The air grew cooler as Stephen went down the stairs and it felt good against his skin. Carmen, Al, and Michael had been down there for a while and, on his way down, Stephen could hear an occasional exclamation from Michael: "Cool!" or "All right!" Obviously, he liked the basement in general and his room in particular.
Earlier, while the others were eating, Stephen had taken Mom aside and asked her to please not tell Michael about why he hadn't been sleeping downstairs.
"Okay, but why?" she'd asked. "He'll find out sooner or later anyway."
"Yeah, but I wanna tell him. Probably tonight. 'Cause I think I'd like to start sleeping down there. Tonight, I mean."
"Really?"
"Yeah, now that Michael's home. But...not alone."
"What do you mean, alone? He'll be—"
"I mean, not in my room."
"You want to share a room?" She'd frowned as she thought about that. "But you were each gonna have your own room."
"I know, Mom, but...please," he'd whispered. "I'll sleep down there. But not if I have to sleep in a room by myself."
"You're still that scared of the basement?" She'd cocked her head, as if she found it hard to believe.
He'd averted his eyes and just stood there without replying.
"Okay," she'd said. "I'll talk to Al about moving the bed. And he should probably ask Michael if he minds."
And he'd been right. In fact, Michael liked the idea. They'd moved Stephen's bed into Michael's room and, although neither bed had been slept in yet, Carmen put fresh sheets on them.
Carmen and Al seemed pleased that Stephen had finally decided to sleep downstairs, even though he wanted to share a room with his brother. In fact, they seemed so pleased and relieved about it that Stephen was a little embarrassed.
"Well, what do you think?" Al asked as Stephen came down the stairs.
He looked around the room, at the beds, the dresser, the woodpanel shelf that ran along three walls. The room looked as if it had been made to be a bedroom for two boys from the beginning.
The problem was, of course, that Stephen knew that wasn't the case at all. It had been made to serve a much different, much darker, purpose.
"Looks great," he said, smiling as he entered the room.
"You two will have to fight over the beds," Carmen said. "And I figured I'd let you decide where you wanted to put all your stuff, so you'll have to bring it in from the other room."
"Thanks," Stephen said, nodding at Al.
"Sure, kiddo."
Carmen headed for the stairs. "Well, we're gonna leave you to it."
She and Al were halfway up the stairs when she called back, "Leftovers okay for dinner?"
"Yeah, Mom," Stephen said.
When they were gone, the room fell silent and the boys just stood there for a long moment.
"So how come you haven't been sleeping down here?" Michael asked.
Stephen licked his dry lips, jerked his head back toward the French doors that led into his old room and said, "I'll tell you while we're moving the stuff. But you've gotta promise," he added, holding up a rigid forefinger, "it's just between us, right?"
Michael shrugged. "Yeah, sure."
So, as they went into the next room and began moving Stephen's things, Stephen told his brother everything: that he'd been hearing some rather frightening voices since they'd moved in, that Stephanie said she'd seen a strange woman standing in her bedroom with arms open for an embrace, and, saving the most surprising fact for last, that the house used to be a funeral home.
"Really?" Michael said with a grin. "Cool!"
"I don't see what's so cool about it."
Michael's grin faltered a bit. "Well...I kinda think it is. Y'know?"
"That they used to bring dead people in here, you mean? You think it's cool that they used to embalm corpses in here? Maybe in this room, for all we know."
The grin disappeared entirely as Michael put down a box of things and faced Stephen. "I didn't think of that," he said quietly. "You think that's the reason for the voices you thought you heard?"
"I didn't think I heard them, Michael, I did hear them. Jeez." He turned and went back for another box of stuff, muttering, "Stephanie said you'd believe us, but I guess she was wrong."
"Oh, no, I didn't mean it that way," Michael insisted, hurrying after him. "I believe you. I just wondered if...well, you know, it's kind of...weird, is all, you know?"
They carried the last two boxes into the room, then sat on the floor and began to sort through the contents.
