Chapter Three
It was later than he thought by the time Marcus and Ben returned to their floating home. Their step-mother, Kristen O'Leary, was already there, waiting on deck for the boys and the vegetables they'd been tasked with bringing home for dinner. She grabbed the bag from Marcus as he came up the plank and without a word of greeting spun around and went inside.
“Uh oh.” Ben muttered, “Kristen's mad,” and Marcus nodded. They could tell her moods from a mile away and Marcus was already prepared for this one. Next, he knew, would be the lecture about how she didn't deserve this, how accidental, how arbitrary, how absurd that her life should be pegged to this crappy old houseboat and these two little boys - who weren't that little anymore and were bound for nothing but trouble - just because of that man, their no-good father, that fatal charmer Pearson Holmes, who'd gone off and got himself turned into toast in a mess of a car wreck, and of course their mother was even more to blame, that wretched Marla Rainbow Sky or whatever she called herself, stupid hippie chick who went off God knows where, leaving her kids with that irresponsible, criminal dad, and who stepped in to change little Ben's diapers? And who stepped in to read Marcus to sleep every night? And who stepped in, as if she had no other cares in the world and nothing else better to do than to raise a pair of abandoned brats who couldn't even bring the zucchini and jalapeños home on time?
Kristen O'Leary, that's who, and they'd better believe it, and they ought to know better, and it was a damn shame, just a dirty no-good rotten shame that she loved those boys so much and always had and always would, no matter what. Marcus had kept something back in his pocket, a little special gift he'd nabbed for just such an occasion, and he stepped carefully into the kitchen where the utterances above were on their third and fourth rounds of repeating, and he took the little jar out of his pocket, and placed it gently on the counter where Kristen would be sure to encounter it on her next foray to the sink.
"What's this?” she interrupted herself, eyebrows arching in surprise. She picked up the small glass vial and turned it around. It bore no label, and contained some kind of herb or seasoning.
"Well?" she turned to Marcus and couldn't help but smile. "What is this time?"
"You have to guess,” he reminded her, and Ben, behind him, couldn't help but giggle. Kristen unscrewed the lid and took a deep whiff of the contents, but shook her head.
"Some combination,” she mumbled. "Some cardamom, for sure. Cayenne? No. Coriander. Cumin. Black Pepper. Clove? Middle Eastern, I'd say. A specialty. Am I close?"
"Very close,” he nodded. "Mr. Ahmad called it Ras el Hanout. His own secret recipe. He wouldn't tell me everything that was in it. Did you smell the cinnamon, though?"
"I thought it was nutmeg,” she replied and he nodded.
"Nutmeg, too. It's got a lot of good spices in there."
"Then I'll use it tonight,” she told him. "I hadn't decided on seasonings anyway. Come and help,” and with that, the spell was broken, and the evening flipped back from foreboding to fine.
Such was not the case with Phil. He always tried to time his arrival home with the changing of the guard, but when he got there, after riding his board aimlessly for a few more hours, his mom was still getting ready for her shift, and his dad had not yet arrived home.
"Can't be waiting all night,” his mother declared when she caught Phil trying to sneak in unnoticed through the back door. "There's stuff in the freezer,” she informed him, as usual. There was always stuff in the freezer, Phil thought. She doesn't need to tell me, and what is she waiting around for anyway? This stupid game, pretending to be a family whenever it's time for a guilt trip.
"Thanks, mom,” he said out loud. This was sure to put an end to the scene. It was all she wanted, to be able to tell herself she had done her duty as a parent and had received the proper acknowledgement.
"Later then,” she called after him as he bounded upstairs four steps at a time.
"Later,” he replied, and by the time he reached his room he could hear the front door closing below. There would be a minimum of half an hour before his father arrived. He tried to make sure of that, doing his part to keep the family together by keeping them all judiciously apart. He went straight for his touch-desk, turned it on and started swiping his way to the blueprints section of his online collection. He flipped through the alphabetically organized section of half-baked ideas, thinking of working on one of them. He just wasn't sure which. He was considering collapsibles, inventions that would take up less space than was theoretically possible. One of his favorite fantasies was to invent a car that could be folded up and stuffed into a bike rack. Wouldn't that solve a lot of parking problems? It was merely a matter of molecular re-ordering. There's so much empty space between and within the atoms that compose all substances. Phil considered it to be inevitable that someone would figure out how to use that space more efficiently. Why shouldn't he be the one?
