Everyone will suffer now, the house whispered.

Liz turned and went down the stairs, slowly, almost daring the house to do something, but trying to show she wouldn't back down. Still, she left the paint and the walls to themselves that day. On the first floor, she told Joey to get his shoes and they'd go outside for awhile.

Charley asked, "How come with all the witnesses to just about everything you read about, you still can't believe any of it?"

"First," Jack told him, "I haven't even read that book. I've skimmed it here and there, but I haven't sat down and read it cover to cover. I haven't even looked at half the stories in there. As for why I can't believe any of it . . . it's not that I don't believe any of that stuff happened, I'm just saying there's an explanation for all of it, if anyone cares enough to really look deep into it. But everyone seems so set on this *strange things just happen in Angel Hill' line that when someone comes to them with the easy explanation of *Oh, it's an act of G.o.d' or *It's just one of those unexplained Angel Hill mysteries', that's what people grab hold to and y'all are a stubborn bunch. Really, if you got someone in here from the outside, someone who's not stuck on this Weird Angel Hill kick, someone with an objective mind, I'd bet you'd get actual answers to this stuff in no time."

Charley shook his head and smiled, then turned back to s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the nuts over the toggle switches on the box faces.

Jack was about to head over to the cable cell when Charley said, "And since you're Mister Objective Opinion, what do you say? Let's start with that house of yours?"

"What about it?" Jack asked. "There's nothing wrong with *that house' of mine."

"That's not what the people are saying."

"The people? The people don't live in my house. Believe me, the biggest problem in my house is some squirrels in the walls and a front door I can't get to stay closed."

"Nothing else? No voices, no weird lights? Nothing like that?"

Jack stopped for a second and thought about the glowing green ball he'd seen just last night. Was that what Charley meant? But that had been a reflection from outside, a car driving by or something like that.

"No," he said. "There are squirrels and drafts, but that's it. I'm telling you, stuff like what you're talking about just doesn*t happen without something--and I mean something real, something you can touch or see--causing it." He picked up a control panel, hooked it up to the tester. "This is reality," he said. "You think the world got to this point, civilization and technology and control panels by some unexplained occurrence? It got here because the world makes sense. One thing leads to another leads to another until you've got . . ." He flipped a toggle switch and a light on the tester glowed red. Jack made a face of mock surprise.

"If you say so, boss," Charley said. He set down the face he'd completed and moved on to the next one. Jack walked away. Under his breath, Charley said, "Wonder if your wife feels the same. Wonder what she's seen."

Jack would be home soon. Liz went upstairs and brought in the mail. As she closed the door, she heard a tap upstairs. She wanted to ignore it and go back down to the living room, but she knew she wasn't going to do that. She climbed the stairs.

In the main room on the second floor, she stopped.

Standing across the room, staring out the window, was a girl. She couldn't have been more than nine or ten. Her back was to Liz. The girl was just standing there. Her hands were raised and her open palms rested on the gla.s.s. Her fingers tapped at it making the noise Liz had heard at the front door. She stood and watched the girl, silent, trying not to be afraid. The girl's tapping grew stronger, more insistent, until in seconds she was slapping the window with her palms. Liz wondered if a ghost's hand would be strong enough to break the gla.s.s. The girl swung at the gla.s.s with such force, Liz thought for sure she would shatter it. She grunted with every swing. The pane rattled in its frame, but it didn't break.

Liz lost her concentration and the letters in her hand slipped and fell to the floor. She stooped to pick them up. The noise made the girl stop and turn around. She looked at Liz and Liz looked at her, then the girl looked higher and her eyes grew wide. Liz watched in shock as the little girl's features fell apart. Her pink skin turned grey and cracked. Her hair went limp. Her eyes grew yellow.

Liz gathered her envelopes, stood and turned. Then she froze at the sight of a man behind her.

"s.h.i.t!" she gasped. She backed up and knew the man was going to touch her, but when she looked at him, he wasn't seeing her. His eyes were locked behind Liz, on the girl. His fury shone through in his dead face and he raised an open hand and stepped toward the girl.

Liz closed her eyes, waiting for something, anything, whatever it was she knew it wouldn't be pleasant. But when she opened them again, the room was empty. The mail was still on her floor. It must have fallen again. The girl was gone. So was the man.

She took deep breaths until her heart had slowed enough and her body had stopped shaking.

"I hate this f.u.c.king house," she said, going back downstairs, wishing Jack would hurry and get home already.

She woke up that night thirsty. She got a drink from the bathroom, and quickly got back into bed, snuggling up close to Jack. She dozed off and was awakened again a little bit later as Jack climbed on top of her, covering her face and mouth with kisses. His arms pulled her over and he got between her legs. He tasted like onions and he needed a shave, but his body felt good against hers. She wrapped her legs around him and rocked with him, keeping quiet so as not to wake Joey. She let all the past few days fall away as the pressure in her gut built to a climax and for a few minutes, Liz had forgotten all about the voices and the touches and the things she'd seen in the house. It was all lost to Jack's touch and his breath and his body between her legs.

