The Waiting Read online

  He searched blindly until his fingers met a switch box. Knowing full well if this switch produced no light he would retreat up the stairs, he flipped it up. Three dim bulbs blinked on in a line across the basement, casting everything in a sick glow. He was about to step onto the basement floor when he looked down—

  —and saw a small child standing less than a foot away.

  His feet tried to backpedal, and a strangled moan fell from his mouth as he tripped and landed hard on the stairs behind him. The treads bit into his ass and lower back, but he barely noticed, his gaping eyes locked on the child facing away from him. As he was about to spin and flee up the stairs, already forming a plan to grab Shaun from the couch and haul him to the pontoon, Evan realized that the child hadn’t moved. He waited, his breath too large for his lungs. His eyes traveled down the back of a little girl with dark hair wearing a purple dress, except something was wrong. Several slits were cut into the back of her knees.

  Evan sighed and placed his sweating face into one palm.

  A doll.

  “Shit.”

  His voice sounded hollow, but speaking gave him the strength to stand and wince at the throbbing ache settling into his back. He moved down the last two treads, his heart returning into the realm of normality as the doll’s face came into view.

  Its eyes stared across the basement, its mouth covered in duct tape.

  The bubbling dread within his stomach that had receded only moments ago built again, the hairs rising on the back of his neck. Evan didn’t move any farther into the basement, his eyes fixed on the doll’s face. Visions of its head slowly turning toward him corkscrewed through his mind. If that happened, he wouldn’t simply cry out, he would become a scream embodied.

  Trying to shove aside the blaring fear within, he bent and grasped the doll’s miniature arm. Its plastic flesh was cold to the touch, as if it had been soaking in ice water. He shuddered, waiting for the frigid limb to writhe in his palm. Even as the rational part of his mind tried to quell the stampeding fear, his hands continued to shake. He turned the doll over once, studying it. It didn’t look very old or used. In fact, it appeared almost new. When he flipped it over again, he flinched as its bright blue eyes blinked shut, but realized it was designed to do that when lying flat. The gray tape covering the doll’s mouth was smooth, its chubby cheeks visible above its gag. Evan set the doll on the floor beside a stack of cardboard boxes, giving it another sidelong glance before stepping fully into the room.

  The basement ran the full length and width of the house, and even with its low ceiling, it felt like a cavernous space. To his right he saw what must have been Jason’s grandmother’s sewing area; a dust-covered sewing machine sat amidst a field of threaded bobbins atop a desk. Beside it, several baskets of yarn lay in bundles, their wrapping sealed and new.

  He moved forward, running his hand along a workbench that stretched along the wall. A pegboard of hanging tools glinted in the soft light, and numerous drawers lined the front of the bench. A few support beams studded the floor in random places, furthering the feeling of being in a cave.

  As he approached the opposite end of the room, he saw a wide worktable covered with a white sheet and littered with several stacks of papers held down by oblong brass paperweights. Toothy sprockets and thin chains were coiled within trails of oil. Beyond the table stood a massive shape partially concealed by another sheet, this one dark and splotched.

  Evan moved closer to the hidden shape, noting the electrical panel in one corner as well as a hulking furnace and water heater. Several cobwebs danced in the rafters above, and gradually the silhouette beneath the makeshift tarp became apparent.

  A grandfather clock.

  But it was the biggest he had ever seen. Rounding the table, he tugged once at the sheet covering its bulk. It fell to the floor, and he stepped back.

  The clock didn’t have a single pendulum encasement, but three. The two towers to either side of the center lacked actual pendulums and sat lower, like the shoulders of a crouching giant. The wood frame was dark, stained a deep obsidian, with elaborate molding that swirled and curved on the outside of the frame. Three glass doors covered the pendulum encasements, their handles and hinges cast iron, with the center door being the widest, almost big enough for a man to walk through comfortably. The clock’s shining face was the size of a large dinner plate and had four separate sets of timing hands. Instead of numbers around the outer edges, bunches of delicate, curving lines were etched into the silver plating. The slicing brink of a moon dial peeked over the top of the clock’s face; the crescent moon carved into the steel bore an uncanny malevolent smile, with two empty sockets for eyes. Above the face, the molding came together in two pointed horns that nearly met in the middle.

