-1CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - Mysterious Woman

House sat in his apartment watching t.v., taking huge bites from his favorite, a Reuben sandwich, and Lays Baked Sour Cream and Onion potato chips his mother left him before she went off to work, legs crossed and propped up on the table. The show Trading Spaces is remodeling a bedroom for a deaf, autistic child. House thought it's so sweet that Ty and the gang are doing that for the family. Wait, those aren't words in House's vocabulary. He just wished Ty would smash his finger with the hammer while checking out Genievive's low-cut blouse.

Speaking of low-cut blouses he had to call Cuddy. He couldn't really remember why, though. What was it she asked from him? Help her move furniture? Paint her living room? Fix the leak in her roof?

He got distracted from his thoughts and from the show when the phone rang. He let it ring, and ring, and ring until it stopped on the eighth ring. A few seconds passed and it started to ring again.

He rolled his eyes, set the plate on the coffee table and walked to the desk where the phone was. He didn't need his cane, hadn't needed it since the Ketalar treatment had worked. What was more baffling to him was that his leg was completely healed. Healed not just of the pain, but the whole entire scarred area where the thigh muscle had been removed was no longer there.

It was a healthy leg. A normal leg - a leg he'd had all his life and was very fond of. But he wouldn't complain.

He picked up the phone and grunted, "What?"

"I see you are all chipper, dude."

"Yeah, yeah. 'Cuz you called. What do you want, Wilson?"

"There's a Monster Truck Rally this Saturday. Do you want to go?"

"Is it free?"

"No, the tickets are $54, including parking."

"Then I don't want to go," House grunted back.

"Oh, man! Killer Keel is gonna be there! I heard they just put in a 12-cylinder engine in it!"

"Oh, then I'll go."

"Really?" Wilson asked excitedly.

"No."

Wilson sighed heavily in the phone then asked, "You want me to pay, don't you?"

"Oh, I couldn't ask you to do that."

"Why not? You ask for everything else," Wilson jokingly shot back.

"That's true. Okay, I'll go if you buy the beer, too."

Wilson shook his head then said, "Fine."

"Oh, and I want some cotton candy," House added like a child begging for a candy bar from its father.

"Fine, fine. Baby," Wilson teased.

"Panty chaser."

"Pill popper."

"Dillweed."

"Pickle fart."

"Asparagus breath," House said, but something caught his eye. He turned his head and looked in his bedroom.

"Peanut for brains," Wilson shot back, oblivious to what had diverted House's attention to their name calling game.

House continued to look in his bedroom, at his bed, and as he stared, something moved under the sheets. He tilted his head sideways as he always had when he was observing something out of the ordinary or as if it would bring him a genius of the case of the day at work.

"House? You there?"

House stared perplexed, bewildered, somewhat interested, but not sure what to make out of what he was looking at. It looked like a body.

"House! I'm hanging up now. Paula must have just gotten there."

At the mention of the hooker's name House replied, "Yeah, she is. Gotta go." He attempted to place the receiver in the cradle without looking at it but it fell onto the desk, backside up, like a cockroach that got kicked on its back.

All of a sudden a body sat up in the bed. But it was far from being Paula. It was a woman: old, crinkly, sardonic expression on her face, eyeing him as if looking into his very soul.

"What the fu...," he muttered, but continued to gape at the figure.

He jumped when the phone rang, his head briefly shot to the phone, but the receiver was not in the cradle.

And it still rang.

He didn't want to answer it. He wouldn't answer it.

But there was a voice echoing out of it. A creepy intonation; a voice he recognized but didn't really recognize.

"Hhhhhhoooooowwwwww..."

His head turned back to the bed because he thought it was the woman talking to him. Her lips were shut, but her eyes were wide open. Staring straight at him. Upon closer inspection he noticed something was falling from her bottom eyelid. It was dark, shiny. Blood?

"Hhhhouse..."

Again he turned back to the receiver.

"Youuuu prommmmisssssed."

He said out loud, "Promised WHAT?"

'Okay, I'm talking to myself about a phone talking to me that's not even plugged in. What did Mom lace my Reuben with? Maybe the sauerkraut was bad.'

"Housssse, you saaaaid you'd haaaave my bayyybeeee."

Cuddy. It was Cuddy's voice.

"Wait, it can't be. She said she wanted Wilson...oh, this is ridiculous," he spat.

He felt something behind him.

There was a sudden, sharp pain in his leg. His right leg. Where the thigh muscle had been removed. The pain was back.

"Damnit, no pain! Not the leg!" he said loudly as his leg shook with an intense burning sensation moving up to his waist.

He felt the presence behind him again. He quickly glanced at his bed and the figure was gone.

But he knew it was still there in the room with him. He could feel it: like worms crawling on him, tickling the hair on his arms and sending death chills down his spine; like leeches sucking the very life source out of him.

He slowly turned his head to 'whatever' was standing behind him and he saw...