Peekers

Kealan Patrick Burke

Smashwords Edition

No unauthorized reproduction permitted

* * *

Larry Morgan's resolution to make today the first in which he didn't look upon his retirement as a curse rather than a blessing, suffered its first blow when the neighbors to the left began revving their dirt bikes at each other and howling at God-only-knew-what.

Though a short stretch of dense wooded land separated the houses, the distance and the trees proved inadequate whenever Bob Landry and his wife decided to have an obscenity laced screaming match, or, as was the case now, his three teenage sons decided to converse in the language of machines. He supposed he shouldn't complain---despite how bloody easy they made it to do just that; after all, he'd won his fight to keep the boys from using his yard as a throughway, even though the deep, hardened grooves they'd left behind would take more work to erase than he was willing (or able, if he was honest with himself) to put in. His perfectly reasonable request that the culprits tend to the damage went ignored. Bob Landry had apparently been a moderately famous dirt-biker in his heyday, and so he encouraged wholeheartedly his children's desire to follow in his footsteps. Complaints were a nuisance he had come to expect, and while he was willing to limit the hours in which 'revved up', he drew the line at forcing them to clean up their tracks after them. "Fingers leave prints; tires leave marks," he'd told Larry and shrugged.

Larry looked away from the growling woods in disgust, and spotted Zach Hoffman loping across his yard toward him. Zach was almost the same age as Larry, but looked much older, and lived in one of the crowd of sterile homes that had risen over the past two years from what had, as long as Larry could remember, been an overgrown field.

He missed the weeds.

Zach was a pleasant sort, but quiet and wispy, as if he'd been cut from delicate material that had been left crumpled too long in a dusty attic. He was rarely seen venturing outside his house except to retrieve his mail and the free ad-sponsored local newspaper some unseen deliverer left on everyone's driveway, whether they wanted it or not. It was a surprise, then, to see him making his way over to Larry's place with what looked like solemn purpose etched on his face.

"Morning, Zach."

Zach nodded to acknowledge the greeting. His brow was furrowed. "Wondering if I could ask you a favor."

"Sure." Please don't let him ask me to dog-sit that hideous mutt of his, Larry thought. But that wasn't it, and the look on Zach's face said as much.

"Would you come over to my place for a few minutes?" Zach asked.

"What for?"

"I need you to take a look at something."

Though Larry didn't think Zach capable of anything unsavory, he reminded himself that such opinions were often echoed on the nightly news, spoken by the neighbors of seemingly ordinary people who had gone crazy and killed someone. It didn't help that Zach seemed oddly reluctant to reveal the reason for his request.

"Well, I was just about to have breakfast. Maybe I could stop by later?"

"It won't take a second, Larry, and I didn't want to bother you, but I don't trust any of those folk---" he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the houses clustered around his own, "---not to write my ticket to the loony bin if it turns out I'm seeing things."

Larry was still suspicious, but his curiosity got the better of him. "What is it you think you've seen?"

"I'll tell you when we get away from the fuss of those damn motorbikes, okay?"

Larry felt compelled to point out that he hadn't agreed to anything yet but at that moment, almost as if on cue, the roar of the bikes increased as the Landry boys began to race each other around their yard.

He sighed. "All right, Zach. Let me get my coat."

* * *

They walked the short distance to Zach's house in silence, Larry unable to keep from imagining what it was he was going to be see inside the other man's home. The few suggestions proffered by his overactive imagination---honed by years of mundane office work---were not worth entertaining, and were also, for the most part, unpleasant, so he shook them off.

Despite the similarity of the houses in the new subdivision, Zach's seemed different somehow. The roof appeared to droop like a wet cloth stiffened by the sun but still damp to the touch. The windows were perpetually veiled, and as Larry cautiously stepped inside, he saw the white walls were scalded with shadow, which made them seen tattooed by clumsy hands. The uncarpeted stairs stood to the left of the hallway, and hurried up only to abruptly run to the right and out of view. Everything was either white or off-white, and Larry, who had never been inside one of these houses before today, instantly disliked it.

Zach eased the door shut, and motioned for him to head into the kitchen, which from here was a dim oblong at the end of a needlessly long hallway. Larry didn't move. The other man's gesture had been so frantic that it set alarm bells ringing in his head.

"What's this all about?"

"I'll make us some coffee." Zach, head low to avoid making eye contact, started to move away, but Larry but a firm hand on his wrist.

"Wait." He removed the hand before Zach's troubled gaze could find it. "Tell me what's going on."

For a moment it looked as if Zach was going to make another break for the kitchen, but then he sagged and glanced up at the ceiling. When he spoke, there was a tremble in his voice. "It's my wife. She's upstairs."

Potent dread coursed through Larry at that moment, forcing an involuntary shudder out of him. He was all of a sudden certain that the man had murdered his wife, that her strangled or beaten body was awaiting him on the second floor, and that Zach, at the behest of some unfathomable madness, had fetched him to come see what he'd done. Then, on the heels of dread, came realization.

