I heard what sounded like squeals of despair coming from the dog but they stopped abruptly and there was only silence.
I waited.
Squinting, I could make out Victor’s bulk as he slowly walked back across the field and I couldn’t help feeling weak with relief when the dog—now eerily calm—moved past me and into the kitchen. But then something forced me to understand that I was not alone out here.
Can you feel me? it asked.
“Go away,” I whispered. I was too f**ked up to deal with this. “Go away . . .”
It was time you learned something, I could hear it moaning.
I was not alone.
And whatever was out there knew who I was.
Something was moving in the woods again.
The swings on the swing set began rattling in a sulfurous rush of hot winds and then, almost immediately, they stopped swinging.
I could hear the soft, snapping sounds of something approaching. And it was moving eagerly. It wanted to be noticed. It wanted to be seen and felt. It wanted to whisper my name. It wanted to deceive me. But it wasn’t making itself visible yet. And as I kept peering into the darkness, I saw another figure hurrying across the field, grasping what looked like a pitchfork. I stood immobilized on the deck. My teeth had started chattering. The wind gusted again. And then there was the sound of locusts swarming. I started shaking. I’m scared, I suddenly thought. When it sensed how frightened I was, there was a strange odor in the air.
Get inside, I told myself. Get inside the house now.
But when I looked back at the house I knew it couldn’t protect me from what was out there. Whatever it was could get in.
And then I saw the headstone. It was off to the side at the edge of our yard, and it sat at a crooked angle, jutting up from the weeds that blanketed the field, and my momentary annoyance that the decorators hadn’t carted it off turned to dread as I found myself unable to stop moving toward it. The ground beneath the headstone was burst apart—as if something buried there had clawed its way out. Over the roar of the wind I could hear an oddly distinct flapping sound. As I moved toward the headstone I felt convinced that something had actually crawled out of that fake grave. Something huge and black was passing over the house—it was flying—and then it spun around in midair and it was suddenly beneath me and the wind kept howling and there was briefly the snarl of animals fighting in the woods and then the thing began circling above me as I knelt in front of the headstone next to the hole in the ground. There was something written on it. I started brushing the fake moss and cobwebs aside. The headstone was streaked with dried blood.
And scrawled on it in red letters was
ROBERT MARTIN ELLIS 1941–1992
The wind knocked me off-balance and I fell backwards.
The field was damp and spongy and as I tried to stand up I slipped on a large wet patch of dirt. But when I put a hand down to steady myself it wasn’t wetness I felt but something viscous and slimy that smelled dank and I kept trying to stand up because something was getting closer to me. The wind slammed the kitchen doors shut. Whatever was approaching me was hungry. It was pitiful. It was awesome. It needed something I didn’t want to give. I shouted out as I finally lifted myself up and lunged toward the house. Whatever was behind me kept shambling forward, its arms outstretched and grasping.
Once inside, I ran into the guest room and locked myself in it.
I waited desperately for Jayne and the kids to get home.
When they returned I made sure all the doors to the house were locked and that the various alarms were set. I pretended to be interested in Sarah’s candy. Jayne ignored me. Robby barely looked my way before climbing the stairs to his room.
Back in the guest room, drinking from the magnum of vodka, I kept thinking one thing, just two words.
He’s back.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1
9. outside
I woke up in the guest room to the sound of a leaf blower, and when I peered out the window (the gardener’s flatbed truck in the driveway a reminder that it was Saturday) I felt momentarily okay about things until I realized I was fully clothed (not a good sign) and had no recollection of how I fell asleep last night (ditto), which morphed into a spasm of anxiety. I immediately swung my legs off the bed, knocking over the bottle of vodka I had bought the previous night—but it was empty (another bad sign). Yet the Ketel One suggested that my fear was the result of a hangover and nothing else—I was safe, I was alive, I was okay. I had a mixed response, however, to the jumbo Slurpee cup I kept hidden under the bed and which now sat on the nightstand half-filled with urine, meaning I had been too intoxicated to make it to the guest bathroom a few feet away from the guest bed in the middle of the night but not so intoxicated that I was unable to direct the stream carefully into the cup and not onto the beige carpet, so it came down to: okay, peed into jumbo Slurpee cup and not on rug—plus or minus? I walked quickly to the guest room door and made sure I’d locked it before passing out. And the usual morning anxiety dissipated slightly when I realized I had in fact locked the door, which meant that Jayne wouldn’t have been able to check on me (passed out, reeking of vodka, a cup filled with my urine by the side of the bed). But the anxiety returned when I realized that she probably hadn’t even tried.