“Oh. Yes,” Chelsea said.
She turned towards her own driveway and took a step.
“Wait,” she said, turning back towards Peg.
The older woman raised her eyebrows and stood there, looking at her.
“Didn’t we…” Chelsea started. She trailed off. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what she was going to ask. It was like there was a hole in her brain where the question should be. She tried to piece together the morning. She had gone for a walk, met up with Peg, walked for a bit, and then… There was something tickling the back of her brain, but she couldn’t put any words to it.
“Oh!” Chelsea said. “The auction! Who told you about that?”
It was Peg’s turn to look confused. Peg glanced around and rolled her tongue in her mouth, like she was trying to identify a peculiar taste.
“Auction.”
“Claire?”
“Oh, yes. It was something The Girls said.”
“Oh,” Chelsea said, frowning. Those women made up rumors all the time. “Thanks.”
Without saying goodbye, Chelsea turned towards her house again. She started walking. She glanced back once and saw that Peg had resumed walking as well.
[ Package ]
F
IVE
M
ONTHS
B
EFORE
THE
Monster
“I’ll take it,” Wendy said. “I have to go to the bank anyway.”
“Are you sure?” Bruce asked. “It can probably wait until tomorrow. I don’t think anyone stays in that house during the winter. In fact, it might be best if we just send it back.”
Wendy shrugged. She looked down at the little box. The address was clearly marked. There should have been no reason for the UPS guy to drop if off at their house instead of the place up the road, where it belonged.
“Who knows,” she said. “Maybe someone is there and they’re waiting for this.”
Bruce nodded.
Wendy put on her jacket and gloves. She wrapped her scarf around her neck before she put on her hood. The wind had finally died down, but it had left behind a biting cold. Some of the locals said that they couldn’t remember a winter that cold. Wendy always figured they were exaggerating. The swings in temperature were extreme in their part of the world, and the difference between August and February was hard to imagine. That kind of shift seemed to make people stretch the truth when they assessed the current conditions.
She climbed into her car and set the package on the passenger’s seat. Wendy waved to Trina, who was pulling in just as Wendy was pulling out.
The tires crunched the new snow on the way up the driveway. It was a short trip up the road to the house where the package belonged. Wendy felt vindicated as she rolled up the driveway. There were footprints in the fresh powder. The prints led from the woods, across the yard, and to the front door. Clearly someone was home after all.
Wendy left the car running and grabbed the package.
She slowed as she approached. A new thought nearly stopped her in her tracks. In fact, it was about tracks. The footprints led up to the house, but where had they come from? They seemed to originate in the woods and go up to the front door. Wendy shrugged and started walking again. The rational explanation was that someone had gone out through a back door and then circled the house through the woods. There was nothing mysterious about that.
The front door was open—just a crack.
Wendy lifted a wary hand and knocked.
The door opened immediately. The woman standing there was also wearing a winter coat.
“Wendy?” the woman asked.
Wendy pointed with a hand holding the package. “Mary, right?”
“Right,” Mary Dunn said. “Did you hear it too?”
Wendy held up the package. “I’m just here to deliver this. They left it at our house by mistake.”
“Oh,” Mary said. “We were down on the lake—my son and I—and I heard a noise up here. He’s minding the lines and I was checking out the noise. The door was open.”
“Oh,” Wendy said. She looked down at the package in her hands. “I’ll just leave this here.”
They both heard the noise. The sound wasn’t words, but it was still understandable in a weird way. It was a call for help. It was a plea from a child. Wendy took a step forward before she even knew that she intended to respond. Mary was already moving across the foyer. Wendy was inside, still holding the package, when the door swung shut.
[ Bank ]
Wendy’s hands were on the wheel. She blinked at them. The car was far too warm for her to have her hood up and scarf on. She took them both off before she put the car in reverse and began to back away from the A-frame house. Something caught her eye before she backed out onto the road. There were footprints leading to the front door.
She paused for a second, her foot planted on the brake pedal, and then nodded. Of course there were footprints. She had left the package on the porch.
Inside? Had she left it inside?
No, of course not. How would she get inside?
Wendy turned her car towards the bank and got going.
[ Winter ]
F
OUR
M
ONTHS
B
EFORE
THE
Monster
Harold knocked again. He shifted the plastic bags over to his other hand—the hand with the glove. They were much easier to hold that way. He was thinking about the refrigerator. When the new refrigerator had come, he hadn’t seen much choice. They had put it to the left of the cabinets, and that blocked the internal stairway that connected his niece’s apartment to his house. For years, the arrangement had worked just fine. It’s not like he
needed
to be able to get into his niece’s place without going outside.
Now that she was…
Harold couldn’t think of a word that was appropriate. She
wasn’t
crazy. He wouldn’t even let himself
think
that word. She was sick—temporarily sick.
Now that she was temporarily sick, it might be time to retire the large refrigerator and reopen the interior staircase. It would make it easier for him to take care of her. He might even want to permanently reconnect the apartment with the rest of the house. It might be necessary if her condition turned out to be less than temporary.
He gave up on knocking and dug out his key ring. He still had a key to her place. As he slid it in, he realized he didn’t need it.
“April?” he called, opening the door. She was on the floor of her kitchen. Books were spread around her. It was freezing in there.
She didn’t look up as he set her groceries on the table.
“How come you didn’t answer the door?”
She still didn’t look up. The room was silent except for the sound of Harold taking the items out of the plastic grocery bag and setting them on the table. She flipped a page in the book she was studying.
“You should have told me that you went deaf. I could have taken you in to see Dr. Purdy,” he said.
She flipped another page.
