Lincoln hated dusting, but as sundown approached, that's exactly what he found himself doing in the second floor hall. Lugosi was dusting the living room and dining room, and Lucy was making dinner - when they got back from town, the power was on and she insisted on breaking in the kitchen even though no one was hungry. She wasn't normally this enthusiastic about cooking, but she was excited because it was another dimension of settling in...just like making love in it...and taking a giant dump in the toilet. Which, come to think of it, he hadn't done yet. His stomach gurgled and he patted it. Soon.

He lifted the feather duster over his head and ran it along the little ledge over Lugosi's door; motes and particles kicked up and hung in the air like smoke; his nose and the back of his throat both tickled, and he sneezed.

That was the last of it, everything was done but…

With a gulp, he looked up at the attic door.

Twice...he and Lucy saw the house twice before they closed...and they went into the attic neither time. They were so focused on other things (like being giddy over the fact they were buying an amazing home at a basement bargain) that checking the attic didn't even cross their minds. Now, after satiating their house lust, he was thinking clearly and Jesus God, what's up there? Sharon the realtor said that it was filled with the original owner's belongings. What was his name? The one who built it then went bankrupt in the Crash of '29 - that guy. That was almost 120 years ago. Other people had lived here since, so at least it wasn't filled with rot and ruin.

He hoped.

God, he hoped.

Leaning the duster against the wall, he went over to the hatch and stared up at it, intimidated. He had to go up there sometime - maybe later. He was high on happiness and felt like he was walking on air...it was nice...and he did not want to be shot down by discovering his attic, which he stupidly didn't check during the showing, was decomposing like a body in a crypt. He should wait.

On the other hand, the responsible thing to do would be to look at it as soon as possible; what if the ceiling collapsed and Lucy or Lugosi got hurt?

That was probably not going to happen...but it's better to be safe than sorry. He reached up and yanked the cord. The stairs unfolded and the musky scent of close space filled his nostrils. He sniffed but didn't smell decay.

Hoping for the best but preparing for the worst, he climbed up, wincing at the way the rungs creaked under his weight. At the top, he stood to his full height and looked around: Boxes, chests, end tables, trunks, and other assorted junk lined a narrow walking path, six feet high in places and looming from the shadows like monsters from the night. Late afternoon sun cascaded through a window directly ahead of him and provided faint illumination. Darkness nestled between the bare plank rafters - gray and splintered with age - and the stale atmosphere swirled with dust. It was hot, far hotter than he imagined it would be, and sweat sprang to his forehead; he wiped it absently away with he back of his hand and walked along the aisle, looking left and right for signs of structural trouble but seeing none...at least none that were glaringly obvious.

More dust disturbed by his passage plumed into the air, and he sneezed, a wad of snot shooting from his nose and into the dark, never to be seen again. Whoops.

At the end of the aisle, an antique roll top desk sat against the wall flanking the window. As he passed, he glanced idyly down and noticed a book lying on its surface, small, leatherbound, and resembling a ledger or journal. At the window, he rubbed a circle in the dirty pane with the sleeve of his shirt and peered out - the cobalt lake lapped against the muddy shoreline, whispering aquatic secrets that would drive one mad if they listened and discerned.

Everything seemed okay. He'd have to come back with a flashlight and maybe a helper to give it a really thorough exam, but for now he was satisfied. He turned from the window and started back the way he came, his eyes falling once more on the ledger. He stopped, hesitated, then picked it up, his curiosity getting the better of him. He opened the cover and held it up to the window to see better: Tight, pragmatic script marched across a page yellowed with years. March 10, 1928, it was headed. The first line read: As a sensible man, I do not believe in such things as tales of spirits, but as of late, I've begun to wonder…

Lincoln's heart inexplicably jagged. He flipped through the book, the cinnamon like smell of old paper fleeting in his nose. The last page was dated January 30, 1930.

