The Fading (28 page)

‘What’s that?’

Lucy studied the boxes. ‘Your job. At Caesars. I guess it didn’t work out, but then it wasn’t exactly fulfilling, right?’

‘How did you know I lost my job?’

Lucy faced him. She blinked a few times. ‘Julie told me, of course. How else would I know?’

Heartburn reached up into Noel’s throat. He swallowed what felt like an entire lime marinated in tequila. ‘Hate to tell you
this, Lucy, but that’s not really possible.’

Lucy tilted her head.

‘I got fired today. Haven’t seen Julie since, so I haven’t had time to break the news.’

‘Wow, that’s weird, huh?’ Lucy said. ‘How do you think she found out? I assumed you’d told her.’

‘I didn’t. But I think I can manage that on my own, now.’

Lucy glanced at the stairway, which is exactly what he had been thinking of, though his eyes hadn’t gone there yet.

He turned from the kitchen and headed into the living room. ‘Upstairs you said. Which room is she in?’

Lucy came around the other side, blocking his path. She put her hands up in a surrender gesture. ‘Hold on, Noel.’

He stopped and glared at her.

‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to go up there right now.’

‘Why not?’

‘Don’t be mad at me. I’m only abiding by her wishes. She said she didn’t want to see you yet.’

Noel shifted from foot to foot. ‘Then why did she come wake me up?’

‘She woke you up?’

‘Yes, Lucy, she did.’

‘When?’

‘Tonight, a few minutes ago. Right before she came back here?’

Lucy looked puzzled for a moment, then nodded. ‘Right, but that’s when she said she changed her mind. She didn’t want you
to follow her.’

‘She waved at me.’ His voice was rising and if this continued for more than another minute he would soon be shouting. ‘She
wanted me to follow her, obviously. Come on, this is getting ridiculous.’

Lucy tried to smile, to placate him, but he saw anger behind the mask. She said, ‘I don’t know what happened out there, but
when she got in
here
, I asked if she was okay. She said no, she didn’t want to do this tonight. Please tell him I’m sleeping and don’t want to
deal with it.’

‘She said that? Those were her exact words?’

‘Exact? I don’t know about exact, but she wasn’t ambivalent, Noel. She needs to rest. Wouldn’t it better if the two of you
got a good night’s sleep and had this out in the morning?’

Noel laughed in frustration. ‘It might. But I just want to see her for a minute to make sure she’s all right. If she’s sleeping
and doesn’t want to talk, I’ll leave.’

Lucy’s eyes narrowed. He was happy to see he was pissing her off. If this woman did not get out of his way in thirty seconds,
he was going to shove her aside and dash up the stairs screaming Julie’s name.

‘Good, then we understand each other,’ he said, and set off toward the stairs.

‘Wait.’ Lucy walked in front of him again and stopped, pushing her hair back, even though it was already in a bun. ‘I understand
your concern, but I can’t let you go up there full of anger like this, in the middle of the night. I can’t have a scene between
you two that might wake them up. I just can’t, so I’d ask you to respect that.’

‘Them? Who’s them?’

Lucy reared her head back as if he had insulted her. ‘My family.’

‘What family?’

‘My husband and the kids. I might be a night owl, but they’re sleeping. They need their sleep, Noel. Julie does, too.’

This news – the idea that he was standing in some family’s house, not some single woman’s – threw him off track. For the first
time since setting foot inside, he felt like a trespasser, the asshole boyfriend sensible people rush to protect a nice young
woman from.

‘I had the impression you were single.’

‘Single?’

‘Living here alone.’ He looked at the moving boxes. ‘You said “I”, when you were talking about moving in. Looking at the place.
Earlier.’

Lucy seemed to lose her train of thought, then abruptly turned and walked back into the kitchen to check the kettle. ‘Goddamn
it, this stove never works.’

Noel wanted to head for the stairs but the idea of her husband and kids sleeping up there gave him pause. Why would Julie
want to stay with these people? How had she gotten comfortable with them so soon?

Lucy came back into the living room. She looked at the boxes with a mixture of longing and regret. ‘I don’t suppose you want
to help me? Unpack my boxes?’

‘I could, but maybe you want to wait for your husband? In the morning?’

