Michelle nodded, but in a distracted way. “Are you all right, Dale?”

“Sure. Don’t I look all right?”

“Well, I don’t know you, of course. But you seem. . . tired.”

He shrugged. “Haven’t been sleeping too well and then last night. . . zonko.”

“I have some sleeping pills,” said Michelle, obviously making an offer. “Prescription. Plenty of them.”

Dale held up his hand. “I have a prescription, too. It knocks me out eventually, but gives me shitty dreams. . .” He paused. The yellow coffin-closet. He remembered now where he’d seen it before. Their old house in Elm Haven had had such a closet in the room where he and Lawrence had slept.

“Dale?” Michelle stood and walked over next to him.

“Sorry. I just remembered the nightmare I was having before I woke up.” He found himself telling her about it, keeping his voice light.

“My God,” said Michelle, not at all amused. “Is the upstairs here really sealed off like that?”

“Come on,” said Dale. “I’ll show you.”

Before they got to the stairway, he was suddenly and absolutely certain that the plastic would be torn and ripped where he had opened it, that a dim light would be burning at the end of the hall, that the air blowing out through the ripped plastic would smell of a tomb, and that there would be a dark figure standing at the head of the stairs.

The plastic was solid and secure in its frame. Only pale sunlight showed through the yellowed membrane.

“This is really spooky,” said Michelle. She backed down the steps, one hand on the railing, as if not wanting to turn her back on the sealed doorway.

Back in the kitchen, she said, “What do you think’s up there?”

Dale shrugged. “What do you say we work up our courage after dinner on Thursday—a lot of glasses of wine, maybe—and we end the evening by going up there and cutting that wall of plastic away and exploring the second floor?”

Michelle smiled, and Dale suddenly remembered the days and years of his longing for her in fourth through eighth grade. “It’ll take more than wine to give me that much courage.”

“We can arrange that,” said Dale, smiling. He thought, What the hell am I saying? The last thing I want right now is to be flirting with some woman.

Michelle walked to the door, tugging on her jacket as she went. “I’ll talk to you before I buy the turkey. . . oh, I forgot. I can’t call.”

“I’ll call you,” said Dale. “My cell phone works when I get out of this part of the county. Here, give me your number again.” He handed her a pencil and yellow pad from the counter.

She scribbled the number, nodded, and went back out to her pickup truck. She started the engine but then rolled down the window. Dale leaned out from the stoop to hear her. It had started to rain.

“I forgot to tell you,” she said. “I almost ran over your black dog on the way in. It just stood in the driveway, looking at the house, not even turning around when I honked the horn. I had to drive around it on the grass.”

Dale shook his head. “Not my black dog. It’s just been hanging around here. A black pooch with pink on its muzzle, right? Real small—maybe ten, twelve inches tall?”

“Black with pink on its snout,” agreed Michelle. “But not that small. It must have been a couple of feet tall. Big chest.”

“Too big to be the black dog that I’ve seen,” said Dale. “Must be its big brother.”

Michelle nodded. “Well, see you on Thanksgiving.” She sounded a bit uncertain now that it had been planned.

Dale smiled. “Talk to you on the phone before then.”

She waved and drove down the lane in the rain. There was no sign of the black dog. Dale went back in to turn up the heat and make some breakfast. He decided to splurge and have some bacon and was draining the grease from the pan, setting out a paper towel to blot the bacon itself, when a loud voice came from his study.

“You’ve got mail!”

TWELVE

>Welcome back, Dale.

Dale stood in the study staring at the screen of his IBM ThinkPad. There was nothing unsettling about receiving an e-mail except for the fact that (a) the modem was not currently connected to a cell phone or to any phone line, (b) the message had not come through his AOL account, and (c) the computer was not even running in Windows. Somehow the computer had exited to DOS and the message had been typed directly after the C prompt.

Then where the hell did the “You’ve got mail” voice come from? It had been the AOL voice. There was no mistake about that.

Dale came closer to the desk and studied the computer. Had he turned it on—or off—the previous evening before going down to the basement and falling asleep while listening to the radio? He couldn’t remember.

The message burned white against the black screen. Without touching the keyboard, Dale checked the serial ports, the PCMCIA slots, and the other connections. He knew that more and more computers and PDAs were operating wirelessly these days, but as far as he knew, his older ThinkPad didn’t have that capability. And even if it did, it would require Windows and his AOL account for him to receive or send mail. He subscribed to no other ISPs and had long ago deleted the other Internet alternatives that had been bundled with his laptop.

Which means that someone typed this directly onto the screen.Dale sat, keeping his fingers away from the keyboard, looking over his shoulder. Did Michelle come in here during her visit? They had gone up the stairs together to look at the plastic sheeting, but Dale could not remember her being out of his sight at any time.

Someone could have come in the house during the night. The door was unlocked this morning.That seemed more probable, but why this silly welcome note? Why not just steal the computer and be done with it? And where the hell did the AOL “you’ve got mail” voice come from? Dale was not terribly techno-savvy, but he’d been writing with and grading on and Internet researching with computers long enough to know that the AOL sounds were stored in wavefile form on the computer itself, so if someone wanted to activate it, all they would have to do would be. . .

But why? What kind of joke is this?

Dale sat staring for several more minutes, waiting for another line of letters to appear. None did.

Sighing, he tapped Enter and typed on the next line,>Thanks. Then he went back to the kitchen to reheat the bacon and make some toast. He had just carried the plate of toast and bacon to the table and was sipping his coffee when he heard, “You’ve got mail!”

This time he walked through the other ground-floor rooms with crowbar in hand before entering the study. Even from six feet away he could read the screen—

>You’re welcome, Dale.

Dale realized that he was breathing shallowly and that his heart was pounding. He took some deep breaths before sitting and typing—

>Who are you?

He sat there another ten minutes, watching the screen and waiting, but no new words appeared. A watched pot, he thought and lifted the crowbar and went back into the kitchen, locking the outside door. His coffee and food were cold, but he ate and drank anyway, listening all the while.

After five minutes or so he peeked into the study. No new words were on the screen.

He had just carried his plate over to the sink and was rinsing it when he heard, “You’ve got mail!”

Dale ran into the study, forgetting the crowbar.

>barguest

Dale laughed out loud. What kind of self-respecting ghost would identify itself as a bar guest? This was the kind of stupid screen name that hackers and technogeeks loved to go by. He typed, >Where are you e-mailing from, Barguest?