I park the car and switch off the engine. The silence is deafening.
She was gonna confront Johnson at Kay’s place.
I never heard from her again.
I climb out of the car into the freezing night air and wrap my arms around myself. I burst gratefully into the house, but it’s just as cold in here. I breathe in the stale air, hating it. I rest my back against the front door, exhausted from the strange night. The house is totally dark except for the moonlight shining through the grimy lounge window. Everywhere I look, there’s destruction. Doors hanging limply from their hinges, floorboards missing like gaping teeth. The half-built walls are littered with holes, wires poking through them like little snakes.
I’m about to head upstairs when I catch a glimpse of something out the window. Just a flicker of movement as something creeps past. I freeze. Reaper? I open the door a crack, and the cold wind stings my face. We don’t have any porch lights yet, and I can barely see the outline of my car in the weak moonlight.
“Reaper,” I call out into the night. “Reaper?”
Silence. A chill creeps down my spine, settles in the small of my back.
Meowwww.
I gasp, whirling around to face the staircase. Reaper is perched atop the couch, watching me. He’s been inside the whole time. Then what did I see outside? My heart’s in my throat as I quickly shut the door and lock it behind me. I scoop Reaper up, and as we half run up the staircase, I can’t shake the feeling that someone’s out there, watching. And worse…I think of the bug that Amanda found in the walls. God, there’s no escaping it. Everywhere I go, they’re watching me.
—
Hours later, Reaper wakes me up. He kneads the bedcovers, howlingand howling. He slinks off my bed and walks to the open door. He turns around, meows. His tail flicks back and forth, and it strikes me that he’s nervous. Joe would laugh at me, but I know Reaper’s moods. And there’s something uneasy about the way Reaper watches me, as if waiting for me to follow him.
My stomach tightens. Shit. Not again. The last time he did this, he planted himself under the attic steps and waited for me to go up there. I stare Reaper down. I’ve scanned the attic twice since last time and found nothing. I really don’t want to go up to the attic in the dead of night.
I roll over, pull the covers over my head.
Meowwwwwwwwwww.
Sighing, I throw the covers off and follow him to the door, my bare feet cold on the floorboards. As soon as I’ve caught up to him, he turns and heads down the dark hallway. I stop, chewing my lip, before ducking back into my room and retrieving my phone. I flick the small torch on, and there he is. Reaper’s waiting in the middle of the hallway, exactly where he was last time, right under the attic. His tail flicks anxiously. I shine the light haphazardly at the walls. I don’t want to go up there, dammit. Why the hell am I doing this? Bloody cat. My skin’s prickling, and my hands tremble when I reach up to pull on the cord.
The staircase drops down with a loud creak, and I wrinkle my nose as the smell comes rushing down. God, the attic stinks. I’ve been up there only a few times. There wasn’t much to see except the brick chimney, an old cradle covered in dust, and a handful of decomposing leaves that crunched like old bones when I stepped on them. The walls were covered in brownish-yellow stains like nicotine, and the smell was worse than any other room in the house. Joe muttered something about the insulation, and I peered into the cradle silently. Had it belonged to Janet when she was a baby? I wondered. Was she rocked to sleep by her adoring parents before one of them tried to murder her?
Reaper howls again, a sound that screams,Come on. You need to see what’s up there.He leaps up the staircase soundlessly, and I watch him disappear into the gaping dark. I climb up the arthritic steps. “What’s wrong, mate?”
I hold my phone out in front of me, follow the weak beam of light up the stairs, and they groan under my weight like they’re mad at me. I clutch the banister with my free hand, and it’s like holding on to a brittle tree branch. I mentally add it to the growing list of renovations and duck my head as I enter the attic.
I pause at the top of the stairs, shining the torch around the room, illuminating the falling dust. God, it’s bad in here. It’s like standing in a little snowstorm. I pull the collar of my nightshirt over my mouth and breathe through that. The attic is windowless, and I ache to let some fresh air in. The brick chimney leans dangerously to one side, like it’s had too much to drink, and smells of soot and smoke.
Reaper’s still hissing somewhere up there, and I shine the light around, wondering if he’s found a dead possum or something. He does that sometimes—brings me to his little kills and probably wonders why I scream. I bought him a bell collar, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference.
But when I shine the light on Reaper, he’s not standing in front of an animal at all. He’s standing in front of the cradle like he’s guarding it. His tail flicks back and forth like a windshield wiper, and he does that weird howl/scream thing that he did when he jumped on my bed and terrified me. My pulse jumps, and my stomach tightens. I really don’t want to walk any closer. I wait there in the attic, the silence growing heavier and heavier.
I shine the torch at the cradle, not moving from my spot. It would’ve been beautiful back in the day, smooth redwood with twelve ornate bars. But the longer I look, the more dangerous it seems. The spacing between each bar is too large, wide enough to trap a child’s head. And it’s missing four bars. A soiled blanket lies in a tangled mess over a yellowing mattress. It’s creepy, but it doesn’t seem worth a look.
But Reaper won’t move, and I have to see what he’s guarding.
I take a small step forward, shining the torch at the ground.
I freeze.
What the hell? What the hell? Reaper watches me silently, gives me a steady look that says,See? I told you.
I stagger back, hand over my mouth. Right there in the dust at the foot of the cradle is a pair of footprints. It’s as if the person was standing over it, looking down. My hands are jittery, and my breath comes in panicked bursts. What the hell is in that cradle? I swallow hard and step forward.
I’m careful to avoid stepping on the footprints, treading lightly around them. They’re larger than mine. A man’s, definitely. Joe’s, maybe? But then, I don’t remember him going anywhere near the cradle when we last came up here. He hovered in the doorway, grimacing the entire time.
I stop at the cradle, torch in hand, terrified to shine the light down on it. Terrified not to. Reaper waits silently at my left foot.
I sweep the torch over the cradle, holding my breath. But there’s nothing there. Only the blanket and mattress. It looks like it hasn’t been disturbed in decades. The blanket is disgusting, speckled with mold. I give Reaper a quizzical look, but he’s still not moving. I crouch on my haunches, Reaper’s hot breath on my knee, then shine the light inside the cradle, peering through the gap in the bars.