The chemical composition of the objects involved might be a critical condition, he reasoned, as he set the car notion aside for the moment. It would be more reasonable to first think of something made up of a simple set of chemical components, and work on the problem from that end. Or perhaps, he thought, maybe I should work on the folding operation of one particular chemical first, and tackle it from that angle? This would take a little more knowledge of chemistry and a little more knowledge of physics. He was already studying when his father's arrival was announced by the slamming of that same front door, and the stomping around in the kitchen, and the opening and closing of the refrigerator door, and the popping of a beer can tab, and the beep beep beep of the microwave a few minutes later when the old man's pizza was ready. Phil understood that he would not be disturbed, but left alone to his own devices, a thought whose literal interpretation brought a sly smile to his face. My own devices, he thought, are going to the coolest of all time. Phil understood that reality is what it is, but he wanted, more than anything, to create what was not.
Chapter Four
It was nothing more than a whim. A boy couldn't spend all his time inventing, so he looked up 'African antelope images' online and soon discovered what the moose really was - a Greater Kudu Bull. The horns were unmistakable. As he narrated to Marcus the next evening, as the two were on their way to the stake out, the Kudu is a native of Eastern and Southern Africa, a woodland creature vulnerable to hunters because of the way it stops and stares at predators pursuing them. Like a deer in the headlights, those poor beasts often doom themselves by stopping and staring so stupidly.
"But what kind of jerk would kill an endangered species, then stuff it and stick it in his living room?" Marcus grunted.
"Maybe he bought it,” Phil suggested.
"Maybe we'll find out,” Marcus said, although it didn't seem likely. They weren't planning to knock on the door and ask. They'd never seen the guy, for one thing. Nobody they knew had ever seen him either. Everyone knew about the dogs, but the dogs had not been known to venture out of their yard, nor had a car been known to pull in or out of the carport next to the house. It was, it turned out, a complete mystery to their friends and even their friends' parents, some of whom had made inquiries, some of whom had gone so far as to ask the local sheriff, who informed them it was none of their damned business. Even the usually nosy animal control people refused to get involved. The dogs looked perfectly well-fed and were properly contained behind a regulation fence. There was nothing they could do, even if they wanted to, even if there was a reason to. Pinky McClaren, a snooping teenager who lived two doors down, told Phil he had even asked the gas and electric man about the place, and received the startling information that the house was not hooked up to the main. No electricity? It was strange. Pinky had seen lights on in various rooms on many occasions. Perhaps the people had their own internal power supply, the gas man had told him. It was possible they used a generator. Some people do that.
"Pinky says he's lived there all his life and has never seen anybody go in or out of th
at house,” Phil told Marcus. "He also says the dogs never change. Ever since he was a little kid it's been the same dogs, same size, same age, same barking, same everything. He thinks they might not even be real dogs."
"What does he think they are then?" Marcus asked.
"Projections,” Phil told him. "Holograms."
"That should be easy to test,” Marcus said. "Put a stick through the gate and see if they grab it. If they do, then they're real. You could feel them tugging."
"Good idea,” Phil said. "Let's do that,” and they did when they got to the house. Marcus found a long stick, a branch four feet long and thin enough to fit through the bars. The black dog came charging at the gate and yanked the stick right out of Marcus' hand so fast he didn't even feel it.
"Got to be a real dog,” he exclaimed, staggering back a few steps. The other dog was pushing against the gate and slobbering as it barked. It seemed the dogs did not like to be tested or teased. The boys retreated across the street until the dogs finally quieted down and resumed their usual stations on either side of the gate.
"There's a light on in that room,” Marcus noted, and they saw the Greater Kudu bull clearly outlined, lit up from behind as the evening grew darker.
"Woah,” Phil said. "That thing's really amazing."