Zach had closed the door behind them, and was standing much too close. And Larry was too old to run.

But before he would let the panic that swelled up his throat consume him entirely, he needed to be sure that he imagination wasn't misleading him, as it had tried to before he'd even set foot inside Hoffman's house. So he asked, struggling to keep his tone as even as possible, "What about her? IS she hurt?"

Zach shook his head. "No."

"Then what's wrong?"

"She's upstairs."

"So?"

This time, Zach looked him straight in the eye. "So she shouldn't be."

"Why not?"

"Because she's in Cleveland visiting our daughter."

* * *

In the kitchen, Zach opened the blinds and sunlight burned long slanted shafts through the floating veils of dust. Larry sat at the table, nursing a cup of coffee that so far had failed to alleviate the murk he felt inside his head. He didn't feel quite so threatened now, more confused, and concerned that he might have been right about the state of Zach's sanity.

"I'm not getting what it is you're telling me," he told his pacing host. "I'm sorry, but if you say your wife's upstairs, then obviously she's not in Cleveland."

"She called me this morning from Linda's house. Said she'd be leaving late this evening and would be home around midnight. Told me to wait up for her."

"So...maybe she came home early."

"No." Zach stopped pacing and wrung his hands together. "I saw her upstairs not ten minutes after I hung up the phone. You know as well as I do it takes hours to get here from Cleveland."

"Look, relax. It's obvious either someone's playing a trick on you, or you're just a little confused."

"Mad, you mean."

"Have you spoken to her? The upstairs her, I mean?"

"No, I'm afraid to."

"Why?"

"Because of the way she looks."

"And what way is that?"

"I...I don't know how to describe it. It's not a threatening look, but I feel threatened. And the way she stands there, half-hidden, with a slight smile on her face...I don't know what's going on, Larry, but I'm willing to swear on all that's holy that the woman up there isn't my Agnes."

"Okay. Did you phone her again after you thought...after you saw her upstairs?"

"Yes. It was the first thing I did."

"And?"

"And she was there, just as I knew she'd be."

"So, you want me to see if I see her too, is that it?"

"Yes." Zach nodded toward the stairs they'd passed in the hall. "If you would."

"Of course." Larry was considerably relieved. It was obvious that Hoffman's wife was in one of two places---Cleveland, or upstairs---not both, and either Zach had forgotten to take some kind of medication, or he was losing his marbles. If taking a peek upstairs was all that was required to satisfy him, then Larry would do just that and be done with this foolishness once and for all.

At the foot of the oddly designed stairs, he asked Zach, who looked as if the walk from the kitchen had aged him another decade, "What if I do see her?"

"Then we have a problem."

Correction, Larry thought. Then you have a problem.

With a smile of reassurance for Zach's benefit, and feeling more than a little ridiculous, Larry placed his right hand on the smooth mahogany handrail and took a silent breath as he turned to face the stairs.

He looked up and was startled to see an old woman looking down at him.

Behind him Zach said, "Look! I told you, didn't I?"

Only the right side of Agnes Hoffman's face was visible, the rest obscured by the wall at the top of the stairs where it turned sharply away from the steps. The position of her head suggested she was lying on the floor on her stomach, her body laid out behind her on the second floor landing. A wide eye, shaggy gray hair, and the curve of a smiling mouth were all Larry could see from the lowermost step. It was a disconcerting sight, for it seemed as if she might attempt to crawl down the stairs on her hands and feet. But for now, she was still, peeking down at him like a mischievous child.

"You see her, right?"

Larry nodded, but said nothing.

"I told you, she's here, but she can't be here."

"Mrs. Hoffman?"

The woman's bisected smile broadened.

"You want me to call her in Cleveland?"

"No need," Larry said. She's right here in front of me. "Mrs. Hoffman? Is everything all right?"

She giggled. An old voice trying to sound young.

"Mrs. Hoffman? May I come up? Do you need assistance?"

"I'm going to call her," Zach said. "You'll see what I mean."

And before he could stop him, Zach hurried into the kitchen. Outside, clouds moved over the sun and the tattooed walls darkened, an effect that backlit Agnes Hoffman's head, making a silhouette of her.

"Mrs. Hoffman, is everything all right?"

He thought she might have shivered but couldn't be sure. Then, just as he promised himself he would inquire about her health one last time before abandoning the house and these obviously confused---if not downright mad---people, she spoke to him.

"Play with me."

"Excuse me?" Larry stepped away from the stairs and closer to the front door. He was finding it harder with every second that passed to justify his remaining here any longer. This was not a problem he was equipped or had any business trying to deal with. This was a job for professional men trained to talk people down from the lofty and unstable precipices in their own brains.

Agnes sighed and though her face was dark and he could no longer see it, he knew she was still watching him.

