“We don’t have to go inside,” Sally said.
Adam frowned. “I have to see how they are.”
“They might be more like things.”
Adam reached for the doorknob. “You can stay here if you want.”
Sally glanced around from the dusty porch. “Why didn’t you convince me to stay on the other side of the tombstone?”
“I tried.”
“I remember.” Sally nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Inside it was dark. Big surprise. The lights didn’t work. They moved through the living room to the kitchen. A roast turkey was set out on the table. The only trouble was a bunch of maggots and worms had got to it. The insects were crawling in and out of the dark meat and the white meat. Adam tried the faucet
—he was thirsty. Steam bubbled out into the filthy sink.
“Cheery,” Sally said.
They went upstairs to the bedrooms. Adam peeked inside his first, holding his breath, waiting for a claw to reach out from the closet and rip open his face. But there was no one there. Only dusty books that he had bought years ago, in the real world. A favorite coat a friend had given him in Kansas City was held suspended in midair by a gigantic spiderweb.
“It’s over there,” Sally whispered, pointing to the corner.
The black spider was the size of a cat and covered with hair that stood up like greasy spikes. It glanced over at them as they peered through the door and clicked its bloodstained fangs. They quickly shut the door.
“I don’t suppose we could call for an exterminator in this place,” Sally muttered.
Adam peered into his sister’s room next. It was also empty, except for another giant spider. But in his parents’ bedroom, on the bed, he saw two shapes lying under the dirty sheet. With Sally grimacing at his back, he approached the bed slowly.
“Maybe we shouldn’t disturb the shapes,” she whispered, tense.
“I have to see,” Adam said softly.
“No,” Sally implored, grabbing the back of his shirt. Adam almost jumped out of his skin.
“Don’t do that!” he hissed.
“I hear something outside. Coming this way.”
Adam paused. He heard nothing. “It’s just your imagination.”
“My imagination? I don’t need an imagination in this place.” She glanced toward the two forms beneath the sheets. “Come on, you don’t want to look.”
Adam shook her off. “I have to.”
He stepped forward and reached over and slowly removed the sheet.
He gasped.
They’d been dead a long time. These man and woman skeletons. Ants the size of beetles crawled over their bony arms. Their hair hung over their dry skulls like dried-out straw soaked in rust. Their jawbones hung open. Adam quickly replaced the sheet as tears filled his eyes.
“That’s not my mother and father,” he said, sobbing.
Sally put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Of course not. Your parents are alive in
the real world. When we get back to them, you’ll see that. It will be like waking from a bad dream.”
Adam shook his head. “This is no dream.”
Sally suddenly froze. “Something is coming this way!”
Adam heard it now. It sounded like the beating of horse hooves.
“It is coming this way,” he whispered.
“We have to hide,” Sally said, getting frantic. It’s coming for us.” She pulled on his arm. “We have to get out of here!”
Adam grabbed her. “Wait! This is as good a hiding place as any. Let’s stay here.”
She pointed to the bed. “With them?”
Adam cautioned her to speak softly. “We’ll just wait until the hooves pass.”
But the sound did not pass. Instead it stopped directly outside the house. “Now we’re in trouble,” Sally moaned.
They heard footsteps, the pounding of a human in boots on the walkway.
Whoever it was reached the door and, without pausing, kicked it in. The sound of the splintering wood made Adam’s heart skip. Grabbing Sally, he pulled her out of the room and down the hallway. He barely knew the layout of the house, having just moved in—in that other dimension. But he did remember there was a window beside the hall closet, one that led out onto the roof. From there it was a quick hop into the backyard.