THURSDAY, 2:29 P.M.
It was a bust. The attic turned out to be nothing but dust, mouse poop, spiderwebs, some decomposing cardboard boxes of disintegrated clothes like in the basement, and a few pieces of furniture. They opened a wooden chest, big enough for a man to fit inside, but it was just full of papers—a child’s schoolwork, sheet music, stuff like that. They cautiously approached a large wardrobe—definitely where Xander would have hidden if he were a creepy guy hiding in someone else’s house. But it contained only a dress and some other clothes on wooden hangers. The space up there was smaller than the other floors, probably having to do with the way the roof canted inward, he figured.
Xander was glad to have cleared the attic without relying on his father. He was also relieved they hadn’t uncovered some crazy maniac living up there . . . relieved and a little disappointed. That would have been something to call his best friend, Dean, about. Danielle too.
They clambered down the hatch’s built-in steps, then used the pole to shove the whole thing back into place. David reached up and slapped at Xander’s hair and shoulders. Clouds of dust billowed off him. Xander returned the favor, then said, “Let’s check our bedroom. Maybe we can clear the whole house before Dad gets home.”
“That’d be cool,” David agreed.
Heading to their room, Xander pointed his beam at a narrow door in the corridor wall.
“Check the linen closet,” he told David and stepped into the bedroom. Corners, closet, tower: nothing, nothing, nothing. At least no intruders or hidey-holes. In the closet, he did find a garment draped over a wire hanger.
“David,” he called over his shoulder, “check under the bed.”
He stepped farther into the closet to examine the clothes.
It appeared to be a man’s suit. Old-fashioned with wide lapels and pinstripes. He remembered something like it from the movie Bugsy. A zoot suit, it was called. He tapped it with the end of his flashlight, igniting a small explosion of dust from the fabric. He coughed and waved his hand in front of his face. He left the closet and shut the door. Scanning the room, his brother was nowhere in sight.
“David! Where are you, dude?” He bent and flashed the light under the bed, but David wasn’t hiding there. Back in the hallway, he opened the linen closet door. It was narrow and deep. The shelves started a few feet in, leaving a space for maybe brooms or a mop bucket in front of them. His eyes went from the floor to the top shelf. Empty. He shut the door.
“David!” he yelled again. His voice echoed, then cut short, as though whatever messed with the sounds had rippled past, snagging his call. A third time, he yelled for his brother. He flashed his light into the room they had checked first. Letting out a deep sigh, he entered and opened the closet door. Again, nothing. Back in the hallway, he yelled, “David, this isn’t funny. Remember how you felt when Dad scared us? Don’t mess around.”
His voice came back to him: Don’t mess around. Oh, now the auditory tricks were getting outright scary. From up the hall, his own voice barked out again: Don’t mess around. His stomach was tightening. He didn’t know whether to stand still, look for David, or run like a madman to the front door.
Twenty feet away, a figure stepped out of a bedroom.
“David?” Xander whispered.
“Don’t mess around,” the figure said in Xander’s voice and stepped closer.
It was Toria, with that blasted bear in her arms. She squeezed its paw, and it said, “Don’t mess around.”
“Victoria!” Xander yelled, stomping toward her. “Stop that!
Where’s David?”
“I haven’t seen him,” she said, frightened by his anger.
“Go back in your room. Stop messing with that bear. I mean it.” He followed her into her room, checked the closet, and then he realized: one of the second floor’s three bathrooms was between here and the end of the hall. He hurried to it and knocked on the closed door. “David, are you in there? Didn’t you hear me calling?” He knocked again, then tried the handle.
It was unlocked, the bathroom empty.
Now, not only his stomach felt constricted, but his heart.
“David!” he screamed with everything he had. He ran to the nearest door, the bedroom they would make their own.
Let him be here. Let him be here. Just lost in imagining what our room would be like.
But it was empty. And the closet was empty.
His mom yelled up from below: “Xander, what is it? Is everything all right? Is Dae with you?”
Xander surged into the hall, intent on getting Mom’s help.
Whether she would blame him for losing his brother didn’t matter now.
Movement in the corner of his vision. He looked. David was standing in the hall, back by the first rooms they had checked. A gash above his eyebrow trickled blood. He looked dazed.
“Xander?” Mom called. Her footsteps clopped on the stairs. Xander called over his shoulder. “Got it, Mom! Everything’s okay!”
“David’s okay?”
“Yeah! Just . . . uh . . . bathroom.”
Her footsteps descended, echoed in the foyer, and were gone. Xander rushed to David. “Where were you? What happened?” “You won’t believe me if I tell you.”
“Dae, what happened?”
He prodded the cut on his brother’s forehead.
David flinched away. He touched it himself, looked at the blood on his fingertips. “Whoa,” he said.
Xander had David’s blood on his fingers as well. It frightened Xander more than a simple bonk on the head should have. “David—” he began.
David grabbed Xander’s arms. “I mean it, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“You gotta—”
“I’ll show you!”
“Show me what?”
“Come on.” David opened the linen closet door.
“Were you hiding?” Xander said. “I checked in there.”
“Shhh. Just go.” He pushed on Xander’s back, trying to get him in the closet.
Xander resisted, sidestepped away. “What are you doing? I’m not going in there.”
David let out an exasperated breath. “I was going to scare you. I went in there and closed the door.”
“I told you I looked.”
“Something happened. I went somewhere.”
“Where?”
“Just go. Please?”
Xander looked from his brother to the closet. He shook his head. “This is some kind of trick.”
David’s eyes got big. “It is! But not like you’re thinking.
Do it!” When he realized Xander wasn’t budging, he said, “Okay. Just do what I do. Promise?”
Xander closed his eyes. “Okay, okay.”
David stepped into the closet and turned around. He pulled the door partially shut, said, “Do what I’m doing exactly.” He shut the door.
Xander waited. “Okay?” he said to the door. “David?” He opened the door. His brother was gone.