The Range Rover and the two patrol cars pulled away from the darkened house.
Look, it’s still peeling. Did you look in the living room again? I think you’d—
As we drove through the barren town I leaned my head against the passenger window. The coolness of the glass felt soothing against the bruised cheek.
So, the writer said. The thing in the hall.
What about it?
It’s memory lane time, isn’t it, Bret?
I know what I saw.
What did you see? Or, more precisely, when did you first see it?
I actually saw it on Halloween night. It had been in the woods. I saw it scrambling in and out of the woods. Like a spider.
How old were you when you wrote the story?
I was twelve. Just about Robby’s age. It was written in the hand of a child.
What was the story called?
It didn’t have a title.
Actually, that’s not true.
You’re right. It was called “The Tomb.”
What was the story about, Bret?
It was about a thing. This monster. It lived in the woods. It was afraid of light.
Why did you write this story?
Because I was so scared all the time.
What were you so scared of?
My father.
What did the monster in the story look like, Bret?
It looked like what was in our house tonight. It was identical to what I had imagined at twelve. I had written the story and illustrated it. And the thing in the hallway was what I had drawn.
Had you ever seen it before?
No.
What did this monster you created do?
It broke into the homes of families. In the middle of the night.
Why did it do this?
I don’t want to answer that.
But I want an answer.
Why don’t you tell me?
It broke into the homes of families because it wanted to eat the children.
The empty streets were sliding by, and no one in the car said a word. Robby was regarding the moon and it was whispering to him while Sarah hummed softly to herself, almost as if in consolation. At the corner of Fort and Sycamore I noticed that a massive eucalyptus tree had burst up out of the sidewalk.
I asked the writer: Why is it appearing—manifesting itself—on Elsinore Lane?
I’ll answer that question with another question: Why is Patrick Bateman roaming Midland County?
What else is out there? How can a fictional thing become real?
Were you remorseful when you created the monster in the hall?
No. I was frightened. I was trying to find my way in the world.
A brief period of consciousness: checking into the hotel in the grand, deserted lobby.
The respite: the dullness of the exchange—all monotone and trance—between Marta and the night manager. My voice was too hoarse for me to talk to anyone.
A bellboy showed us to a two-bedroom suite. The kids would occupy one room with two queen-sized beds. A spacious, ornately decorated sitting room separated them from where I would be sleeping.
As Marta helped the kids to bed I remembered discussing “The Tomb” once with a psychologist my parents had sent me to when I was a teenager (I had parodied him in Less Than Zero), and he had been amused by the Freudian elements—the sexual imagery—present in the story that I couldn’t have grasped at twelve. What was the mound of hair? Why did the orifice have teeth? Why was a light saber nearing the mound of hair? Why was the little boy screaming Shoot it!?
But something knocked me out of my memories of a story I had nearly forgotten and that played itself out in the early morning of November sixth.
And this was: the kids seemed okay.
I stood in the doorway and watched as they settled into their respective beds, Marta tucking them in.
I had imagined that the fear they had experienced during those roughly ten minutes of horror would be permanently sewn into their future. But this did not seem to be the case. It appeared that life was going to move on in its usual fashion. The bounce-back time amazed me. Their recovery would be complete by the time they woke up the next morning. What had been a frightening experience was now going to become a game, an emblem of pride, a story that would impress and enthrall friends. The nightmare was now an adventure. They were shook up but they were also tough and resilient. (This was the only relief I felt about anything that night.) Sarah and Robby had been bored and tired in the ride over to the hotel, and they kept yawning in the elevator, and soon they would be sleeping and then they would wake up and they would order room service for breakfast before being driven to school by Marta (though it would be up to the kids if they wanted to go) and Robby might even take a math test in the afternoon and then they would return to the Four Seasons and they would do their homework in front of the television and we would keep waiting for Mommy to come home.
The kids fell asleep almost immediately.
Marta said she would give me a call around eight, just to check in.
It was now 3:40. From the moment the lights blinded us until now, everything had happened within the space of an hour.
I walked Marta to the foyer of the suite and feebly whispered, “Thank you” as I let her out.
Leaning against the door I had just closed, I was hit by the thought: Writing will cost you a son and a wife, and this is why Lunar Park will be your last novel.
I immediately opened the minibar and drank a bottle of red wine.
During the next four hours something happened that I don’t remember.
The writer filled in the blanks.
I plugged in my laptop and logged on to the Internet.
This is where I typed in the following words: “ghost,” “haunting,” “exorcist.”
Surprise and dread: there were thousands of Web sites related to these matters.
Apparently I specified by typing in “Midland County.”
This narrowed the list considerably.
Supposedly I checked out a few Web sites, but I don’t remember doing so.
Supposedly I “decided” on Robert Miller’s Northeastern Paranormal Society.
I sent a drunken e-mail. I left my cell number as well as the number at the Four Seasons.
According to the writer: Jayne called from Toronto at 5:45 after speaking to Marta, who told her what happened at the house. I have no recollection of this.