"Uh huh,” Marcus agreed. The street was quiet, its sidewalks deserted except for Marcus and Phil. They stood there as night fell, gazing at the stuffed beast that seemed to grow larger and larger.
"I think it moved!” Phil whispered at one point. He really did think so. The head seemed to shift to the left, to turn on its neck a little in their direction.
"No,” Marcus whispered back. "That's impossible."
"I think it did,” Phil said, but he wasn't so sure.
"I should be getting home,” Marcus murmured, but he didn't want to leave. Nothing was happening. He knew that. Nothing was going to happen. It wasn't like him to be out like this. Ben would be wondering where he was, not to mention Kristen. Usually Ben went everywhere he did. He'd just happened to be taking a rare nap when Phil had come by the houseboat, urging Marcus to come with him, just for a few minutes, just to see. Marcus had left reluctantly, but he knew that Ben would be asleep for hours, and anyway, Kristen was home so it would be okay. Still, Marcus felt weird, standing out there on the sidewalk in the dark, looking at a giant stuffed moose or whatever it was, feeling like time was standing still while he was, literally and in some other strange way and that even though time had clearly not stopped - the stars had come out and you could see one or two in the glow of the city’s reflections - it seemed that it had stopped for him and for Phil, as it maybe had too for those never-aging dogs, and he felt hypnotized by the stillness, until, suddenly both of the boys were startled by a sharp sound like a gunshot that made them jump. The dogs turned their heads to their house as a light came on in another room in the house, and a shadow moved across the wall.
"There's someone in there,” Phil breathed, and he strained to catch a better glimpse, but the shadow was gone and the light went off, only to be followed by another light coming on in the back of the house. Marcus heard something behind him and turned around. He had forgotten that they were standing in front of the notorious 'ghost house'.
This house was more obviously uninhabited, because there was no fence and there were no dogs, and the windows were partly soaped up, and the roof was in terrible shape, and the driveway was cracked and broken and the yard was merely dead weeds. It seemed less spooky now than its neighbor across the street, except, as Marcus turned, he saw its front door slowly and creakily swing open. He nudged Phil.
"Holy,” he whispered. "Look at that!"
Phil followed Marcus' pointing arm to the ghost house and the door, and immediately began moving towards it.
"Where are you going?" Marcus called after him.
"We've got to go in,” said Phil.
"Are you crazy?" Marcus shouted. "That's the freaking ghost house."
"I don't care,” Phil said. "Look, I brought a flashlight just in case."
"Just in case of what?” Marcus was thinking, but the answer had already occurred to him. Phil had been planning to sneak into the moose house. The dogs had changed his mind about that, but he was still in the sneaking mindset.
"I'm going home,” Marcus announced, but he didn't go home. Phil was already at the door, already stepping inside, now already in, and Marcus was not going to abandon him now. He followed. Phil had turned on the flashlight and Marcus, on entering the door, could see the empty, carpet-less living room, cobwebs hanging from the corners of the ceiling, half-painted walls and some rusty old cans on the floor.
"Nothing here,” Phil said in a normal tone of voice. "Nothing to worry about. It’s just an empty house."
"Sure,” Marcus said, and it sure smelled like it. He could sense the scent of the mold and the mildew, the dust and the mouse turds, the dampness and remnants of wood stain. His nose did not pick up any trace of haunting spirits, and he wondered for the first time if anyone could smell a ghost.
"What's with ghosts anyway?" he wondered out loud. "Wouldn't they have anything better to do than go around haunting the living?"
"It's just their nature,” Phil said dismissively. He was interested in impossible things, but not in tired old clichés. "Zombies eat human flesh. Vampires suck blood. Ghosts haunt. It's what they are. It's what they do,” he added, laughing.
"If there was any such thing,” he said, moving towards the kitchen, Marcus behind him, and as Marcus stepped out of the living room, a curious thing occurred. The lights in that room turned on.
"Holy!" Marcus repeated himself. "Look at that!"
"How'd you turn on the lights?" Phil asked, "I didn't see any switches".
