Toby nodded fervently. He had bad dreams almost every night.
“What happens in your dreams, Toby? What are they about?” She blinked her eyes up at the ceiling, keeping the tears at bay. She didn’t want him to see her cry.
Toby frowned at the question. “I dunno . . . it’s dark, and I hear voices and noises like crashing glass. Sometimes it’s like I’m in a car and there’s these monsters like wolves and bears trying to get inside. It’s scary.”
“Do your bad dreams ever happen here, in this house?” She looked at him then with a strange expression, as though she were searching for something.
There was something big behind the question, something important he couldn’t quite grasp, and the weight of it made him shift uncomfortably. “I don’t think so.”
“Do you ever hear strange things in the house at night?” Again, that searching stare.
The fear of monsters inched its way back into his expression. What sort of things? He combed his memory hard for her, wanting to give the right answer. “Sometimes the wind shakes my windows. Why? Do you hear strange things?”
“I don’t know. Not really.” She noticed the fearful cringe on his face, but her probing eyes had more questions. “Do you like it here, Toby?”
He shrank from her, confused and truly worried now. “Sometimes, I guess. I don’t like it here at night. It’s creepy.”
Ava forced a thin smile and nodded. There was so much she wouldn’t or couldn’t say to him. As they curled up on his bed together to help him fall asleep, he sensed something dark hidden just beneath the surface of her questions.
Something terrifying.
15
The Spielman Family
July 28, 2018
A sharp knocking sound woke Hunter in the middle of the night.
He sat up in his bed, blinking the fog from his eyes. The floorboards creaked a few rooms away. Was that the click of a door? He flipped on the light next to his bed and squinted at the clock. 1:08 a.m.
“Hello?” he called out. Mom? Dad?
He ran a hand over his face and listened to the house. There was no answer. His gerbils, Frodo and Samwise, rustled their wood chips on the other side of the room. He looked over at the shadow of their fish tank and wondered if the strange noise had come from them. His parents had left that evening at eight p.m., telling him, Don’t wait up, honey. You know how these benefits can be. His mother had clicked across the cold marble floor of their half-finished kitchen in her stilettos and pecked him on the cheek.
Hunter had sulked, wishing she’d hug him and wishing she wouldn’t. Wishing he didn’t feel so annoyed whenever she talked. Wishing she wouldn’t wear so much makeup. It made the softness underneath harder to see. He liked her better in the mornings, when she looked more like a mom and less like an aging actress.
His father had flashed him a bleached grin. Don’t stay up too late, kiddo. And maybe take a break from gaming for a bit?
Sure thing, Dad. Hunter had forced a thin smile and watched his handsome parents stroll out of the kitchen and into the garage. The Mercedes had pulled down the driveway a minute later and disappeared into the alien landscape, leaving Hunter marooned in the old house.
He’d spent the bulk of the evening watching internet porn and trolling social media under a false name. The girl he liked back in Boston had a new boyfriend. His old computer-coding club had found a new programmer. It was like his old life had never existed.
His parents hadn’t come back yet.
“Why can’t they just be normal?” he muttered to himself. Why can’t Margot just bake cookies for once? Why can’t Myron grow a beer gut and watch the goddamn game?
Outside his window, Lee Road lay quiet under the yellow streetlights. The huge houses across the road loomed in dark shadows. He’d been there less than two weeks, but Hunter hated his new house. He hated Shaker Heights. The malcontent pulled at his face and the hunch of his bony frame. He missed Boston. He missed the townhouse in Brookline. He missed his old school and his tiny circle of friends. The only kids he’d seen on his block so far were under the age of ten or traveled in packs more likely to kick his ass than hang out with him. The only person he’d talked to face-to-face besides his parents was their once-a-week housekeeper, Louisa, and he was pretty sure she hated all of them. He knew he would hate them too.
Louisa drove a beat-up Mazda with paper-thin doors and a cracked windshield. Hunter studied her like a tourist whenever she showed up with her bucket of cleaning supplies, wondering what she thought of his father’s pretentious vinyl collection in the den or his mother’s dressing room, where she’d had custom lacquered shelving built just for her shoes. Hunter kept his door shut whenever Louisa came around and insisted that she not come in there. He promised his mother he’d do his own cleaning, which was a lie, but the thought of the petite Latina woman dusting the intricate maze he’d built for his gerbils or his computer desk made him feel gross and elitist.
Hunter glanced at the layer of dust accumulating on his desk. The computer had gone to sleep, and the flat screen stared blankly at his closet door. He debated turning it on again and seeing if anyone was awake back home. At least that was what he told himself every time he sat down in front of the keyboard. Not that he hadn’t spent hours video chatting with Brian or shooting zombies with Caleb, but that wasn’t really what he spent most of his time doing.
A ripple of self-loathing ran through him at the sight of the balled-up food wrappers and used tissues piled in clumps on the floor around his trashcan. He really needed to stop. His father was right. He needed to get outside. He needed to meet people. School starts in two weeks, kiddo. What are you going to do until then? He flopped back onto his pillow at the thought.
He sighed and stared up at the cracked plaster ceiling. Charm. That was what his mother called it whenever they discovered a corner that the contractor had cut. They’d spent all the money gutting the kitchen and relocating their master bathroom and covering every surface in marble, but his room was still drafty and cold with a defunct fireplace on the far wall. Hunter glanced over at the shadow of it glowering in the dark, certain bats had roosted in the chimney.
He shivered and considered going back to sleep.
Hunter stood up instead. He went over to his closet and clicked on the light as he sometimes did when the house got too empty and dark for him. He still hadn’t told his parents about the writing inside. It was his secret, his message in a bottle. But it felt more like a warning.
BAD BeNNy BAD BAD BeNNy
HeLP NeeD HeLP NeeD HeLP
NoNoNoNoNoNo
Hunter moved his hanging clothes aside and tried once again to find some rhyme or reason to it. His eyes went from curious to sad as he ran a finger along Bad BeNNy.
KiLL DARwiN
MoM MoM MoM
soRRy so soRRy
DeAD GiRL
Another creak in the floor somewhere above him broke the silence, and he froze. The timbers inside the ceiling protested as someone or something crept across the attic.
Hunter poked his head out into the dark hallway. His mother had given him the room farthest from the master suite, across from the back stairwell. The steep and narrow staircase leading down to the kitchen was built so that servants and teenage sons remained invisible. The swirling oak carvings and quartersawn treads of the front stairway cut through the center of the two-story foyer so the lord and lady of the house could make grand entrances and exits. The monumental leaded glass window hanging over the front door threw an eerie glow onto the far wall.