Page 58

57

Jeepers Creepers, Where’d You Get Those Peepers

They were not only eyeholes—the light coming through them was meager because they were blocked by little slips of cardboard thumbtacked into the drywall. Lore shone the light over them, and pulled one aside—as it seemed it was meant to be—but even then, it remained blocked on the other side, too. She shone the phone light in there, and saw—

Pages. Bound pages. Like from a book.

In both of the eyeholes.

Lore poked at one of the books. It moved, sliding forward. She looked to Hamish and said, “Your fingers are big, can you push on one?”

“I’m not fat anymore.”

“Jesus, Ham, it wasn’t a fat joke—and god, you were never fat. You always looked good. Girls wanted to get with you, man. Guys wanted to get with you. You were comfortable and confident in your body, and that’s hot.”

She shone the light toward him.

His eyes gleamed. He was about to cry.

“You mean it?”

Sigh .

“Ham, I do mean it, and I want to give you this moment right now, I do, but therapy time has to be over, and we need to solve the mystery of this awful place. Can you please push past this and just poke the fucking book?”

“Yeah. Okay. I got this.”

But then, before poking the book, he hugged her.

Hard.

And admittedly, Lore was not one for uninvited touching. It generally squicked her the fuck out. She liked to be in control of those things. She liked the way things felt when she wanted to feel them, hated the way they felt every other time. Textures were hard for her. Clothing was weird. Sometimes the air felt like it was solid, enrobing her, making it hard for her to catch a breath. So a surprise hug was, for her, often very bad, and totally deserving of a knee to the crotch of whoever dared to foist such a thing upon her.

But right now, in this house, in this crawlspace, with this person—

It felt pretty all right.

She hugged him back.

The “pretty all right” feeling did not last, and she patted him on the back and said, “I need to be done with this, and you need to push the book.”

“Right.” Hamish let go ( whew ) and he reached forward and stabbed with a finger. The book popped free, and on the other side of the wall, she heard a fwump . Hamish did the same thing with the other one—it took two finger pokes, and it sounded like the one book fell atop the other. Fwathump .

Light shined in.

Gray light. Beige light.

Greige light.

Lore pressed her eyes to the holes—

“It’s the Greige Room,” she said.

The living room with the white couch, the TV, the dead fish, the greige everything. From her angle, it meant she was staring out from the bookshelf—the eyeholes cut out behind it. She could almost feel the presence of the bloodied murder weapon on the shelf just past the wall.

“Really?” Hamish asked, and she let him look. His jaw fell open. “Whoa. Holy shit, this is the first time we’re seeing a room repeat. That’s a good thing, right?”

“It is. Means this place isn’t as boundless as I thought.”

Could mean there’s an exit .

She didn’t want to get ahead of herself there, though.

After all, hope was what killed you.

Maybe Matty got out…

Maybe Matty died in here…

Maybe he’s been in here the whole time, watching us.

She backed away from the eyehole and looked around some more. There, a little farther down, the ground rose up a little into a pile of mess, and it took her a moment to realize what she was looking at: a filthy twin mattress crammed into the space, and heaped with a pile of blankets and clothes. Plus some more snack bags and soup cans. Like something from a homeless encampment.

“Lore, over here.”

Hamish gestured with his foot toward the wall at the bottom. The space he was gesturing toward was below the eyeholes. Lore knelt down and saw that someone had crudely cut through the drywall here, as if with a steak knife or some other totally inappropriate implement. She gently pressed on it. It moved.

“It’s a door. A hatch,” she said. “From the crawlspace into the Greige Room.”

Hamish was right. It was right underneath their noses the whole time. A way in and out of the crawlspace. And a way to watch them.

Suddenly, she hoped like hell it was Matty who had made those eyeholes and this door. Because otherwise, it meant others had come through here. Others who could still be here, even now. Watching them, like one of those freaky motels where the proprietor watched you through the walls.

Maybe it’s whoever built this place .

But even there, she flinched. Because this place didn’t feel built.

It felt…born.

But for what purpose? Was this some kind of deranged horror house panopticon? Were they players in this game? Or its designers? Were they victims, or architects? Or somehow, both?

Just then, her light went out.

She clicked it back on—but nope, nothing. Lore growled out a frustrated sound. “My phone’s fucked. Shit .”

“Lasted longer than I figured it would.”

“Yeah. All right. We can’t stay in here. It’s too dark.”

“Right. But—I don’t really wanna go back out there, dude.”

“It’ll be fine. And at least we have a way back in.” She pushed on the drywall cutout and found some resistance. The books, she realized. The eyeholes looked out through the shelf, which meant this door was concealed by the books, too. It’s why they couldn’t see it when they passed through the Greige Room. She winced and pushed harder, and all the books ahead of the makeshift “hatch” slid out and tumbled into a clumsy pile. The light of the Greige Room brightened the crawlspace. “Ready?” she asked Hamish.

He nodded.

Back into the house they went.