Bentley Little - The House

She was.

They both were.

He felt for a pulse, looked for any indication that there was life within the still bodies, and was gratified to learn that there were none. He was still in one of those black rooms, still staring at the girl's body, but when the change occurred, when the Houses again came together, he was in the sitting room, and the girl's body was nowhere in sight.

Once more, the House felt different. He didn't know why, didn't know how, but the aura of dread that had been in the background, like white noise, since he'd first stepped through the door of the House, was gone, replaced with a surprisingly benign sense of calm.

The windows of the sitting room were fogged with condensation, but there was light outside and shapes behind the obscuring blur of the glass.

He had the feeling that the real world was once again within reach.

Laurie walked in from the dining room, followed by Mark. Norton emerged from the entryway.

The four of them stood staring at each other for a long moment.

It was Mark who broke the silence. "Daniel's dead,"

he said. "She killed him. Or had him killed."

He explained what had happened, how he had confronted her in his sister's bedroom, how he had killed her and Daniel had helped.

The rest of them remained silent through his story, not interrupting, and even after he had finished none of them had any questions.

Stormy sighed tiredly. "I guess it's my turn."

They each described what had happened in their absence.

As before, while the details were different, the stories were remarkably similar Also, as before, Norton's was the most horrific.

Stormy was shocked by the old man's confession, and he found that he was disgusted, horrified, and slightly afraid of the teacher. He'd been surprised to see Norton alive, and happy about it at first, but as the other man related the events that had befallen him, Stormy recalled that bloody transparent figure he'd seen in the black room, and he understood what had happened there.

He did not like Norton, he realized, and as embarrassed and apologetic as the old man was, Stormy detected something hard and dark beneath that surface contrition, and he felt uncomfortable being in the same room with him.

He edged a little closer to Laurie.

"So what next?" Laurie asked after Norton had finished talking. She gestured toward the sitting-room window.

"It's light out there. Anybody want to try to go outside? See if we can finally get out of here?"

"Count me in," Stormy told her.

"The doors are open," Mark said. "There's nothing holding you here. You can go."

Laurie looked at him. " 'You'?"

Mark cleared his throat nervously. "I'm staying."

They looked at him.

"What?" Stormy said, incredulous.

Norton sucked in a deep breath. "I am, too."

"This is crazy!" Stormy looked from one man to the other. "Have you both lost your fucking minds? Billings is dead.Donielle's dead. The Houses are open. There's nothing keeping us here. We're free! We can go back to our normal lives and pretend this never happened!"

Mark's voice was quiet. "Yes, Billings and the girl are gone, but we don't know what that means. What we do know, is that with someone living in at least one of the Houses, the barrier holds."

"You still want to stay? After everything that's happened to you here?"

"Especially after everything that's happened. Think of what we've seen. Think of what we know. Can you leave here with a clear conscience, knowing that if the Houses are empty it'll all happen again? You had dead people popping up on your Indian reservation. And that kind of shit was happening all over the country, all over the world maybe. You know what would happen if the border fell entirely?" He shook his head. "I can't let that occur."

"We've been prisoners here!"

Norton smiled sadly. "I'm not a prisoner anymore.

This time it's my choice. And perhaps, in some small way, I can make up for ... for what happened before."

Laurie faced him. "Penance?"

"If you like."

Stormy waved his arms, exasperated. "But maybe normal people can live here and it'll do the same thing.

Hell, they don't even need to know about it--"

"It's still on the borderline," Mark said. "They'll still see things they can't understand. It'll still be haunted."

Norton shrugged. "Besides, I'm up for it. I'd like to explore this border. I'm not that far away from passing over to the Other Side myself, and I'd like to know where I'm going, I'd like to find out a little bit about it first."

"Well, my duty as border guard is over. I'm through with this shit."

Laurie smiled sympathetically. "I'm getting out of here, too, if I can. I've spent enough of my life in this House. I don't want to spend any more of it here." She looked at Norton. "You I can understand." She turned toward Mark. "But you're still young. You have your whole life ahead of you. Don't you want to do something with it?"

"I am," he said.

They were silent for a moment.

"Well," Laurie said. "At least you won't be trapped inside anymore. It'll be more like when we were kids, probably. You'll be able to go outside, go into town, leave whenever you want. This'll just be ... your home."

"Yeah," Mark said.

Silence settled over them, and Stormy cleared his throat. It was rude, perhaps, but he didn't want to hang around here one more second. As far as he was concerned, this little adventure was over, and it was time for him to get the hell out of here and back to his real life. The rest of them could go or stay or do whatever they wanted to do, but he wanted to get as far away from the Houses as he could, as quickly as he could.

"It's been fun," he said. "But I have important things to do."

Laurie smiled. "Videos?"

"You got it."

"Wait up," she said. "I'm coming with you."

All four of them walked out to the entryway and stood awkwardly a moment before the door. Were they supposed to hug, cry, shake hands? Stormy felt like doing none of those things. Oddly enough, he'd felt closer to the others when he'd first met them than he did now, and before anyone else could initiate some sort of bogus parting gesture, he opened the front door. The sun, white and hot, was shining in his eyes, its brightness obscuring the view outside.

"Later," he said. He waved good-bye, stepped through the doorway --and emerged alone onto the porch. Across the street was the fire-gutted building. Next to the curb, in front of the House, right where he'd left it, was his rental car.

He was in Chicago.

He turned to look behind him, but there were no other people in the entryway of the House. There was only a dirty dusty floor in a foyer that looked as though it had been abandoned for years. The only footprints in the dust were his own.

He hurried down the steps and off the porch, feeling cold. There were goose bumps on his arms, hair prickling on the back of his neck. He strode quickly down the walk, trying to get away from the House as fast as possible.

He still did not understand where the House in which they'd met was located, but he did not really care, he did not want to find out.

He walked around the front of his car, fumbled in his pocket for the keys, quickly opened the driver's door.

On the seat of his car was a rose.

He hesitated less than a second, then tossed the flower onto the floor.

For the first time since he'd seen the television in his bedroom, he thought of Roberta. Was she really dead?

he wondered. Or had that been part of the show put on for him?

He had the feeling that she was dead, and though he knew their marriage was over and that no matter what happened they would never get together again, he hoped that she was all right, he hoped that she was unharmed.