‘My husband? He can’t unpack the boxes.’

‘No?’

‘He’s sleeping,’ Lucy said. Her eyes were flat. Her voice was flat. The bouncy energy was gone, her body had become still,
rigid.

The saliva in Noel’s mouth disappeared. He couldn’t speak. They stared at each other and Noel realized he had walked into
an orchestrated situation with no idea who was conducting the music. Get out now, the voice of reason spoke in his head. And
immediately after, Lucy’s blank expression darkened. She regarded him with an anger that could not be explained by whatever
Julie had told her about him. She looked, in this moment, furious.

Very softly she said, ‘You know.’

Noel shook his head.

‘Yes. Yes, you do. You know everything.’

‘I don’t.’ Noel took a step back, toward the dining
room and sliding glass door. He wanted to run but Julie was upstairs. These people were keeping her, he was sure.

‘You want to leave now?’ Lucy said. ‘Is that it?’

‘I don’t seem welcome.’

‘What about Julie? Don’t you want to see her?’

‘I said I did.’

Her eyes never leaving his, Lucy raised her hands slowly and untied her hair. The bun unfurled and her brown tresses spilled
around her shoulders. She shook her head gently, and the layers of her hair separated somewhat.

‘Then go find her, Noel. She’s upstairs, sleeping in the guest room. Because she is our guest, just like you.’

Noel could not move.

‘Go on. Go tell her that you love her. She’s upstairs.’

Lucy took one step toward him and Noel responded with half a dozen of his own toward the stairs, but hesitated. He looked
back. Lucy had not attempted to follow him but was watching him eagerly. Now she wanted him to go up.

‘What’s going on here?’ His voice cracked.

‘You know that too, don’t you?’ Lucy said. ‘Nora told you what happened.’

The producer and his family.

‘But you said you just recently …’ Oh, God. Oh, God.

‘We moved in a little more than four years ago, Noel. We’ve been here ever since. This is our home. It will always be our
home, until you do your job.’

That’s not possible, Noel thought. ‘Sapperstein,’ he said.

‘Is my maiden name,’ Lucy finished for him.

Their real name was something else. Something to do with body bags.

‘Why are you doing this to us?’ he said.

Lucy Bagley’s hair looked different now. It was darker, shiny. He realized it was dampening in places. As he watched her a
drop of blood slid from the ends of her let-down hair and stained her blouse.

‘Don’t you love her, Noel? Don’t you want to be with Julie? We can help you. We can help you be with her, and do what you
came here to do.’

The kettle was not steaming because the stove was not on. Lucy couldn’t get it to work. He had never seen her touch the boxes
or the kettle or move the food into the cupboards. He thought she had opened the sliding glass door, but now he wasn’t sure.
He might have opened it and let himself in. Or it might have been left open.

It was closed now. He was a full room-span away from the exit. Freedom. But what had they done to Julie?

Lucy took a step toward him and another drop of blood fell onto her blouse.

‘It was you,’ he said. ‘Earlier, in the guest house.’

‘I’ve never been in the guest house, Noel. I thought that was where you and Julie lived.’

‘What did you do to her?’

‘Are you going to help me unpack all these boxes?’

‘Not until I see Julie. Is she even here?’

Lucy smiled and took another step toward him. ‘I told you she’s upstairs.’

‘Julie!’ Noel shouted. ‘Julie, wake up!’

‘Be quiet!’ Lucy hissed. ‘You’re going to wake up my family.’ But saying this, she smiled, as if recalling a private joke.
‘Or maybe you already did.’

Then he understood. ‘That’s what you want, isn’t it? You want me to wake them up. Or see them. You want me to go upstairs
and see them?’

She smiled. Her lipstick was streaked in several places now and her hair was dripping steadily. Something was different in
her eyes, too. They had receded, the color drained. Her face was turning the yellow-white of long-term illness.

‘She’s upstairs,’ Lucy said. ‘Waiting for you to become the man we all know you can be.’

He wanted to run away, get out now and never look back. But what if this dead woman and her family had done something to Julie’s
mind, lured her in here the way they had lured him?

‘If you hurt her,’ Noel said. But what would he do?

