With one slender finger she wiggled the flap open and pulled a single white sheet of paper from the envelope. Across the center of the paper Bess saw two short sentences scrawled in a hurried but elegant cursive.
Tam is innocent. Dragon still loose.
6
SOMEWHERE NEAR THE river there is a house with a basement. And sometimes when it rains too much, like it has been lately, that basement begins to flood. A pump exists to drain the water, but negligence, or a different sort of purposefulness, has kept it off most of the time. Besides, there’s nothing too important in there. Nothing that could ruin.
If you were to drive by the house you wouldn’t notice it at all, sandwiched between two identical white concrete slab homes. There’s some debris in the yard and the grass next the house is in desperate need of a weed eater, but all these small imperfections make it blend in rather than stand out. The lot is small and the backyard is surrounded by a rundown wooden privacy fence that was probably once a golden brown, but is now mostly grey. The “Beware of Dog” sign on the gate hangs askew.
Today you are walking by on the cracked sidewalk. There are dandelions poking up through the cement and you avoid stepping on them. The same way you avoid broken glass and dog shit. Your eyes are mostly down, but outside of this particular house, you happen to look up. A woman stands in the front window, her somber face a soft shadow in the bright sun. You wave, but don’t really notice when she doesn’t wave back. It was more an empty gesture on your part, anyway.
At night the lights go on like any other home. Light glows through the lone basement window, long and thin at the back of the house, but it’s obscured by the fence. Shadows pass by the windows. Unrecognizable shapes that bend and move unnaturally behind the folds of sheer curtains.
You go into the house at night. Maybe you’re looking for something. Maybe you heard a noise. Maybe you just needed to be there. Maybe this house called to you. The inside is mostly empty, but clean. Like someone’s recently moved in. You see boxes stacked on the couch and a broom leaning against the dining room wall—the only decoration. The kitchen is pristine. You’d bet a meal’s never been cooked on the stove. You check the fridge and find it empty. From the back of the house you can hear sounds, like scraping. There is a door at the end of the hall and you see light glowing from underneath it.
You move quietly along the soft grey carpet, keeping to the sides of the hall to avoid squeaky floorboards because you saw that on TV one time. Or maybe you read it in a book. Walk on the sides of the steps to avoid creaks. As you approach the door you smell something rancid and pull the collar of your shirt up over your nose and mouth.
The door opens before you reach it. You duck into a dark bathroom. A man runs out of the room at the end of the hall. You lean back into the shadows. Try to make yourself smaller—less noticeable. He jets past the bathroom. His footsteps ring hollow through the house. You hear the front door open before banging shut. His features were impossible to make out in the dark. But the man is tall.
You emerge from your hiding spot and head straight for the room at the end of the hall. The smell has intensified so you breathe through your mouth, only then you can sort of taste it. You gag a little and feel the bile rising up into your throat, but you choke it back down with effort.
At first, you can’t tell where the smell is coming from, but the ominous cloud of flies massing around the closet clues you in. The rest of the room contains a small desk and chair, a bookshelf, and a mini fridge. The bookshelf has four narrow shelves all packed with thick hardback volumes. Looking through the titles, they seem to center on Christianity, its history and theory. On top is a decorative stone dragon statue, about a foot tall, with green and gold paint.
There is a notebook on the desk filled with drawings and doodles. You don’t understand the notes, they appear to be written in a different language. You don’t notice a pen or pencil and wonder if the man took it with him when he left.
You’re sweating now, and whether it is from the heat of the room or the nausea from the smell you are not sure. But you know you have to get out soon. The closet is slightly ajar and when you go toward it the flies part like a curtain.
It’s dark inside the room and darker still inside the closet. The white from the PVC pipes is obvious, but their length is interrupted every so often by dark blotches that your brain has trouble recognizing. It’s too unfamiliar. It’s too unexpected. Then slowly you’re able to sort it all out and understand what you’re seeing. Rotting body parts skewered like at a barbeque. The flesh is in various stages of decay, some of it moist and waxy, other parts dripping and dark. Tendons hang onto bone hang onto muscle as they stretch toward the floor. Liquified meat puddles and coagulates.
You back out of the room, unable to look away from the horror of the closet but also unable to stop yourself from fleeing. In your escape you pass right by the small, inconspicuous basement door. If there is anyone or anything down there you may never know. And that suits you just fine.
7
BESS HADN’T TURNED on her radio in days, but she knew eventually she would. It was two in the morning and she was no closer to sleep than she’d been at ten. Her brain wouldn’t quiet. The nerves vibrated with anxious energy. Her options were to sit up all night or try calming herself with the radio. It seemed like an easy decision, but there was also a chance the radio would wind her up even more, sending her undesired communications.
She decided the risk was worth it. Wrapped in a long white terrycloth robe, Bess shuffled into the garage and switched on her radio. She slid between channels listening to a mix of piano, garbled talk, CB conversations, and traffic updates. The anxiety inside her slowly began to unspool. Exhaustion filled her limbs as tension ebbed away. Within minutes she was fighting to keep her eyes open and wondering why she never moved a futon out into the garage for nights like this.
Radio static followed her back into the house. She left the door open and trudged toward the couch to lie down. Her eyes slid to the mud-spattered window, but only for a moment. It would have to be cleaned, but that could wait. Everything could wait.
When they were children, Amelia Earhart and her sister Muriel invented a game called Bogie, which involved creating elaborate maps of a make-believe world. They would explore their world and all of its wonders, monsters, and dangers. Years later, in her autobiography, Earhart wrote, “I know I can never be so terrified by anything met with in the real world as by the shadowy play creatures which lurked in the dark corners of the hay mow to attack us, or crept up the creaking steps from the lower stalls.”
Her phone was ringing and for a brief, frantic moment Bess feared she’d overslept. But the clock said it was only 6 a.m., and Bess was filled with a whole new sort of fear.
“Hello?”
A deep, distorted, almost electronic voiced answered her. “The Dragon is still loose. Tam is innocent.”
“Who is this?” Bess asked. Bile crept up her throat and she swallowed hard against it. A shiver slithered through her body.
“The Dragon is religious or has extensive knowledge of Christianity,” the voice continued.
“Hi, I’m pretty sure the cops have their own tip lines for this sort of thing. Maybe you have the wrong number.” The panicked edge in her voice betrayed her.