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t was getting on towards evening when they met Victor’s train at 30th Street Station. Fran’s stepfather was tall and broad-shouldered with a noticeable paunch, a shock of salt-and-pepper hair with matching beard and mustache, and eyes that pierced Natalie when he shook her hand before giving her a tentative hug. Natalie held Jason while Fran and Victor embraced, then they introduced the boy to his step-grandfather. Victor laughed when Jason, on the cusp of one and nobody’s fool, kicked his stomach and tugged at his slightly scraggly beard, and immediately pronounced the boy Fran’s beyond question.
Natalie and Fran traded looks while Victor busied himself with Jason. He doesn’t know? her expression said. Let’s not get into it now was his answer.
“The car’s this way,” Fran said, leading.
“Damn, it’s good to see you, partner,” Victor said. “Been way too long.”
“We’ll have plenty of time to catch up. I took the next couple days off from the restaurant so we can take in some sights.”
“How about we catch up on some food first?” Victor asked. “They downsized the meals in coach again.”
Natalie laughed. “I think I know where we can get a decent meal.”
They ended up at the restaurant anyway, at a sidewalk table where they could watch passers-by stroll Rittenhouse Square in the early summer warmth. Fran had his chief assistant prepare veal saltimbocca with baby asparagus spears. Between bites, they skirted the subject of Victor’s long absence from Fran’s life by talking about how well he and Natalie were doing.
“This place is fantastic,” Victor said around a mouthful of food. “I love the decor.”
“Terry’s doing,” Fran said, referring to one of his two partners. “I couldn’t decorate an outhouse. Ask Nat.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, honey,” Natalie said. “You could decorate an outhouse as well as anyone.”
Victor chuckled. “Bet he’s a great cook, though. When he was eighteen I taught him everything I knew.”
“In spite of which I became successful.” Fran turned to Natalie. “Taking cooking lessons from Victor was like . . . like taking golf lessons from Dorf.”
“Hey, is that fair?” Victor asked. “Look at this belly. I may not know cooking, but I sure know eating.” He leaned down toward Jason in his high chair. “Ain’t that right, boy?”
“Mugumph!” Jason shouted.
After dinner Victor yawned behind his hand, and they decided to take the party home. The sun was setting when they got back to Germantown, and coronas appeared atop the streetlamps as they cruised up the street and turned into the driveway.
All the lamps except the one in front of the house.
Two hours later Jason was asleep in his crib and the adults, after drinks and long conversation, were climbing the stairs to retire for the night.
“Kids,” Victor said outside the guest room, “no fooling. That was a fantastic meal. Fran, I think your mom would have been awfully proud. And Natalie, you’re a wonderful woman to open your house to a broken-down old man.”
Natalie blushed. “You’re not broken-down.”
“Gently used, maybe,” Fran said, turning away to hide the moistness in his eyes. They said goodnight, and Victor went into the guest room and closed the door. Natalie laced her hand with Fran’s and tugged him away.
“What a nice man,” she said as Fran closed their bedroom door. “I wonder why it’s taken so long for him to surface.”
“Mmmm. I didn’t feel right confronting him about it. Maybe tomorrow.” Fran walked into the bathroom, peeling off his shirt. “He is nice, though,” he said around the corner as he washed his face. “Makes me feel guilty all over again for the lousy way I treated him.”
“You were young. Teen years are tough on everybody, let alone a kid who’s about to be an orphan.”
“All the same, he didn’t deserve it.” Fran came out of the bathroom and looked at her, still dressed and lying on her side on the covers, one arm supporting her head. The blouse had pulled up a bit on that side, and above her jeans he saw a strand of unspoiled stomach.
And she was looking at him.
“Were you thinking about dessert?” he asked.
She gave him a sly smile. “I was thinking about my favorite dessert.”
Fran grinned. “Coming right up.”
He left the room, pausing in front of the nursery to peek in at Jason—the cover rose and fell evenly on the boy’s chest as he dreamed whatever babies dream—before creeping downstairs to the kitchen. He felt his way in the darkness, counting down the flight of steps from thirteen to one as he had many times before; late-night snacks were an aphrodisiac to Nat.
He started with some whipping cream, placing it in a saucepan to boil, then adding bittersweet chocolate and taking a whisk to the mixture. He stirred in some Amaretto liqueur and chopped a handful of almonds with the easy sureness of an experienced chef, then stirred them in. He popped into the refrigerator for strawberries and arranged several on a small platter, on which he also placed a fondue pot. He poured the still-hot confection into the pot with care. From a drawer he produced a match, struck it and bent to light the small candle beneath the pot.
Fran paused, looking around. Nothing. Nothing had caught his eye, no sound had been made, nobody had entered or left the room—yet he had a sudden, eerie conviction he was no longer alone. The air in the kitchen seemed all at once thicker, darker somehow.
The match grew warm against his finger and he dropped it. Shrugging, he grabbed the platter and two small plates and moved for the stairs and the promise of chocolate delight and Natalie between the sheets.
