FOUR
***
Jason pulled up in front of the Rand house and took a moment to get himself under control. He knew he would have to talk to Lenore at some point in all this - she was Sean's teacher, after all - but the interaction had affected him more than he liked to think of. Indeed, it had shaken him to the core. In his loneliest nights in his house outside of town, he remembered their night together, that lovely night when they had been mutually tricked into something that was as close to a date as Jason had had for over a decade.
He immediately felt guilty, as he always did, for remembering the night. As though to remember it with anything approaching pleasure would be to dishonor the memory of his wife and child.
Still, he couldn't help remember it. Lenore had been so sweet, so clearly beautiful beneath the layers of shapeless clothing that she for some reason preferred. So smart, so warm.
So alive.
He had hardly been able to speak to her the whole night, so stricken had he been by her beauty, both the visible kind and the kind that she simply carried about within her soul.
Jason shook himself, trying to physically disengage himself from the memory. There was no way such a woman would ever be interested in someone like him.
And what if she were? he couldn't help but think. What would you do then?
The answer was as obvious as it was depressing: nothing. He would do nothing, would feel nothing, because to feel would be to live, and he had stopped living the same day his family had.
So he put his truck into park and got out.
He had been at the Rand house before, just as he had been at most of the houses in Rising for some reason or another. But he didn't remember it seeming so...so....
Ominous. That was the word. Ominous. Forbidding. Strange.
Alive.
It looked like a dark beast that had awakened and claimed its first victim. But only its first.
Jason walked to the front door and put out a hand. Just as Ron Rand had stated would be the case, the door was unlocked and opened to his touch. The door swung open, outside light slashing into the darkness beyond like a laser, then that same light disappearing as he entered the house and closed the door behind him.
He went straight to the kitchen. It was dark, like the rest of the house. He turned on a light. His eyes were drawn as though by a remote control to the basement door. The door and doorjamb showed signs of extreme violence, splintered and concussed.
And beyond the door, all was dark, a preternatural blackness that seemed to begin like a wall at the very point where the door had been, like the event horizon of a tiny black hole that lived in the basement; like the point beyond which nothing, not even light, would be able to escape.
Jason took a few steps toward that dark maw, then stopped abruptly as he noticed something.
The Rands' microwave oven sat on a small stand near the sink. It had a clock built in, only the clock was now unreadable. The numbers were blurred, as though out of focus, and Jason was suddenly reminded of Amy-Lynn. He remembered her at the funeral, the way she had shrieked and gone momentarily crazy at the funeral of her son. More than that, he remembered the horrific way she had spoken - that gravelly voice that was hers but somehow not hers, was as though someone or something was speaking through her. Something that had spoken about clocks.
What had she said? he wondered, then remembered:
"The dark. The clocks. Time slows down. And you're all alone."
He blinked at the memory, feeling an odd sense of disquiet as he looked again at the clock built into the microwave.
"The clocks...."
The display flickered weirdly as Jason looked at it, and he thumped the appliance with his hand.
There was no change. The numbers were still blurred as though he were seeing them through an unfocused camera.
He reached around into the dark space behind the microwave cart, groping for the plug. He found it, and yanked it out.
The numbers disappeared.
Jason plugged the appliance back in.
The numbers reappeared. Still the same. Blurred. Weird. Disquieting.
Jason decided that he'd rather not look at this - or have it behind him - and though he knew he was acting irrationally he unplugged the microwave again.
He almost laughed out loud at himself. What did he think was going to happen? Was he going to be gunned down from behind by a mad attack microwave? He snorted then, as he thought of the headlines: Cop Killed on 'Popcorn' Setting.
The thought was almost enough to goad him into plugging the damn thing back in. Indeed, he was halfway to doing so when he stopped.
Screw the headlines, he thought, and left the microwave unplugged.
He stood then and without any further thought he walked to the inky, forbidding basement. He reached his hand into the sharp demarcation between light and darkness...tense, groping.
Found the light switch.
Click.
Click-click.
No go. Whatever had happened to Sean had also broken the basement light.
Jason sighed and pulled a mag-lite off his belt. He clicked it on.
And stepped into the basement.
***
A moment after Jason Meeks disappeared into the darkness, the basement door quietly slid shut on well-oiled hinges.
A moment after that, the microwave clock turned back on. The clock was still jumpy and blurred. Glowing green in the dim of the kitchen. Glowing green, in spite of the fact that the plug was very clearly no longer even touching the outlet.
***