Her breath quickened and she tried to calm it, but the sweat on her body and Jack's thrusting kept her from being any quieter than she was. Jack panted into her ear and she whispered to him, "Come in me."

His fingers dug tighter into her shoulders and he hunched further over her, his pace becoming more measured and frantic. He took a final shot into her, then froze. He twitched inside her and was done.

She came with him, a beautiful release of pressure through her entire body. She strained against him, trying to prolong the agony and the pleasure. Finally, they sank onto the bed. Jack's head resting on her chest. She leaned her head to the side.

Jack lay beside her, eyes wide open, his body frozen.

Liz started. There was Jack beside her. So who was on top of her?

Jack's face said he'd seen the whole thing. But he either couldn't or didn't want to believe it. His expression was a mix of disgust and fury.

Liz looked down to see who was on top of her if not her husband. There was no one.

Liz sat up, waking from her nightmare.

Jack lay sleeping beside her.

She sat breathing quietly for a few minutes, then she got up and went into the bathroom. She locked the door and sat on the side of the tub, crying into her palms.

This was all driving her crazy. She felt herself on the verge of a breakdown. But how could she get help from anyone?

Jack would never believe. Never. She knew it. And what help was Joey going to be? He was only six.

Monday, she reminded herself. I'll get the house blessed Monday. That should help, right? Shouldn't it?

She got another drink, resisted splashing water on her face--she knew it would only wake her up more and she'd never get back to sleep--then crept back down the hall and into bed.

She lay with her back pressed against Jack and when he draped his arm over her, she prayed it was really his.

Joey also lay awake.

He was buried under his thin blanket, in the dark, but the covers would be enough to protect him, he hoped.

He'd hoped Liz would come into his room when she was finished in the bathroom. But she didn't. She'd just turned off the light and went back to her own bed, leaving Joey to whatever was in his room.

He couldn't see it, or them, or whatever, but he could feel them, and he could hear them well enough.

Come and play, they said.

We'll show you the best toys.

Adam, let's go. Up there we can play anything you want.

But Joey wasn't Adam. That was the only thing that offered even a hint of comfort. It made him feel better that, no matter what or who was in his room, at least they hadn't come for him. But in the back of his mind, under more blankets, he thought maybe they really had, no matter what they said.

So he talked to G.o.d and asked G.o.d to bring his dad or Liz in here so they could drive away the voices that whispered for him to play with them.

He knew what they'd say when they saw the blanket he was buried under, that it was too hot for a blanket and he needed a sheet and he was going to suffocate, but he knew being under here was better than out there. Out there, he might be able to see what was in his room, and he knew he didn't want that.

He heard something from the other bedroom and had a brief hope it was someone getting up to check on him. But no one came and he decided it was just one of them turning in their sleep.

He lay sweating under the blanket until the voices stopped and he finally fell asleep and kicked off the cover.

Chapter Six.

The next few days followed much the same pattern as the previous few. Jack went to work, unbelieving. Liz stayed at home, wondering what would appear next, what vision or voice, ready at any moment to take Joey outside to play or for a walk. And Joey was a child, happy to play, uncertain of much else, except that he didn't care for playing alone in the house, and he didn't want to go to the park.

Jack called a second exterminator who came to much the same conclusion as Carl had; no obvious signs of mice or squirrels or anything else, but that didn't mean they weren't there. Jack's conclusion was that, until he saw mouse droppings on the counter, or something skittered past him and disappeared behind a baseboard, he wasn't paying for traps, poisons, or anything else.

When the weekend finally arrived, Jack had forgotten about going to the library. Liz reminded him. His plan of taking Joey so Liz could have the house to herself was thrown out the window; Liz wasn't staying alone in the house. She told Jack she'd like to get a book or two also. maybe something on decoration or remodeling.

Instead, Jack stayed home while Liz took Joey.

She stood on the second floor where the nonfiction was kept. Joey was below her in the childrens' section.

She found a book on kitchen remodeling, tucked it under her arm, and went to one of the two computers located in the middle of the room. She did a subject search for ghosts, and another one for haunted houses. She found two more books to add to the home decoration book.

Joey picked out a Magic Tree House book and sat down at a reading table to flip through the pages while Liz looked for another book about hauntings. When they had everything they wanted, they went to the front desk to get library cards and check out their books. Liz gave the girl behind the counter their information, names, address, social security numbers. When Liz told her the address, though, she could have sworn the girl stopped for a second too long, looking at them. For the s.p.a.ce of a blink, Liz thought the girl looked unsure whether to even continue helping them. She looked at Liz, then looked at the pile of books Liz had, and paused. But then the girl shook it off and typed everything into the computer. She handed over the cards and Liz and Joey signed them. The girl scanned the bar codes on the back to activate them.

Driving home, Liz had a second to think about it. The look on that girl's face, she had to have known where Liz and Joey lived. Didn't she? It had been a familiar look, she knew the place. What did she know about it?

"I should have asked her," Liz said under her breath.

"What?" Joey asked.

