Bentley Little - The House

She looked up at him, all innocence, and then that innocence was slowly washed away. She smiled at him lewdly, wickedness and a base sensuality creeping across her corrupt features, and he finally understood emotionally, not just intellectually, that she was not a child. That she had never been a child.

His grip tightened around her neck, and he wondered why she had done that, why she had revealed herself to him. Did she want him to kill her? Would that somehow make her stronger? Or was she simply teasing him, playing with him, leading him on before finally doing him in?

He felt her muscles tighten beneath him, felt a surge of strength in her chest.

There was a sudden flash of brightness, an abrupt incandescence at the side of the bed that distracted her attention for a second.

And Mark snapped her neck.

He saw knowledge flood into her face in that last second, as the life drained from her, and he thought that she had not expected this, had not even considered its possibility.

She spit at him with her last breath.

Daniel stood by the side of the bed, the source of the brightness. "Quick thinking," he said.

Mark looked at the ghost of the other man. He had not had time to determine the source of that flaring incandescence, had assumed it was something she had created and was going to use against him, and he'd moved quickly only because of his certainty that this would be his final chance. He had not expected it to be a diversion intentionally created by Daniel's ghost, and he climbed off the bed and the girl's lifeless body, facing the glowing form.

"Daniel?"

"In the flesh." The ghost smiled. "Well ... in the spirit."

"You're dead, aren't you?"

Daniel laughed, and the sound was like music, like Kristen's laugh. "Oh, yes."

"What's it like?"

"Being dead?"

Mark nodded.

"I don't know," Daniel said thoughtfully.

"You don't know?"

"It's confusing. I'm just as in the dark as I was before.

Even more so, really. Because at least I knew how living worked. I knew what I had to do and where I could go. I knew my body's needs and limits. I

knew about the world I lived in. Now . . . I'm just lost. There's no handbook, no guide, no one to really explain anything to me.

I'm just . . . I'm trying to sort it all out right now."

"Did she kill you?"

"Yes." Daniel explained what had happened, how he'd been back at home with his wife and son, how she'd tricked him into death by promising to stay away from his boy, how he'd met his mother and she'd told him he could bring the girl back to the House, how he'd done that and had ended up in some sort of limbo, how the girl had escaped, and how she'd suddenly reappeared in the other House and he'd brought her back.

"What was she?" Mark asked.

Daniel shrugged. "You got me."

"Is it over now? Is that it?"

"I hope so."

Mark looked over at the girl's corpse, still lying on the bed. In death, it looked like the body of a child.

There was nothing unusual about it, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to indicate that it had been anything other than a little girl. He met Daniel's eyes, saw understanding there.

The two of them were silent for several moments.

"Did it hurt when she killed you?" Mark asked finally.

"When you died?"

"My body hurt. But once I was out of it, I felt no pain."

Mark nodded, thought of his sister. "So what's on the Other Side? Beyond the Houses, I mean."

"I don't know. I haven't seen it yet."

"What do you mean you haven't seen it? You're dead!"

"I seem to be ... trapped. In the Houses. That's all I've seen. What I told you."

"Have you met my sister, Kristen?"

Daniel shook his head. "I haven't met anybody. I've seen my mother. That's it. I suppose all that comes next. I don't really know."

"You haven't disappeared yet. You're still here."

"I know," Daniel said worriedly.

"So what are you going to do now?" Mark asked.

"Go home," Daniel said. "If I can."

"And if you can't?"

He shrugged.

"Is there . . ." Mark cleared his throat awkwardly. "Is there anything we should, you know, tell your wife? Or your son?"

Daniel was shaking his head. "No. Don't . . ." He trailed off, thought for a moment. "Tell my wife . . . tell Margot . . . tell her ... I don't know, tell her something she can believe and she can understand. And let her know that I love her and that she and Tony were what I was thinking about and concerned about."

Mark nodded.

"Make sure she knows that I love her."

"Where does she live?"

Daniel gave him the address.

They stood there for a few moments longer, but they had nothing left to say to each other. There was an awkward silence between them, and finally Daniel said, "I'm going to try to go home, try to see Margot and Tony myself."

"Good luck," Mark told him.

Daniel smiled, nodded.

And before Mark could say another word, he was gone.

He was left alone in the room, the broken-necked body on the bed, the floor strewn with lint and dust and the other ingredients that had made up the dolls. He didn't know what was supposed to happen now, where he was to go from here, and he closed his eyes for a moment.

"Hello, Mark."

He opened his eyes.

It was Kristen.

She was standing next to him, and she put an arm around his shoulder, and he felt warmth, sunlight. "I'm proud of you, big brother."

"I thought I was a goner there for a sec."

She smiled. "I wasn't worried."

"You didn't think she could take me?"

Kristen shook her head. "Things can only work out the way they do."

Before he had time to ask her about that deterministic statement, she had moved over to the bed and was staring down at the girl's body.

Mark followed her, joined her. "Billings and the girl,"

he said. "What were they?"

"Meddlers in the natural process."

"Stormy thought maybe he was God and she was the devil."

"They have been called that."

He blinked. "So ... so God really is dead?"

"Not exactly."

"What do you mean, 'not exactly'?"

"They were merely representatives of other, higher forces. Pawns. You could call them good and evil, but good and evil are not all there is. There is something beyond all that."

"What?"

"I can't tell you."

"And I wouldn't understand?"

She nodded, smiling. "And you wouldn't understand."

"Do you?"

"Not completely. Not yet."

"But it's over now?"

"Nothing's ever over."

"You're more annoying dead than alive. Do you know that?"

Kristen laughed, and he laughed with her. It was the first time he'd allowed himself to laugh in a long, long while, and it felt good, it felt right.

When he stopped laughing, he saw that the girl's body was gone. It had disappeared. He turned toward his sister.

"Where did she go?"

"She's still here."

"I don't see her."

"Think of her as a sacrifice. A sacrifice to the House."

"The House demands sacrifices?"

Kristen smiled. "No."

"I don't--"

"You don't need to."

"So what happens now?"

"That's up to you."

"Are the others--?"

"You'll see them in a minute."

"And then what?"

"That's up to you." She kissed his cheek, and a flood of pleasant feelings passed through him. "You can leave now if you want. The doors are open."

"Kristen," he said.

He reached for her.

And she was gone.

Stormy There was no earthquake this time, only a silent temporary blurring of wall and floor and ceiling as the Houses came together.

He'd been standing in that previously unknown room Butchery --facing the oncomingDonielle , and she had suddenly stopped in place, eyes widening. She fell to the floor, flailing about, then stiffened and was still. He'd turned around, and the otherDonielle was lying on the floor, too. He remained there for a moment, unmoving, then walked toward her to make sure she was dead.