He remembered Sharon the realtor's history lesson as she lead him and Lucy up the stairs: 122 Lutz drive was built in 1928 by a rich businessman from Chicago named...he couldn't recall...then sold when he lost all of his money in the stock market crash. This had to be his.

Tales of spirits.

Lincoln frowned. The book felt suddenly slimey in his hands, but he found himself wanting to read more...to find out what the author meant by tales of spirits.

He wavered for a moment - though what's-his-name was a good 100 years dead, reading his diary felt wrong - then closed the book, clutched it tight, and left the attic, intent on putting the tome away for later consumption. In his and Lucy's room, he dropped it onto the nightstand and stared down at it for a moment. He started to reach for it again when Lucy called up the stairs. "Dinner's ready."

Lincoln let his hand drop. Later. He would read it later.

Downstairs, Lucy and Lugosi sat at the dining room table, plates and glasses in front of them. Lugosi favored his room with indecision, as though he wasn't sure if he wanted it or not, and Lucy wore a tiny, self-satisfied smile. We're having our first dinner in our new home, it said. Lincoln sat at the place she set for him and looked at the plate. Meatloaf with mashed potatoes and green beans. The smell found his nose and he drew it deep into his nostrils, his stomach rumbling despite being full less than two hours ago. Lucy wasn't a very good cook (she was worse even than Lugosi), but her meatloaf was somehow the best.

"I made your favorite," she pointed out.

"Thank you," he said and picked up his fork. "I didn't think I'd be hungry again."

"I was going to cook either way," she stated. "I was excited."

For someone so dour, she was awfully like a little girl sometimes...which was charming if a bit mystifying. Lucy was, and always had been, an enigma to him. He knew her thoughts, emotions, likes, kinks, and habits as well as he did his own, but he couldn't explain why she was the way she was. As a child, she displayed keen psychic abilities that peaked and then began to diminish when she was thirteen; by the time she was eighteen, they were gone. He couldn't help but wonder if they had anything to do with her personality; he also wondered just exactly who she was sometimes. Beyond being a wonderful wife and mother, that is.

Lugosi prodded his meat with the tines of his fork like a boy poking a dead frog, his lips turning down in something approaching a grimace. "I'm not hungry," he said plainly.

"You don't have to eat," Lucy said, "but you do have to hang out with us."

The boy shrugged and sat back in his chair. "Alright," he said. Like his mother, Lugosi was even-tempered and, at times, flat. Things rarely bothered him and a lot of the time, he just went where the flow of life took him like a leaf on the wind. They expected him to share Lucy's 'powers' but so far he did not, though Lucy suspected he was a sensitive - more easily able to sense thoughts, emotions, "psychic auras", and the emanations of the universe, as Lucy put it, than other people. A full blown psychic could, theoretically, see, hear and experience past or future events whereas a sensitive would only feel. If a psychic walked into a house where someone was murdered, they may be able to view the event in their mind and/or otherwise receive intimate details. A sensitive would only feel that something bad had happened.

Lucy based her assertion that Lugosi was a sensitive primarily on the fact that as a child, he would often find lost things - car keys, toys, Lincoln's wallet once - and when asked how he knew where it was, he'd shrug and say I felt like it was over there. He also had flashes of insight into things that he knew nothing about. He once told Lincoln out of the blue that your dad doesn't like you (he'd never met his grandparents or aunts at that point). More than once, he'd talk about a certain episode of a TV show or a certain song, then moments later it would come on. Ha, knew it, he'd say.

Based on the evidence, Lincoln had to agree with her - there was more going on than a random series of coincidences. He didn't do it much anymore, though; every once in a while he'd shine, but those instances came fewer and farther between, and they were resigned to his powers waning the way Lucy's did.

Oh well. Lincoln loved his son even if he was a failed psychic, just like he loved Lucy...though he was kind of salty that neither one could help him win the lottery.

"...homework?" Lucy asked.

Lugosi nodded, arms crossed. "Yeah, I'm gonna do it later." He took a drink from a can of Coke and sighed. "Or maybe tomorrow. I'm kind of tired."

