Andrew Klavan - The long way home

The last time I'd been here, I remembered, the front door had been locked and we had had to go around to the side before we found a door that was open. Now I just touched the front door and it opened easily, the rotten wood around the latch cracking and giving way.

I stepped inside. The door swung closed behind me with a soft, high moan. I stood in the foyer at the foot of the front stairs as the brooding darkness of the house closed around me.

I was about to reach for my flashlight, but then I noticed: in the time it had taken me to walk up the path, the first faint light of dawn had crept into the sky. That light was filtering to me here from the windows in the living room off to my right. After only a moment or two, my eyes adjusted and I could make out the shapes of things pretty clearly.

I went to the foot of the stairs and peered up into the deep shadows. I put my hand on the banister-and then quickly pulled it away as I felt the slimy dust under my palm. I was about to start upstairs when I hesitated. Did I hear something up there? Was something moving around?

I stood still and listened. The wind was rising the way it does at dawn and it blew freely through the house. The house creaked and settled, just the way it had the last time. And the mice-they were still here as well. In fact, they sounded particularly active. I could hear them scurrying this way and that. I guess they were trying to get back to their nests before daylight.

I smiled to myself, remembering how Josh and Rick and I had lain in our sleeping bags, listening to those same noises, scared out of our wits. Every time we heard a new noise, we would glance at one another nervously and try to explain it away, try to laugh it off and reassure one another. It seemed kind of silly now.

So I started up the stairs again-and stopped again. I had heard something. Something was moving around on the second floor. It wasn't the wind or the house or the mice either. It was bigger than that. I could tell by the way it made the floorboards shift.

I was tense now. My mind was racing, trying to come up with some explanation, trying to make sense of it. I thought it might be the cops or even the Homelanders, waiting for me. But how would they ever think to come here? Maybe it was just some animal, I told myself. Some raccoon who'd gotten stranded. Or maybe it was some homeless guy who'd crept in to get out of the cold and get some sleep.

I thought about turning away. I thought about running. But the sky was getting even brighter and there was really nowhere else to go, nowhere else I could think of anyway.

I waited there a long time, but there was no other noise. I shook my head at myself. Maybe I hadn't grown up as much as I'd thought. I was still afraid of spooks and shadows and strange bumps in the night.

I shrugged it off. It was probably nothing. I started up the stairs again, faster this time, moving with more boldness than I felt.

The dawn was coming quickly now. As I reached the second-floor landing, I could see the new light coming through open doors and spilling into the hallway. I saw windows through the doors, and through the windows I saw the sky growing paler and paler blue. Soon I could make out the walls and the floorboards of the second-story corridor that led to the upstairs parlor, that same large room where I had come to stay the night with my friends all that time ago.

I moved down the corridor to the parlor doorway. The door itself was gone and I saw the window on the wall beyond. The light of the sky was growing brighter even as I watched. Birds were singing and the branches of the trees were coming clear against the brightening blue.

I was about one step away from the threshold when I heard a soft, quick, urgent whisper:

"Coming!"

There was no mistaking it: a human voice. I froze, motionless, my pulse pounding. The thoughts in my head seemed to all come together, like people shouting at each other in an argument: The police! The Homelanders! They're here! They found me! I knew I had to run, but for a second I was so startled I couldn't get my body moving.

And before I could budge from the spot, a figure stepped into the doorway in front of me.

The light from the window behind him blotted out his features. He was just a gray form standing there, as motionless as I was.

For a long moment we confronted each other, just like that, neither of us moving a muscle.

Then, slowly, the figure lifted his hands above his head, his fingers curled like claws.

And he said softly, "Boo!"

It was Miler. I couldn't believe it. It was impossible, but it was true: it was Miler Miles.

And now Josh and Rick were there, stepping into the doorway behind him.

And after another moment, Rick said, "Dude. What took you so long?"

What Friends Are For I don't know how long I stood there, staring like an idiot. I'm pretty sure it was a good long time.

Finally, Miler said, "You know, you look really stupid with your mouth hanging open like that. No offense or anything."

Then the next thing I knew I was in the room and we were all together, hugging and slapping hands and slugging one another's shoulders and just saying, "Man!" and "Dude!" and "Bro!" over and over again. I don't think I have ever been so happy to see anybody in my life. I don't even know how to describe the feeling. It was like the dawn came up at the windows and the dawn came up inside me at the same time. It was like I didn't realize how dark it was in my heart until the light shone through.

The light. My friends. I could hardly believe they were here in front of me.

I looked around in a daze. There were sleeping bags on the floor and flashlights and empty soda cans and an empty bag of potato chips. I guess they'd been waiting for me a long time.

"How…?" I finally managed to get the words out. "How did you guys know? How did you know I would come here?"

"Josh knew," said Rick. "He figured it out."

Josh touched his own shoulder with a finger and made a sizzling noise to show just how hot he was.

I answered with a gesture of my own: raising my shoulders and lifting my hands in an enormous shrug as if to say, What's the story?

"I saw you on TV," Josh said. "The whole thing about how you were in the library and the librarian called the cops and the cops showed up and started chasing you and everything."

"Yeah?"

"And I thought, well, the last time anyone heard anything about you, you were escaping from the cops all the way over in Centerville. So I knew you were heading this way. I figured you must be coming back to Spring Hill."

"Sure, but…" I gestured around me at the big empty parlor. The room-the whole feeling of the house-was growing less and less dismal as the sun poured in through the windows. "The Ghost Mansion. How did you figure I'd come back to the Ghost Mansion?"

Josh gave an almost modest tilt of his head. "I just tried to think the way you'd think. I figured if I knew you were coming to Spring Hill, the cops would know too. That meant it would be dangerous-more dangerous here than anyplace else."

I nodded. He was right. Spring Hill was probably the most dangerous place I could be right now, the place where I was most likely to get caught.

Josh went on: "And if you were coming to the most dangerous place you could be, then you'd have to have a really good reason for it. There'd have to be something really urgent you had to do, something you had to do whether it was dangerous or not. So I thought, Well, what could that be? What could you do here you couldn't do anyplace else? And then it came to me: you were coming back here to try to prove your innocence, to try to show it wasn't you who killed Alex."

"That's right," I said. "That's exactly right. I am."