Natalie wasn’t between the sheets, but he heard water in the bathroom. He set the platter down on the nightstand and slipped off his khakis, hurling them in the general direction of the clothes basket. Wearing only boxer shorts, he sprawled on the bed and waited.
Presently she emerged, leaning in the doorway with a hand on one nearly naked hip. Fran let his eyes wander up the length of her, taking in the smoothness of her calves and the sleekness of her thighs. She wore a short purple silk negligee, the black lace at the bottom hiding all but the tiniest triangle of matching panties where the tops of her legs came together. Farther up her breasts strained against the shiny fabric, and he saw their inner curves where the negligee plunged low, revealing a creamy expanse of skin that flowed unbroken to her shoulders and arms save for the spaghetti straps. Her lips puckered, and her eyes danced.
God, he loved her. More, he wanted her.
She came to him, sliding down to her knees at the foot of the bed and reaching for a strawberry, but he stopped her. With a gentle but insistent hand, he pulled her toward him.
There would be time to eat, after.
Lying awake later, Natalie remembered yesterday’s phone call. She still couldn’t believe all she’d learned.
“Victor?” Fran had said into the phone. “Holy God, Victor?”
Natalie had looked up from the floor where she was playing with Jason. Her husband was not an excitable man. And who was Victor? She glanced at the clock on the mantel: almost nine. Not too late for restaurant business, if that was it.
“I don’t know, a while,” Fran said into the phone. She tried to read his face: stunned, but with growing happiness. “How have you been? Where are you?”
“Fran, who is it?” Natalie asked, but he motioned her to wait. Natalie turned to Jason. “Daddy has a secret.” Jason, two days shy of his first birthday (“birthday,” more properly, she amended), burbled and tried to bop her on the nose.
She played with him and tried to ignore Fran, who took the phone into the other room. Men. Not that she was complaining much; hers was a good one. Successful, comfortable, happy—and now they were a family with the addition of Jason. Fran doted on both of them, whenever he wasn’t at the restaurant. But he had a private side, Fran did, and it could be annoying sometimes. Maybe it was all creative types, if you could lump chefs into that incongruous category.
Fran came in a moment later and plopped on the sofa, looking distracted. Natalie waited a beat. “Fran?” she said. “Honey?”
He didn’t answer. Louder, she said, “Francis Orbono, what’s going on?”
“That was Victor Lawery,” Fran said. “My stepfather.”
Natalie started. “You have a stepfather? Seven years we’ve been married and I don’t know you have a stepfather?”
“Yeah, well, I guess I never really talk much about my family, do I?”
“Much? Try not at all. Tell me.”
Fran paused. “My father died when I was six. Car crash. It hit Mom hard. A few years later she met Victor. I actually thought he was pretty cool until I realized they were dating and she might marry him. Then I just . . . I don’t know, shut down. I hated him. I thought he was trying to replace my dad, and I knew he never could, even though at that point I could barely remember the man. Victor tried his best, but I didn’t want any part of it. I remember a couple of times telling him how much I hated him.”
“Guess he didn’t take that too well.”
“Actually, he was very understanding, very patient. He was great. I only realized that later, how great he was. Mom got pretty sick when I was in high school, and while I was busy worrying about how her having brain cancer was going to affect me, Victor took care of her.”
Natalie reeled at the revelations. A dead mother, a dead father, a stepfather. She’d always thought in a vague way that Fran was estranged from his parents, and he’d done nothing to dispel the notion. She took his hand.
“I mean, constantly took care of her,” Fran went on, watching Jason play unconcernedly with some blocks. “He was a freelance writer, so he had big blocks of time on his hands between jobs, and I think he spent literally every free moment with her. Either that or he was trying to make my life easier, doing the cooking, the cleaning, making sure I had pocket money, all that stuff. After awhile—too long—I started to respect him for it, and eventually I loved him for it. But by the time I wised up, Mom was gone.”
“What happened then? Victor took care of you?”
“For a little while. Then one day he just packed up and left. The memories in that house were too much for him. He made sure the place was paid off, then signed it over to me. I told him I didn’t want to live there either, so we sold it. He made me keep the money.”
It clicked. “The start-up money for the restaurant?”
“Right. I was eighteen by then. I used some of the money for cooking school and put the rest in a fund. It grew pretty well, so by the time Terry and Paul and I were ready, we had enough to do it right.”
She’d always wondered about that. Terry and Paul had come from modest means but they were all equal partners; Fran was in charge of the meals while Terry handled customer contact and Paul looked after the books. But it was almost all Fran’s money to begin with. Not that she begrudged Paul or Terry because of it; they’d all worked hard over the years, and the money the three of them had made together provided for the beautiful suburban Philadelphia brownstone she was sitting in right now, so she had scant cause to complain.
But now this Victor.
“Hey,” she said suddenly, “how come my last name isn’t Lawery?”
“Huh?” Fran, still distracted, looked at her.
“Victor married your mom, but you didn’t take his name?”
“He never adopted me. He said once it was enough that he was taking my mother, he didn’t want to take my father away from me too.”
