He went in the back, as he usually did, but instead of stopping to kiss Liz or Joey, he pa.s.sed them in the living room, left them watching television, and took his string into the bedroom. Then he shoved the book under his side of the mattress, far enough back so Liz wouldn't find it when she made the bed. He kicked off his shoes and went back to the living room.

"Everyone have a good day?" he asked.

"It was alright," Liz said. "What's so important in the bedroom?"

"I bought a new string today. I wanted to drop it in there first, get my shoes off."

"Oh. Well, the squirrel guy came. Said as far as he could tell, we don't have squirrels, or mice. But he did say he could set out poison for them anyway."

"Did you tell him that's alright?" Jack picked up Joey and squeezed and kissed him. "You miss me today?" Joey nodded. He put him back down.

"I told him I'd talk it over with you first."

"What do you think?"

"I don't know," Liz said, even though she knew very well where the noises came from. "I mean, if he says we don't have anything, what good is putting the poison out gonna do? But, again, he said just because he didn't see them didn't mean they weren't here. So I don't know."

"Yeah, but it's gotta be coming from somewhere, all those noises up there. I doubt it's termites in the walls making all that racket."

"Probably not," she said. "Your call."

He lay on the couch, stretched his feet over her thighs. "Rub my feet," he said.

She knocked his feet off and said, "Rub them yourself. Why don't you rub my feet? Then you can kiss my b.u.t.t while you're at it."

"Why do you say things like that when you know well enough that I will?" He sat up, kissed her, and plopped back down again next to her. "I don't know what to do about it. Maybe we'll have someone else come and check. If they say there's nothing up there, we'll take it that they know what they're talking about. I guess."

Sure, Liz thought. We'll get someone else to go up there, and they'll tell you there's something up there all right. But you're not going to get that from an exterminator. Get a psychic in here. There'll tell you what's up there.

But she didn't say any of that.

She got up a while later to make dinner. Jack went to restring his guitar. Joey played in his bedroom.

Jack got the string changed and tuned up, then played for a few minutes, strumming random chords, shrugging off work's stress and losing sense of the world--the only time he allowed himself to do so.

While his hands and fingers worked the fretboard, Jack's eyes went to the mattress. He watched, as if expecting the book to peek out. When it didn't, he set his guitar aside and pulled it from the bed. He flipped through the pages, wondering what was so special about this book that Charley Clark made a point to tell him about it.

Every town's got its stories, he thought. Why are Angel Hill's any different?

Skimming the first chapter told him why. At least it gave him an idea that Angel Hill's stories might not be like other towns'.

There was a hill on the block surrounded by Rand and Ellison, between F and H Streets. Fett Technologies was on Ellison, crossing with I and J Streets. Jack realized this was the hill he saw every morning turning into work.

The Outsider's Guide to Angel Hill called this hill Splatter Mountain.

The sight commonly known as Splatter Mountain, the book read, was originally the center of Angel Hill. When the town was founded and the ground broke, Patrick Day drove a shovel into the earth, announcing the official founding of Angel Hill, Missouri. The crowd cheered and drank champagne and no one at first noticed the red stuff coming up from the ground. The one who saw it first was reported to have been Eleanore Gladys, wife of the town's first doctor. Eleanore Gladys screamed, pointed, and fainted dead away. Someone looked to see what she had screamed about and saw, coming up from the ground, a thick red liquid. Someone else screamed, "It's devil's blood!" and the crowd roared with fear and everyone began to go hysterical. There was chaos as everyone scattered to flee the cursed spot.

Jack flipped forward, pa.s.sing the detailed account of the town consecration and whatever the people there saw. He found a section break and read.

Soon after the groundbreaking, the details on how long after are vague, but it was within a few weeks, the town hired a geologist from Kansas City to take a sample of the stuff. It had issued from the ground for nearly an hour, running in red streams down the hill, soaking back into the dirt, or drying on the gra.s.s. The geologist found plenty of samples to take with him. The crusted powder was sc.r.a.ped from gra.s.s and rocks and tested. Results were inconclusive, which is to say no one ever discovered exactly what had spilled from the ground that day when Angel Hill was founded.

Jack closed the book. Odd, he thought. It's bulls.h.i.t, but it's odd. Unidentifiable red ooze doesn't come from the ground. They probably stabbed a mole or a gopher or something when they broke the ground. And I doubt it bled for an hour. And after a few weeks, the rain would have washed it away. What else you got?

