Evan slowed and then stopped, breathing with his mouth wide open, listening over the pounding of his blood.
Silence. No whoompf of the clock igniting, no crackle of flames eating wood in burning bites. Serene quiet. He gulped down air, trying to slow his heart and the racing thoughts in his head. What the hell happened? All this buildup and no fireworks? The feeling of laughter came again, and he squashed it, because he knew if he started now, he might not stop.
Shaun’s snores came from the partially open door of his room. Cold sweat formed on Evan’s back, and he shivered as a bead ran down the groove of his spine. Still no sound from below.
Get Shaun out of the house, that’s your only concern right now.
He nodded and took a few steps back the way he’d come, stopping to listen every other second. Nothing. Afraid that he would see the shiny barrel of the handgun appear in the doorway at any moment, Evan walked closer and closer to the stairs. With a quick movement, he poked one eye around the doorjamb and then drew back.
The stairway was empty. As silently as he could, he moved down the first two treads, ready to run back at any sign of approach from below. Another step. Another. Evan stopped at the landing and peered around the corner, mimicking the move he’d used at the top of the stairs.
The basement was empty.
The absence of Becky’s father startled him more than if the man had been inches away, the gun pointed directly at him. He blinked, searching the floor and corners. Where was he hiding? Evan moved from the safety of the stairwell and took the last steps down. The cold cement leeched heat from the soles of his feet, sending frigid runners up through his calves. He scanned the boxes to his right, the sewing area, the table—everything was where it should be. He knelt, making sure the other man hadn’t crouched beneath the worktable. Only shadow and dust lay there. He walked forward, a new, unnamable fear falling over him like a wet sheet.
Turning in a circle, he looked at every possible hiding place. Outside of Becky’s father being a professional contortionist, the options were limited. He opened each of the cabinet doors above the workbench to quell the need to be sure. After making his way to the end of the bench, he stopped, staring at the glass encasement below the clock’s face. A man could hide in there. Definitely.
Evan walked around the table and approached the clock, his hands blocks of ice at the ends of his arms. The air in the basement seemed to have dropped several degrees, feeling more like a meat locker with each passing second. With one hand, he reached out and touched the brass knob on the center door and tried to turn it. It wouldn’t budge. He tried harder, the flesh of his fingers turning white with effort. The knob squawked and then turned, and the door opened. A waft of air smelling of dust brushed past him as he leaned in closer. The pendulum and its surrounding darkness were all he could see. No man, no gun, nothing but shadow.
Evan stepped back and shut the door, a thought striking him. He’d heard the mineral-spirits can hit the floor, but where was it? Where was the spilled thinner that should’ve assaulted his nose the moment he walked down here? He bent his knees again and looked under the table, sure he would spot the can on its side. Evan stiffened, one hand braced against the cement for balance, his neck craned down, his eyes wide— —as he stared at the mineral spirits can in the corner beside the workbench. His mouth opened, and a word tried to come out. Instead, it stayed on his tongue and resounded in his head.
No. No. No. No.
Evan stood, the unreal quality of a dream surrounding him as he walked around the length of the table and moved to where the can sat. Bending down, he touched the cap, tight with rust on its spout, the cobwebs clinging to its top, unbroken.
Dizziness washed over him, and he staggered away from the corner. The basement swayed as if though rested in the middle of a titanic teeter-totter. Evan moved with it, the unreality of everything compounding at once. His mind strained at its bindings, stretching them, forced by the incongruence of what he’d seen.
“It didn’t happen, it didn’t happen, I’m not here right now,” he said, taking the first step on the stairs.
The pleading sound of his voice scared him; it was hollow and detached, the voice of an automaton going about its commanded task. He shut off the lights with a swipe of one hand and trudged up the stairs, his left forearm sliding along the wall to keep him upright.
The air in the kitchen smelled wonderful compared to that of the basement, and he hauled in several deep lungfuls before turning off the last light and shutting the door behind him. Evan moved through the house on numbed feet, the feeling growing steadily up his legs, as if he’d stepped on bed of Novocain syringes.
Without thinking about it, he stripped his bed of blankets and pillows and laid them down in Shaun’s room, only inches from his bedside. He collapsed onto the floor, the blankets barely padding the hardwood, but the relief of being next to Shaun more than offset the discomfort.
One of Shaun’s hands dangled off the bed, and Evan reached up to place it back under the blanket but stopped. He held it in his palm, closing his eyes as he did. He fell asleep that way, as the darkness in the east bled to gray.
20
Evan sipped his coffee and watched Shaun across the table.
The simple act of feeding Shaun his morning cereal grounded him, anchoring his mind in the normal, keeping his thoughts from returning to the night before. Evan clamped a hand on to his forehead and rubbed his temples. Nothing had happened last night, nothing. There was no gun, the mineral-spirits can wasn’t moved, there was no man. He sighed, rubbing his bloodshot eyes before draining the rest of his coffee.
“Wawee?” Shaun asked.
“What, honey?” Evan said, sitting forward.
Shaun furrowed his brow and tried to point toward the bedrooms. “Wawee?”