The Range Rover and the two patrol cars pulled away from the darkened house.
Look, it’s still peeling. Did you look in the living room again? I think you’d—
As we drove through the barren town I leaned my head against the passenger window. The coolness of the glass felt soothing against the bruised cheek.
So, the writer said. The thing in the hall.
What about it?
It’s memory lane time, isn’t it, Bret?
I know what I saw.
What did you see? Or, more precisely, when did you first see it?
I actually saw it on Halloween night. It had been in the woods. I saw it scrambling in and out of the woods. Like a spider.
How old were you when you wrote the story?
I was twelve. Just about Robby’s age. It was written in the hand of a child.
What was the story called?
It didn’t have a title.
Actually, that’s not true.
You’re right. It was called “The Tomb.”
What was the story about, Bret?
It was about a thing. This monster. It lived in the woods. It was afraid of light.
Why did you write this story?
Because I was so scared all the time.
What were you so scared of?
My father.
What did the monster in the story look like, Bret?
It looked like what was in our house tonight. It was identical to what I had imagined at twelve. I had written the story and illustrated it. And the thing in the hallway was what I had drawn.
Had you ever seen it before?
No.
What did this monster you created do?
It broke into the homes of families. In the middle of the night.
Why did it do this?
I don’t want to answer that.
But I want an answer.
Why don’t you tell me?
It broke into the homes of families because it wanted to eat the children.
The empty streets were sliding by, and no one in the car said a word. Robby was regarding the moon and it was whispering to him while Sarah hummed softly to herself, almost as if in consolation. At the corner of Fort and Sycamore I noticed that a massive eucalyptus tree had burst up out of the sidewalk.
I asked the writer: Why is it appearing—manifesting itself—on Elsinore Lane?
I’ll answer that question with another question: Why is Patrick Bateman roaming Midland County?
What else is out there? How can a fictional thing become real?
Were you remorseful when you created the monster in the hall?
No. I was frightened. I was trying to find my way in the world.
A brief period of consciousness: checking into the hotel in the grand, deserted lobby.
The respite: the dullness of the exchange—all monotone and trance—between Marta and the night manager. My voice was too hoarse for me to talk to anyone.
A bellboy showed us to a two-bedroom suite. The kids would occupy one room with two queen-sized beds. A spacious, ornately decorated sitting room separated them from where I would be sleeping.
As Marta helped the kids to bed I remembered discussing “The Tomb” once with a psychologist my parents had sent me to when I was a teenager (I had parodied him in Less Than Zero), and he had been amused by the Freudian elements—the sexual imagery—present in the story that I couldn’t have grasped at twelve. What was the mound of hair? Why did the orifice have teeth? Why was a light saber nearing the mound of hair? Why was the little boy screaming Shoot it!?
But something knocked me out of my memories of a story I had nearly forgotten and that played itself out in the early morning of November sixth.
And this was: the kids seemed okay.
I stood in the doorway and watched as they settled into their respective beds, Marta tucking them in.
I had imagined that the fear they had experienced during those roughly ten minutes of horror would be permanently sewn into their future. But this did not seem to be the case. It appeared that life was going to move on in its usual fashion. The bounce-back time amazed me. Their recovery would be complete by the time they woke up the next morning. What had been a frightening experience was now going to become a game, an emblem of pride, a story that would impress and enthrall friends. The nightmare was now an adventure. They were shook up but they were also tough and resilient. (This was the only relief I felt about anything that night.) Sarah and Robby had been bored and tired in the ride over to the hotel, and they kept yawning in the elevator, and soon they would be sleeping and then they would wake up and they would order room service for breakfast before being driven to school by Marta (though it would be up to the kids if they wanted to go) and Robby might even take a math test in the afternoon and then they would return to the Four Seasons and they would do their homework in front of the television and we would keep waiting for Mommy to come home.
The kids fell asleep almost immediately.
Marta said she would give me a call around eight, just to check in.
It was now 3:40. From the moment the lights blinded us until now, everything had happened within the space of an hour.
I walked Marta to the foyer of the suite and feebly whispered, “Thank you” as I let her out.
Leaning against the door I had just closed, I was hit by the thought: Writing will cost you a son and a wife, and this is why Lunar Park will be your last novel.
I immediately opened the minibar and drank a bottle of red wine.
During the next four hours something happened that I don’t remember.
The writer filled in the blanks.
I plugged in my laptop and logged on to the Internet.
This is where I typed in the following words: “ghost,” “haunting,” “exorcist.”
Surprise and dread: there were thousands of Web sites related to these matters.
Apparently I specified by typing in “Midland County.”
This narrowed the list considerably.
Supposedly I checked out a few Web sites, but I don’t remember doing so.
Supposedly I “decided” on Robert Miller’s Northeastern Paranormal Society.
I sent a drunken e-mail. I left my cell number as well as the number at the Four Seasons.
According to the writer: Jayne called from Toronto at 5:45 after speaking to Marta, who told her what happened at the house. I have no recollection of this.
Also according to the writer: Jayne was sipping coffee while having her makeup done.
My wife thought I was overreacting and she appreciated it.
Your wife is a fool, the writer murmured.
You said, trying to control your slurring, “We’ll be here until you get back—I just want to make sure the kids are safe.”
You did not have an answer for Jayne when she asked you, “Safe from what?”
Hadn’t you once wanted to “see the worst”? the writer asked me. Didn’t you once write that somewhere?
I might have. But I don’t want to anymore.
It’s too late, the writer said.
26. the meeting
Robert Miller called the cell phone I held in my hand as I slept. The ringing was so muffled that it was the vibration that woke me. I automatically flipped the phone open and said “Yes” without checking to see who it was. The conversation was brief. I was barely paying attention because I was lying in a bed in a strange hotel room and it was nine o’clock in the morning and from where I was squinting through my open door I could see Marta dressing Sarah for school while Robby sat in front of a TV with his uniform already on, both of them seemingly unfazed—an image that had the gauzy quality of a clichéd dream. Someone was telling me over the phone that he had received an e-mail and had typed in my name on Google (the writer reminded me that this suggestion was his idea, and I had sent it along in order to legitimize myself) and that he believed I was, in fact, the man I claimed to be. He told me my “case” was intriguing to him. The voice suggested we meet at the Dorseah Diner in Pearce. The voice gave me an address that I scribbled down. And then last night came back. This happened when Robert Miller asked me to bring a diagram of 307 Elsinore Lane so I could point out where the “major haunting sites” were located within the house. We agreed to meet at ten o’clock.