‘
Yes
,’ Lucy said. ‘Please stay and help us unpack the boxes. I’m making some tea. It’s peppermint. It helps me unwind.’

He couldn’t stand this any longer. He had to choose. The door or the stairs. Flee into the night and risk the chance that
Julie was stuck here, with them, in god knows what condition. Or go up and look for himself.

‘Yes, some tea,’ he said. ‘Could you make me some?’

Lucy turned for the stove and Noel moved at a steady
but hurried pace toward the stairs. He made it halfway there before hearing her footsteps behind him, coming with the sound
of tennis shoes brushing carpet, the sound that had woken him earlier.

Lucy’s footsteps, not Julie’s.

Which meant Julie wasn’t here, she had never been here, this was all a game to get him into the house.

He had to get out, now.

He stopped at the base of the stairs and turned to break for the sliding glass door, but Lucy was standing in the foyer, blocking
his path, and she had changed rapidly for the worse. Her eyes were jaundiced yellow, rolled back in their sockets, and her
hair was soaked through with blood. Chips of white bone and small pieces of her brains from the gunshot flecked her blouse.
Her mouth was open and her blackened tongue lay loose, the gases inside her coming forth with the breath of an opened coffin.

Noel screamed and backed into the stairs. He tripped and fell as Lucy staggered toward him with renewed urgency, arms reaching
for him.

He yelled and kicked at her, connecting with a hip that was as solid as a fence post. Lucy staggered, lunged at him again.
Her fingers, moist and bony, scratched at his chest and his throat. He had never believed the dead could touch him but Lucy
was touching him now, tearing into his flesh with her nails. He twisted away, thrashing beneath her, and began to crawl up
the stairs.

Above him, waiting at the top, were the children.
The girl with her abdominal stab wounds was standing beside her decapitated brother, Ezra, who held her hand as he swayed.
The father joined them moments later, at the midway point on the stairs, where working as a family they showed him how they
got to be this way.

Noel did not know if he woke up or simply got his mind back after spending the past four to eighteen hours without it. He
remembered being in a snowstorm, walking through a gigantic field, running from someone or something that wanted to devour
him at the same time he was pursuing another entity, this one warm and promising life and rescue from oblivion. Every time
he seemed to get close to it, to her, the figure shrank into the horizon and his heart collapsed with the weight of distance
he had yet to travel.

This private mirage went on for what felt like days, maybe years, and then in a blink he returned to find himself crouched
between a bathtub and toilet. He was on a slate tile floor, with golden rays of sunlight warming his feet from a window above
a shower stall. The house was quiet. He did not know which house this was, nor how he got here. The bathroom door was shut
and locked. There was blood on the floor, streaks of it, drops that had flung themselves up the wall. He wondered whose blood
it was, and what instrument had been used to let it.

He sat arms wrapped around his knees for what seemed like half a day but could have been half an hour. Eventually he realized
whatever he had been running from was either gone or waiting for him on the other side of the door, and the only way to find
out was to open it.

He stood, every muscle in his body tight with dull pain. Even his jaw muscles ached. He mumbled something and could tell that
he had lost most of his voice. He went to the sink for water and seeing his reflection in the mirror thought, cat’s cradle.
The childhood game played with string. There were dozens of patterns you made with the string, the lines criss-crossing in
nets and tangles around your fingers.

The face in the mirror looked like a game of cat’s cradle gone haywire, played with red twine. The scratches ran across his
forehead, down his nose, at angles across his cheeks, to his chin. His ears were cut along the lobes, in the channels. His
neck. Down under his shirt. Thin and shallow in places, deep and caked purple in others. When he leaned over to cup water
to his mouth, more stinging lines cracked and itched up and down his back, pinched at his stomach. The shock of it all was
such that he did not recall how or why this had happened.

Then he was assaulted by flash memories, the sight of their faces, hissing and screaming above him, dragging him down the
stairs, running back up to hide, only to find another in the hallway waiting for him, the little girl with her knife wounds,
the boy with the ragged
severed neck and no head, their rotting mouths and filmy eyes. The murdered family, swarming him, showing him things …

He began to hyperventilate, turned for the door, grasped the knob, hesitated.

What if they were still here? What if it started all over again?