Джош Малерман - A House at the Bottom of a Lake

Where was it coming from? Where was Amelia? How close was she to meeting the monster?

Had she met it already?

Movement behind and James turned once more, quick, shining his light on the portrait, the still life hanging on the wall. He recoiled from the face it made, the table-edge mouth and the curtains for hair. The plums for eyes and the life in their stare.

The canvas rippled, sending an expression across the painting.

The purple eyes seemed to focus. The mouth bulged out toward him.

James dropped his flashlight.

He flipped toward the floor, reaching for the light as it sank.

Sank.

Sank.

Connected with the floor.

Went black.

Black.

Black.

Something touched him.

Wet canvas? The pulp of rotten fruit?

James reached the carpeted floor and curled up, hands high, protecting him from anything in the room.

( The bulging painting, coming to life, leaving the wall behind. )

Amelia!

Amelia who was somewhere else in the house, intentionally approaching the danger.

Amelia!

Amelia who went to meet whatever was responsible for the drum-thudding, thud-drumming of his heart.

“Amelia! Help!”

He was floating now, floating toward the bay window, fast enough, it seemed, to break it, powerful enough to crash through the glass, to be sent spiraling out into the lake, zero gravity, spinning, farther from the house, farther from ( everything ) Amelia.

“Amelia!”

He’d seen the table-edge mouth parting. Before the world went black. He’d seen the plum eyes registering his presence in the room. Before the world went black.

I’m not gonna make it, James thought. I’m not gonna make it OUT OF THIS HOUSE.

Fixed with fright, curled into a ball and free-floating near the ceiling of the lounge, James understood it was the most scared he’d ever been in his life. And while he always dreamed he’d perform with honor if ever he was this afraid, he’d underestimated how afraid this was.

And yet what came next was the only thing that could have left him more frightened than he already was.

It was the scariest thing that could happen inside a house underwater, a house at the bottom of a lake.

The lights came on.

Not the flashlight.

The house lights.

The lights in the ceiling. The lights in the halls. The lights on every window and wall.

The lights came on.

And James saw.

James saw the room, bathed, exposed. Saw the vibrant, breathing color of the house.

In the bay window he saw himself reflected. Curled up, floating, scared.

Exposed.

The lights are on.

The lamp on the end table was on.

On.

A burning bulb.

Electricity.

Running.

Underwater.

On.

Amelia placed both hands on the basement door and pushed hard, too excited to stop, following the thudding steps she’d heard overhead. James was still below, she knew, but he must be coming. She didn’t mean to leave him behind, but the steps led her here, into the lounge. This was exactly where they were leading, two points converging, herself and the steps, to meet (at last) here in the lounge.

But when she got there, her light showed her that she was alone.

“Hello?”

The two syllables collapsed flat in the mask.

Then she heard the creaking again from outside the lounge and Amelia understood that she’d just arrived a little late was all.

Whoever she was supposed to meet was simply ahead of her.

Deeper into the house.

Amelia swam, hurriedly, toward the door to her left. She thought James must be close. He’d know to follow her. He’d find the lounge empty and follow her and either way, no matter what he did, she had to get moving, had to catch up with whoever was still moving ahead.

She passed through the door as it swayed shut. But whoever had been in this adjacent room was now in the next.

The steps told her so.

Amelia followed.

Her flashlight flickered and she knew that it was dying. Knew that it would go out, go black if she didn’t get up to the raft and change the batteries. And yet there was a part of her that believed it would go black even if the batteries were new.

You’re in bigger hands than your own, she thought, without knowing (or caring) exactly what this meant to her.

The thudding continued. Growing dimmer.

She followed her dying beam from room to room, avoiding the objects of each, until it felt like a dance, an intentional movement, between herself and the other. Because the light was dimming, she could no longer see the corners, not seven feet in front of her mask. And the house, it seemed, was growing darker, dimming, a purposeful setting of a mood.

Into the kitchen, over the first marble island, then close to the kitchen floor, then up past a window in quadrants. All of this in flickering pieces, graying sights, near darkness.

Soon she couldn’t tell what room she was in, what thresholds she crossed.

And yet she continued, pursuing the source of those steps, until, at last, she saw the foot of the stairs ahead.

The light dimmed.

She treaded above the bottom step, listening for the other.

Where had it gone?

Up?

A creaking on the stairs told her how close she was, but her light showed her no form.

She should wait for James, she thought. Wait for more light. Wait.

But she couldn’t.

She swam up the stairs, above them, rising to the second floor, following the creaking of the wood, the creaking of the old house, the thud-drumming, drum-thudding of bare wet feet sloshing up the steps.

Halfway up the stairs her flashlight died.

Darkness.

Complete darkness in the house.

For the first time, Amelia experienced the house as it was without her and James, as it stood at night, how it was before they arrived.

She was guided by the creaking, and she understood she was at the top of the stairs, entering the hall, the long hall with a single swaying door at its far end, a door she could hear opening ahead.

She swam, into the darkness, deeper into the throat of the second story, her hands straight out, ready to connect.

Amelia thought she could hear fabric in the darkness, tugged on, sliding off the smooth curved shoulder of a wooden hanger.

She released her flashlight. Useless now.

And though she couldn’t see it, she could sense it sinking, sinking, until it hardly nicked the second-story floor, contact as slight as a brush.

And then the lights came on.

Not the meager beam of her flashlight, no.

The house lights came on.

Amelia stopped swimming (the water rushed past her), not meaning to, but overwhelmed by it, astonished, seeing for the first time the hall walls in detail, the exact colors, lines, and dimensions of the house.

Floating, breathless, she looked over her shoulder to the top of the stairs. She saw the runner was red, bright red, the color of exaggerated blood. Light came from downstairs and she understood, clearly, that the second-story hall wasn’t the only place lit up.

The house. The entire house.

She positioned herself so that she was facing the door at the end of the hall again.

Staring ahead, treading, Amelia smiled as much as her mask would allow.

She knew why the lights came on. She hadn’t asked why, she hadn’t let herself do that, but she understood.

It was an offering. A welcoming.

A greeting.

She swam.

She reached the door. She saw the details of the door, smudge marks ( wax? ) where other fingers ( not your own! ) had opened the door before her.