Harold gathered the milk, butter, cheese, and salad. He headed for the refrigerator that he was going to have to move. It was a giant ordeal to get it up there. He would probably have to hire ten guys to come over and help him get it out. Harold put away the groceries and turned back towards the table.
When Harold saw her face for the first time, he dropped to his knees.
“April,” he breathed.
She finally looked up at him.
There were no whites to her eyes. The area around each iris was blood red. He saw foam leaking from the corner of her mouth and dripping from her nose.
“April?” he cried, crawling towards her. When she looked down at the book again, a bloody tear escaped her eye and hit the page. Harold reached and took her hand.
She barked a short scream and blinked down at his hand.
“April, what happened?”
She chewed the air and worked her tongue before she could speak. April grunted. Harold didn’t expect much from her. He was careful to keep his expectations in check, just like the doctor had said. He put no pressure on her to get better. But this new development was almost more than he could handle. Was this how his niece was going to be from now on? Was she a senseless, drooling creature with blood-filled eyes?
“We’ll get you to the doctor. He’ll know what to do.”
April shook her head. “He has been called.”
“Who? You called the doctor already?”
She still shook her head. “The ancient ones don’t have names, Uncle Harold. The caller is the only one who can control them, and the first thing the demons do is hypnotize the one who called. It’s a perfect circle.”
April raised a finger and drew a circle in the air.
Harold looked down at the book she was reading. It was the same one that he had loaned to Ricky. The young man must have brought it back.
“Come,” Harold said. “We have to get you to the doctor.”
“He’ll come for us all, Uncle Harold, but his minions will prepare and harvest first. Then he will rise.”
“Come on, darling. We’ll get you help, okay?”
Harold wanted to believe that the doctor would help, but he could easily picture Dr. Purdy’s frown. That frown meant that this was yet another development that Harold was going to have to learn to live with.
Still, he had to try.
[ Circle ]
O
NE
M
ONTH
B
EFORE
THE
Monster
Les Oberheim pulled down the driveway slowly and glanced at his wife. He was waiting for her to say it. She always said the same thing when they returned to their beautiful summer house. She wasn’t even looking. Evelyn was digging through her bag.
He tapped the brakes. She finally looked up.
Les raised his hand and his eyebrows in a silent question.
“Yes, it’s beautiful. Can you pull up? I’m not feeling well.”
Les pulled up and stopped the car.
“You said, ‘Don’t ever let me forget,’” he said. She was already getting out of the car. “‘How lucky we are to have such a wonderful getaway,’ you said.”
“I’m not feeling well,” she said. Evelyn marched towards the door and barely took time to inspect the lawn and landscaping. She always loved to review the condition of the place when they arrived. The new kid, Cormier, had done a pretty good job as far as Les could see. Evelyn didn’t care.
“The door’s open,” she called.
Les sighed. So much for the Cormier kid. He would have to talk to him about the basic rules of the road if the kid wanted to resume his care-taking duties next fall. Les opened the trunk and pulled out their bags. They kept a full wardrobe in the A-frame house, but they always seemed to have full suitcases whenever they arrived to their summer home. He closed the trunk with his elbow and grunted as he tried to lift both bags at the same time.
It wasn’t going to be long before he wouldn’t be carrying two bags at once.
Les thought about the staircase inside the house. It wouldn’t be long before that would be a hassle as well. They didn’t have any stairs down in their Florida home. Everything down there was flat. It was harder to fall down when everything was flat.
His arms were burning by the time he shuffled the bags through the door.
The light on the security system was green. Either the Cormier kid had left it disabled or Evi had keyed it in.
Les filled his lungs with the smell of the house. The fragrance was of old stone, polished wood, and sunshine. It reminded him of sitting by the lake until his skin was burned and tender. He could almost hear the grandkids laughing as they ran down the dock and jumped off the end. This place had been their refuge from the world as his career had wound down and their kids were making their own lives. It was a symbol of the good life—the life he had worked so hard to achieve.
Les frowned at a cardboard box.
Someone had opened it just inside the door and left the styrofoam everywhere. It must have been the Cormier boy—nobody else had a key.
Les set down the bags and shut the door behind himself.
He heard a groan from over the balcony and wondered what was wrong with Evelyn. He figured that he would find out soon enough. Les turned down the flap of the box and saw the address of the A-frame on the label. The box had been shipped from Controlled Scientific Devices, Incorporated. A big red stamp told him that the contents were a PROTOTYPE.
“Huh,” Les said. “Hey, Evi?” he called.
She didn’t answer.
“Is this something you ordered?”
Still no answer.
Les moved over to the balcony. His nose caught something new on the air. It smelled like one of those scented candles. Evelyn didn’t like those. She said they were bad for respiration. Les started down the steps.
When he turned the corner, he saw something terrible.
His wife wasn’t alone.
The living room furniture was pushed to the sides and a big circle was painted on the floor. A boy knelt in front of his wife and four women held her in place in the center of the circle.
“Get off of her!” Les said. His brain worked quickly. He looked down at his feet, wishing they could move as rapidly. He had to get to his den. That’s where his gun safe was mounted. Les worked down the last of the stairs and turned to run for his den.
His feet left the floor. His hands went out to catch himself, but that was unnecessary. He wasn’t falling. Les spun in the air, gripped by invisible hands that held him aloft. The young man had turned around. The kid’s lips were moving, but no sound came out.
Les realized that he actually recognized a couple of the women. One was that Polhemus woman. Another was married to that Dunn character.
“What are you doing?” Les demanded. It felt like something was squeezing his chest. It was difficult to suck in another breath. Still suspended above the floor, he began to float towards the group.