“So now he calls you out of the blue after fifteen years . . . for what?”
“He wants to see me. He wants to meet you, and Jason.” His eyes fell to his son, and he smiled. “Don’t be upset. I told him he could stay here with us. He’s only going to be in town a few days, doing a story. And he’ll be here for Jason’s birthday.”
“But Fran, fifteen years . . .”
“It hasn’t been that long, exactly,” he said, dropping his eyes. “He sends me postcards once in a while. Always seems to be when I’m going through something important. Like when we were married.”
“Really? What did it say?”
“Hang on,” he said, getting off the couch and trotting upstairs. He was back a moment later with a card. “This came about a month after the wedding.”
Natalie noticed right away there was no return address.
Hey Fran, she read. Thinking about you. I just watched the most glorious sunset God ever created. Tendrils of brilliant red and orange receding across the ocean. Makes me miss your mom all over again. Sunsets are meant to be shared. Here’s hoping you’re sharing your sunsets with someone special. Best, Victor.
“Interesting,” she said. Then she flipped it over and found herself looking at a familiar rock formation. She looked up at Fran.
“Yeah,” he answered her unspoken question. “That’s the Natural Bridge.”
“In Aruba.”
“Yup.”
“Where we honeymooned.”
“Right.”
“And you don’t find this just a little bit freaky?”
“Honey, I swear it’s not like that. Victor’s biggest clients are travel magazines. He gets around a lot. It was probably just a coincidence.”
“And he always contacts you, you never contact him?”
“Like I say, he moves around a lot.” Fran shrugged. “Listen, if you’re not comfortable with this, he gave me a cell number. I could call him back—”
“No, of course not,” Natalie said, forcing a smile. “I’m sure you’re right. And it’s been a long time since you’ve seen him, you deserve a chance to catch up. To show off Jason.” She ruffled the boy’s hair, and he grinned with all five teeth.
“To show off both of you,” Fran told her. “Thanks, Nat. I love you.”
“Prove it. Go cook me something.” She smiled.
Now, lying awake in the dark, she reached over and dipped a finger in the fondue pot, licking the delicious sweet treat as she watched her sleeping husband.
They spent the entire next day, Sunday, in Old City, touring America’s most historic sites. There was the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Benjamin Franklin’s house, and the new Constitution Center. Victor had never been to any of those places but had a writer’s curiosity about all of them, and Fran indulged his passion for history as he showed his stepfather the most sacred relics of the country’s earliest struggle for freedom.
After dinner again at the restaurant (blackened swordfish served with olive rosemary crostini), they went back to the house. The adults drank espresso and Jason sucked down milk before Fran took him up to bed.
“Quite a guy he turned out to be, that husband of yours,” Victor remarked after Fran went upstairs. He lifted his espresso to his lips.
“Yeah, I like him. It’s a shame—” She stopped herself.
Victor watched her. “A shame I haven’t been around?” He saw her hesitation. “It’s okay, you can say it.”
“Well, I gotta wonder.”
Victor set his cup down and leaned back, scratching his beard. “My dear, you have every right. I’ve asked myself hundreds of times why it’s been so hard to reach out. There’s no good answer. The best I can do is to say I kept track of what was going on in his life. I trust he told you about the postcards?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I actually went farther than that. I came to Philadelphia twice, with the best intentions of calling or coming by, but somehow it didn’t seem right. The timing.” He smiled tiredly. “Listen, someday I’m going to answer for all my shortcomings. I know I haven’t been the type of father Fran deserves these last years, and I’m sorry for it. Sorrier than you’ll ever know. If I could do it all over again differently, I would.”
“I know. And I don’t mean to judge you.” Natalie tucked her feet beneath her legs. “How about we focus on the present, and the future?”
Victor brightened. “That, my dear, sounds like a fine idea.”
Fran came back down the steps. “What’s a fine idea?”
Victor and Natalie looked at each other and smiled.
Fran slipped out of the bedroom in his boxers, creeping through the semi-dark hallway to the staircase. Natalie wanted another fondue.
They’d petted for a while after coming upstairs, and he’d left her in the bathroom after a long, lingering kiss to keep his motor running. He’d also spied another diaphanous outfit hanging on the back of the door—something small, silver and shimmery—and in truth the sight of it was enough to keep him interested.
He felt his way along the darkened staircase, counting down from thirteen. At eight he stumbled on the landing and fell, rolling down the remaining steps to his right.
Stumbled and fell because he wasn’t expecting the landing. Because the steps in his house had no landing.
Fran lay at the bottom of the staircase, dazed, one leg on the last step. It was as if someone had yanked a mental rug from beneath his senses. After a moment he rolled over and pushed against the grass to—
Grass? In the house? He twined his hand around some and yanked, drawing it to his face. It was grass all right, growing right through the floorboards at the bottom of the stairs. Fran’s head spun as he looked up. Though it was still mostly dark, a faint glow seemed to diffuse the air. He could see shapes that he knew to be the sofa, the love seat, the television; he also saw shapes he couldn’t identify, and got the feeling he didn’t want to. Ghost-like figures seemed to float toward him from the corners of the room, but when he peered straight at them they vanished.
