On Top of the Morning To You, Pete!

(Laughter.) “It’s ‘Top of the morning’, Josie.”

Alexandra paused the program, listening. There it was again, that sound. Outside, on the roof. Like – like someone walking. Walking, and stumbling, because the tin roof was steep, and slippery.

She looked out the window, into the blazing spring sun, the birches on their places; next to them, the blood red tulips, rising from the grass like innocent, arrogant little hearts. Did she think arrogant? No, she meant eager, not arrogant.

Alexandra was in a bad way. Her usual preemptive systems had failed. Her usual comfort systems had failed. Her left breast hurt still, and she was having trouble sleeping on her left side. She wasn’t getting her much needed fix from her favorite TV show, today. She didn’t feel safer, or better. If anything, the fear had grown.

She was alone, and didn’t expect anybody for days. She thought about the story her mother had told her the last time her parents had been to see her. She had gone for one of her walks, and when she got home, both her mother and her father had told her about the ruckus on the roof, how they had at first thought it was Alexandra, for whatever reason, who had climbed up the ladder, and was perhaps going to the attic to check for mice, the only entrance to the saw dust and wasp nest filled cold space being from up there.

Alexandra couldn’t bring herself to tell them, that she had never gone up there, not once, that her husband had always taken care of those things, she feared the wasp nests so, and was glazed with horror, just imagining herself on all fours in that tight, dark space, with thick working gloves on, an effective, heavy Mag-Lite flashlight in one hand, spider’s webs getting caught in her albeit short hair, having to crawl the length of the roof ridge to one end and back. Who knew what fresh horrors awaited for her up there? What with Pennywise on the front yard, and her own nervous collapses, she really didn’t need more excitement than what she already had, every day.

But today she was sorry she hadn’t gone up there to check out the noise, when she had had other people in the house. Her husband didn’t know. She hadn’t told him, because they were fighting, and things were bad enough now, and she couldn’t face right now him telling her there were no such things. And before today, she herself had never heard the pounding. Mother and father had been right. It couldn’t be a cat, or a bird. The stomping was way too heavy and strong to be anything but either a large animal, or human.

BOB had never appeared to her, the way Pennywise, and some others, had. She had feared him terribly, as a young girl, but even at her darkest hour, when she looked in the mirror, and saw something other than her own face, it had never been BOB’s face. And even those moments had been over with for a long time now. She hadn’t had to check the sauna for intruders, or her own shadow self, for years now. Everything had been fine for so long.

It was a tiny hole in the floor, covered by a tiny hatch with a handle immersed, then some old newspapers, then, an iron cover. It didn’t smell very good, in fact, it smelled rancid, sickening, like a sewer.

Last time she had used the hole there had been no such smell, only a circle of magical light, and she had had no trouble fitting through the hole, which, incredibly, had taken her to the walk-in closet on the second floor, when the closet where she had discovered the manhole was on the ground floor. She had come out from the ceiling, but someone had arranged the boxes and kitchen steps just so, that she had no trouble at all easing herself down. It had been a joyride, a reminder of the funhouse she had gone to as a kid.

Now, as she tried to convince to herself that she was imagining things, and carefully moved some of the newspapers away to get to the iron cover, she noticed how the newspapers had soaked almost all the way through, in bile-smelling brownish liquid, like blood. The papers were from last week. How that was possible, she had no idea. She hadn’t used the hatch for so long, in fact, she had forgotten all about it, she always forgot, until Lilith whispered it to her, in the mirror. And it had always brought her so much happiness, to find her way into the upstairs closet, she always felt like a little girl, when she was given permission to go through her mother’s clothes, oh, she had loved just standing in the closet, caressing the many evening gowns and luxurious sweaters and skirts and dresses, all in their appropriate places, and it always smelled so good in there, like a fruity fragrance, her mother’s lovely smell.

When she climbed down through the hole, there was a semblance of that same smell, and the room was filled with pastel light, like the early sunrise in the summer, even when the closet of course had no windows. She never remembered afterwards, how she had gotten out of there, and where the closet specifically was located, but knowing that it was somewhere in this house, had always made her feel special, and happy.

