Are You in the House Alone? by Richard Peck Page A

too quiet. It wasn’t quite human. Neither male nor female. A high, hollow voice, someone crying out the words from the inside of a bell. Disguised, falsetto, almost like a child shrieking. But more controlled than that because I understood every word.
    “ARE YOU IN THE HOUSE ALONE?”
    There was a sobbing, whistling laugh. It was too terrible to be real. And too real to be a horror movie. If there’d been a hundred people in the house with me, all ready to defend the place, I’d still have been paralyzed.
    And then that voice again.
    “ARE YOU IN THE HOUSE ALONE?”
    I remember walking up the stairs next, like an old woman, one step at a time, resting on the landing, bending because my stomach felt cramped. My one thought was to check on the kids, make sure they were all right. They were both asleep. I sat down on the junior bed of the older one and looked down at her. She was sleeping furiously, with her thumb held lightly in her mouth by the edges of her teeth. I concentrated on her name. I hardly knew them. They were always asleep. This wasAngie. The little one in the bed with the sides was Melissa—Missy.
    “Don’t you worry, Angie. I’m here to protect you. You too, Missy.” I whispered to keep from waking them. I don’t know how long I sat on Angie’s bed, looking back and forth from her to Missy. And then I knew I wasn’t going to make it through the evening.
    I ran out of the room, down the stairs, and began rummaging in the drawer of the telephone table. The scrap of paper with the Previously Marrieds Club number was at the bottom. I lifted the receiver, and tried to dial, hoping I could page Mrs. Montgomery. My finger skipped out of the dial, and I started over. The chimes on the front door rang then. I heard a scuffling sound outside, someone wiping his feet on the welcome mat.
    “Steve!”
I dropped the phone and ran across to the front door. The chain lock jammed, then loosened, then jammed again. Then it fell free, and I threw the door open.
    But it wasn’t Steve. No, the time was all wrong. It couldn’t have been Steve.

CHAPTER
Nine
    I know now how stupid it was to throw that door open. But it already seemed to be past midnight. Steve might have come back from Norwalk. When I saw Phil Lawver instead, I was only a little surprised.
    He was standing under the light with the collar of his suede jacket turned up all around. “Oh hi, Gail,” he said in his usual drawl. “Listen, is Alison here?”
    “No, is she supposed to be?”
    “Well, that’s just it,” he said. “I don’t know. I can’t figure out where she is, and I don’t like her roaming around after dark. Anything could happen. Can I use your phone to call and see if she’s home?”
    I pointed out the phone to him and walked into the living room, thinking that at least the phone couldn’t ring for the next minute or so. I was standing on the hearth rug, checking the time on the mantel clock—it was nearly midnight—when I heard the voice again.
    The same shrill sexless voice, ringing like a bell. But it was there in the room with me.
    “ARE YOU IN THE HOUSE ALONE?”
    It ended in a kind of giggle.
    I whirled around, and Phil was standing in the archway. His hands were stuck in the back pockets of his cords, and he’d dropped his jacket on the floor. He was the picture of coolness, and grinning, which was a rare thing for him.
    “Had you fooled, didn’t I, Gail? The sound was probably even weirder over the phone. Wasn’t it weirder?”
    “Oh, no, Phil. Has it been you, all along? That’s . . . cra—”
    “I’ve been keeping tabs on you. Checking you out pretty close. The phone calls just to keep in touch. And the notes. It was a lot of trouble, actually, for a cheap little—but then I guess you know what I think about you. And the hanky-panky out at the lake with Steve. That was fairly disgusting too. You’ve taken up a lot of my time, more than you’re worth, actually. Something ought to be done about girls