It opened straight away. Either Ted Morrison had a high regard for his neighbour’s honesty (which Barney doubted) or there was nothing in the place worth stealing.
Barney took a final glance up and down the street. It was quiet as the grave. Furtively, he let himself into the house and pulled the door too behind him.
The interior was dim after the early evening brightness outside. Barney stood statue still with his back to the door and allowed his rheumy eyes to adjust. Even though he knew there was scant chance that he’d be caught, still his heart had begun to beat that little bit faster. He could feel it in the pulse at his throat. The old ticker wasn’t all that it might be.
Lori might be home from school any minute. He hadn’t seen her come back yet. But it was late. Must have stopped for a soda or something. Unless....A sudden thought froze him to the spot. Maybe she hadn’t gone into school today? What with all the kerffuffle at the swimming-hole. Wayne. All that. Maybe she was in the house?
“Hello,” he called into the silence.
But there was no reply.
Barney let out the breath he hadn’t even realised he was holding. It was now or never.
He knew the general lay-out of the place from yesterday’s sortie, so without further ado, he made for the stairs that led to the upper floor. Two minutes, he calculated. In and out of her room. Grab the charm and skeedaddle. Nobody would be any the wiser.
Slowly, slowly, he padded up the stairs, listening for signs of life from above. In case she WAS there. In case she was having a nap.
“Lori?” he called again.
What would he do if she suddenly appeared, asked him what he was doing there? Or worse, screamed, calling the cops down on his head? Breaking and entering. Worth more pokey time than the overnight he usually got for drunk and disorderly.
He hesitated three steps from the top, turning slightly, listening, ready to hightail it out of there. But the house was quiet, had an empty, abandoned feel. There was something else too, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
He shivered.
That was it, it was cold. Not fresh, air-conditioning cold, which would have been a relief after the heat outside, but damp and clammy. Heavy. Smothering. And there was a smell as well. Sweet. Sickly. It reminded him of something.
When Barney was a boy he’d been present the day they found young Diego Ramirez’s body in the swimming-hole. The kid had apparently dived in and hit his head on a rock. He’d sunk right to the bottom and got caught in the weeds. He’d been missing for a couple of months. Everybody thought he’d gone AWOL. It was common knowledge that his Dad used to knock him about. But that memorable day, the flesh on the ankle that had got tangled in the weed, softened by all that time underwater, came away from the bone and Diego had risen to the surface, all blue and bloated.
It was the same smell. Decomposition. Death.
Barney shook himself out of the memory. He hadn’t thought about it for years. No sense in spooking himself now. Best get on with it.
He pulled himself together and mounted the last three steps, shuffling along the upper hallway, homing in on Lori’s room.
The atmosphere, the cold and the smell, seemed thicker here. It was as though something was holding him back, like there was a wall of nastiness guarding the door. His skin started to crawl and he felt the hairs lifting on the back of his neck.
“Withdrawal symptoms”, Barney said to himself, his voice, loud in the silence, making him jump. He needed a drink. He’d already got the shakes. His imagination and his conscience were just adding to the chemical reaction. He promised himself that, if he got out of here in one piece, he might allow himself just one little beer?
The road to perdition.
Slowly he turned the knob and stuck his head inside. After all this, he hoped Lori hadn’t taken the blamed thing to school with her.
The room was even dimmer than the rest of the house, the curtains drawn and the blinds down. But as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom his heart gave a little jump of relief. No. Luck was on his side. There it was. Hanging on the end of the bed, just where he’d seen it before.
Barney lurched into the bedroom, grabbed the Dreamcatcher and was just turning to leave when he heard the sound of a car drawing up outside.
He moved to the window and lifted the edge of the blind with one finger. Just a sliver. Just so he could see into the road.
It was Perry Johnson’s red roadster. And he had Lori with him.
Barney froze.
Don’t panic. Kids park. They talk. And those two looked as though they had a lot to say to each other.
Out the back way then. Through the kitchen. Hide by the garbage bins. Wait til Lori comes in the house. Hope she comes in the front way. Sneak round the side and away. Damn it, the broom. He’d left the yard-broom by the front door. Maybe she wouldn’t notice it? Stop talking to yourself. Get out of here. Now.
Barney let the blind drop, sneaked out of the room, tip-toeing down the stairs, along the hall, through the kitchen and out the back door. Goose-pimples all the way now. Heart hammering fit to beat the band. Closing the door behind him, quietly, quietly.
Relief. Just wait. OK? Wait until Lori comes in. Then round the side of the house and get the blue blazes out. Take the thing to Miguel. Maybe have that beer? Wait. Relax. Almost free and clear.
Almost.
But not quite.
Barney, squatting down, back to the garbage cans, panting like a thirsty dog, laid the charm down between his feet while he wiped his sweating palms on his Salvation Army issue overalls. Then he closed his eyes. Composed himself.
The first thing he thought when he opened them again was that whatever it was must like garbage. Because the only other time he’d seen the thing it had been in the vicinity of garbage cans too. That time it had been disguised as an old woman. This time it was just itself. Whatever THAT was. It swirled up from among the cat-gut and feathers like a genii out of a bottle. An ageing drunk’s worst nightmare made flesh. Something with scales and claws and hooves, a thick tail with a scorpion sting at the end, a forked tongue in a lip-less mouth. And eyes....dozens of the damn things all over its bulbous head.
The second thing Barney thought was that there was no justice. That when the Demon drink eventually came for him, which he’d always suspected it would, it should be on one of the few occasions in his booze-sodden life, when he was stone cold sober.
After that - well - Barney didn’t have a chance to think of anything much at all.