Free The Damned by Andrew Pyper Page A

attempt to smooth the bedspread.
    The sort of clumsiness I’m known for myself. Like father, like son.
    The body shape on the side of the bed my dad slept on. His size. The width of his head. And with this came a brief scent of him left in the air: bleached undershirt and Brut soap-on-a-rope.
    He’d been here.
    Which meant maybe he still was.
    The bathroom next. A part of me dreading the sight of my dad on the john, or in the midst of some private act, the unwanted spectacle of him without clothes on. But there was nobody there.
    The shower curtain had been pulled closed. And there was the wink-wink-wink of watery drips meeting the enamel tub.
    â€œThe shower game?” I heard myself whisper aloud as I slid closer to the curtain. “Really?”
    Really.
    After we watched a Hitchcock marathon on PBS when we were eleven or twelve, Ash made me play the game for weeks afterward. The rules were straightforward: Every time I came into the bathroom and she had left the shower curtain closed, I had to pull it open. If I didn’t, I’d lose. If I didn’t, there’d be “penalties.”
    Sometimes she’d be there, fully clothed, startling me with a “BOO!” Sometimes the hot water would be left on, steam filling the empty stall. Sometimes she’d be in the shower herself, rinsing shampoo from her hair, and when I pulled the curtain open she’d scream and rear back against the tiles as though I were bringing a knife down on her.
    I pulled the curtain back slowly at first. Thought I heard the squeak of wet feet and yanked it back all the way.
    No skin, no body, no scream. Just my dad’s soap-on-a-rope. Spinning one way, then the other.
    I was scared. I wanted to go home.
    You are home. And you were always scared.
    I saved Ash’s room for last. The door I least wanted to open. And for the same reason then as before: I’m not permitted.
    Whenever I looked in on the rare occasions when the door was left open I always saw the same thing. Ash sitting at her impeccably ordered desk or on the edge of her bed, the stuffed animals of childhood arranged as an attentive audience to watch as she wrote in her diary. Her most treasured object. Leather-bound and with a strap that could be locked to prevent anyone but the holder of its key from reading it. A gift. Personalized with a gold inscription on the back ( TO MY DAUGHTER, ASHLEIGH—DAD ) and therefore prized. Not “Love, Dad,” only “Dad,” an acknowledgment of who she was but also his distance from her. Ash saw this, too; she must have. Yet she guarded the few offerings given to her by her father all the more ferociously because of it, as though these coldly neutral presents, bought under obligation the day before her birthday or late on Christmas Eve, were sacred relics.
    Other than this, I had a hard time remembering any details of what she kept in there. Were there posters of bands or movie stars? Were there bookshelves? What did Ash read or watch? What did she like ? Nothing occurred to me in answer to any of this. It may have been because there was nothing there in the first place. No “personal items” because there was no person.
    My hand gripped the cut-glass doorknob before I told it to. It felt warm.
    â€œAsh?”
    This came out as less than a whisper. The parting of sleep-dried lips.
    I turned the handle but it didn’t go all the way. Locked.
    Except the doors didn’t have locks up there.
    Tried it again, driving my shoulder against the wood. There was no give. Barricaded from the inside, maybe. Or held in place by something other than bolt or bureau because I wasn’t meant to open it. Not yet. I was meant to carry on and see whatever else she wanted me to see.
    Down the stairs, the carpet shushing each barefoot step. The chandelier over the hall (Was it always that lopsided? That tarnished? That ugly?) swaying again. Then I felt it: a lick of outdoor air, cooland smelling