Another step toward the door and Larry called out: "Zach...I'm sorry, but I have to go. I think you need---"

His breath caught, the words dying in his throat.

Zach was not on the phone. He was hiding, peeking, only the right side of him visible in the kitchen doorway, the rest of him hidden by the wall. Just like Agnes, his face was in shadow, but Larry could feel the smile. "Play with me," he said, with no trace of the anxiety he'd displayed ever since he'd come to find Larry.

"What is wrong with you?" Larry asked. "What kind of a game are you two playing?"

"You have to find us," Agnes and Zach replied in unison. "That's what we were told. That's the rule."

And then, to Larry's horror, a frail terrified voice drifted out of the kitchen, from somewhere behind the figure in the doorway. "It's not possible. I don't understand how this is happening. He's not me...He's not me...I'm real...Please God...I'm---"

Larry spun, unlatched the door, and hurried out of the house, the gleeful giggling of mischievous children poisoning the breeze behind him.

* * *

The sun returned.

As he stormed home, Larry considered calling the police, but quickly realized he had nothing to tell them. At least, nothing they'd take seriously. Officer, my reclusive elderly neighbors subjected me to some weird kind of hide-and-seek game. Can you send someone over to chastise them?

Right.

Oddly, the droning from the woods was almost comforting now, and as he stepped on to the loamy grass in his yard, his shadow stretching out ahead of him, the jagged song of the engines helped to keep him from thinking about the Hoffmans, and the voice from the kitchen he was supposed to believe hadn't come from the man in the doorway.

Strange people, he thought, and shook his head. Then he wondered if instead of contemplating their curious behavior, he should call someone to check on them, just to be sure they hadn't lost their minds entirely. Would he be able to live with the guilt if Agnes took a spill down the stairs, or Zach, driven by the certainty that his wife was an imposter, attempted to be rid of her?

Ultimately, he decided it was someone else's problem.

At the steps to his deck, he glanced over his shoulder at the unusually quiet neighborhood he had just left behind. Where was everybody today anyway? Where were the irritating, pampered yip-yap dogs only yuppies seemed able to tolerate? Where were the businessmen and unhappy housewives smothered in expensive robes, waving their husbands goodbye with more relief than adoration?

Something else struck him as odd then, just as he'd been about to mount the deck.

The paper.

The pointless, unwanted local rag filled to bursting with trivial and mundane stories about trivial, mundane people. Today, for the first time in as long as Larry could recall, it hadn't been delivered, and now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen it on any of the driveways around the new neighborhood either. Not that he'd exactly been looking for it.

He allowed the roaring woods to drive him inside before his morning ponderings led him to start questioning who the real senile old fool was, and cast a glance at his neat, carpeted, and straight stairs while he filled the kettle and boiled some water for a cup of green tea.

As he puttered about the house, comfort and complacence began to smother the chill that he'd carried with him out of the Hoffman house, and he turned his mind toward the rest of the day. There were chores to be done. There were weeds to be pulled and fallen twigs to clear, but he'd only managed to plan as far as tea, cigar, and television before the telephone's shrill cry interrupted him. With a mutter of derision, he waved a hand at it and let it go unanswered. A quick check of the caller ID revealed a private caller, which made it ignoring it a guiltless exercise. Satisfied, Larry took his tea and an unspoiled cheroot into the living room.

Strange, strange people, he thought, with a grim smile, as he set his tea on the coffee table and thumbed the remote.

When the television came to the life, he groaned.

Something was wrong with the picture.

Either that, or the cameraman at the Channel 9 news center wasn't paying attention, because the congenial anchorman who greeted him at this time every morning was shoved to the right of the screen.

Larry swallowed, the unlit cheroot trembling between his fingers. It's a coincidence, that's all. But the anchorman wasn't talking, merely sitting at his desk, one half of his face off-camera. Still, Larry could see the curve of his smile.

What in God's name is going on here?

He rose, intending to fiddle with the picture until it returned to normal, and almost leapt from his skin when the phone rang again.

"Jesus," he whispered, hand clutched to his chest, feeling the thunderous beat of his heart as the anchorman's smile suddenly widened, the phone fell silent, and a face, more dreadfully familiar than any other he was likely to see in what little time remained, peeked out at him from behind the television.

# # #

AUTHOR'S NOTE

A few years ago, filmmaker Mark Steensland and veteran horror author/screenwriter Rick Hautala adapted "Peekers" as a short film. You can see the results of their work on this book's Smashwords page.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kealan Patrick Burke is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Turtle Boy, The Hides, Vessels, Kin, Midlisters, Master of the Moors, Ravenous Ghosts, The Number 121 to Pennsylvania & Others, Currency of Souls, Seldom Seen in August, and Jack & Jill.

Visit him on the web at: http://www.kealanpatrickburke.com or http://kealanpatrick.wordpress.com/ and check out more titles at Smashwords.

Table of Contents

Peekers

Midpoint