  That’s the scariest fucking clock I’ve ever seen.

  He frowned. How could a timepiece be scary? He chided himself but couldn’t deny the aura the clock gave off. It hadn’t been engineered to be beautiful. As far as he could see, it was quite the opposite.

  His hip bumped the worktable, and one of the paperweights rolled off the pile it held down. He reached out and stopped it before it plummeted to the floor, marveling at its weight. Only after lifting it close to his face did he realize that’s exactly what it was—a weight for the clock. Its brass casing shone beneath the light, and a small pulley grew from its top.

  Evan spun the little wheel a few times before placing the weight back on the table. A diagram on one of the pieces of paper drew his attention. He picked the paper up and spent several seconds squinting before realizing it was an inner illustration of the clock’s face, “the bonnet,” as it was apparently called.

  “On it like a bonnet,” Evan said to the empty room, as he placed the paper back on the pile. He turned toward the clock, wondering whether or not he should replace the sheet. The soulless eyes of the moon at the clock’s peak gazed at him, almost imploring him to come closer.

  “No thanks,” Evan said, and crossed the basement to the stairway, shooting only a cursory glance at the doll as he passed.

  He paused at the light switch, running through different options before sighing and flipping off the power to the lights. The basement plunged into darkness, and with all the restraint he held in his body, he managed not to pelt up the stairs into the welcoming light of the kitchen.

  After closing the door behind him, he moved to the sofa, letting out an unconscious sigh of relief at seeing Shaun still sleeping soundly on the cushions. He brushed at the boy’s hair once before retrieving a pull-up from the bathroom. Shaun barely moved as Evan put on the small diaper and then carried him to his room. A few moonbeams shone through the window, dappling the floor in an aquatic way, and Shaun shrugged in his sleep as he laid him down.

  “Mama.”

  Evan froze in the process of pulling the covers up over his son. His lower lip trembled, and he hoped that Shaun would and wouldn’t repeat the word. The boy licked the corner of his mouth and then resumed snoring in barely audible breaths. He swallowed and placed a kiss on Shaun’s forehead.

  “Night, buddy, sleep good.”

  Evan flicked the baby monitor on beside the bed and crossed the hall to his own room, not bothering to shut either door. With a groan, he tugged his shirt over his head, massaging the spot on his lower back where he’d fallen. His eyes swept the room and landed on the crack in the folding doors of the closet. Knowing that sleep wouldn’t come if he ignored it, he stepped to the closet and drew open the doors.

  Several men’s T-shirts and sweaters hung inside.

  He knelt and saw a pair of dress shoes on the floor in the corner and a short stack of jeans on the wire shelf off to one side of the space. He stood and snapped the doors shut, leaving the questions to reside within the closet, at least for the night.

  After brushing his teeth and checking on Shaun one last time, he lay down within the cool sheets of the bed, too tired to care that he’d changed only Shaun’s bedding earlier that day. Swirling thoughts
attempted and failed to amount an attack on his fatigued mind. He turned on Shaun’s receiver and closed his eyes, falling into sleep’s embrace almost at once.

  ~

  Hours later he awoke, the moon having shifted its light enough for him to see the room in which he rested. Evan sat up, his heart thumping from the terror of the fading nightmare, its shape and fear an amalgam of shifting unease hanging above him yet failing to reveal itself fully. His mouth was dry, cracked and parched beyond desert soil.

  He swung his feet to the floor and shuffled out of the room, crossed the hallway to the bathroom door, which was closed. Had he left it that way? He nearly paused to consider it, but his thirst pushed him onward, nudging away the concern. His hand gripped the handle, and he opened the door—

  —and stepped out of the clock, into the basement.

  Shaun screamed somewhere above him.