"You think this place is haunted? Is that what you mean?" Michael asked.
"All I meant was that I've been hearing this voice. And usually it's coming from down here. Calling up the stairs for me."
"What kind of voice is it? What does it say?"
"It's always a man's voice. Sometimes it sounds like Dad, but only when he's working in New York, Usually, it just calls my name." Stephen turned his attention from the box in front of him to the room around him. He looked around slowly, a frown growing darker and deeper on his face as he spoke in nervous spurts. "It keeps saying it wants me to come down here and ... I don't know, it says I have something to do and that we have to get to work, but it...well, it never says what."
Michael's smiles were gone; he didn't even look like he was enjoying the conversation now. He, too, had developed a frown as he listened to Stephen speak.
"Then...maybe we shouldn't live here," Michael said after a long silence, his voice hushed.
"Mom and Dad can't afford to move again. After all the medical bills I've made for them, they could probably barely afford to move in here."
"How is your...um, I mean, how're you feeling, anyway? You never said anything earlier."
Stephen shrugged. "I'm feelin' the same, I guess. And Mom told me it was cancer a long time ago, so you don't have to be afraid to say the word."
There was a silence between them then; it was such a curiously tense silence in which their eyes did not meet that Stephen wondered if he'd made a mistake in telling Michael about the voices, if his brother thought that he was crazy, that he'd been affected by his illness or by the treatments.
Then: "So what're we gonna do, Stephen? I mean about the house? About the voices, and the woman that Steph saw?"
Michael tried to appear no more than curious, but Stephen could see a spark of fear in his eyes.
"I don't know," Stephen said casually, not wanting to frighten his brother any more than he had already. "Just wait and see what happens, I guess."
Michael nodded slowly and said, "Wait. Yeah. Okay, we'll wait and see," smiling slightly, as if they'd been talking about what kind of turn the weather might or might not take, and not about strange voices calling out of the darkness.
As the evening grew darker outside, Stephen became more and more anxious. He found himself fidgeting, unable to concentrate even on the silliest television programs and unable to stop looking at the clock.
How late was it?
How much longer before everyone would begin making their way to bed?
Stephen decided he wouldn't go down until Michael was ready to go to bed. As stupid as it sounded, he didn't want to go down there to sleep alone, not yet; maybe later, after he'd been sleeping down there for a while, he'd be able to do it, but not yet.
After watching a couple hours of television, during which he told everyone about things he'd done at Grandma's, Michael stood from where he'd been sitting on the floor and said, "I'm gonna go to bed. I'm kinda tired."
For an instant, Stephen's mind raced: Would it look weird if I went down with him? Should I wait a while and then go down? But then he might be asleep and I just might as well be alone. I'm not even tired yet.
"Yeah, me too," Stephen said, standing from the sofa slowly, as if he were weary and ready to sleep.
After all the goodnights were exchanged, Stephen followed Michael downstairs.
"You never said which bed you wanted," Stephen said on the way down.
"Whichever one you don't want."
"Well, I want whichever one you don't want. I mean, it's your room."
Michael laughed and said, "Okay, I'll take the one by the wall."
At the bottom of the stairs, Stephen reached out to close the French doors without even giving it a thought. He wasn't quite successful, though, and they remained open just a few inches. He decided it was silly for him to feel that they needed to be closed, though, so he left them alone.
Stephen started to undress right away, looking forward to lying down in a bed again. It had been a while. Once he was down to his shorts, he pulled back the covers, sat on the edge of the bed and then saw Michael heading back up the stairs.
"Where you going?" Stephen asked, trying not to sound panicky.
"Brush my teeth. Be right back."
Stephen's fingers dug into the mattress until his knuckles turned a yellowish white as he watched Michael go up the stairs, disappearing a bit at a time: first his head and shoulders, then his arms, torso, legs, feet....
And Stephen was alone.