As he looked around, shocked and confused, images formed in his mind. Victor. Victor was somehow responsible for this, whatever “this” was. Victor had some sort of plan, that was why he’d come back now. Plan to do what, Fran didn’t know, but he was sure it wasn’t good if it involved transmuting his home. In his mind’s eye he saw Victor quietly exiting the guest room, naked, peeking downstairs to make sure Fran was occupied, then crossing the hall to his and Nat’s room. He saw her open the door to his knock, wearing the lingerie that had been hanging on the bathroom door; saw her smile as she reached for him; saw them embrace and kiss while Victor’s hands roamed over her; saw her grab one of his hands and move it down, down—
Snarling, Fran leaped up and mounted the stairs two at a time (vaguely registering that he had to turn left midway), his mind bent on murder; he would strangle Victor with his own two hands right away, but Nat he would save for something special, some extraordinary punishment that might take hours.
Natalie heard the commotion. She’d just finished slipping into her lingerie set, and she looked around quickly for her robe but it was nowhere in sight. Hell with it. She opened the door and flicked on the hall light just as Victor emerged from his room and Fran charged up the stairs.
A wild flame lit Fran’s eyes. His breathing was heavy, and there was a small cut on his forehead. He also had some sort of dark green strands in one hand. His head snapped back and forth between her and Victor.
“Couldn’t wait, could you?” he spat, looking Nat up and down. “Just couldn’t wait to get it on.”
Natalie looked over at Victor and saw him staring frankly back at her for an instant before averting his eyes. All at once she was conscious that the sheer fabric she wore revealed absolutely everything; her nipples engorged by Fran’s earlier attentions, the soft dark tangled thatch between her legs.
“Fran—” she began, but Victor cut her off.
“What did you see?” he asked Fran. “Did you see the Sisters?”
She’d heard him wrong, Natalie thought. Whose sisters, Fran’s? Did he have sisters? What was Victor talking about?
“Maybe just shapes,” Victor continued as Fran stalked toward him, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Shapes that disappeared right away when you looked at them.” Victor glanced down. “And the grass. There was grass, wasn’t there?”
Fran reached him and thrust his hands out, trying to encircle Victor’s throat. Startled, Natalie screamed.
Victor moved almost faster than she could see. One moment Fran was about to strangle the older man, the next he was on the floor with Victor on top of him, cranking one arm behind his back and kneeling on the base of his spine.
“Listen, partner, I know what’s happening,” he said into Fran’s ear. “You need to let me explain.”
“You need to explain it to me before I call the cops,” Natalie said. Victor looked up at her, and she covered her breasts and pubic area with her arms as best she could but held her ground.
“Natalie, Fran, we don’t have much time. You both have to trust me.” He relaxed his grip on Fran and backed away, standing up. Fran rolled over, and Natalie could see the crazy light had gone out of his eyes. Now he just looked bewildered, as if waking from a long nap.
“Victor, what . . . ?” Fran said. “Did I just try to choke you?”
“Yup, and I don’t blame you a bit. If you kept a gun down there,” Victor said, indicating the lower level, “you might have put a big ole’ hole in my head, so I’m actually relieved.”
“All right, what the hell is going on?” Natalie demanded. “Fran, what happened? And Victor, what ‘sisters’ are you talking about?”
Just then Jason, awakened by the ruckus, started crying in the nursery. Victor looked at Fran. “Take a second, then tell us what you saw. Natalie, you may want to put something on first. I’ll get the baby, if that’s okay.”
Natalie eyed him warily. “Keep the door open and bring him right out,” she said, backing toward the master bedroom. A moment later she emerged in a short silk kimono. Victor came out of the nursery with the still-snuffling Jason in his arms and handed him to his mother. She squatted next to Fran, who had pulled himself up to a sitting position.
“What happened, Fran?” she asked. “Miss a step?”
“Not exactly,” he said, then told them about his misadventure. Victor nodded when he mentioned the figures appearing and fading.
“That’s them,” he said. “That’s the Sisters.”
“Victor, would you please start making sense?” Natalie said, holding Jason on her lap. All vestiges of sleep had left him, but the boy was placid, sucking his thumb and watching them all.
“Well, I’ll tell you what I know, but I can’t guarantee it’ll make sense,” Victor said. “Fact, I can pretty much guarantee it won’t. But it’s true, either way.
“These last fifteen years I’ve traveled the world. Kids, I’ve seen every damn thing you can imagine, and a few you probably can’t. I wrote about some of them—that’s what I do, after all—but there’s a point where you know not to bother because no one will believe you.”
He took a deep breath. “There’s a tribe out in the Utah desert, way the hell up where no one would find them ’less they knew what they were looking for. I got a tip and went to see for myself. Now, there’s lots of little enclaves of people all over America, living communally, but these people were rumored to be witches. And cannibals.”
