The Spite House(31)

The night was dark enough for such an oversight to be possible. Not quite impenetrable, but close to it. Lights from Degener’s Main Street shops and restaurants traveled just far enough to prevent the dark’s absolute dominion. Eric was sure that those buildings in town kept their lights on through the night to warn the spite house that it could not sneak into town unseen, or open its door to draw people inside. Eat them. Hadn’t Stacy inadvertently suggested that a couple of nights ago? She’d said the house was skinny because it hadn’t eaten enough. What else would a house like this feed on but lives? All of Degener knew it, too, but they had let him come here with his children, hadn’t even tried to warn him, they had just let him—

He shook his head, freeing himself from as much of this paranoia as he could, and rubbed his eyes hard with his palms. He still wasn’t awake enough to think clearly. When he was young, when the nearly living memory of the ghost fire at his grandparents’ house would follow him wherever he rested his head, he would fend off the visitation by getting out of bed to get a glass of water or a snack. Something to anchor him to reality.

Eric slid out of bed like he didn’t want to wake a partner beside him. Part of him remembered how unfamiliar this house was to him. In the moment, he could hardly remember how many floors this house had, three or four, much less which one had the kitchen and sink where he could get some water.

Just leave, then, he thought. Get the hell out. Get in the car. Drive. Get away.

He moved quickly to the bedroom door and froze just before opening it. His chest felt empty, and he thought he might get sick. The impulse that had just guided him to the door through the darkness hadn’t reminded him to get Dess and Stacy on his way out. Had he followed it, he’d have left them. He might have been in the car and halfway down the road heading into town—or away from it—before he remembered.

The house, or whatever powered it, was more formidable than he could have guessed. It hadn’t directly attacked him yet. Maybe it couldn’t, or didn’t want to. Still, it wasn’t something he could take lightly. Not when it could fill his head and overtake him like this. If he was lucky, though, he was the focus of all of its energy, and it was leaving the girls alone. He’d check on them after he managed to calm himself. He didn’t want to wake them up and freak them out, or worse, bring the energy that had briefly possessed him into their rooms.

He turned around to see if there was anything behind him, but he only saw the bed, the room. For a moment, as he held his breath, he felt as if he were in a cave no one had ever set foot in. A place underground that you could discover and die in, and where your remains would go undisturbed for as long as civilization lasted. A place where a ghost could stay lost for eternity.

Eric thought he heard laughter from elsewhere in the house. Or was it a scream? He couldn’t tell if it came from a man or a woman, an adult or a child. What he did know was that the temperature in the room had fallen considerably, a familiar iciness he hadn’t felt since he was a boy. He could sense a presence, just as he had when he was young. It was larger this time, filling most of the room, making him feel trapped, like if he tried to step too far in one direction or another, he would bump into a wall of ice. It didn’t want him in the room, but also seemed reluctant to let him leave. Maybe because “it” wasn’t a single thing, but competing forces.

He opened the bedroom door, backed out, and shut it quickly behind him as if to keep anything from following him out.





CHAPTER 13



Dess



She hadn’t expected to miss a motel room, but she couldn’t sleep in this bizarre house. When they had first hit the road, it had taken her some time to get used to the noisiness of the places they stayed in. Neighbors one room over would turn the volume up too loud on their televisions, or play music late after dark, or stay up drinking and talking and screwing until well past midnight. Dess and Eric never risked raising a fuss with the front desk, because they feared the situation might escalate to a point where police might be called.

Stacy could sleep through almost any amount of racket when she was tired enough, and Dad willed himself to sleep with relative ease. For Dess, the process of adapting to the regular commotion had taken longer. That was one reason why she’d found herself sneaking out and finding ways to make money. She couldn’t sleep and needed something to do.

In the past few weeks she’d trained herself to fall asleep beside Stacy each night despite the racket of footsteps in tiled hallways or inebriated singing coming through walls. But now she found it impossible to even be tired in a bed she had to herself, particularly in a house that was too silent on top of being too narrow.

From the outside the house looked like something you’d want to take a picture in front of, post to social, get a few laughs and likes. #CrazyAssTexas. #DontSlowDownHere. Spending the night inside, even trying to, instantly made it clear that this house wasn’t really designed to be lived in. A man with means and resources, who could have built a decent house anywhere else, had gone out of his way to put this strange, emaciated thing on this precarious spot on this hill, looking down on those other buildings in the valley. Just to make someone upset or show the world how pissed you are, Dad had said. That was why the person who built it put it here. It wasn’t just an eyesore, it was a statement. She couldn’t imagine how mad or disturbed you’d have to be to build a house like this.