“Yeah,” he said. He kissed her back. He realized that he was keeping a lot of secrets from her all of a sudden.
He didn’t like that.
But he had no choice.
On Monday, Julian called Gillette Skousen, the realtor who’d sold them the house. She didn’t sound happy to hear from him, her chipper greeting transforming into distant formality as soon as he identified himself. “What can I do for you?” she asked coolly.
“I have a few questions about our house—” he began.
“I don’t know anything about it.”
That was certainly suspicious. “About what?” he challenged her. “I haven’t asked you a question yet.”
The realtor was silent.
“I just want to know if there’s a way I can get in contact with the previous owners.”
“There are privacy issues. …”
“You thought I was going to ask about the dead man in the basement, didn’t you? The one you didn’t tell us about.”
She was silent again.
“I just want their e-mail or a mailing address or a phone number. That’s all I’m asking for. They sold their house to us. I have the right to contact them.”
Gillette sounded angry. “Fine.” After spending several moments looking up the information, she gave him all three: e-mail address, mailing address, phone number.
“Thank you,” Julian said.
Gillette hung up on him.
The previous owners, Bill and Maria Worden, had moved to Colorado. Although Julian initially thought about calling them, he could think of no way to ask what he had to ask without sounding … well, stupid. So, forgoing the instant gratification a phone call would have given him, he did the next-best thing and sent an e-mail, which allowed him to compose his thoughts in a logical manner yet still transmit the communication instantly and, hopefully, receive a quick reply.
He spent the latter half of the morning carefully wording a message that started out by saying how much they loved the house and then gradually segued into a recitation of some of the odd experiences they’d had here. He mentioned that Cole Hubbard had told him how the couple who’d lived in the house before them had discovered a dead man’s body in the basement, and he wondered whether they had ever experienced anything unusual while living in the house.
The e-mail’s tone was friendly and mildly inquisitive, filled with none of the worry that he actually felt, and he sent it off immediately after proofreading it.
Instantly, a message popped up on his screen telling him that the address to which he’d sent the e-mail did not exist. He checked it against the address he’d written down, but the two were identical. He hadn’t accidentally left out a letter or put in a wrong number; he’d typed exactly the same e-mail address Gillette had told him. Frowning, he thought about dialing the realtor again to double-check, but, looking at the screen, he saw his thoughts laid out logically and decided to call the Wordens directly and just read his letter to them.
After half a ring, three discordant tones rang in his ear and a woman’s voice announced: “I’m sorry, but the number you have called is no longer in service. Please check the number and dial again.”
This time, he did call the realtor, but she insisted that even if the information she gave him was not correct, it was the only information she had. He hung up, frustrated.
There was one option left, and Julian converted his e-mail into a Word file, added a return address and a phone number, and printed it out. He drove to the post office to mail the letter, and waited anxiously all week for a phone call or a return letter, all the time checking his e-mail.
Several days later, as he’d feared, his letter was returned, a red post office stamp on the envelope stating that it was not deliverable as addressed.
That night, he dreamed that the Wordens called to say they were coming over. They had important information to tell him. They promised to arrive by midnight, but he waited and waited and still they did not show. Claire and the kids were asleep, so he went around the house, checking doors and windows, making sure everything was locked. In the kitchen, he saw that the door to the basement was open, and he walked down the steps to make sure nothing was wrong.
At the bottom, he found the Wordens, both naked, sitting in opposite corners of the room, dead.
Maria Worden looked like Claire.
Bill Worden looked like him.
Thirteen
Although Megan had always taken baths and showers before bedtime, like her mom, lately she’d begun doing so in the morning, like her dad. She told herself there was no real reason for the switch, that it was merely more convenient to do it this way, but the truth was that she no longer felt comfortable taking showers at night.
She no longer felt comfortable taking baths at all.
The bathroom scared her after dark.
That was it exactly, though it embarrassed her to even think such a thing. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry, and while Megan might be self-conscious about the reasons for altering her schedule, she was not at all sorry that she’d done it.
After breakfast, she went upstairs to take a shower and get dressed.
Lately, she’d begun to think about boys while she washed herself, and today she remembered the way Brad Bishop had looked in the restaurant when she’d seen him there with his dad. She wondered whether he would be going to her school this year and, if so, whether she’d have any classes with him. The thought made her feel tingly, and she stayed under the water several minutes longer than usual in an effort to prolong the feeling.
When she finally came out of the shower, the bathroom was steamy, the mirror all fogged up.
And there was a face on the glass.
Megan gasped, her heart thumping wildly. Instinctively, she pulled the towel around her, covering up, even though she knew there was no possible way that this … drawing could see her.
Except it was not exactly a drawing. It didn’t look like someone had used a finger to depict a face on the glass, but rather as though a face had been pressed against the moisture on the mirror. For every feature was visible, down to a dimple on the narrow chin.
She wiped the face away with her hand, but the bathroom was still steamy, and the mirror fogged up again almost instantly.
The face reappeared.
Only it was different this time. Something about it had changed, and it took her a moment to realize what it was.
The face was smiling.
And its eyes were looking … lower.
She held the towel more tightly against her, wanting to run, wanting to scream, not knowing what to do. This wasn’t really happening. Her imagination was working overtime, seeing things that weren’t actually there. She was just scaring herself, her mind playing tricks on her the way it did after she saw a scary movie or TV show.
She thought of that thing—
monster
—she’d seen at night when her friends had stayed over. She’d told no one, not even Zoe or her mom, and she still wasn’t a hundred percent sure that she’d really seen what she thought she’d seen. It had been late; she’d been tired; it might have been a dream. … There was a whole host of possibilities.
But that list of possibilities was getting shorter by the second.
Because the steam in the bathroom wasn’t dissipating the way it should, wasn’t going away. Instead, it was getting thicker and … moving. A long, slender section that resembled an arm moved toward her. She backed against the counter and saw the steam behind the arm thicken and coalesce into something that looked almost like a man’s body.