He flipped through the book, stopped in the middle, and read some more.

There was a series of animal mutilations in the late 1800s. During the end, two people were killed, one more presumed dead. A local woman was found dead in her home. The local minister, Pastor Mullins was also found torn to shreds in his living room. His son, Billy Ray, was never found.

Soon after, the town brought in a new minister, Pastor Keeper. Jacob and his family (a wife and four children) were moved in from the small town of Green Lake West across the river in Kansas, about a hundred miles south of Angel Hill.

Jack turned the page, then quickly dropped the book and stood up, grabbing Lily and placing her on her stand. Liz came into the bedroom.

"Supper's ready," she said.

"I was just coming," he said, weaving his pick between the strings just under the nut.

"Come on, Joe," she called into his room. She heard him drop his toy and clomp into the hall.

"Are we having spinach?" he asked.

"No," she said, laughing. "I don't think so, why?"

"Because I like spinach."

"Okay," she said. "I'll remember that next time I go to the store. Tonight we're having tacos. You want hard sh.e.l.ls or do you want a burrito?"

"Brito," he said.

"Brito, it is."

"We get any mail today?" Jack asked after dinner.

Everyone was lying in the living room watching television. Joey had a Batman figure on the floor in front of him, ready should he decide to play with it.

"I don't know," Liz said. "I didn't even think to check."

"I'll do it." Jack got up, groaning as he stood. "I'm too young to make old man noises," he said as he strode into the hall. The light was out and he had to see the hall in his head to figure out where he was going. He almost tripped up the first step, but caught himself on the rail.

He unlocked the door, leaned onto the porch, grabbed the mail, and locked the door again. Then he noticed the second floor kitchen light was on. He went up and tossed the mail onto the counter, then shuffled through the envelopes. Here was a bill. Here was an offer for a pre-approved home loan. Here was a letter for this address, but the wrong name. And another envelope for what he figured would be the empty lot next door.

I wonder if there was ever a house there.

He grabbed the two for him, then the other two in the opposite hand. He'd put them back into the mailbox for tomorrow. He turned off the kitchen light and went to the stairs. Then he stopped, watching a bowling ball-sized orb of green light drifting up the wall next to the stairs. It rounded the landing and Jack watched it, trying to see the beam it traveled on, trying to figure out where it was coming from. But it didn't appear to be moving up the wall itself. It looked like it was floating free of the wall, a ball of light hovering in midair, making its way to the third floor.

It vanished over the top banister and Jack stood, listening, wondering.

What the h.e.l.l was that?

He went to the windows in the main room and looked down. Was someone down there with a flashlight? He cupped his hands against the gla.s.s, but couldn't see anyone. And the empty lot was just that; empty. No trees or piles of sc.r.a.p metal, nothing. No one would be able to hide there. And the lot was empty.

He went back to the stairs, up midway to the third floor landing, then turned and looked up. The light was gone. But his eyes fell on the top banister and Charley Clark's story came to him.

Hung himself. Tied a rope to the top of the banister and just let himself drop.

"There's no way that thing would hold a man," Jack said, staring up at the thick wooden rail. But, standing there in the dark, Jack thought he heard something creak above him. Like taut rope against wood.

"I'll have to make Charley work through first break tomorrow," Jack thought. "That's what he gets for suggestion."

He replaced the mail, took his own mail downstairs, and forgot about the green ball of light.

Liz woke up that night with cool air swirling about her face. She kept her eyes closed and turned over, but the air followed. She knew opening her eyes would prove pointless. She wouldn't see anything, but she'd still feel it.

Forget a second exterminator, she thought. I've got to do something about this now.

I'm getting this house blessed, tomorrow if I can.

She moved next to Jack, pressed her face against his shoulder. The air stopped swirling around her and she eventually went back to sleep.

Chapter Five.

As soon as Jack left for work, Liz was on the phone, calling every church she could find. Her search for someone to bless the house revealed something to Liz she*d never have thought about Angel Hill. Listed among the Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows and First Church of East Angel Hills and a few Angel Hill a.s.semblies of G.o.d were some that made her stomach do a roll. Church of the Hollow Earth? Church of the Priory of Scion? Temple of the Thirteen Holy Attributes?

"Where's a good old St. Patrick's when you need it?" she wondered.

