm. Ava hardly ever cried. He was the one who could never seem to hold himself together. The strangest things would set him off sometimes, and he’d be crying for no reason, biting on his hand, desperate to make it stop. Ava was the only one who could calm him down. She would wrap his small bones in her arms and hold him fast, singing a song in his ear. ’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free . . . She made the world stand still until he could hold on to it again.

  “What’s wrong?” he whispered. “Did something bad happen?”

  Ava pressed her lips together and brightened for him. “No. I’m okay. I just . . . I had a bad dream. You ever have bad dreams?”

  Toby nodded fervently. He had bad dreams almost every night.

  “What happens in your dreams, Toby? What are they about?” She blinked her eyes up at the ceiling, keeping the tears at bay. She didn’t want him to see her cry.

  Toby frowned at the question. “I dunno . . . it’s dark, and I hear voices and noises like crashing glass. Sometimes it’s like I’m in a car and there’s these monsters like wolves and bears trying to get inside. It’s scary.”

  “Do your bad dreams ever happen here, in this house?” She looked at him then with a strange expression, as though she were searching for something.

  There was something big behind the question, something important he couldn’t quite grasp, and the weight of it made him shift uncomfortably. “I don’t think so.”

  “Do you ever hear strange things in the house at night?” Again, that searching stare.

  The fear of monsters inched its way back into his expression. What sort of things? He combed his memory hard for her, wanting to give the right answer. “Sometimes the wind shakes my windows. Why? Do you hear strange things?”

  “I don’t know. Not really.” She noticed the fearful cringe on his face, but her probing eyes had more questions. “Do you like it here, Toby?”

  He shrank from her, confused and truly worried now. “Sometimes, I guess. I don’t like it here at night. It’s creepy.”

  Ava forced a thin smile and nodded. There was so much she wouldn’t or couldn’t say to him. As they curled up on his bed together to help him fall asleep, he sensed something dark hidden just beneath the surface of her questions.

  Something terrifying.

  15

  The Spielman Family

  July 28, 2018

  A sharp knocking sound woke Hunter in the middle of the night.

  He sat up in his bed, blinking the fog from his eyes. The floorboards creaked a few rooms away. Was that the click of a door? He flipped on the light next to his bed and squinted at the clock. 1:08 a.m.

  “Hello?” he called out. Mom? Dad?

  He ran a hand over his face and listened to the house. There was no answer. His gerbils, Frodo and Samwise, rustled their wood chips on the other side of the room. He looked over at the shadow of their fish tank and wondered if the strange noise had come from them. His parents had left that evening at eight p.m., telling him, Don’t wait up, honey. You know how these benefits can be. His mother had clicked across the cold marble floor of their half-finished kitchen in her stilettos and pecked him on the cheek.

  Hunter had sulked, wishing she’d hug him and wishing she wouldn’t. Wishing he didn’t feel so annoyed whenever she talked. Wishing she wouldn’t wear so much makeup. It made the softness underneath harder to see. He liked her better in the mornings, when she looked more like a mom and less like an aging actress.

  His father had flashed him a bleached grin. Don’t stay up too late, kiddo. And maybe take a break from gaming for a bit?

  Sure thing, Dad. Hunter had forced a thin smile and watched his handsome parents stroll out of the kitchen and into the garage. The Mercedes had pulled down the driveway a minute later and disappeared into the alien landscape, leaving Hunter marooned in the old house.

  He’d spent the bulk of the evening watching internet porn and trolling social media under a false name. The girl he liked back in Boston had a new boyfriend. His old computer-coding club had found a new programmer. It was like his old life had never existed.

  His parents hadn’t come back yet.

  “Why can’t they just be normal?” he muttered to himself. Why can’t Margot just bake cookies for once? Why can’t Myron grow a beer gut and watch the goddamn game?

  Outside his window, Lee Road lay quiet under the yellow streetlights. The huge houses across the road loomed in dark shadows. He’d been there less than two weeks, but Hunter hated his new house. He hated Shaker Heights. The malcontent pulled at his face and the hunch of his bony frame. He missed Boston. He missed the townhouse in Brookline. He missed his old school and his tiny circle of friends. The only kids he’d seen on his block so far were under the age of ten or traveled in packs more likely to kick his ass than hang out with him. The only person he’d talked to face-to-face besides his parents was their once-a-week housekeeper, Louisa, and he was pretty sure she hated all of them. He knew he would hate them too.

  Louisa drove a beat-up Mazda with paper-thin doors and a cracked windshield. Hunter studied her like a tourist whenever she showed up with her bucket of cleaning supplies, wondering what she thought of his father’s pretentious vinyl collection in the den or his mother’s dressing room, where she’d had custom lacquered shelving built just for her shoes. Hunter kept his door shut whenever Louisa came around and insisted that she not come in there. He promised his mother he’d do his own cleaning, which was a lie, but the thought of the petite Latina woman dusting the intricate maze he’d built for his gerbils or his computer desk made him feel gross and elitist.

  Hunter glanced at the layer of dust accumulating on his desk. The computer had gone to sleep, and the flat screen stared blankly at his closet door. He debated turning it on again and seeing if anyone was awake back home. At least that was what he told himself every time he sat down in
front of the keyboard. Not that he hadn’t spent hours video chatting with Brian or shooting zombies with Caleb, but that wasn’t really what he spent most of his time doing.

  A ripple of self-loathing ran through him at the sight of the balled-up food wrappers and used tissues piled in clumps on the floor around his trashcan. He really needed to stop. His father was right. He needed to get outside. He needed to meet people. School starts in two weeks, kiddo. What are you going to do until then? He flopped back onto his pillow at the thought.

  He sighed and stared up at the cracked plaster ceiling. Charm. That was what his mother called it whenever they discovered a corner that the contractor had cut. They’d spent all the money gutting the kitchen and relocating their master bathroom and covering every surface in marble, but his room was still drafty and cold with a defunct fireplace on the far wall. Hunter glanced over at the shadow of it glowering in the dark, certain bats had roosted in the chimney.

  He shivered and considered going back to sleep.

  Hunter stood up instead. He went over to his closet and clicked on the light as he sometimes did when the house got too empty and dark for him. He still hadn’t told his parents about the writing inside. It was his secret, his message in a bottle. But it felt more like a warning.

  BAD BeNNy BAD BAD BeNNy

  HeLP NeeD HeLP NeeD HeLP

  NoNoNoNoNoNo

  Hunter moved his hanging clothes aside and tried once again to find some rhyme or reason to it. His eyes went from curious to sad as he ran a finger along Bad BeNNy.

  KiLL DARwiN

  MoM MoM MoM

  soRRy so soRRy

  DeAD GiRL

  Another creak in the floor somewhere above him broke the silence, and he froze. The timbers inside the ceiling protested as someone or something crept across the attic.

  Hunter poked his head out into the dark hallway. His mother had given him the room farthest from the master suite, across from the back stairwell. The steep and narrow staircase leading down to the kitchen was built so that servants and teenage sons remained invisible. The swirling oak carvings and quartersawn treads of the front stairway cut through the center of the two-story foyer so the lord and lady of the house could make grand entrances and exits. The monumental leaded glass window hanging over the front door threw an eerie glow onto the far wall.