I set my sun tea on the porch rail and surveyed the yard, a mix of crushed lava rock and cactus. Red pumice ran right up to the foundation of the house—except for a gray rock line beside the foundation. A quick trip down the stairs let me look closer. The gray rock had flecks of black. On a hunch, I touched my tongue to a pebble. Salt.
The whole house was surrounded by salt.
I’d seen Brynner’s line of salt outside my door and heard field operatives insist on salting the thresholds of a house before entering, but what sort of man built a house on salt rock?
I retreated to the air-conditioned sanctuary, sat down in the memorial room, and picked up another journal. The symbols, the words individually made sense. The problem was, this was a modern man, writing in a language that hadn’t changed in thousands of years. The challenge lay in understanding the meaning behind the arrangements.
If I could reach into Heinrich Carson’s mind, and understand why he used the symbols he did, I might be able to figure it out. I tossed aside a journal and selected another. Each time I found a starting point, scratching noises under the house distracted me. Like a rat gnawing on wood just below the floorboard. I’d finally found a section of the diaries I understood, detailing a massacre Heinrich interrupted, in which the victims offered themselves willingly. The hours slipped away while I struggled, and the late afternoon cast long shadows. The longer I sat, the less comfortable I felt.
Each creak of the house sent shivers down my spine. My mind began to invent sounds that couldn’t be there. The patter of leather skin on a dry wood. The scratch of sunken fingernails on wallpaper. I reached into my messenger bag and pulled out the Deliverator for comfort.
Just as I fell into a rhythm of translating, another scurry of activity startled me. In frustration, I slammed the Deliverator on the floor. The scratching stopped. Then started again, right where I’d hit the floor. I scratched once, drawing my nails across the floor.
And something answered, a long, nibbling sound. From the floorboards, a smell, like rotten lunch meat, rose. A smell I recognized from the restaurant in Seattle, sickly sweet and disgusting at the same time.
I slammed the Deliverator down again, and this time, scratched with one nail once, twice, and again.
Again something answered. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
Out in the living room, a thud made me jump. I shivered from a surge of adrenaline as much as the chill air. Half of me wanted to close my eyes. The other was more afraid of not seeing. Was the grave stench in my mind? Or was I alone with a walking corpse?
I couldn’t let fear rule my life. I took the Deliverator and rose to the balls of my feet. A creak from the kitchen floor let me know I wasn’t alone. Sliding the door open, I stepped out into the hall.
Something was in the house.
With me.
The wooden floor creaked as it moved, just around the corner, casting a shadow into the kitchen doorway. I wanted to call out “Who’s there?” But the co-orgs in the restaurant had responded to sound as much as movement. Any noise I made might as well include the words “Here I am! Come get me.”
The more I tried to force myself to calm down, the more my hands shook. This time there wouldn’t be anyone to save me. The fear threatened to flood me, paralyze me. And I made a decision: I was not going to die in the desert, without seeing my daughter again.
So I acted, stepping out into the kitchen, leveling the Deliverator, squeezing the trigger.
As the gun went off, something grabbed my hand and yanked. I flew forward, crashing into the table.
“Grace!” Brynner shouted, nearly screamed at me. “What are you doing?”
The front door slammed open and Aunt Emelia came running in. “What in hades—”
“I heard something. I thought it was—” I couldn’t continue, my eyes brimming with tears. I’d let my own imagination nearly kill a man. A combination of fear and embarrassment competed to see which would leave me sobbing.
“What is with you trying to shoot me?” Brynner leaned over, looking at the hole in the far wall.
“Oh, sweetie.” Aunt Emelia came over and helped me up, hugging me. “Ignore him. It’s just another bullet hole. Whole house is full of them. I’ll make the boy patch it