“Excuse me?” Natalie said. “Cannibals?”
“As in people-eaters, yes. The other thing that made them different was that there in the middle of the desert they were living in something like a Garden of Eden. Story was that they had created it themselves, through witchcraft. But the old-timer who told me about it—he’d only talk when he was dead-drunk—he said it was like a Garden of Eden, but underneath it wasn’t Eden. I asked what he meant but he wouldn’t say much more.
“So I went. I’ll spare you most of the details, but here’s the gist of what I found out. The tribal ground does look like a heavenly garden from far away; up close, you can see rot in the plants and trees. And there’s a funny smell all around, like flowers decaying. This tribe is ruled by three Sisters, three weird women—if you can call them that. They’re the filthiest trio of hags imaginable: fat, unwashed, stringy hair, boils on their faces, gapped yellow teeth, the works. That describes a lot of the tribe, too. All their skin is pasty white, not tan like you’d expect from being out in the desert. The Sisters preside over the most infernal rites I’ve ever seen; I can’t even begin to tell you—”
“Wait a minute.” Fran held up his hand. “What has this got to do with the stairs changing, or the room downstairs?”
“Patience, partner, I’ll get to that. But suffice it to say for now that the Sisters did it. They have the power to turn your house inside out if they want to. Just like they created that garden in the desert, they’re turning your house into their environment. If you went downstairs now—which I don’t advise—you wouldn’t recognize it. And when they’re finished down there, they’ll come up here and do the same thing. It’s how they gather strength to do evil.”
“Bull,” Natalie said. “Victor, I’m sorry, but I think you jumped the rails somewhere. Fran fell and hit his head, that’s all. He’s probably got a concussion or something, we should get him to the hospital.”
“I know you want to believe that. But I’ve seen this before. Look for yourself downstairs right now. Don’t go down, just look from the top.”
Natalie hesitated. Then she handed Jason to Fran and got up (taking care to keep her short kimono over her behind; she’d given Victor far too much to look at already) and crossed to the stairs. She realized she was scared, and felt foolish.
Then she looked down the staircase. It was dark down there, darker than it should have been. Somehow the light faded and died partway down the steps, but just before it did she saw a hint of red-and-gold-striped wallpaper where she knew—knew—were steps.
Before her eyes the wallpaper itself began fading by degrees. She blinked in disbelief and stared harder. It was like watching a Polaroid picture un-developing; the wall was there, but it gradually became harder to see. It was as if the darkness were somehow solidifying, taking hold of the air in front of her.
And it was advancing, slowly but inexorably, up the stairs.
Numb, they sat and listened to Victor’s story.
The Sisters had almost gotten him, he said. He’d been hanging on the fringes of the tribal circle, observing a ceremony about which he wouldn’t elaborate, when they seemed to sniff him out. All three stopped what they were doing and rose to their feet, grabbing each other’s hands. At some unspoken signal the tribe began looking around, examining each other, trying to ferret out the interloper among them. But they were a massive group of apparent dullards, slow to process information—whether that was caused by some psychic connection to the Sisters Victor couldn’t tell—and it took them time to recognize he was an outsider. Before that happened, a firm hand encircled Victor’s arm.
He looked. A middle-aged man with glasses and one malformed leg held him fast. “Come with me, say nothing, and keep your mind blank if you want to live,” the man said.
Victor did as he was told. Limping, the man led him through a maze of tents among the garden trees, thrusting him inside one and closing the flap behind them. There the man told him who he was and what he was doing there.
“He was like Van Helsing,” Victor said, “that guy in Dracula who hunts the vampire. Said his family had been watching the Sisters for a hundred years or more, looking for an opportunity to destroy them. He told me a lot about them, all of which tracked with what I’d already seen and heard.”
“But why do they need to be destroyed?” Fran wanted to know.
“They spread chaos in ways I can’t explain. Their very existence is like a catalyst for every bad thing you can imagine. They’re where random acts of violence come from. They’re the voices people hear in their heads, telling them to do hideous things: rape, incest, murder, and worse.
“Children are their specialty,” he went on, his eyes falling on Jason, who was playing with Fran’s nose. “You hear about a kid being snatched and found dead and mutilated somewhere, it’s a safe bet they’re behind it. Not them physically, necessarily, but they’re the root cause.”
“But how?” Natalie asked. “How can they be responsible?”
“I told you, I can’t explain it. But Rossington could, and he was awfully persuasive.”
“Rossington, he’s this Van Whatever guy?”
“Van Helsing. Yes.”
“And where is he now?”
“They got him,” Victor said simply.
Natalie looked over at the stairs and screamed; while they were talking, the darkness had advanced. An unbroken sheet of inky blackness sealed off the staircase. Two steps were still visible, but they were evaporating inexorably.
“Okay, fine, let’s say what you’re telling us is true,” Natalie said, a tremor in her voice. “Why are they here now? What do they want with us? Have they come for you?”
“No, although I’d be a bonus.”
“What, then? What do they want?”
Victor looked down at Jason again, his meaning clear.