  Evan sat up straight in bed. The cry, longing to break free of his throat, dying on his tongue. His eyes widened and sweat rolled down the center of his back as he scanned the room. His room. He was in his room. A nightmare, that’s all it had been. A doozy, but only a dream within a dream.

  The monitor beside the bed remained steady while he listened to Shaun rustle beneath his covers. His heaving breath gradually slowed, but the sweat kept rolling off him in waves.

  He stood and moved to Shaun’s room, hovering in the doorway for more than a minute before returning to bed. Using his T-shirt from the day before, he toweled off as best he could before lying back down to stare at the ceiling of the unfamiliar room.

  After a long time, he closed his eyes, sleep waiting even longer before claiming him for its own. As he drifted, he told himself that the quiet ticking coming from somewhere below was only a dream.

  7

  The morning dawned bright, with long rays of sun that spread throughout the house and colored the lake gold.

  Evan and Shaun rose early and ate a meager breakfast of peanut-butter toast, the whole while Evan vowing to go grocery shopping that afternoon to replenish their supplies. After breakfast, they made their way to the edge of the lake, where Evan lowered the small pontoon into the water from its cradled lift. When he’d successfully started the motor and swept the leaves and other refuse of winter from the decking, he brought Shaun aboard. He buckled him into the seat beside the pilot’s chair, and folded his walker and placed it in the front of the boat.

  As they cruised into open water, the morning sunshine, and even Shaun’s delighted laughter, couldn’t fully engross Evan’s thoughts. His head kept turning back to the island growing smaller and smaller behind them, the house no longer visible amongst the trees. The nightmare from the night before replayed in his mind on a sickening loop, and it became more unsettling each time he watched it spool out.

  “Dere?” Shaun asked, his finger pointing toward the approaching docks of Collins Outfitters.

  “There,” Evan corrected him. “Yes, that’s where we’re going.”

  Evan lowered the pontoon’s speed as they neared the dock, and was pleased with himself at parking the craft in an empty spot on the first try without bashing into anything.

  “Your old man’s a pirate at heart,” he said, and then cackled in a mock evil voice as he tickled Shaun.

  The parking lot was empty, save their minivan, and though Evan looked for Jacob through the windows as they passed, he failed to see the old man within the store.

  “We’ll stop in on the way back,” he told Shaun as he buckled him into the backseat.

  They drove through the quiet of Mill River, their vehicle seemingly the only one on the road but for a trundling school bus, its yellow paint a shining reflection of the sun. When they arrived at the hospital, Evan unloaded Shaun’s walker, and they made their way inside the glass building. They found the pediatric therapy department without any trouble. A woman with wispy gray hair pulled back tight into a bun met them in the waiting room after Evan checked in with the desk.

  “I’m Dr. Doris Netler, pleased to meet you both,” she said, first shaking Evan’s hand and then Shaun’s.

  Dr. Netler led them down a short hallway. “I don’t have a lot of time to spare this morning, but I definitely can give you a short tour,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Thank you,” Evan said, taking in the colorful posters and paintings that adorned the walls. Even with the cheery atmosphere the hospital staff had tried to create, it still felt as if he were being pressed beneath a giant thumb. The last time he’d been happy in a hospital was the day Shaun was born.

  Dr. Netler introduced them to the head of the pediatric-therapy department as well as the speech pathologist who would be Shaun’s therapist for the summer. When Dr. Netler opened the last door on their tour, Shaun let out a yell of happiness.

  “And this is our therapy gym,” she said, stepping inside a room with a padded floor, a zip line running along one wall, and a giant ball pit filled with every color of the rainbow.

  “You remember this, buddy?” Evan asked.

  Shaun bounced with excitement in his arms.

  “Would you like to play for a few minutes?” Dr. Netler asked Shaun. He nodded and she laughed. “You can put him in the ball pit if you like. Before you leave, stop by the admission desk and set up his appointments as well as your insurance program.”

  “Thank you, doctor,” Evan said. “Just one more quick question. You wouldn’t be able to recommend any good personal-care assistants, would you?”