Also according to the writer: Jayne was sipping coffee while having her makeup done.
My wife thought I was overreacting and she appreciated it.
Your wife is a fool, the writer murmured.
You said, trying to control your slurring, “We’ll be here until you get back—I just want to make sure the kids are safe.”
You did not have an answer for Jayne when she asked you, “Safe from what?”
Hadn’t you once wanted to “see the worst”? the writer asked me. Didn’t you once write that somewhere?
I might have. But I don’t want to anymore.
It’s too late, the writer said.
26. the meeting
Robert Miller called the cell phone I held in my hand as I slept. The ringing was so muffled that it was the vibration that woke me. I automatically flipped the phone open and said “Yes” without checking to see who it was. The conversation was brief. I was barely paying attention because I was lying in a bed in a strange hotel room and it was nine o’clock in the morning and from where I was squinting through my open door I could see Marta dressing Sarah for school while Robby sat in front of a TV with his uniform already on, both of them seemingly unfazed—an image that had the gauzy quality of a clichéd dream. Someone was telling me over the phone that he had received an e-mail and had typed in my name on Google (the writer reminded me that this suggestion was his idea, and I had sent it along in order to legitimize myself) and that he believed I was, in fact, the man I claimed to be. He told me my “case” was intriguing to
him. The voice suggested we meet at the Dorseah Diner in Pearce. The voice gave me an address that I scribbled down. And then last night came back. This happened when Robert Miller asked me to bring a diagram of 307 Elsinore Lane so I could point out where the “major haunting sites” were located within the house. We agreed to meet at ten o’clock.
I had grabbed about three hours of dreamless sleep, and as I hobbled into the sitting room wearing only boxer shorts and a white T-shirt stained with droplets of red wine I tried smiling for the kids but the smile and the concerned, subsequent “Hey, how’s everything this morning?” were nonsense: Robby seemed relaxed and Sarah was blank-faced—until they both saw my bruise. Marta noticed the questions the bruise was raising—the memories of last night began trembling around the children—and immediately Marta made small talk about how she had called a cab from the lobby of the hotel last night that took her back to Elsinore Lane so she could pick up her car (and I panicked and had to restrain myself from asking if she went into the house and what color was it now?) so I could use the Range Rover today, and I thanked her. (She had also contacted Rosa to explain that her services would not be needed until Ms. Dennis got back from Toronto.) I asked the kids how they were again. Robby shrugged and tried to smile sincerely as he pulled his eyes away from my face. “Okay, I guess.” Sarah was, luckily, lost in her meds and had trouble pulling on a sweater. Marta would take the kids to school—regardless of last night, they needed the return of routine—and bring them back to the hotel late that afternoon. Marta said this firmly, as if she expected disagreement, but since Jayne had made this demand there was nothing I could do to alter it. Both Sarah and Robby wanted to visit Victor in the kennel before heading to Buckley, and Marta assured them they could. I wanted Marta to deal with the kids since I was clearly in no shape to do so. My assumption was that the longer they stayed away from me, the better off they were. After everyone left I got up the nerve to look at my face in a mirror. I gasped.
The Dorseah Diner in Pearce sat off a bleak section of the interstate where the surrounding land was dead and flat—except for the huge eucalyptus trees that had burst up from the ground—trees that I was positive hadn’t existed the day before. (I estimated the diner was about five miles from the field where the doll had been discarded and killed the horse.) The diner was small and had a gravel parking lot consisting of maybe twelve spaces that were empty at ten o’clock on the sixth of November. Only six booths lined the plate-glass windows, with twelve blue and white stools rimming the counter, where the only customer sat: an old man in a raincoat, reading the local paper. I fell into a booth that seemed the farthest away from everything and ordered a cup of coffee, ignoring the frayed menu the waitress placed in front of me. I was wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap I had picked up at the gift shop in the hotel lobby, and sweatpants and the stained T-shirt under a Kenneth Cole leather jacket. The side of my face ached from the bruise, and I had to be careful about my lip since it felt like it was on the verge of splitting. I was hungover, and my body was sore and battered, and I kept chewing Klonopin in the hope it would take effect. I glanced back at the field because it was watching me, and in the distance I noticed haystacks and beyond the haystacks a line of palm trees swayed.
A beige van swung into the deserted lot and parked next to the Range Rover. Robert Miller appeared, belly first, dressed in faded jeans and a matching jacket and a turquoise shirt: a large man in his midfifties with a mustache and long graying hair tied back in a ponytail. Tired and drawn, he glanced at his watch, which moved me instinctively to clutch my wrist (it was numb). He walked into the diner holding a notepad, and at first I had no idea who this was. The man seemed to recognize me, though, as he hitched his pants up and hauled his way over to the booth I sat shivering in. When I looked up I saw a grizzled, wounded face that had experienced a lot.
“Are you Mr. Ellis?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Robert Miller.”
I just stared at him.
He wasn’t sure that his introduction had received the desired response.
“You contacted me early this morning? We spoke on the phone?”
“Yes, of course.” I stood shakily and offered my hand.