"You look pale," Lucy said. Anyone else wouldn't notice the hint of motherly concern, but Lincoln did. Like all of her emotions, the expression was muted, but not the sensation itself.

Slowly, Lugosi shook his head. "I'm just really tired. Spending five hours at Home Depot will do that to you."

Lincoln scoffed. "It wasn't that long." He had to think for a moment, though; was it? They were there for a while, he knew that much. "It was more like two and a half."

"Which is like five anywhere else," Lugosi countered, "because it's so boring."

"No it's not," Mom said, "Home Depot's cool."

For a moment Lugosi looked at her strangely, then shook his head. "If you say so. They had some pretty soft carpet samples. Those were nice." His face crinkled. "I meant to ask if I can get some carpet but I forgot."

Lincoln took a bite of his meatloaf. "You can if you want. But you and I have to install it."

The boy cocked his head in consideration. "Uhh, maybe. We got a lotta stuff to do already, right?"

Yes, in fact, they did, though none of it was major. "Painting, mainly," Lincoln said. "The bathroom door needs new hinges, gutters have to be cleaned, the floors finished..." he thought for a second, flipping through his running mental to-do list. "Not all that much."

"Sounds good," Lugosi said and stretched, a yawn escaping his lips. "I'm super excited. Can I please be excused?"

Lucy nodded. "Yes, you can go now." There was a touch of reluctance in her voice, as though she didn't want him to go just yet.

He got up, took his plate into the kitchen, then came back and went upstairs, leaving them alone with the pervasive silence. Lincoln took a bite of his mashed potatoes and listened - it was deeper than that which he was used to, more cloying. In the apartment, there were a thousand noises to keep you company, from the muffled voices of the next door neighbors through the too thin walls to the traffic sounds on Railroad Ave. Here, between a field and a lake, there was only the wind and the crickets, neither of which were loud enough to be heard here.

Peace, quiet, and privacy were exactly what they were searching for when they started looking last year, but he never anticipated it being quite this peaceful. It was a thick, living thing that rushed like blood in his ringing ears. The air seemed too heavy now and tasted funny in his mouth. He took a bite and chewed, the click of his jaw muscles and the grinding of his teeth giving him pause.

"I wanna get the living room set up," Lucy said, her voice as abrupt and loud as a bomb blast; Lincoln started and nearly dropped his fork. She took a drink from her glass and sat it down with a clunk that lingered too long. "Then our room."

The living room was still in a state of disarray, teetering stacks of boxes here and there, the TV on the floor, the entertainment system blocking the window, the couch slanted. It wouldn't take much to put it to rights, and he ordered most of their bedroom before they left. There was not a lot to do then, but for some reason he felt suddenly drained and the prospect of bending, lifting, and straining made him dizzy. "How about we just relax a little?" he suggested and took a bite. "Enjoy our first full evening in our new home."

"The living room is a disaster," she deadpanned as though that was answer enough.

He nodded his agreement. 'Yeah, and tomorrow it won't be. We have all the time world to settle in. No need to rush it."

She regarded him blankly for a long time before her lips creaked up in a tepid smile that was beautiful despite its torpor. "Okay," she relented, "snuggling on the couch does sound good."

Shortly, they took their plates into the kitchen, cleared them, and did the dishes side-by-side, one washing and the other drying, a nightly tradition that stretched back to their first place together. Sometimes they did it in companionable silence, and sometimes they talked and giggled like school kids in love, but they always did it together. For Lincoln's part, he had come to live by a simple motto: Everything's better with Lucy.

Done, they made their way into the living room, where they curled up on the couch, Lincoln sitting up with his arm around her shoulder and Lucy resting her head and hand on his chest. She liked to listen to his heartbeat when they did this, something that once unnerved him until she told him how comforting it was. Whew. I always thought you were planning on ripping it out and eating it. That was a joke; she wouldn't do that.

