Three
James sat on his bed, playing a Star Wars game on his DS until his mom called him for lunch. The sun was shining through the window, illuminating his desk, bookcase and the movie posters on his wall. He loved his new room. It was away from Megan’s, for one thing, and it definitely felt good to be free from her. In the old house, their rooms had been right next to each other, and she had always been walking in uninvited or pounding on the wall, yelling at him to turn down his television. This room was also bigger than his old one, with space on the floor for his beanbag chair—which had previously sat in his closet, to be brought out only for special occasions—and a built-in wall cabinet for his TV and his Wii—if he ever saved up enough money to get one.
“James!” his mom called a second time.
“Coming!” he yelled back. He finished blasting the last of the clones, then closed his game and went downstairs to the kitchen. He expected his mom to hand him a sandwich on a plate, expected to see his dad eating at the kitchen table, Megan in the living room in front of the TV. But both Megan and his dad were out in the backyard, and his mom was just carrying a dish of baked chicken drumsticks outside, pushing the screen door open with her rear as she backed out into the yard. “Wash your hands,” she told him. “We’re eating on the new picnic table.”
James was surprised both by the type of food and by the fact that they were eating outside and all together, but he nodded and walked over to the sink, where he squirted some antibacterial soap into his hand and turned on the water. Seeing his parents and his sister through the window made him realize that he was alone in the house, and he glanced nervously to his left, toward the closed door that led to the basement.
He didn’t like the basement.
James scrubbed his hands quickly. It wasn’t something he’d admit to, and he was embarrassed that he even felt this way, but for the week since they’d moved in, he hadn’t been able to set foot in the underground room, and though he’d successfully hidden it from everyone else, he had made a conscious effort to stay away from the door that led to it.
He’d had a nightmare about the basement when they’d first started taking things over to the new house. In order to save money, his parents had decided not to hire movers but to bring the small stuff over by themselves a little bit at a time, then rent a truck and have friends and family help them haul the beds, couches and heavy furniture. That first day, they’d made three or four trips, bringing over boxes of books, knickknacks and a lot of tools and things from the garage. His mom and Megan had stayed home, packing up more stuff for them to take, while he and his dad had ferried the boxes over, unpacking some so the cartons could be reused, leaving others in the rooms where the contents belonged. Neither of them had been sure where a grocery bag full of his mom’s old cooking magazines was supposed to go, so they left it in the basement, which his dad said they were probably going to use as a storage room anyway. The basement was pretty small, approximately the size of the kitchen above, and they’d put the sack of magazines in the far right corner of the otherwise empty room.
That night, James dreamed that he was being summoned to the basement, though by whom or what he did not know. All he knew was that one moment he was lying in his bed, and the next he was walking down the street in his pajamas, making his way toward the new house because he needed to be there. He reached the house quickly—the city’s dream topography made things closer together than they were in real life—and he strode up the walkway into the darkened, empty living room, heading straight for the kitchen, where he opened the basement door and started down. There was a dirty man standing in the corner of the room, grinning, his teeth eerily white against the dark grime of his skin. The man was as still as a statue; even his tattered clothes did not move, but he was alive and he was hungry. This was what had called James to the basement, and though he wanted to run away, his feet carried him forward, toward the corner, toward the grinning man.
And then he awoke.
Even thinking about the nightmare gave him chills, and he turned off the faucet and hurried outside without drying his hands, dripping water on the floor as he ran. Outside, Megan was complaining to their parents, asking why he got to have one of his friends stay overnight before she did.
“You know the Caldwells needed a babysitter for Robbie tonight,” her mom told her. “Besides, Kate and Zoe are both coming over next week.”
James sat down next to his dad and grabbed a drumstick. From across the table, Megan glared at him. He smiled back at her, taking a bite of his chicken. She turned away angrily.
He was anxious for Robbie to come over. It was the first time his friend would see the new house, and James was looking forward to showing off his room. Maybe he’d even take him into the basement. It wouldn’t be that spooky with the two of them together.
Of course, they’d have to go down there in the daytime.
“What are we having for dinner tonight?” he asked. There was a lot of food on the table, and he was afraid they’d be eating leftovers. The thought embarrassed him.
His mom smiled. “Don’t worry. You guys won’t starve. We’ll order a pizza or something.”
Feeling better, James dug in, eating four drumsticks, three rolls and a bunch of sliced cucumbers, washing everything down with multiple glasses of iced tea. Ordinarily, he would have returned to his room after finishing his meal—that Star Wars game was addicting—but the images of the dream were still in his mind, and he did not want to go back into the house alone. So he wandered around the yard, pretended to be interested in some new flowers his mom had planted near the fence, and waited until his parents started carrying the dishes inside before finally following them into the kitchen. He hazarded a glance at the basement door as he passed by—
Had the door been ajar before?
—and hurried back up the stairs to his room.
Robbie was supposed to come over around three, but he was late, and it was after four when his family’s car finally pulled into the driveway. James had spent the last hour alternately slouching in a chair in front of his computer desk, lying down reading a book on his bed, and sitting on the floor with his back against the wall while he played with his DS, unable to decide which pose would make him look cooler when his friend arrived.
He heard the parents talking downstairs, and though he wanted to wait here until Robbie came up and discovered him casually lounging in his slammin’ new bedroom, James discovered after several seconds that he didn’t have the patience, and he ended up hurrying downstairs and meeting his friend in the living room. He couldn’t help grinning when he saw how Robbie was looking enviously up at the stairs. The Caldwells’ house had only one story.
“Thank you so much for this,” Robbie’s mom was saying.
“We’re glad to do it,” his own mom replied. “James has been very excited that Robbie’s coming over.”
“Hey,” James said, reaching the bottom of the steps and nodding hello to his friend.
“Cool house,” Robbie told him.
“Right?”
“Why don’t you show him around?” his dad suggested. “You could start with the basement.”
Robbie’s eyes widened. “You have a basement?”
James nodded, his smile fading.
His dad elbowed him playfully. “I’m surprised you didn’t tell him. Wanted to keep it a secret, huh?”
“Yeah.” Again James nodded, trying to maintain what was left of his smile.
“Let’s check it out!”
Feigning an enthusiasm he did not feel, James led his friend through the living room, through the dining room and into the kitchen. “That’s the door,” he said, pointing.