He took it in a businesslike fashion—he had a hard, callused grip, unlike the damp, soft, smooth hand of a writer—and after letting go of it he slid into the booth across from me. He calmly motioned to the lone waitress and ordered a cup of coffee and a glass of water and then he placed the notepad on the table. There was information about me on the notepad: the date of my birth, the titles of my books, the address of the house on Elsinore Lane.
I took a moment to arrange my thoughts. I had somewhat prepared myself in the fifteen minutes it took to drive to Pearce, and I thought the writer and I had constructed a fairly coherent story that would move Miller to help me. But now that I was actually here in front of him, I was embarrassed and I started stammering as soon as I opened my mouth. I began explaining what was happening in the house in a calm and linear fashion, but soon I was grabbing at everything I had witnessed and then the entire week rushed back to me all at once and I just kept haphazardly piling on the details—the Terby, the gravestone, the black hole in the field, the flickering lights, the intruder, the furniture that rearranged itself, the footprints stamped in ash, the dead animals, the video attachment, the wind, my father, how the house on Elsinore Lane was shifting into the house on Valley Vista—and, with my face straining, offered a muddled story that only I could make sense of. But Miller seemed to be taking me seriously. He kept jotting notes when a particular detail alerted him to, and he didn’t appear to be bothered by even the most outlandish claim. His expression wasn’t readable—he could have been drugged. He was taking the jagged, nonsensical plotline in stride. Where was the amazement? Where was the surprise? But then it hit me that, considering what Miller was here for, this was a common morning for him. I understood that his stance was routine, as was the gibbering of the frightened client. It did not relieve me to recount these events to someone.
I did not mention the missing boys or Aimee Light and the Orsic Motel, but I did tell him about the phone call from Patrick Bateman. At that point Miller interrupted me, looking up from the notepad.
“Who’s that?” Miller asked.
“Patrick Bateman? He’s a, um, fictional character . . . of mine.”
“Oh yes, that’s right. Yes, I remember.”
“I mean, he doesn’t actually exist. I made him up. I think someone is just, y’know, just impersonating him.”
“You think someone is impersonating him?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I tried to keep my voice steady. “Yeah, I mean, y’know, what other explanation is there? I don’t know what other explanation there is.”
Miller offered a thoughtful nod but then asked me, “Do you think someone was impersonating that thing you saw in the hallway last night?”
I started walking off the path.
“Um . . . no . . . no . . . that was something I had created . . . also.”
I realized that lurking somewhere in Miller’s question there was a theory being built and in an oddly soothing way I also realized that I was finally sitting with someone who was a believer.
Miller kept studying me. I had not taken off my sunglasses.
“I’m not sure . . .” I started haltingly. “I’m . . . how the house and these physical manifestations of these . . . um . . . fictional creations . . . are tied together but . . . I think that maybe they are . . .” I said this with a whispered desperation that physically pained me. Saying this out loud into the empty air of the diner, I grasped at whatever dignity remained. I sat up.
The silence lengthened while Miller took me in. He had removed his mirrored sunglasses—his eyes were a plain and milky blue—in a gesture that implied I ought to do the same, but I couldn’t; my eyes had sunk too deeply into their sockets.
“It’s hard for me . . . to admit all of this and . . . it’s hard for me
to believe that any of this is happening, I guess, and it just escalated into this . . . event last night and . . . I’m here—I mean, we’re here—because . . . because I want these events to stop.”
“Otherwise known as the unexplained events.”
“Yeah,” I murmured, staring out at the flat and desolate land beyond the highway. “The unexplained events,” I murmured.
Sensing I was finished with my story, Miller shifted his girth around in the booth and said flatly, “Technically, Mr. Ellis, I’m a demonologist.”
I was nodding even though I didn’t want to. “Which is?”
“Someone who is an expert on the study and handling of demons.”
I stared at Miller for a long time before I asked, “Demons?”
This is not a good sign, the writer warned me.
Miller sighed. He had noted the disbelief in my grimace. “I also communicate with what you would call ghosts—if that works better for you, Mr. Ellis. In laymen’s terms, you could call me a ghost hunter as well as a psychic researcher.”
“So you basically study . . . anything that’s supernatural?” The words came out just as I had expected they would because the writer was telling me, You are in so over your head.
He nodded. I looked at him hard while trying to recall phrases I had drunkenly encountered on the Web sites last night.
“Can you . . . clean an infested house?” I finally removed my sunglasses.
Miller flinched and drew in a wince when he saw the side of my face and the extent of its bruising fully revealed. This jangled something in him. This was another blow that would convince.
“You don’t think I’m crazy, do you?” I asked quickly.
“I’m making that decision as we speak,” he said, recovering. “That’s what this initial meeting is all about: trying to figure out if I believe you.”
I had closed my eyes and was talking over him. “I mean, I’m not an unstable individual. I mean, maybe I am but I’m not, like, um, trouble or anything.”
“I’m not so sure about that yet.” Miller sighed, sitting back in the booth and crossing his arms. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”