The Haunted

Intellectually, James understood what that meant. But emotionally it didn’t really register—which was probably a good thing.

Wind blew out of the fireplace again, and the billowing tentacle approached him, apparently deciding that he’d had enough time to think. He moved away, stepping on papers, stepping on books, stepping on records. It followed him, the color of his desk, the color of his computer, the color of the debris.

He might not be able to kill it, but at the very least he’d be able to prevent it from attacking his family.

I’ll get both of them next time. Megan and James. And your little wifey, too.

That would never happen. He’d make sure of it.

In fact, he could stop it from going after anyone. He could make sure the entity stayed dormant, didn’t touch another person, didn’t haunt another house.

He had no choice. There was no other way to do it, no one else who could do it.

It was worth the sacrifice.

The tentacle touched his arm, colder than ice, and the second it sensed his decision, the house was back to normal. Better than normal. It was if a professional cleaning service had instantly gone over every inch of their home. Everything was in its place, the windows were clear, the wood gleamed, the metal shone. He was no longer in that cockeyed version of his office but was standing in the entryway, looking at an idealized version of their living room. Nothing was coming out of the fireplace, and he sensed no other presence in the house. If he had not known better, he would have thought this was the model home of a model family and there were no such things as ghosts or monsters or things that went bump in the night.

On an impulse, he moved into the living room, peeked out the front window. The grass on the lawn was green; the tree was leafy and shadier than it had ever been.

The yards across the street had been restored as well.

Julian turned around, seeing the spotless dining room and kitchen beyond. Now that he had made his decision, he was reluctant to carry it out. The emotional weight of what he was about to do came crashing down on him, and the only thing he wanted was to see his family. But if he tried to leave, he would be killed. He knew that intuitively and for a fact. Despite the deceptive calm in the eye of this storm, the picture-perfect fiction surrounding him now would be maintained only as long as he cooperated, as long as he did what he said he would do. Any deviation would result in death.

Still, he had a little time, and he went over to the cupboard in the dining room where Claire kept the boxes of photos that she had not had time to put into albums. He pulled out the top box and put it on the table, sorting through the pictures. He saw a photo of Megan when she was five, dressed as Princess Jasmine for Halloween; saw James at three, standing proudly in front of a fort he had built out of couch cushions. There were photos from a visit with Santa, from a trip they’d taken to the Albuquerque Zoo, from various birthday parties. He found one he’d forgotten about: himself and James at the county fair, going down the Super Slide side by side. Julian’s vision blurred as the tears came, and he’d never loved his wife or his children as much as he did at that moment.

He would never get to see Megan and James grow up, he realized, never get to go to their weddings, never get to show them these photos when they were adults, never get to see their children. It was a whole world he was going to miss, a whole life, and he was overwhelmed by a sense of loss so profound that he dropped the picture on the table, refusing to look at any more photos.

It was time, he decided.

He just had to figure out how to do it.

Hanging was out. He was afraid to go that way, and it was probably the rudest, cruelest thing he could do to his family. One of them would have to find his body, and that would be an image that would remain with the person for the rest of his or her life.

Likewise stabbing himself, which he probably wouldn’t even be able to get through.

The old M*A*S*H song was wrong, he thought. Suicide wasn’t painless.

Poison was probably the best. Or an overdose. He went into the kitchen, looking through the cupboard where they kept the medicine and vitamins. There were a couple of leftover prescription bottles from some of the kids’ winter illnesses, but they weren’t a family that kept sleeping pills around or had any heavy-duty medications. Under the sink he found Drano, and in the laundry room was bleach, but both of those would be nasty, and he wasn’t sure whether they would kill him or he would throw them up and find himself in the hospital with a lot of explaining to do.