Harlan Coben: Shelter

I frowned. No way.

“Anyway, hope you’re fine. I’m around tonight if you want to grab a pizza or something.”

I didn’t feel like calling, so I sent a quick text: Won’t be home for dinner. I think it will be less stressful on Mom if you’re not around.

Myron wouldn’t like it, but too bad. He wasn’t my legal guardian. That was part of the deal we struck. When he found out that my father was dead and that my mom was having problems, he threatened to sue for custody. I countered that if he did that, I’d run away-I still have enough connections overseas-or I would sue for emancipation.

My mom may have some issues, but she’s still my mom.

It wasn’t a pretty fight, but in the end, we came up with, if not an agreement, a cease-fire. I agreed to live in his house in Kasselton, New Jersey. It was the same house both Myron and my dad grew up in. Yes, that was weird. I use the basement bedroom, which had been Myron’s room, and do all I can to avoid the upstairs room where my father spent his childhood. Still it’s a little creepy.

Anyway, in return for agreeing to live in the house, Myron agreed to let my mother remain my sole guardian and, well, to leave me alone. That was the part he had trouble handling.

When I looked now at Bat Lady’s house, I shivered. The wind had picked up, bending the bare trees in her yard. I had seen every kind of superstition in all four corners of the globe. Most seemed downright silly, though my parents always told me to keep an open mind. I didn’t believe in haunted houses. I didn’t believe in ghosts or spirits or things that go bump in the night.

But if I did, man, this place had them all.

The place was so dilapidated it actually seemed to lean, like if you pushed too hard it might just crumble to the ground. There were loose boards. Some windows were gone, replaced with wooden planks. The ones that remained were fogged up as if the house just took a hot shower, which, judging by the dirt, wasn’t really possible.

If I hadn’t seen her with my own eyes, I would swear the house had been abandoned for years.

I approached again and knocked on the door. No answer. I put my ear close to the panel-not too close because I didn’t want to get a splinter-and listened. Nothing. Not a sound. I knocked some more. Still no answer.

So now what?

What could I really do here? Something. Anything. I decided to try the back door. I circled to the left because, like I said, the house tilted and if it suddenly collapsed, I didn’t want it to fall on me. I looked up. There was a widow’s peak way up high and for a moment I imagined the Bat Lady sitting up there in a rocking chair, still dressed in white, looking down at me.

I hurried my steps, wondering what I’d find in her backyard.

Nothing.

The house came right up against the woods. It was the strangest thing. It was as though the house was built half onto a plot of land, half in a forest, like it was emerging from the trees. From the street, it just looked as if maybe there were a ton of trees in her backyard. But it was all trees. The roots seemed to merge right into the foundation. Thick, ugly vines ran up the back walls. I don’t know if the house was originally built in the woods and then a clearing was made in the front, or if it was the opposite, if the woods behind it had sneaked up and started to swallow Bat Lady’s house whole.

“What are you doing?”

I bit back a scream and jumped high enough to dunk a basketball. The voice had come from behind me. I spun quickly, taking two steps back and banging into a tree.

It was Ema.

“Scared you, huh?” She laughed and lifted her arms into wings. “Did you think I was the Bat Lady coming to take you away?”

My voice was a whisper. “Knock it off.”

“Big tough guy.”

“What are you doing here anyway?” I asked.

She shrugged.

“Wait, were you following me?”

“Really, Mickey?” She put her hands on her hips. “Conceited much?”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“It was just…” Ema sighed. “You mentioned Bat Lady. And you came to my rescue, right, and then I guess I just got curious.”

“So you followed me here?”

Ema didn’t reply. She looked around as though she’d just realized that we were half in the woods, half leaning against the back of Bat Lady’s house. “So why are you here anyway? No luck with the fat chick, so you figured you’d try the old one?”

I just looked at her.

“I heard what they said. Buck and Troy. They’ve been on me for so long it’s hard to remember a time when they weren’t.” She turned away, bit her lower lip, and then faced me again. “I also heard they threatened you for defending me.”

I shrugged it off.

“So what are you doing here?”

I wondered how to explain it and went with the simple: “I want to talk to Bat Lady.”

Ema smiled. “No, seriously.”

“I am serious.”

“No, you’re not. Because, well, she’s not real. Bat Lady’s just a myth the big kids use to scare the little kids. I mean, I don’t know anyone who has ever seen her.”

“I’ve seen her,” I said.

“When?”

“This morning.” Then I added: “She told me that my father was still alive.”

Ema looked puzzled.

“He died in a car crash earlier this year,” I explained.

“Whoa,” Ema said, her eyes going wide. “I’m not sure what to say to that.”

“I just want to talk to her.”

“Okay, I get it. I saw you knock on her door. So what’s your plan now?”

“Try the back door.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” Ema said. She looked toward the woods and narrowed her eyes. “Look at that.”

She pointed into the woods and took a few steps in that direction. I didn’t see anything other than trees.

“There’s a road back there,” Ema said. “Maybe a building.” I still didn’t see it. She walked toward it. I followed her. A few steps later, I could see that she was right. There, maybe fifty yards behind Bat Lady’s house, was what might have been a garage, painted in a brown-green that worked as camouflage. There was a dirt road from somewhere in the woods leading up to it. You couldn’t see either one from the front of the house. Heck, you couldn’t even see them from the back door.

Ema bent down and touched the dirt. “Tire tracks for a car,” she said, like she was following someone in an old movie. “This must be how Bat Lady goes in and out-through this dirt road. She can park and go in and no one would ever see her.”

“Bat Lady drives?”

“What, you think she flies?”

I felt a chill. The garage was in better shape than the house but not by much. I tried the garage door. It too was locked. There were no windows, so I couldn’t see if there was a car inside.

I didn’t know what to make of all this. Probably nothing. An eccentric old woman lived here. She liked to go in and out through a private entrance. Big deal. There was no reason for me to be here.

Except, of course, she had known my name. And there was that bit about my father being alive…

Who says that to someone? Your father’s still alive? Who does that?

Enough. I spun around and headed to the back door. I knocked. No reply. I knocked harder. There were dirty windows on the door. I cupped my hands around my eyes to look inside, and while I did, I felt the door give way just a little. I looked down at the knob. Decay had eaten away at the doorjamb. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet. Ema was by my side now. I extracted a credit card, hiding the name on it from her.

“Whoa,” she said. “You know how to break in?”

“No, but I’ve seen it on TV. You just sort of slide the card.”