Today, her happiness was replaced by deepening horror, because not only had someone else been to the hole, it was obviously ruined now by that someone. Someone had misbehaved there, and now there was the smell, and the recent newspapers arranged to smother the rising moist and horrid reek, and if the substance was blood, whose blood was it?

Alexandra contemplated trying to open the lid anyway, but a deep sense of foreboding filled her. There was no light from around the rim. It didn’t feel like an adventure. It felt like doing a bad thing. There was suddenly moisture gathering around the rim, as if the room underneath was underwater, and if she opened the hatch, the gross sewer water would flood right up, drowning her, drowning her house.

As she was starting to replace the wet newspapers back on top of the iron lid, she noticed something else on top of it. A ring. Without having to pick it up, she immediately knew it was her husband’s wedding ring. It was covered in more of the same disgusting substance as the papers. Now Alexandra panicked. Was her husband down there? Had Lilith taken him down there? Was the blood his?

She took the ring into her palm, tears forming in her eyes, her panic increasing by the second, and quickly put it in her pack pocket, because now a faint growling could be heard from the other side of the lid, and there was no more time to lose. She began sobbing, not able to control herself, but tried to stifle her sobs the best she knew how, knowing she needed to be real quiet now, and just put the papers on top of the lid, silently, paper after paper, until they were as she had found them, with the unsoiled ones on top. Then, the hatch, then, the rug, then, the small dresser, which she practically hurled in place, as if the thing had no weight whatsoever. Then, the boxes of winter clothes on top of the dresser, then lights out, then she turned to escape, her vision blurred because she was crying freely now, sorry for never having told her husband about this place, and now he had found it on his own, but something terrible had happened, and it was all her fault, when, opening the door to the bedroom, she saw from the corner of her eye the outline of a person, just as they left the room in a hurry.

Alexandra screamed in horror, realizing the creature had been standing outside the closet door all along, all the while she had dug up her secret entryway, all the while she had noticed the ring, started crying, and it was still here! Just outside the bedroom door, in the hallway leading up to the dining room.

Still screaming, she ran after the creature, ran all over the house, ran to find the stairs, the way upstairs, because if Lilith had taken her husband, and he was being held in that other walk-in closet, she must get to it immediately, and she would find it. She ran and ran, desperate to get to the stairs, screaming what she now realized was her husband’s name. The creature had disappeared, but she could still feel its presence around her. The hairs on her arms and on her neck stood up. She ran the length of the house and back, but the stairs were gone. She had no idea where they had been, but now there were no stairs to get her to the upstairs walk-in closet. “No. No, no, no!” she yelled, tears streaming down her cheeks. She was out of breath now, but when an idea came to her, she instinctively obeyed it, and rushed to the main entrance of the house.

She practically crushed the front door open and ran out. When she had taken enough steps, she turned.

There was no second floor. There was nothing. The ancient red tin roof was the same as ever, no one had touched it, no one was up there. Because there was no there, there. There was no second floor, and never had been.

Suddenly Alexandra felt a rush of extreme cold befall her. She was incredulous, yet knew for a fact that what she saw was true. She should know how many floors her own house had, she had, after all, lived in this house for most of her adult life. There was no second-floor walk-in closet, because there was no second floor. She was hiccuping now. She wiped the tears away and felt for the ring in her pack pocket.

It was still there. A round imprint in her jeans. With her shaking hand still feeling the form of the ring, she saw the creature inside. It was looking at her, behind the gossamer curtain in the living room window. She could only make the vaguest outline of the intruder, but it was there, beyond any doubt. Observing, waiting. 

Alexandra’s eyes narrowed, and she knew she must not let the creature see she was afraid. She looked directly at where she sensed his eyes were.

When she spoke, her voice was anything but fearful. It was the sound of fury, yet calm and collected, and the sentence was delivered with clarity and conviction that was both imperative and matter-of-fact.

“If you did something to him, I will kill you.”