Christopher Ransom - The Birthing House

His grades went down as far as they could go. Hers dropped too, though not enough to alarm her parents. Holly was better at school and talked of college and how they might go to the same one. He did not dwell on the future. Now was all that mattered; it was all he could see. Things were perfect, and he knew she felt the same way. College, no college. He would drive a truck or major in physics or both if that was required to keep them together.

That their separation was already imminent was his denial. That she could thwart it without planning was Holly's.

Sometimes they saw Holly's mom's face on the realtor signs. Holly's mother had the combinations to key boxes to the best homes on the market. They went with her mother to a Sunday afternoon showing and hid in the bathroom. They noticed how the other couples were not much older than they were. They decided it would be more fun to have the whole house to themselves. In her mother's home office they found the filing cabinet and the real estate listings and the combinations.

They took the list of combinations and went to the house that Friday after school. They parked down the street and walked around to make sure no one was inside. They entered before the sun went down. They did not leave until early Sunday morning.

The house was well stocked with fruit, fresh pasta and pre-made sauces, gourmet meats and cheeses and wine. Friday night was a fit of giggles and exploring the house, crashing early in front of the TV. Saturday they slept late, watched movies, made up stories about the owners. The sex was on hold as if they were saving for this night. In the evening, he cooked while Holly turned on the stereo and set the table.

It started gradually, over dinner.

'More wine?' he asked, pouring for her.

'Thank you, darling,' she said with all the proper weight.

'How's your pasta?'

'It's great.' She picked up her fork for the first time.

'Really? Because you're not eating any.'

She set her fork down. He saw that her hands were shaking.It made him nervous that she was nervous.

'We don't have to stay,' he said. 'We could pretend it never happened, go to a movie.'

'What? No, Connie.' She was the only one who ever called him that, before or since. 'If someone comes home we can always say my mom sent us to house-sit.'

'You think they'll believe that?' He had been listening for a garage door clunking to life or the rattle of keys and lock.

Holly smiled. 'So we went to the wrong house. What are they going to do? Arrest us?'

'Maybe. Maybe worse.'

'They're sixty-five.'

'How do you know?'

'I checked them out. He's a retired doctor. She's a teacher, kindergarten. Half-days. The kids are out of college and out of state.'

'You're like a detective now.'

She shrugged and sipped more wine.

'What is it, then? My cooking?'

'I'm sorry. I'm just . . . kinda freaking out,' she said. 'About what's going to happen next year.'

He suddenly saw the whole thing collapsing. Tonight was too much, they'd gone as far as they could go. She had decided to call the whole thing off before she went away to college, before it got too close and too bad.

'Are you having doubts about me, about us?'

'Connie! No. Don't look at me that way.' She ran around and wedged herself between the table and his lap. 'We're perfect,' she said, kissing his neck. 'I just want this to be special. So we never forget.'

'Of course it's special. It's always special.'

'But tonight is different. I want it to be just us.'

'Who else is there?'

'No one, silly. But later, I don't want . . . you don't have to, you know, use anything between us.'

He thought about that. Since the beginning he had used condoms. They were smart enough to know that, as often as they 'got beastly' (her term), 97 per cent effective was 3 per cent very likely.

'Really?' he said, not really understanding.

She put her mouth around his ear. 'I want to feel everything. I want you to feel everything.' She pulled her mouth off and smacked him loudly on the cheek. 'It's the natural way to fly, sweetie.'

'Want me to clear the table? It's a nice table.'

'It's not big enough.' She was already walking away. 'Finish your dinner and don't come back here for at least twenty minutes.'

'Where's here again?' he said.

'The big room down the hall. Promise to wait?'

'I promise.'

She went down the long hall past the slate foyer and disappeared into the master suite.

He had always been an imaginative son, and now he imagined all manner of sport and pastime awaiting him in this new space. But he could not see that by following his love into this house he had also set in motion its inevitable murder.

16

Untold hours after falling asleep on top of the covers with Luther and Alice curled at his feet, Match Point playing quietly on the bedroom DVD-TV rig, Conrad woke alone to the sound of a baby crying. It was the same choking, newborn ack-ack-ayyyych sound from weeks ago, and he knew it was not the movie he'd left on because now there was only the eerie blue screen with the DVD format logo.

He turned on the lamp and looked to their crate beds on the floor, but the dogs weren't there, either. The baby's crying quieted to a tired, tapering sigh and then stopped. Or left. He did not think it was coming from the street or a house next door; it had trailed off the other way, toward the rear of the house.

In its place he heard a scratching, the sound of a garden rake pulling on a thick lawn. There were three methodical scratches and then a pause, three or four more and another pause. The sounds were coming to him from the hall.

If it's another doll I'll just stomp the fucker to pieces, he thought, walking out of the master bedroom. One of the dogs whined. He couldn't tell which, but they usually roamed in tandem. The scratching came again, from the spare bedroom adjacent to the master, the one Nadia'd been in the day he toured the house.

Feeling relieved but still on edge, Conrad shuffled down the dark hall, wishing he'd remembered to buy some nightlights at Wal-Mart.

The door was closed. Conrad pictured his dogs in the room, doggishly wondering how the door had closed behind them. Or maybe they were standing at the window, tails erect, the fur on their napes stiff and bristling at something that had startled them from outside.

Conrad opened the door and patted around for the light switch. He could see their outlines. They were hunched over the floor at the center of the room, backs arched, snouts pressed to the carpet, digging as if he were not even there.

Whatever it was, it had been compelling enough for them to nose the futon aside to get to the floor - he could see its bulky frame in shadow off to one side.

His hand found the switch plate and swept up. Golden light shot through the dusty glass bowl full of dead flies and other winged insects. The dogs looked up at him in surprise, their eyes dilated black orbs, then returned in unison to their buried treasure.

Conrad squinted. The carpet and padding had been peeled back like the skin of an animal, exposing floorboards like ribs.

'Luther! Alice, quit that!' And they did, but they didn't look happy about it.

The hole was jagged from their labors - they had cleared a respectable three-foot circle before he had stopped them. The boards were not the same color as the rest of the floorboards in the library and the hall. These planks were an unnatural shade of chocolate, marbled like steaks. The plum color ran against the grain and was deeper in some places, lighter in others. Near the border of the hole he saw a patch of lighter wood, the natural color of pine.

Then he understood. He wasn't looking at painted wood.

He was looking at a stain.