A Noise Downstairs(70)

She saw the look of horror on his face, then followed his gaze.

And then she screamed, too.

The typewriter sat there on the bedside table, positioned so that it was facing the bed. Charlotte found three words: “Oh my God!”

And then the room went silent as the two of them stared at the hunk of black metal.

“Paul,” Charlotte whispered.

He did not respond. He did not look at her.

“Paul,” she said again.

Slowly, he focused on her. His eyes were wide with shock.

“Paul, there’s paper in it.”

It was true. A piece of paper was rolled into the machine. There were two words of type on it.

Slowly, Paul got to his knees, then stood and approached the typewriter, as though it were a coiled snake ready to strike.

Without touching it, he peered over the machine to read the message that had been left on the single sheet.

It read:


We’re back.





Forty-Two

Paul, naked and trembling, took a step back from the typewriter and said, “This is not happening. This is not fucking happening!”

Charlotte was in the middle of the bed, crouched on her knees, staring disbelievingly at the antique writing machine. “Paul, how did . . . how is this possible?”

He turned at her and shouted, “I don’t know! This can’t be happening. This has to be a nightmare. I have to wake up. I have to wake up. This can’t be real!” He put his palms to his temples, as though posing for Edvard Munch’s The Scream.

“I was asleep,” he said. “I was right here. Not two feet away. How could this happen? How did it get in here? It can’t be here. It isn’t here.”

“Paul, Paul, listen to me. Paul?”

He looked at her, his eyes wide. “What?”

“This isn’t a dream, Paul. That fucking thing is here.”

“How did it get here? How?” He whirled around.

“Someone’s in the house!” Charlotte said. “Has to be!”

Paul was not about to argue for a supernatural explanation at this point. He ran from the room, barefoot. Charlotte could hear him tearing down the stairs, shouting.

“Where are you?”

Charlotte got off the bed and grabbed a long T-shirt from her dresser.

“Come out, you son of a bitch!”

She pulled it on over her head, then picked up Paul’s boxers from the floor and ran for the stairs.

“You bastard if you’re here I’ ll find you!”

All the kitchen lights were on by the time she reached it, as well as the light in Paul’s small study. But he was not there. She went down the next set of steps. The front door remained locked, but the inside one to the garage was not. She opened it, found the lights already on.

Paul was on the far side of the garage, staring into the open blanket box.

“It was here,” he said. “It was here.” He shook his head angrily. “Shit! Shit shit shit! I forgot to put the books back on top.”

He pointed to the boxes he had lifted off the blanket box during his last visit in here, when he had checked to make sure the typewriter was where it was supposed to be.

“It got out,” he said softly with a tone of wonder. “It escaped.”

“Paul, listen to what you’re saying.”

“What?”

“You’re talking about it like it was some . . . some animal or something.”

“It moved. It moved.”

“It can’t have moved! That’s not possible! Not by itself!”

“Well then what the hell happened?”

Charlotte took a second to calm herself, then said, “Call Dr. White.”

“What?” It was as though there were some invisible barrier between them keeping him from comprehending her words.

She crossed the garage, handed him his shorts. “For God’s sake, put these on. It’s cold in here.”

“It was open,” he said. “The box was open when I came in here.” He looked imploringly at Charlotte. “How did it do that? How?”

“Paul, I’m begging you.”

“The front door was locked,” he said. “With a new set of locks!”

“Yes,” she said quietly.

He nodded, putting it together. “That pretty much settles it. There was no one in here.” He smiled, as though this were good news. “Don’t you see? No one got in. It did it. It did it on its own.”

“Paul.”

His face went red with rage. “What the hell else can it be?”

She took a step back. “Will you call her, please?”

“What are you talking about? This is not a fucking psychological problem. I need a goddamn exorcist or something. That thing is possessed. There are people that do that. I’m sure of it. They come in, they get rid of evil spirits. It should be easy in this case. It’s not a house. It’s just that thing.”

“If you won’t call her, I will.”

“You’re not getting this at all.”

“I think I am.”

She turned for the door, went back into the house. As she was mounting the stairs, the door behind her opened and Paul started coming up after her.