"You think he's gonna do okay?" Carmen asked. She was sitting at the end of the sofa. Al was in his recliner; he was watching television and didn't respond.
Peter was asleep on the floor and Stephanie was involved in the television program along with Al. They were watching an old Sinbad the Sailor movie.
Carmen tried again. "Al, do you think Stephen's gonna be okay about the house now?"
Still no response; he just took a few swallows of his beer.
"Al!"
He turned to her suddenly, startled. "What?" he said, quietly at first, then snapped, "What!"
"I've been talking to you over here."
"I'm watching the movie, okay? What did you say?"
"I asked you if you think Stephen's gonna be okay about the house now that he's moved downstairs with Michael."
He finished off the beer, then said, "He'd better be. It'd be nice not to hear anymore of that crap about voices."
"He hasn't said much about it lately."
"Not outright, but somehow he manages to make a remark now and then, something that just suggests there's weird things going on in the house. Well, it's time he gets okay about the house, I think." He yawned, then held out the empty beer bottle. "You wanna get me another one, hon?"
Stephen looked down at his hands, still clutching the mattress's edge, and relaxed them. It seemed silly to just sit there and wait for Michael to get back. He'd only gone to brush his teeth. How long could that take? Not long enough for anything to happen. Besides, the lights were still on, so what could happen? The only darkness was on the other side of the French doors, pressing against the square panes of glass.
He opened the drawer of the nightstand and got his Walkman, then lay back on the bed, pulling the sheet over him. After putting the small disks in his ears, he turned on his side and propped himself up on one elbow to browse through the radio stations and see what was playing. He watched the red needle move along the dial from station to station, until he caught some movement with his peripheral vision, just a shadowlike hint of it, but enough to make him raise his head and look across the room at the French doors.
The Walkman slipped from his hand and toppled off the edge of the bed to the floor where it broke with a crack of plastic, jerking the earphones from his ears.
He didn't move. For a while, Stephen couldn't move. He could only stare at the French doors—at the face that stared at him through the small opening between them.
It was a young man's face, maybe in his early twenties, but pale, so pale it looked unreal, like the face of a white-painted mannequin. It was a long, gaunt face with deep, hollow cheeks and sunken, corpse-like eyes. It held no expression, just stared.
The young man's hair was black and stringy and fell past his shoulders. Pale arms hung from the short sleeves of his dark shirt and long bony fingers twitched against his blue jeans. His colorless lips began to move slightly, silently, as if he were murmuring to himself.
But worst of all, the thing that made Stephen feel as though he was losing his mind, was the fact that the young man shimmered now and then, became transparent and almost disappeared before taking shape again, like a mirage, a vapor.
Stephen stopped breathing for a long moment and felt his throat begin to close, as if it were swelling slowly, growing thicker and thicker, until he was sure he soon would be unable to breathe if he tried.
To get up the stairs, he would have to pass within inches of the sickly young man behind the French doors.
The white lips began to move a little faster, though the face remained expressionless, the eyes empty. One twitching, bony hand began to move upward, outward, to open one of the doors further. Stephen kicked at the sheet to get it off him but his feet became tangled in it and he struggled to get free, as long, skeletal fingers curled around the edge of one of the doors. Stephen broke free of the sheet, tumbled off the bed, clambered to his feet and shot for the stairs, hearing, for just a moment as he passed the young man, the dry, insectlike whispering sound coming from the thin lips. Then he ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. When he reached the landing, he nearly collided with Michael, whose eyes widened with shock and concern as he watched Stephen run by.
Stephen thumped down the hall and stumbled into the living room.
"Stephen!" Carmen cried as he tripped and fell to his knees. She hurried to his side and put an arm around his shoulders. "What's wrong, what's the matter? Stephen?"
He couldn't reply. His mouth had become dry and gummy and words sounded like nothing more than senseless noises.
When Michael came in behind him, Carmen asked, "What happened to him?"
"I don't know! I was coming out of the bathroom and he just—"
"Get him a glass of water."