Horrified, they stared at Victor. “What on earth could they possibly want with our son?” Fran asked.
“First of all,” Victor said gently, “Jason isn’t really your child.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Natalie demanded. “Of course he’s ours.”
“Honey, I don’t mean to be indelicate,” Victor said, “but I got a pretty good look at your bare stomach a little while ago, and you have never been pregnant. No stretch marks, no flab. Correct?”
Natalie blushed, cinching the kimono tighter. “No, I’ve never been pregnant. I’m infertile, okay? Happy?” She looked down at Jason. “We adopted him.”
Victor nodded. “Of course. You adopted him. Only you didn’t, really, that’s just what you tell people. You found him.”
Both Natalie’s and Fran’s heads snapped up. They stared at him. Natalie turned to Fran—
“No, he didn’t tell me,” Victor said. “I already knew what happened. You were both at the restaurant. It was late. Fran took the garbage out back and heard crying from the dumpster. He looked inside and there was a newborn baby, perhaps a day old. He brought him inside. You talked it over and decided to tell your friends your adoption came through sooner than expected. And then you took him home.”
Natalie gaped. It had happened exactly that way. The next day they’d gone to see their pediatrician, a genial man who had doctored her through childhood, and their attorney, a golfing buddy of Fran’s, and convinced them to back up the adoption story.
Fran stared. “How do you know all this?”
Victor smiled without humor. “I put him there.”
Natalie put a hand to her chest. “You abandoned a newborn baby in a dumpster?”
“No, ma’am. I put him where I knew Fran would find him. It was a warm night, just like tonight, so he was all right lying there for a little while, and if Fran hadn’t heard him crying, I’d have put him on the doorstep and done a knock-and-run. Hell, I fed him his first bottle, changed his first diaper, and gave him his first bath; trust me, I’d never have put him in any danger.”
That gelled. The pediatrician had confirmed the baby was born only hours before from the bits of placental matter still tucked in his various folds—Victor hadn’t done that good a job bathing him—but had pronounced him in perfect health.
“But the question remains: why us? Why did you bring him here?” She thought a moment. “Come to think of it, how did you get him here so fast? You said you were in the middle of the desert.”
“How I got him here is a story for another time; like I said, I’ve seen a lot of things you’d never believe. But the why is simple: I knew the two of you would take care of him. And I thought—I prayed—the Sisters would never find you. They weren’t too happy about losing him.”
“Wait.” Natalie’s mind raced. “Are you saying Jason belongs to them?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. He’s their offspring. It’s a part of their ritual to conceive a child, raise it and then devour its essence when it’s exactly one year old; that’s how they stay alive, if you can call them living at all. Somehow, some way, they created Jason—and I stopped them from destroying him.”
“How?” Fran asked.
Victor looked uncomfortable. “They were . . . busy. With Rossington.” He paused, staring at the darkness. “He got me away safely that first night, but I came back many times over the years. It was fascinating to learn about them, and I became like an apprentice to him. The night Jason was born, I happened to be there.
“Rossington got careless, trying to get closer for a better look. They caught him, they tortured him, and they killed him. And while they were doing that, God forgive me, I ran like hell. But not before I grabbed the baby.”
“You did the right thing, Victor,” Fran told him. “Rossington must have known what he was getting into, and Jason—”
“Oh my God,” Natalie said with dawning horror. “Tomorrow is his first birthday.”
“It’s after midnight,” Victor corrected her. “Jason’s birthday is today.”
They looked at the baby, who laughed back.
Frantic, they tried to plot an escape. As the darkness crept up the hall, Natalie put Jason back in his crib and closed the nursery door while Victor opened a window in the guest room and Fran searched for something they could use to climb down.
At least, Victor tried to open the window. The sash wouldn’t budge.
He grabbed a bedside lamp, reared back and hurled it at the window as hard as he could. It bounced off and fell to the floor.
Fran retreated to the master bedroom and was back a moment later with the baseball bat he kept in the closet in case of intruders. He wound up and hammered at the glass, but the bat simply rebounded away. A solid minute of whacking produced not even a scratch.
Panting, Fran dropped the bat and looked at Victor. “Any other ideas?”
A tremendous ripping sound broke the silence that descended. Fran and Victor ran into the hallway where Natalie faced the darkness and saw three disembodied faces emerge as though birthed by the void.
Victor had not been exaggerating. They were hideous.
The Sisters gazed around the hallway. They seemed to have trouble focusing at first, then their eyes settled on the group at the end of the hall. They shrieked in unison, a horrible grinding noise like metal being shorn away.
“There he is,” the one in the center said, her—its—eyes on Victor. “There’s the interloper.”
“Where’s the child?” the one on the left demanded. “Where’s our baby?”
“Bring him here and you will be spared,” the one on the left intoned. “Keep him from us and you will all . . . die . . . for days.”
“Go to hell!” Fran shouted, starting toward them.
Victor grabbed him. “Discretion, partner,” he said quietly.
The hags shrieked again. “We know Hell of old,” the one on the left said. “Hell is our refuge, and to Hell we shall return.”
