Bentley Little - The House

The HOUSE

Bentley Little

A SIGNET BOOK

Prologue

California

Teddy had lived in the airport for the past eight years.

He knew it was a problem, knew it was a serious phobia, but he had not been able to venture outside the terminal in all that time. He could not remember exactly what had compelled him to seek refuge here, but it no longer mattered. This was his home, this was his world, and he was happy with it. He found money on the floor, in the coin returns of vending machines and pay phones; he begged for spare change when necessary; he bought his food in the snack bars and mini Pizza Huts and junior Burger Kings that made up the terminal's restaurant row. He purchased or shoplifted shorts and T-shirts from the gift shop. He read the magazines and newspapers that people left on chairs, the printed material they bought in order to waste time while waiting for their flights.

The airport terminal was heated and air-conditioned, open twenty-four hours, and it was constantly filled with people, a broad cross section of society. He was never bored here. There was always someone to talk with, a lonely traveler or waiting relative, and he would strike up a conversation, absorb the distilled story of a person's life, make up some impressive lies about his own, and move on, a little richer for the encounter.

He was a "people person," as they liked to say, and there was nothing he enjoyed more than meeting new people, making new friends, talking and listening, experiencing vicariously the life he had renounced.

He kept himself well groomed, storing his clothes in a locker and changing each day, washing his laundry in a bathroom sink at night, drying everything with the wall mounted hand-dryers, giving himself sponge baths, washing and combing his hair with travelpak toiletries from the gift shop. Save for the times when he was compelled to ask for money, no one would ever mistake him for a homeless person, and while he had been here so long that he knew work schedules and shift changes, knew when security guards patrolled the airport and the routes they took, was able to easily avoid detection by airport personnel, he had still been seen often enough around the terminal that many of the store clerks, janitors, and other airport workers knew him, believed him to be a frequent flyer, and treated him with the utmost respect.

But lately, he'd had the suspicion that he was not alone.

Something was living in the airport with him.

The idea chilled him to the bone. There was nothing concrete, no real proof, only a vague feeling that his living space was being invaded by another permanent resident, but that was enough to put him on edge.

Something else was living here.

Not someone.

Something.

He didn't know why he thought that, but he did, and it frightened him. He knew that he could, if necessary, leave the terminal, leave the airport, disappear into the chaotic bustle of Los Angeles, but he did not even consider that an option. Logically, intellectually, it made sense, but emotionally it was another story. Whether superstition or psychosis, he knew that he could never leave the terminal, and any plan that considered that a possibility was strictly off-limits.

Which meant that he was stuck here.

With whatever else lived in the airport.

In the daytime, the idea didn't bother him. But at night, like now, when the crowds faded, when the lights were switched to half power, when the world outside turned black . . .

He shivered.

Last week, he had returned from the bathroom after a quick shampoo to his seat near the windowed east wall of the Delta wing, and his magazines had been moved.

Not just moved. Tampered with. The page he'd marked in Newsweek had been ripped out, the Playboy he'd kept hidden between the other periodicals had been placed on top and opened to the centerfold, and his People magazine had been thrown on the floor.

There'd been no one else in this wing of the terminal for the past hour and he'd seen no one on his way to or from the bathroom, but the proof was there, and he'd quickly gathered up his stuff and hurried back to a more populated section of the terminal.

The next night, he'd had no magazines or newspapers with him and was about to settle down to a little nap when he saw, on the section of seats he'd chosen, an array of magazines spread out: Guns and Ammo, Hunting, American Hunter, Hunter and Prey. On the carpeted floor in front of the seats, drawn with spilled cherryIcee, was the outline of a bloody claw and, next to that, a toothy smile.

It was hunting him.

It had been a warning, Teddy thought. Or a game being played with him. Either way, he didn't like it, and he quickly gathered together today's belongings as he suddenly noticed that this area of the terminal was emptying out and that outside night had already fallen. He saw himself reflected in the huge window that faced the runway, a ghost against the blackness, and the insubstantiality of his form made him nervous, made him feel as though he'd already died.

He quickly headed back toward the shops. Ever since the warning, he'd stayed near people, stayed near the light. Security guards had looked at him suspiciously several times, and he realized that he was in danger of giving himself away, of breaking cover, but he could not help it. He was afraid to be alone.

Afraid of what might find him.

Afraid of what it might do to him.

He looked behind him as he walked. At the far end of the darkened wing, by the empty lounge and boarding area that had once been occupied by Pan Am, he saw a jet-black shadow, a shifting amorphous shape that fluttered from an unused flight desk down the corridor to the seat where he'd been sitting.

He started running. Sweat was pouring down his face and his heart was pounding crazily. He was gripped by the absurd but unshakable notion that the shadow, the creature, the monster, the whatever-it-was, had seen him and was chasing after him and was going to down him and devour him in front of the snack bar.

But he reached the snack bar with no problem, saw a security guard and a cashier, a businessman reading a newspaper at a small table, a young couple trying to soothe a crying baby, and when he looked back toward the darkened wing he saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Breathing heavily, still shaking, he walked into the snack bar. He was aware of how he looked and when he walked up to the cashier, asked for a cup of water, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and saw the look she shot the security guard, he immediately dug through his pocket for spare change and amended his order to a small coffee.

He didn't really want coffee, but he wanted to sit down and get his equilibrium back, wanted to be near other people, and he thanked the cashier and grabbed a seat near the pile of luncheon trays at the back of the small eating area.

What the hell was going on? Was he going crazy?

Possibly. He knew he wasn't the most normal person in the world to begin with. But he didn't think he was hallucinating here, didn't think he was suffering from delusions. Something had tampered with his magazines, something had drawn thatIcee picture.

And he had seen that black shadow shape.

He glanced up from the Formica table. The security guard was still looking at him, and he thought that he should check himself out in a mirror to make sure his appearance was presentable. He couldn't afford to destroy his entire life, to blow almost a decade's worth of clean responsible living simply because he was frightened.

Because something was hunting him.

There were rest rooms adjacent to the snack bar, and he left his newspaper, briefcase, and coffee on the table as he walked over to the men's room.

"Could you watch my stuff?" he called to the cashier.