"If you're not real, how am I going to accomplish that?"

"Did you read the ma.n.u.script?" the voice asked again.

I was on the verge of tears. I shoved a fist into my mouth and I was biting on it.

"Let's play a game, Bret."

"I'm not-"

"The game is called 'Guess Who's Next?' "

"You're not alive."

And then, suddenly and very sweetly, the voice began humming a song I recognized-"The Sunny Side of the Street"-before a roar overtook the humming and the line clicked dead.

When I laid the phone back on the desk I noticed a bottle of vodka that had not been there when I walked into the room.

The writer did not need to tell me to drink it.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6.

24. the darkness

There is really no other way of describing the events that took place in 307 Elsinore Lane during the early morning of November 6 other than simply relating the facts. The writer wanted this job, but I dissuaded him. The following account doesn't require the embellishments the writer would have insisted on.

Sometime around 2:15 Robby had a nightmare from which he awoke.

At 2:25 Robby heard "the sounds" of something in the house.

Robby a.s.sumed it was me until he heard the scratching at his door, and then he a.s.sumed it was Victor. (Later Robby would admit he had "hoped" it was Victor because he somehow knew "it wasn't.") Robby decided to move through the bathroom into his sister's room (according to his account, she was seemingly involved in her own nightmare) where he opened Sarah's door and looked out into the hallway so he could see what was causing the scratching noises and leaving the deep grooves in the lower right-hand corner of his door. (At one point, Robby said, he feared he was dreaming all this.) Robby didn't see anything when he peered from his sister's door and down the hallway.

(Note: The sconces in the hallway were flickering, and according to Robby this was something he had noticed before, as I had, though neither Jayne nor Sarah-nor Rosa nor Marta, for that matter-had seen it.) Robby did, however, hear something as he stepped from his sister's room and into the flickering hallway. There was a "rustling" sound farther down the corridor.

At this point, Robby realized something was coming up the stairs.

"It" was "breathing raggedly" and, according to Robby, "it" was also "mewling"-a word I had never heard before. (Dictionary definition: "to cry, as a baby, young child, or the like; whimper.") The "thing" noticed Robby's presence and, because of this, suddenly stopped advancing up the staircase.

Robby turned away-panicking-and walked quietly in the opposite direction, toward the master bedroom at the end of the hall.

What happened when he opened the door and stepped into the room?

The room was dark. I was lying on my back in bed. I believed I was dreaming. I had pa.s.sed out after drinking half the bottle of vodka that had appeared on my desk while I was talking to whom I thought was Clayton, the boy who wanted to be Patrick Bateman. When I slowly became aware that I was no longer sleeping, my eyes remained closed and I felt a pressure on my chest. I was still swirling up from a dream in which crows were turning into seagulls.

"Dad?" This was an echo.

I couldn't open my eyes. (If I had, I would have seen Robby silhouetted in the doorway, backlit by the flickering hallway behind him.) "What is it?" my voice rasped out.

"Dad, I think there's someone in the house."

Robby was trying not to whine, but even drunk I could detect the fear in his voice.

I cleared my throat, my eyes still closed. "What do you mean?"

"There's I think there's something coming up the stairs," he said. "There was something scratching at my door."

According to Robby, I actually said the following: "I'm sure it's nothing. Just go back to sleep."

Robby countered with "I can't, Dad. I'm scared."

My first reaction: Well, so am I. Welcome to the club. Get used to it. It never leaves. Well, so am I. Welcome to the club. Get used to it. It never leaves.

I could hear Robby moving closer, stepping through the darkness of the master bedroom. I could hear him nearing me as he made his way toward my black and shapeless form.

The weight shifted on my chest again.

Robby was speaking into the darkness: "Dad, I think there's somebody in the house."

Robby was reaching for the bedside lamp.

Robby turned on the lamp.

Behind my closed eyelids an orange light burned.

Robby was silenced by something.

He was contemplating what he was looking at.

The image he was contemplating momentarily knocked the fear away and was replaced by an awful curiosity.

His silence was rousing me from my inebriation.

The weight shifted on my chest again.

"Dad," Robby said quietly.

"Robby," I sighed.

"Dad, there's something on you."

I opened my eyes but couldn't focus.

What I saw next happened very quickly.

The Terby was on my chest, looming above me, its face seizing, its open mouth a rictus that now took up half the doll's head, and the fangs I had only noticed earlier that day were stained brown (of course they were because it "mutilated" a horse in a field off the interstate near Pearce).

Its talons were locked into the robe I'd pa.s.sed out in and its wings were fanning themselves and it wasn't the length of the wingspan that shocked me at that moment (it had grown-I accepted that within a second) but it was the wings webbed with black veins bulging tightly beneath the doll's skin (the doll's skin, yes, tell this to a sane person and see their reaction) and pulsing with blood that amazed me.