“But not before we take what is ours,” the one on the right added.
“Give him to us!” the center one shouted, and the others took up the chorus. “Give him to us! Give him to us!”
Amid the rising din Victor pulled Fran and Natalie close. “They can’t come after us yet. They’re not quite strong enough, not here enough.” He looked over his shoulder, then turned back. “Kids, I’m sorry I got you into this. I knew they wouldn’t stop looking for Jason, but I hoped they would chase me.” He looked at Natalie. “That’s why I never came before. I never wanted to put you in danger. But I lost track of them somehow and I was afraid they would find you, so I had to come and try to protect you.” His laugh was bitter. “Some job I did.”
Natalie had never been so frightened, but she took Victor’s hand. “It’s not your fault. And Jason is the best thing that ever happened to us.”
“Right,” Fran agreed, putting his hand over theirs. “Whatever else happens, we owe you thanks for him.”
Victor smiled, then drew his hand away. “Well, don’t thank me just yet.” He turned back to the darkness and the foul Sisters, who were still gibbering at them. “I’ve got a couple more tricks up my sleeve. If this works, you can thank me. If not . . . well, then, just pray for me.”
“Victor,” Fran began, “what are you—”
Before they could react, Victor charged the staircase. The floating heads were taken unawares, and they recoiled from view in surprise. Natalie screamed as Victor leaped into the void and vanished.
Minutes passed. Victor hadn’t reappeared, but neither had the Sisters. Whatever Victor had tried seemed to have worked. Fran sat with his arms wrapped around Natalie, who was sobbing softly.
“I can’t believe it,” Fran said. “What he did . . . I just can’t believe it.”
Natalie wiped her eyes. “I know. The sacrifice.” She looked up at him. “It must be like losing your father all over again.”
“I don’t know. I still can’t process it.”
“What happens now? I wonder when it’s safe to go downstairs again.”
“No way to tell. Maybe morning? It’ll be easier when it’s light outside, then we can—”
There were more ripping sounds.
They scrambled backwards along the floor as the darkness, which had halted its progression, advanced toward them much quicker than before. And yes, there were the hags, their faces pushing out of the blackness.
The Sisters were stronger now; they began to force their way through the inky black membrane. A moment later they stood in the hallway, their misshapen bodies clad in filthy white togas. They carried with them an indescribable stench: the reek of death.
And they were coming.
Natalie and Fran grabbed for each other. Fran looked around wildly for the bat but it was nowhere to be found. Natalie determined that they would die protecting Jason rather than let these foul creatures harm one hair on his—
The door to the nursery creaked open.
And Jason was standing in the threshold.
Natalie stared. She’d put him in his crib and lifted the rail. There was no way he could have climbed out. She’d seen him try; he was still too small. Yet here he was, walking out of the room toward them.
“Jason,” she breathed, reaching for him, but he swerved and ran past her, one arm up and pointing at the trio of Sisters. Fran dove for him and missed, sprawling on the floor, and he and Natalie cried out in anguish.
The Sisters squealed with delight. “Here, precious,” one said. “Come to us.”
“Let us hold you,” another said. “Let us kiss you.”
“Lovely, lovely boy,” the third cried. “Your soul will keep us alive for years.” They stooped to gather him up.
But the lovely boy had other ideas.
He stopped just beyond their reach, still pointing. Their greedy, hungry faces registered surprise, then confusion—then something else. Natalie swore she saw some kind of light emanating from Jason’s outstretched hand. It suffused him and spread outward until it enveloped the Sisters. They tried to retreat, but it was as though they were stuck in amber. They seemed to shimmer, their bodies rippling like banners in a gale. They screamed, a repugnant, unholy cacophony that crawled inside Natalie’s head and echoed in her mind; it was a sound of ultimate suffering. She glanced at Jason. His face was illuminated from within somehow; he had never looked more beautiful.
The Sisters’ bodies were rippling faster now, moving violently to some rhythm she couldn’t hear. Then, all at once, they collapsed on themselves. The screaming rose in pitch but decreased in volume, and Natalie had a vague impression of them as tiny kewpie dolls suspended in the air.
In an instant they were flung backward into the void and were gone.
Natalie looked down at Jason again. He no longer glowed; no, that wasn’t quite true. He retained a bit of halo around him, but it was muted, as though spent.
Jason turned to his parents and stretched out his tiny arms. “Um awn.” They looked at him in incomprehension, and he did a little jig and thrust his arms out again. “Um awn!” he said louder.
Fran scratched his head. “I think he wants us to go with him. When did he start saying ‘come on’?”
“Just now,” Natalie said.
They stood and took Jason’s hands. The toddler turned and started for the steps, walking between his parents.
“Wait,” Natalie said. “Fran, do you think this is safe?”
“Don’t know,” Fran said. “But it feels right somehow. Don’t you feel it?”
Passing into the darkness was like walking into invisible Jello. The air around them darkened, but they could still see fairly well by the light in the upstairs hallway.
