The House

Chapter 36 - Day 4: Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite

"Maybe your sleepwalking self wanted to be less formal..." David says, wincing at his own words.

"Yeah, let's go with that," I grin, really not wild about the idea of trying to figure out why I would sign my paintings as Belle when I don't know that I'm painting. I am not schizophrenic. There is only one me... and she is becoming a handful.

Since I stepped inside this house, I've become even nuttier than usual. My nuttiness levels were always adequate; it did not need ramping up.

I'm still searching for possible explanations for the strange signature scenario when the air around us explodes with sound. To my credit, I just shrink into the blanket and, pulling it over my head, press my hands over my ears. I don't run away screaming, and I don't crawl into the corner and cry. I do, however, almost fall off my chair when the dead cuckoo clock, gleefully joining in the noisy fun, spits out its chewed-up wooden bird with such force that it whizzes past my head, striking one of the overhead pots with a loud clang.

"Really?!" More angry than frightened now, I turn and snarl at it. "You couldn't do that earlier when you ever so cheekily shouted 'cuckoo' right after your brothers and sisters went quiet?! You had to wait until this very moment and almost hit me in the head?!"

I cannot really hear him well, but I think David is laughing; at least, that's what it looks like. He is getting to his feet, and his feet are taking him away from me, and I really don't like that! I'm about to pounce on him, but he stops and crouches down at his bag, which he'd brought from the bathroom with him and left on the floor near the entrance to the hallway.

He opens and digs around in it before rising and turning to me. "Here," he says, holding a tough-looking flashlight out to me. "In case the lights go off again... or you need a weapon."

Wow! That was really reassuring!

I automatically take the flashlight, the words 'why' and 'where are you going' still forming on my lips when he leaves the kitchen, sprinting down the short hallway to the foyer.

"Why? Where are you going?" I ask the empty kitchen, hoping that nobody replies in a low gravelly voice, hoarse with disuse. We never did finish our intruder hunt, and the last time I was alone in this kitchen, someone said my name. I did not just imagine it.

I can hear my own breathing above the noise of the storm and the clocks. Well, I think it's my breathing. I cannot be in this house by myself; I just cannot. I rise to my feet, clutching the ends of the blanket and the flashlight protectively to my chest, but I only make it as far as the entrance to the hallway before I freeze.

I also cannot be with someone else in this house. I nearly killed David earlier. When he left the kitchen just now, he ran with a bit of a limp. I really hurt him!

I glare at the door of the tiny closet, acting like a barrier between me and the foyer. I'm waiting for it to open and swallow me into oblivion, the way it did with the room that used to be there. Hearing a sound behind me, I spin around to see the mangled wooden bird lying on the floor, wobbling as if it had just landed there. I think it rolled off the table where it fell after connecting with the pots.

"Took your sweet time!" I shout at it (I might be developing some anger issues), not wanting to speculate about why it took a few minutes to make it to the floor, and then a loud crash causes me to jump and trip over the section of the blanket dragging on the floor. I fall down hard, pain shooting through my buttocks and an elbow, I slammed into the floor. I try to scramble to my feet, but the blanket keeps on getting in my way, and finally, I just scurry away from where the noise came from, stopping only when my back presses up against the storage seat that had been my bed earlier.