Bentley Little: The House

This afternoon, taking out the trash, he'd seen a shadow down the alley behind their house, a shadow he couldn't identify but that looked vaguely familiar: small, almost dwarfish, wearing a tattered gown or smock that billowed in the breeze. It had been around two o'clock, probably the least scary time of day, but the blocky shadows cast by east-facing garages had covered the narrow alley and, along with the slightly overcast sky, had contributed to an uncharacteristically solemn scene. He'd tossed the Hefty bag into the garbage can, turned back toward his yard, and seen, out of the corner of his eye, movement. He looked down the alley and saw, several houses away, on a protruding section of white fence, the shadow of a small figure with longish hair and a raggedy knee-length gown that blew in the breeze. The figure did not move, was perfectly still, only its hair and tattered clothing waving in the wind, and the sight had instantly rung some mental bell. He knew he'd seen it before, but he could not remember where or when. He scanned both sides of the alley, looking for the figure that was creating the shadow, but saw nothing.

The shadow raised a hand. Beckoned.

A wave of cold washed immediately over him. He'd been afraid, instinctively frightened, though he had not known why, and he'd hurried quickly out of the alley, through the yard, into the house, locking the back door and closing the drapes so he wouldn't be able to see.

Daniel took off his shoes and pants, sat heavily down on the bed. The thought of the shadow had stayed with him all evening, haunting him, taunting him with its almost-recognizable familiarity, and though he had wanted to say something to Margot about it, he had not.

He was aware how stupid it all sounded, and he did not want her to think that he was sitting here alone each day, inventing fantasies to frighten himself, letting his imagination work overtime because he had nothing better to do.

He unbuttoned his shirt, threw it on the floor, leaned back on the bed.

Margot had finished with her hair and had taken off her clothes. She started toward the bathroom. "I'm going to take a quick shower."

He sat up on one elbow. "Don't."

She stopped, looked at him, eyebrows raised.

"I like it dirty."

Smiling, she walked over to him, crawled into bed. "I

like it that you like it dirty."

Afterward, they lay there, spent and sweating. Daniel reached for the remote, turned on the TV, started flipping through channels. Margot snuggled next to him.

"Have you noticed," she said finally, "that Tony's been acting a little . . . strange lately?"

He looked at her. "Strange how?"

"I don't know. Secretive. Suspicious. He seems to be spending a lot of time alone in his room."

"A boy? In his room? Alone? Secretive? Suspicious?"

Daniel smiled. "Hmmm. I wonder what he could be doing."

She hit his shoulder. "Knock it off."

"You might check the stiffness of his sheets."

"You can be a real jerk sometimes."

"I'm sorry, but it's perfectly normal--"

"It's not normal. That's what I'm trying to tell you. I

know about that. I do wash his underwear, you know.

But this is ... different."

"What? Drugs? Shoplifting? Gangs?"

"Nothing like that."

"What then?"

"I don't know. But it's kind of ... spooky."

Spooky.

He didn't say anything, pretended to watch TV. She went off to take her shower, returned and climbed into bed next to him, and soon afterward, he felt her body relax, felt the pattern of her breath change as the even rhythm of sleep overtook her.

He waited for a few moments, then carefully extricated himself from her arms, moved closer to the edge of the bed. He stared at her while she slept, gently touched her hair. She was so beautiful and he was so happy with her, but the chilling thought that it would not last forced itself into his mind and would not be dislodged. It was the same feeling he'd had this morning an anxious, maddening sense that something was going to happen to her and Tony, and he found himself thinking again of the shadow.

Spooky.

He rolled over, onto his back, and closed his eyes, forcing himself to think of nothing, forcing himself to fall asleep. It took a long time. On the television, he heard a talk show give way to an infomercial, heard the infomercial end and a movie begin.

It was halfway through the movie before he finally drifted off.

He dreamed, and in his dream, the small shadow was in his house, and he sat in a chair, paralyzed, in the living room, as it roamed down the hall looking for his wife, looking for his son.

Laurie Laurie Mitchell looked across the boardroom at the other department heads dutifully making notes on their legal pads.

Boardroom.

Bored room was more like it.

She glanced surreptitiously at her watch. Hoffman was still droning on about maximizing the division's profits, some generic claptrap he'd picked up at an executive seminar, and it didn't appear that he would be concluding his filibuster anytime soon.

God, she hated these meetings.

Outside the windows, the sky was clear, cloudless, and she could see all the way to the bay, the small dark shape of Alcatraz Island visible in the sea of blue space between two adjoining buildings. She found herself wondering what would happen if a major earthquake hit while they were up here. Would the building stand or would it collapse? If it collapsed, would they ride it down, squashing the floors beneath them, or would the structure topple over, sending them flying into space? More than likely, there'd be a random pattern of destruction, different areas on different floors that crumbled or remained intact, arbitrarily killing those who happened to have the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Morbid, perhaps, but at least it made the time go by.

She glanced once more around the room, at her coworkers and peers, and thought, not for the first time, that she didn't belong here. She'd been hired by Automated Interface just out of college, had worked her way up the corporate ladder and had held her current position for the past five years, but she still sometimes felt like an imposter, a child playing dress-up who had somehow successfully fooled adults into believing that she was one of them.

Did she have anything in common with these people at all?

No. It was a fake plastic yuppie world she lived in, and it was one of the cruel tricks of fate that she happened to have an aptitude for this business, that she happened to be good at this job.

She'd grown up far differently, in a rural town south of the Bay Area, at the tail end of the hippie movement, and her parents had raised both her and Josh nontraditionally, teaching them a reverence for nature, emphasizing individuality, all the counterculturecliches . The obsession with appearances, the focus on finances and materialism that were so much a part of the lives of her peers were completely foreign to her. At the same time, she recognized the need to fit in, and she had no problem putting on the mask of conformity, buying the right clothes, ordering the right food, doing everything necessary to facilitate her created persona of successful businesswoman.

It was why she was where she was today.

It was funny how life turned out. Her parents had been killed in a freak auto accident her senior year in high school, and amid the devastating grief and bottomless sense of loss, she'd been surprised to learn that her parents had actually written a will, and that they'd specifically earmarked funds for her and Josh's college education.

She never would have suspected such a straight request from either her mother or her father, but it was there in black and white, and the lawyer said that the money could only be used for books and tuition. Anything else, and the money would be donated to Green peace.