It had been a Saturday afternoon. Midsummer. Monsoon season. Kristen and his parents had gone into town, and he was alone. Billings was somewhere on the property, seeing to the chickens. Mark did not like being by himself in the house, even though he had lived there his entire life, and until now he had successfully avoided finding himself in this predicament, had not been alone in here since the time when he was five and had gotten lost in the maze of passageways and his father had rescued him, screaming, from a darkened hall that seemed to have no end.

He was older now, a high school graduate, but he still felt like a little kid, still felt that same sense of oppressive fear as he sat in his bedroom and realized that there was no one home but himself. He considered going outside, finding something to do in the barn or in the field or in the coops until his parents returned, but his room was upstairs and he didn’t want to have to walk all the way down the hall, down the stairs, through the living room and through the sitting room in order to go outside. It was a long way to the front door, and he thought it would be better if he just sat in here and waited with the door closed until someone else came home.

He had a stereo by his bed, and he kept his tunes cranked up while he read a car magazine, trying not to think of the silent emptiness of the house surrounding him, but the afternoon storm hit an hour or so later and, as often happened, the electricity went out. His lights flicked off, his music fading into a slowing deep-bassed growl before disappearing completely.

The window in his room overlooked the drive and the front yard, but the clouds were dark today and very little light entered the room. It wasn’t like night, but it wasn’t like daytime either, and there was something about this in-between state that accentuated the ominous aspects of the house.

He grabbed his magazine, pretending as though he wasn’t scared, as though there was nothing out of the ordinary here. He was hoping that Billings had come in through the back door and was doing something in the kitchen or the workroom, but when Mark walked out from his bedroom, the silence of the house was total, and he realized that the assistant was still outside somewhere and he was all alone in the house.

The hallway before him was dark. No windows opened onto here save one small inset square of stained glass at the far end, above the staircase. All of the doors to the other rooms were closed. There were goose bumps on his arms, and Mark ran as quickly as he could down the corridor, taking the steps two at a time as he sped downstairs.