They reached the landing and turned right. The steps and the landing itself were warped and creaky. In the gloom Natalie marked where the furniture should have been; instead, misshapen humps rose here and there among reedy, knee-high grass. The air was hot and pregnant with moisture, and she used her free hand—the other one still in Jason’s tiny fist—to pull her robe away from her slick body in the sudden humidity. Belatedly she realized she was about to leave the house all but nude, and for an instant she considered skipping back upstairs for something more substantial to wear. A slithering bump behind her made her think again, and it was all she could do to check a mad sprint for the door.
“Almost there, honey,” Fran said, as if sensing her near-panic.
She looked down at Jason, who seemed to be concentrating hard and trying to look everywhere at once. His head snapped to the right—Fran’s side—and Natalie saw the shape of something with flashing teeth and talons fly at Fran’s head but veer off at the last instant. No, that wasn’t right, it didn’t veer off; it was yanked away somehow. Natalie looked at Jason again, and he peered up at her and smiled.
“Saw white, Mommy.” S’all right, Mommy.
In spite of everything, Natalie was moved by Jason’s growing vocabulary and motor skills. He wasn’t going to be a baby forever after all, she realized, her heart sinking a bit. Already she was nostalgic for the days when she and Fran fed him from a bottle and rocked him to sleep at night, though those days had scarcely passed. Soon he would grow up and go out into the world, leaving his parents behind like all children do. It’s not fair, she thought, sudden tears welling at the prospect. Why do they have to grow up? Why—
A hoarse gurgle came from directly ahead. They were almost to the front door, but the very floor seemed to rise in front of them like a cresting wave, blocking their view for an instant. Jason let go of their hands and thrust his own out in front of him. Red sparks tingled across his palms, and he walked straight ahead toward the barrier. Natalie tried to grab him, but Fran held her back. “Let him go, honey. I think he knows what he’s doing.”
Jason didn’t stop. He touched the barrier, reaching into what had been solid wood an hour ago and parting it like curtains. A narrow gap opened up, perhaps three feet high and two across at its widest, through which they could see the door again. Jason walked into the gap, then turned and beckoned. “Um awn,” he said again.
Natalie looked at Fran, then dropped to her knees and followed her son. The passage was just wide enough for her to squeeze through, and she fancied she could feel its sides grasp at her with millions of tiny talons. She squeezed her eyes shut—and all at once she was through.
Jason stood in the open doorway. Outside the night air was cool and inviting. The rest of the world, or at least their neighborhood, was apparently unchanged. She pulled herself up next to Jason and turned to watch Fran shimmy through.
Fran wasn’t there.
She spoke his name. Perhaps he was stuck; the passage was a tight fit for her, and he was larger. She stooped to looked but saw nothing.
Then she heard him. “Victor!” he called from far away. “Can you hear me? Victor!”
“Fran!” she yelled. “Baby, please hurry up!”
“I can’t just leave him, Nat,” she heard. “Even if it’s just his body, I can’t—oh. Oh God. Oh God!”
She saw him. Fran was crawling rapidly on his hands and knees, a look of desperate fear on his face. Behind him was . . . something. Her mind couldn’t, or wouldn’t, process it. But whatever it was, it was closing fast.
“Fran!” she screamed. “Hurry!”
Fran lunged for the opening just as the thing behind him reached out some sort of thick tentacle. Natalie grasped his wrist, felt him being pulled back. “No!” she shouted, on the edge of being dragged in herself.
Then Jason was there. He grabbed his father’s wrist as well, and they pulled together. Fran yelled, probably in pain. They must be tearing his arm from its socket, but they couldn’t let go.
Just before Natalie’s strength gave out, Fran popped loose. The three of them sprawled backward through the doorway.
“Victor,” Fran half-sobbed, half-panted. “I’m so sorry.”
Panting herself, Natalie found his hand, squeezing tight. “He tried to save us. Maybe it helped, weakened them somehow.” She wanted to sound convincing, but she knew it was scant consolation. So they simply lay there, breathing hard and staring up at the open sky.
At least, Fran and Natalie breathed and stared. Jason, thumb in his mouth, was fast asleep in Natalie’s arms.
They never went back to the house; Fran had Terry and Paul go and bring some clothes and other items to them at the restaurant the next day. Neither reported seeing anything amiss in the place, let alone mentioned finding a body—which, when they thought about it, was no stranger than anything else. Still, Fran hired a moving company to pack up, and they leased a townhouse for a few months until they found someplace permanent.
Exactly a year later, on Jason’s second birthday, a postcard caught up with them. Natalie pulled it from the mailbox that night after Fran had gone to work and Jason, exhausted from the party they’d thrown him, had been tucked into his new big-boy bed. The card appeared ancient and looked charred around the edges, but the writing, what little there was, was legible.
I wish I could have been there to see him turn two. Best, Victor.
Natalie stared at it in the warm night air, then looked up and down the street. She saw nothing. After a few moments she shivered and hugged herself, then went back inside.
Overhead, the street light winked out. |
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