Page 123 of Play Nice

“You’ve reached Roy Johnston, demonologist. Please leave a detailed message and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Blessings.”

I hang up and call again, following the sound of his ringtone downstairs.

The cold creeps up as I descend. I feel for the light switch with trembling hands.

“You’ve reached Roy Johnston…”

Every door down here is shut except for my bedroom door. Roy’s cell phone is on the floor just outside on the carpet.

Slowly approaching, I brace myself to find him in my bedroom.

“Roy…”

I step through the doorway. My room’s empty.

I turn around and pick up Roy’s phone. I open the door to the garage, which is also empty of demonologists. And of dismembered mice. There’s no relief in this.

I try the bathroom. It’s occupied only by a few dead flies in the sunken tub.

Mom’s room.

Her bed. Her dresser. I’ve already been through everything that’s in here. Some musty clothes. Expired bottles of Advil. A receipt for a Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee—no cream, no sugar. A Bible.

It’s possible that it smells like her in here. But I don’t remember what she smelled like.

I wander back upstairs, back through the house, searching for him like he’ll magically appear. Like it’s a game of hide-and-go-seek. Like it’s a big joke. Even though I know in the dark depths of my squirming guts that it isn’t. There’s no more laughter.

Only the sound of my footsteps and ragged breath and hammering heart.

—

We’re coming up on midnight. The sun has vanished.

“The house is dark because the lights won’t stay on.”

My phone is in my hands, in front of me, facing me. I whisper into it. I’m filming. For proof.

“He’s somewhere in the house,” I say, between giggles. “But I can’t find him.”

There was half a bottle of vodka in the freezer when I arrived earlier this evening. Still no Roy, but that, that I found. It’s just about gone now.

It’s the ladder that finally pulls me from my wandering spell.

“That ladder isn’t where I left it.” I reverse my camera. “That ladder.”

The ladder that leads to the one place in the house I haven’t checked.

“How did I not notice it before?”

It’s downstairs, in my room, propped up against the wall in my closet.

I set my phone down, wrestle with the ladder, pry it open. The panel above me is shut. I climb toward it.

“Roy?”

One hand on the ladder, one hand above me, palm flat as I reach for the panel. I push.

It lifts, but barely. There’s something on top of it, a weight that I disturbed, that gravity releases. Thud. The noise is dense.