"Nothing. Talking to myself. Want to get some ice cream before we go home?"

Joey did.

"Alright. Just have to find a Dairy Queen around here someplace." She was looking around as she drove, as if the building would suddenly appear.

"You have to turn around," Joey said. "It's back the other way."

"Oh?" Liz pulled into a driveway and backed out, heading the other way. "How do you know that? Dad took you to get ice cream without bringing me something?"

Joey shook his head no and said, "Just know it's this way."

"Okay, then," Liz said. She found the Dairy Queen a few minutes later, not far from the library, in fact. From the line out front, she could see the library's windows. That must be where he saw it, then, she thought.

Jack plugged in, turned up the amp volume, slid into the guitar strap, and played something loud and hard.

It felt good to be able to play without worrying about making too much noise. He let his fingers fly and his mind go, not thinking about anything at all. There were no lost parts, no meetings to hurry to, nothing to ship next day air because G.o.d forbid it take that extra day to get there.

With the neck under his palm, his finger running along the strings, he remembered seeing her for the first time. She hung in a music store window. He pa.s.sed it every day on the way to his afternoon cla.s.s. She caught his eye one day, then he went to cla.s.s and forgot about her. A few days later he saw Jimi Hendrix on television, playing a guitar much like the nice white one he'd seen in the window. Jimi went into some hardcore blues song. Jack picked up Jimi's greatest hits collection, The Ultimate Experience, later that week and found out the song had been "Red House". When he heard it, he thought, I've got to know how to do that.

Six months later, he'd saved up enough for the guitar. Soon after, he met Joey's mother and it was put aside. He didn't pick her up again in earnest until Joey was six months old and his mother was gone. But Jack had decided by then not to learn Jimi's "Red House". He loved playing now and he knew if he learned the song that got him started, he'd never need to play again. So he learned everything he could except that one song. And every time he picked up his guitar, he let the world go and closed himself inside the strings.

It was there, locked away inside the guitar, that Jack let loose his logic and order. For those moments he was playing, fantasy and reality were mixed.

Then his time was cut short and Jack was pulled back to the real world by the ringing phone. He pulled out the amp cord and strode into the living room. He picked up the phone and asked, "h.e.l.lo?"

"Everyone will suffer now, everyone will suffer now, everyone will suffer now--"

"Who is this?" he asked. He didn't really expect an answer.

"You can't save yourself, you can't save yourself, you can't save yourself--"

He hung up. Before setting the phone back on the base, he thought twice, and took it into the bedroom with him. He tossed it on the bed, replaced the amp cord, and played. He wished he had a ba.s.s player backing him up, or a singer, or a drummer, or someone to sit to the side and clap. But he had himself and he enjoyed simply having his fingers on the strings.

The phone rang again and Jack muted the strings and looked down at it. He waited, but it didn't ring again. Then he saw the bed and remembered the book tucked between the mattresses. He looked at the clock. Joey and Liz had only been gone thirty minutes. He still had time.

He set Lily aside, pulled the book out, and leaned against the headboard to look through it.

(from The Outsider's Guide to Angel Hill, chapter 8) The upper right corner of Angel Hill is sometimes known as the garden.

The streets in this corner of town are named Sunflower Boulevard, Rose Drive, and Daisy Avenue after the flowers found growing by the thousands along these stretches of road in 1939.

No one planted them. At least, no one admitted planting them. They just grew. Sunflowers, roses, and daisies. At first, the general consensus was the town had done it in an attempt to beautify Angel Hill, and not much thought was given to the flowers. The next year, they returned and, again, no one gave them much thought. When the flowers returned the third year, it was brought up at a town meeting that gardening on a public lot was illegal, unless approved by the town counsel.

No one planted the flowers, someone mentioned.

Someone must have, the counsel retorted.

A debate arose over who had or hadn't planted flowers in "the garden" and whether the permission to do so had been granted by Angel Hill. After weeks, the counsel realized no one was going to come forward with proof or an admission to planting the flowers. Weary of the whole mess, the town counsel deemed the flowers, "an act of G.o.d" and changed the street names to reflect the flowers.

The flowers, however, never returned the fourth year. A new project was then launched to till the ground, hoping to expose remnants of the flowers, but nothing was ever found. No seeds, no dried, discarded petals.

Jack closed the book and tucked it back under the mattress.

Interesting, he thought. I guess. That was over sixty years ago. That's probably the legend surrounding them, and this guy takes it as gospel.

Jack heard Liz open the back door, and he stood up and slid into his guitar. He could see across the hall into the living room. She tossed a stack of books onto the couch and Joey lay out on the floor with one in his hand. He turned on the television and Liz came into the bedroom.

"What'cha doing?"

"Nothing," he said, "just putting her up. You get anything good?"

"We had ice cream," Joey said.

"Shh," Liz said.

Jack gave her a look that asked, "Where's mine?"

"I didn't know what you'd want," she said. "Anyway, I think I got some good books." She led him into the living room and he looked at her selection.

"You get enough haunted house books?" he asked.