By the time Michael returned with the water, everyone had gathered around Stephen, except for Peter, who was still sound asleep on the floor.
"There was a man," Stephen gasped, breathless, once he'd taken a few swallows of water. "He was on the other side of the F-French d-doors. Pale. Really white. Tall. With long black hair. Staring at me."
Al turned and hurried out of the living room. They heard him going downstairs. They were silent as they waited...for something, for anything that might tell them what was downstairs.
Stephen drank some more water.
Carmen chewed a thumbnail.
Michael cracked his knuckles.
All of them watched the doorway.
Al's footsteps started back up the stairs. When he appeared in the doorway, his eyes looked tired, heavy.
'There's nobody down there," he said.
Stephen's eyes widened. "But he was there. I saw him. A guy with long black hair, really pale and...and he was, like, transparent."
"There was nobody there." Al's voice was suddenly firm, hard. "I went through the whole basement, Stephen. Now...transparent?" Al squinted at him, curious. "You mean, like a ghost?"
Stephen nodded.
"Oh, c'mon, Stephen, you've gotta stop this. I think we've all had enough. I mean, transparent people hanging around in doorways is enough, okay?"
Although it didn't seem possible, Stephen's eyes grew even wider as he stared at Al. "B-but I-I-I saw him! He was starting to come through the doors as I—"
"Stop it, Stephen!" Al said, and it was not a request. Al's eyes hardened slightly. "There's nobody down there now and there wasn't before. Okay? You understand me?"
Slowly, Stephen nodded, jaw slack, eyes still wide beneath raised eyebrows.
"Now, why don't you go to bed," Al said quietly.
"I...I think I'd rather sleep on the sofa."
Al exhaled slowly. "This is a living room, Stephen, not a bedroom. It's time you started sleeping down there. With Michael. You've got a bed waiting for you, you've got all your stuff in the room. C'mon, okay? Go back downstairs and go to bed."
Stephen suddenly looked a bit more pale than usual. "Really, I'd...I'd rather sleep up here on the—"
"Dammit, Stephen, will you stop it," Al snapped, closing his eyes for a moment. "Just stop it. Act your age."
Stephen stared at Al for a moment, then stood slowly. He took the glass of water, turned and left the room. The others listened as his footsteps retreated down the stairs.
"I think maybe you were a little rough on him, Al," Carmen said quietly. "What would it hurt if he slept up here another night?"
"Yeah, and another night and another night. Jeez, it's like having overnight company night after night with him out here. Whatever he thought he saw in the basement, there was nobody down there."
"I don't know," Michael said quietly, almost timidly. "Stephen says he's been hearing voices in the house. Maybe he really did see—"
"He told you that?" Al interrupted.
Michael nodded.
"Dammit," Al growled, spinning around and heading out of the room.
"Oh, come on, Al, leave him alone,” Carmen said, but he ignored her. She and Michael followed him downstairs and entered the bedroom as he began to speak.
"Listen to me, Stephen,” Al said, his voice low but quivering slightly with controlled anger. "Whatever you think you see around here, whatever you think you hear, you just keep it to yourself from now on, all right?"
Stephen was lying in bed with a sheet over him, wearing his Walkman earphones. He stared at the ceiling and did not acknowledge Al's presence.
"You hear me?" Al continued. "You don't need to scare the other kids with your stories. And if you do, you're gonna wish you hadn't, you understand?"
After a while, Stephen nodded slightly.
As Al went back upstairs, Carmen went to Stephen's side and bent down to give him a kiss. "Sorry about that, hon. He's kind of tense tonight."
"He's kinda drunk, you mean," Stephen whispered.
"He's not drunk, Stephen. He just doesn't want you to panic the kids, is all. Go to sleep now, okay? Sleep well."
Michael went to his bed and sat on the edge after Carmen left.
"They don't believe you?" he asked. "I mean, they don't believe any of it?"
Stephen turned to him without expression and said flatly, "Welcome home."