  “Absolutely. Becky Tram works part-time in OT and is a PCA on the side. I’ll let the desk know, and they’ll give you her information.”

  “We’re a little out of the way,” Evan said.

  “I’m sure she won’t mind. Where are you staying?”

  “The island ...” Evan searched for the nickname Jacob had said the day before. “The Fin.”

  Something flashed across Netler’s eyes. It was there and then gone like a bird’s shadow on the ground. She smiled. “I’m guessing she’d still be able to help, but you’ll have to ask her. Take care, guys.”

  Without another look, Netler left the room. He watched her go, and stood still for a moment after the door closed behind her.

  “Dere?” Shaun pointed toward the ball pit.

  “There,” Evan said, still looking at the door, then lowered Shaun into the large playpen.

  ~

  They spent the rest of the morning grocery shopping and exploring the shops along Main Street. They stopped at a quaint coffee shop with a great view of the lake. Evan got a large dark roast, and Shaun, a small hot chocolate that he drank through a straw once it was cool enough. A little boy, no older than five, wandered over to their table on the patio, a green balloon clutched in a chubby fist. He stared at Shaun, who sat in a chair pulled up next to Evan’s. Shaun smiled and reached toward the floating balloon.

  “Hi there,” Evan said, and glanced over the boy’s head at a woman who must’ve been his mother ordering a drink at the counter.

  The boy examined Shaun and tilted his head when Shaun made an excited sound.

  “What’s wrong with him?” the boy asked.

  Evan was figuring out a response when the boy’s mother grasped her son by the shoulder, guiding him away.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, shoving the boy toward their car parked along the sidewalk.

  Evan smiled halfheartedly. “It’s okay.” He didn’t think she heard him. The mother admonished the boy in hushed tones as she stowed him away inside the car.

  “It’s okay,” he repeated, and stroked the side of Shaun’s face.

  When they finished their drinks, they stopped at a liquor store near the landing, and Evan picked up a few bottles of cabernet sauvignon. They were unloading the van when Jacob came out of his store and made his way to them down the ramp, his face one big smile.

  “There ya are. Missed ya this mornin’.”

  Evan shook hands with the older man.

  “And how’s Shaun t’day?” Jacob said, st
ooping beside the minivan. Jacob held out a hand that Shaun managed to slap lightly. “Aye, you got it! Lemme help ya with yer things,” Jacob said to Evan.

  The two men loaded the groceries and wine into the pontoon while Shaun watched. The lake was a mirror, flat blue stretching out beyond sight. A pair of loons paddled by the docks, their pointed black heads dark against the contrast of the water.

  “Beautiful day,” Evan said, slamming the hatch of the van.

  “Yessir,” Jacob said, leaning against the vehicle.

  “Fishing been good?”

  Jacob tipped his head back and forth. “So-so. Been better years before, might improve in a weeks’ time.”

  Evan waited a few beats, trying to find the right way to ask the questions that had needled him since he opened the refrigerator at the house.

  “Can I ask you something, Jacob?”

  “Aye, boyo.”

  “What do you know about the last caretaker Jason had at the house?”

  Jacob sucked on his lower lip for a few moments before replying. “Name was Bob, I believe. Di’n’t come ta town too often, stayed mostly on the Fin. Quiet fella.”

  “And you didn’t see him leave this spring?”

  Jacob shook his head. “Di’n’t know nothin’ was askew till Jason called an I went out there ta check. Shamed ta say I di’n’t inspect too much, just poked around the house a bit, saw he wasn’t there, an told Jason.”

  “What do you think happened to him?”

  “Jest wandered off, I s’pose. People do that sometimes durin’ a long winter. Get a bit restless, cabin fever an whatnot. Mighta got lost ’n’ froze in the woods, never know.”

  “Wasn’t there a search for him?”

  “Sure, local sheriff went ta the Fin, had a look around. Seemed that Bob di’n’t have much, if any, family, none that came callin’ anyway.”

  Evan frowned and sought out the dark spot on the lake’s surface. “It’s pretty weird.”