When no one in Angel Hill could help her, she tried the surrounding towns, Gower, St. Joseph, Helena, Easton, Cosby, Cameron. Most of the churches in the smaller towns were Christian. She finally found someone at a Catholic Church in St. Joseph who could do the house blessing. The priest said the soonest he could schedule it would be the following Monday.

"Thank you," Liz said. "I'll be here all day. Is there a certain time I should expect you?"

"Sometime a little after noon," he said.

"That's perfect. My son will be sleeping. I'll a.s.sume you need directions."

"Yes, that would probably help."

She told him to take US 169 into town and gave him directions to the house from there.

He said he would see her Monday. Liz thanked him again, then hung up.

Joey asked if he could play outside for a little bit.

"Tell you what," she said. "I'm gonna go up and paint for a while. Why don't you play in your room? Then, as soon as I'm done, we can go down to the park."

"I don't want to go to the park," Joey said. He sounded as if she'd suggested they go play on the highway during rush hour.

"You don't? Okay. Well, then when I get some work done upstairs, we'll both go outside. Maybe we can take your tee to the lot next door and you can hit the ball."

"Yeah, yeah," Joey said. "Let's do that. I wanna hit the ball."

She left him in his room, then went to the second floor.

Everything was as she'd left it, what was it, two, three days ago?

"My G.o.d," she said to the room, "I can't believe I haven't done anything up here in so long." The burgundy paint was long dry. She was pleased with the outcome. Not bad for a first coat. It was darker than she'd thought it would be, but it suited the room. She imagined thick, cla.s.sy furniture--a couch, a couple chairs--with a bar and maybe they could have the fireplace rebuilt. The mantle was there, but the fireplace itself had been bricked up. With some decent lights and music, this could be the perfect entertaining room. Not that they did a lot of entertaining, but they never had the perfect room before.

"Course, we'll have to make some friends in town first."

She looked down at the wood floor, scuffed and scratched from years of who knew how many different people living here. A big enough rug, she thought, would take care of that, and bring the room together at the same time.

She still had the other three walls to paint and then a second coat. Then again, she thought, looking at the first coat, the one might be enough.

She went to the finished wall and ran her hand over it. Up close, she realized she'd been wrong. Impossible as it seemed, after all those days left alone, the paint still hadn't dried. She pulled her hand back, thinking, Great, and I just screwed it up. Now I'll have to do the second coat. She looked at her hand, covered and sticky with red paint. She went toward the bathroom, then swerved away and into the kitchen instead. Since seeing the boy in the shower, Liz hadn't been back. She flipped on the light over the sink and turned on the water. Then she stopped in the middle of putting her hand under the flow.

This wasn't the burgundy she'd used. She stared at it. This was brighter, more vibrant, more red. Her mind played a cliche where the wall had been covered in blood instead of paint and Liz's hand was now covered with it. She thrust her hand under the stream and washed it off. She dried it on her shirt and went back into the main room.

The wall was no longer burgundy and Liz's mind brought the cliche around again. Except this time it wasn't her mind.

She watched as the color on the wall changed, brightened, became red and full and began to drip down the walls as if it had just been applied, and too thick at that. A child laughed behind her and she turned, but she was alone. Liz looked back and watched blood pour off the wall, not just down it, but she could see it seep from the wall like sweat through skin.

She backed up and looked to the side, up the stairs. She didn't know what she expected to see there, but she knew she wasn't alone.

The child laughed again.

Blood ran over the baseboards and began soaking into the wood floor.

The child laughed again. This time the sound came from the stairs.

She looked over to the empty stairs, then back to the wall. The blood was gone.

The wall was burgundy and dry. The baseboards and floor were clean. She went to touch it and found it true. The laugh came again.

She ran to the stairs, then up them two at a time. At the top, she stood brave, waiting for whatever was about to happen. She imagined all sorts of things. Ghosts would rush her and knock her over the rail and she'd break her neck in the fall. Dead arms would reach out from the walls and floor and drag her away. A portal would open in the room and Liz would fall through it into h.e.l.l.

The child's laugh echoed up from the landing. She looked back, then quickly turned around to face the third floor again.

"You can't hurt me," she said. "I don't care what you think you can do. But you can't touch my family, or me. This is our house now."

You can't save yourself, the house whispered.

Forgive me--pant pant--forgive me--pant pant--forgive me, it whispered.

Can I get in bed with you? it whispered.

"You're just memories," Liz said. "You're just energy. You can't hurt me."