According to Robby, when he turned on the lamp the thing was motionless. And then it quickly rotated its head toward him-the wings were already outstretched, the mouth was already opening itself-and, when he spoke, the doll returned its focus on me.

I shouted out and knocked the thing off my chest as I bolted up.

The Terby fell to the floor and quickly clawed itself under the bed.

I stood up, panting, frantically brushing something nonexistent from my torn robe.

Except for the sounds I was making it was silent in the house.

But then I heard it too. The mewling.

"Dad?" Robby asked.

My nonanswer was interrupted when we heard something rushing up the stairs.

From where Robby and I stood looking out from the doorway of the master bedroom a shadow-maybe three feet high-was coming toward us in the dim, flickering light; it was shambling sideways along the wall and as it got closer to us the mewling turned into hissing.

"Victor?" I asked, disbelieving. "It's Victor, Robby. It's only Victor."

"It's not Victor, Dad."

According to Robby, I said, "Then what the h.e.l.l is it?"

The thing paused as if it was contemplating something.

It was 2:30 when the electricity went out.

The entire house was plunged into blackness.

I uselessly reached for a light switch. I was weaving on my feet.

"Mom keeps a flashlight in her drawer," Robby said quickly.

"Just stand still. Just stay where you are." I attempted a normal voice.

I jumped onto the bed and reached for Jayne's nightstand drawer. I opened it. My hand found the flashlight. I grabbed it. I immediately turned it on, aiming the beam at the floor, scanning for the Terby.

"Let's get out of here," I said.

Robby followed behind me as I aimed the flashlight at whatever was in the hallway. (But I had done this inadvertently-because in those brief moments spent looking for the flashlight in the blackened room I had forgotten that something was waiting for us there.) This is when we briefly glimpsed it.

Robby was never sure what he actually saw in the glare of the flashlight. He was "hiding" behind me, his eyes squeezed shut, and the thing moved away from the beam of light as if offended by it-as if darkness was all it knew and what it thrived on.

The vodka was straining my senses. "Victor?" I whispered again, trying to convince myself. Robby was shivering against me. "Robby, it's okay. It's just the dog."

But when I said this we both heard Victor barking from outside.

According to Robby this was when he began crying-when he realized that the thing in the hallway was not his dog.

I persisted. "Victor, come here. Come on, Vic." This was the alcohol making concessions.

According to Robby this was when he heard me mutter: "No f.u.c.king way."

It was three feet high and covered in hair streaked black and blond, and it moved on feet that weren't visible. When the beam of light caught it, there was another hissing sound. It shambled quickly to the other side of the hallway. But with each movement it was advancing toward us.

The thing stiffened when the beam from the flashlight caught it again. I couldn't tell where the hissing came from. Once it stopped hissing its entire body began to shudder.

According to Robby I was saying, "Oh s.h.i.t oh s.h.i.t oh s.h.i.t."

It turned toward me, this time defiantly. It was waist high and shapeless-a mound. It was covered with hair entangled with twigs and dead leaves and feathers. It had no features. A cloud of gnats were buzzing above the thing, following it to where it had pushed itself up against the wall. The beam was locked on it.

Within the hair, a bright red hole ringed with teeth appeared.

The mouth opening, the baring of its teeth, I realized-with a sickening clarity that immediately sobered me up-was a warning.

And then it rushed toward us, blindly.

I was frozen in place. Robby was holding on to me, his arms wrapped around my lower chest. He was shaking.

I kept the flashlight trained on the thing and as it approached us I smelled dampness, rot, the dead.

Its mouth was locked open as it shambled forward.

I slammed Robby and myself against the wall in order to avoid it.

It rushed past us.

(Because it was sightless and depended on scent-I already knew this.) I whirled around. Robby was holding on, gripping me fiercely. I started backing away in the opposite direction of where the thing now stood.

It was shuddering again.

The worst thing I noticed was a large eye, haphazardly placed on top and rolling around in its flat, disc-shaped socket involuntarily.

Robby: "Dad what is it what is it what is it?"

The thing stopped in the doorway of the master bedroom-we had traded places-and it began making its mewling sounds again.

I tried hard to stop panicking but I was hyperventilating and my hand holding the flashlight was shaking so badly that I had to use the other hand to steady it and locate the thing in the beam of light.

I steadied my hand and found it.

It was standing still. But something inside it was causing the thing to pulsate. It opened its mouth, which was now coated with froth, and rushed toward us again.

When I turned around I dropped the flashlight, causing Robby to shout out in dismay.