"I didn't,” Marcus said. "They just went on by themselves."
"Right,” Phil snapped, thinking that Marcus was trying to fool him. He pushed by Marcus and stepped back into the living room, and the instant he did so, the lights went off again. Phil backed into the kitchen again, and the living room lights went on again.
"Weird,” he whistled, and this time he stood where he was and inspected the walls around the living room, but saw no switches, nor even an electrical outlet. The lights were recessed in the ceiling, four of them evenly spaced.
"Must be some kind of sensor,” he decided. "Nothing to worry about. Motion-detection, I guess. Negative polarity maybe, which is why it's doing the opposite of what it's supposed to. You'd think they'd go on when you enter the room, not when you leave. Hmm."
Phil considered the situation for a moment, then motioned for Marcus to follow him into the little pantry on the side. As they did, the kitchen lights came on the moment they left that room, and as they re-entered it, a small light in the pantry turned on as the kitchen lights went off.
"They got the whole place rigged like that,” Phil declared. "Interesting."
He resumed his search of the rest of the house but aside from the lights he found nothing out of the ordinary. The boys returned to the living room and noticed its view of the moose house across the street. The windows were partially soaped so they had a cloudy view of the Greater Kudu Bull. They also noticed now that the lights were on again in the room next to the moose, but they still could not see anything or anyone in there.
"Help me open this window,” Phil said, and together they tugged at the frame, which seemed to have been painted shut.
"Let me chip it off,” Marcus volunteered as the window didn't give. He pulled out a small pocket knife and ran the blade through the paint joining the top and bottom pane.
"That ought to do it,” Phil nodded, and as they tried again they could feel a little movement.
"More over here,” Phil instructed, and Marcus broke through some more paint on the sides.
"Go,” Phil said and they pushed one more time, and the window went up. As it did, a curtain came down in the window in front of the bull.
"Wow,” Marcus said. "What was that?" r />
"Close it,” Phil ordered, and they pulled the window down. The curtain across the street went back up, and there was the bull again, clearly outlined in the lights.
"Open,” Phil said, and the curtain went down. Several more times they did the same thing. Each time as they opened the window in the ghost house, a curtain came down in the moose house. Each time they closed it back down, the curtain went up.
"I've got a theory,” Phil said. "Come on, back to the kitchen,” and when they returned to that room, the living room light in the ghost house went on, and the living room light in the moose house went off.
"They're somehow connected,” Marcus volunteered, but Phil didn't answer. He was formulating a theory. It had something to do with the lights, of this he was sure. Windows and curtains, though, that didn't fit. The noise they first heard, when this house’s front door was opened, maybe that house’s front door had closed? There were no curtains in this house. There were disparate facts, unrelated. Lights and lights, that was something. Doors and doors, he could see that. Windows and curtains, though, this is where he got stuck.
"Maybe there's an underground passage,” he suddenly said, but a brief inspection found no doorway leading below. The house was all on one floor anyway, two bedrooms, a bathroom, the kitchen and pantry, the living room, and that’s all. There was no basement. A trap door perhaps? Phil inspected the floors all through the house, lights going on and off by themselves on his trail. Marcus remained in the living room, staring out at the moose house, hoping to see something real, like a person. There was nothing but the moose and the dogs and the single tall lamp in that room. The underground passage idea made no sense to Marcus. He was thinking it was more like magnetic, like some kind of field, but what did he know? He was only eleven years old and, unlike his friend, didn't really believe that science was any of his business.
And then he saw them.
"Phil," he shouted. "Phil, come here! Quick!
Chapter Five
They were in the living room across the street, not just shadows now, but physical forms, actual beings. Marcus and Phil stood and stared as the other two appeared at the other window, seemingly staring right back at them.
"They're not whole,” Marcus whispered.
"Something's wrong,” Phil agreed as they couldn't take their eyes off of what was occurring. The 'things', whatever they were, were growing from the top down. At first only their heads existed, then necks spread down, then shoulders, then bodies. Marcus and Phil couldn't see below the window sash but could sense the hips and the legs and the feet being formed as they watched. But the body parts that were there were