House

Prologue He stood motionless in the entryway, staring at his own shadow splayed before him like a stain upon the floor. He studied the patina of dust, sampled the stench of mold and rat urine, listened to a beam settling one more fraction of an inch toward the center of the earth. This room bore so little evidence of the events that had led to the dawn. From this vantage point, it was just one more abandoned house. Interesting. But the rest of the house told the truth. Beneath his boots, the floorboards lay shoulder to shoulder like the buried dead, cupped with creeping moisture, edges buckling, obscured by gray dust and fallen flakes of white paint. Across the foyer, at the base of a wall, the rose-printed wallpaper fluttered. Behind one of the roses, something scratched, pushed, gnawed, and clawed until a black, whiskered nose burst through. With a wad of shredded wallpaper in its jaws, the rat wriggled through the hole, then rested on its haunches and met his eyes. Neither found the other's presence alarming. The rat skittered along the baseboard and disappeared around a corner. At the far end of the room, half a tattered curtain rustled and stirred before a broken window. A pitiful attempt at escape. Apart from the broken window, there was no sign that anyone had been here in years. But when some curious passerby--or the police, should they be so fortunate as to stumble upon this place--wandered farther in, they'd find signs to the contrary in abundance. And those signs would lead them to the mysteries below. Death lingered in the musty air, even up here. The walls were like shrouds, enfolding every space in exquisite darkness. It had been a perfect arena for a perfect game. And already Barsidious White was looking forward to the next. Chapter 1 5:17 PM "JACK, YOU'RE GONNA KILL US!" His mind jerked out of a daydream and back to the lonely Alabama highway in front of the blue Mustang. The speedometer topped eighty. He cleared his mind and relaxed his right foot. "Sorry." Stephanie went back to her singing, her voice clear if melancholy, her inflection classic country. "My heart holds all secrets; my heart tells no lies . . ." That one again. She wrote it, so he never criticized it, but those awful lyrics, especially today-- "Jack!" The speedometer was inching toward eighty again. "Sorry." He forced his foot to relax. "What's the matter with you?" "What's the matter--" Easy now, Jack. No fuel on the fire. "A little tense, okay?" She smiled at him. "You should try singing." His grip tightened on the steering wheel. "Yeah, that's your answer for everything, isn't it?" "Excuse me?" He sighed. He had to quit taking her bait. "Sorry." Always apologizing. He looked her way and forced a smile, hoping she would believe it. She smiled back in a way that said she didn't. She was beautiful, enough to capture the next man just as she'd captured him--blond, youthful, a real credit to those jeans--everything the guys in the lounges and bars could want in a country singer. No doubt those blue eyes could still sparkle, but not for him anymore. Right now they were hiding behind fashion-statement sunglasses, and she was craning to see out the back. "I think there's a cop behind us." He checked the rearview mirror. The highway, which had narrowed to two lanes, curved lazily through late-spring forest and farmland, rose and fell over dips and rises, hiding and revealing, hiding and revealing a single car. It was gaining on them, near enough now for Jack to recognize the light bar atop the roof. He checked his speed. Sixty-five. That should be legal. The police car kept coming. "Better slow down." "I'm doing the speed limit." "You sure?"Peretti, Frank E. is the author of 'House ', published 2007 under ISBN 9781595541567 and ISBN 159554156X.