Silent Children by Ramsey Campbell Page B

whenever it was on the way to being empty, as he told Ian tales of his boyhood, trout fishing with his grandfather who could trail his fingers in a stream to call a fish, helping in the auto repair shop Jack's three uncles and his father owned, his mother teaching him to play basketball at midnight in a floodlit cage, the years of Thanksgiving dinners where all the aunts told him he wouldn't be a man until he could carry the twenty-pound bird by himself to the table... By now Leslie felt mellow from head to foot, even a shade unsteady when at last they abandoned the remains of dinner, so that outside the restaurant she had no hesitation in accepting the support of Jack's arm.
    Ian didn't mind, or only to the extent of walking ahead, which struck her as having more to do with encouragement than embarrassment, not that she intended anything other than a leisurely stroll. The quiet suburban houses glowed from within, the street-lamps seemed to be lighting the way to the future. She squeezed Jack's arm and relinquished it as they came to their gate.
    She saw Ian unlock the front door and step into the house. A moment later the hall fitted a carpet of light to the path. Ian had halted at the foot of the stairs and was gazing toward the kitchen—into the kitchen. She'd closed all the doors before leaving the house, yet the kitchen door was wide open.
    A shiver chased away her mellowness as she ventured into the house. A chill had come down the hall to meet her, and something else was wrong with the kitchen. The view beyond the back door was too clear—she was no longer seeing it through glass. A glistening of crimson drew her attention upward. With a cry of dismay and rage that left her throat raw, she sprinted up the stairs to read the words that were dripping from the door of her room and Ian's and Jack's.

FIFTEEN
    It was only a bit of paint sprayed on the doors and spattering the carpet in front of them, Leslie kept telling herself. Whatever people said, being broken into couldn't be as bad as being raped, though the sense of being invaded had lodged deep in her body, the sense that someone had delighted in the mess they'd left. Jack brought her a coffee Ian had made, a bubble that looked full of brown earth bursting on its surface, and then he loitered by the stairs, visibly wishing he could do more to help. The coffee only lent the dullness that was her delayed shock a harsh edge. "At least you can't say your first night wasn't memorable," she said.
    His lips twitched as if he didn't feel entitled to smile. "It already was."
    "For us too. Thanks again."
    "Gee, I wish you wouldn't say that."
    "Why ever not?"
    "Because if I hadn't insisted on buying you guys dinner your house would be fine now."
    "It's still going to be. We'll make sure it is, won't we?" Ian had emerged from the kitchen, allowing her to turn to him and let Jack choose whether he wanted to be included in her pronouncement. She sensed he was about to respond when they heard a car door slam, echoed instantly by its twin.
    She pulled the front door open just not soon enough to head off the doorbell. The unnecessary trill sounded more piercing than usual, and she hoped the pair of policemen didn't assume she'd stiffened at the sight of them, their thin faces younger than hers and looking as though they had recently been scrubbed by their mothers, their chins blue as litmus from the hours they must already have worked. "Mrs. Ames?" the foremost, whose sharp quick eyes were almost exactly the colour of his chin, said.
    "Come in."
    He gazed at her as if he was waiting for his question to be answered, then he planted one foot in the hall. "Did we ask you not to touch anything?"
    "No, but we haven't."
    "That'll do," he said, both feet in the hall now, and emitted a sniff that she thought was referring to the vandalism until he added "You'll have had a drink to help you cope, will you?"
    "Just some wine with dinner. We were dining out when whoever broke in broke