Probably.

"This is nice," she said, voice thick with sleep.

Lincoln kissed the top of her head and breathed in the warm fragrance of her hair. "It is."

After a while, they got up, turned out the lights, and went upstairs. In their room, Lucy changed into her nightgown while Lincoln brushed his teeth in the master bath. He was halfway done when he noticed a pattern in the streaks on the mirror. Knitting his brows, he stopped, toothbrush jutting from his mouth, and leaned in, his hands gripping the edge of the sinktop.

They looked like words, as though someone had written a message in the steamy condensation of a past shower.

He squinted but couldn't make them out. He opened the medicine cabinet a little and looked at them from the side.

Help me.

At least that's what he thought they were. His heart skipped a beat and he studied them more closely. They were faded and ghost-like, but the more he looked, the more sure he was that that was indeed the message. Help me.

He recoiled and stood to his full height, the toothbrush falling from his mouth and clattering to the basin. The medicine cabinet swung closed and the reflection staring back at him was haggard and wan, its eyes wide with fear.

It was seeing his own image that snapped him out of it. Jesus, he looked like he was honestly scared...over something someone drew on a bathroom mirror.

Untensing, he let out a sardonic chuckle and thought back to all the things Lucy had ever written on foggy mirrors while he was showering. He'd cut the spray, open the curtain, and come face to face with REDRUM or I'M GOING TO EAT YOUR SKIN. Sometimes she'd be standing there like an artist with her latest creation, her hands behind her back and a glint in her eyes. "Boo," she'd say.

You're losing it, Linc, he told himself, but the back of his neck tingled regardless.

He picked up the brush, rinsed it off, and put it in the holder. He cut the overhead light and started to leave, but caught the words from the corner of his eye, half-revealed in the soft glow of Lucy's bedside lamp. Silly or not, his stomach flipped.

Pursing his lips, he turned the sink of, cupped his hand under the flow, and splashed water onto the glass, then wiped it off with a hand towel.

There. All gone.

Still, as he went back into the bedroom, those two words ricocheted through his mind like bullets. Help me. Help me. Help me.

Lucy sat up on her side of the bed, a paperback novel resting in her lap. Lincoln remembered the ledger he found in the attic. Tales of spirits.

Twice in his life, he fought the forces of darkness. To other men, tales of spirits were fantasy, something to entertain over a Stephen King book or a Wes Craven movie then to forget afterwards. To Lincoln Loud, they were either fact or a strong possibility. He didn't know what John Arbogast (that was his name) meant by that line of text, but he was intensely interested in finding out.

He climbed into bed, slipped under the covers, and leaned back against the headboard. He reached for his reading glasses, put them on, then went to pick up the book, but stopped.

It was gone.

Lincoln blinked in confusion. He knew he left it on the table. Didn't he?

Yeah, he distinctly recalled laying it down next to his glasses because he started to drop it onto his glasses but corrected himself at the last moment for fear of breaking them. Huh. He leaned over and looked into the space between the desk and the bed, but it wasn't there. Leaning over even more, he checked behind, expecting to find it wedged between the stand and the wall, but it wasn't there either. Huh. "Did you move the book I had over here?" he asked over his shoulder.

Lucy turned a page with a crisp sound. "No, I didn't," she said.

He got up and checked on the other side, thinking maybe it was knocked off and landed on the floor, but no, the floor was empty and free of clutter. Dropping to his knees, he checked under the bed and along the baseboard.

The book was nowhere.

Rocking back on his knees, Lincoln's forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. Maybe Lugosi took it. Walking into someone else's room and taking something without permission wasn't like him, but what was the alternative? It sprouted legs and walked off by itself?

He got to his feet and went to Lugosi's door, which stood open. The boy sat hunched at his desk writing in a notebook by lamplight. "Hey, did you take the book off my desk?" Even as he spoke the words his doubt that Lugosi was the culprit deepened.

Lugosi looked over his shoulder, arched his brows, and shook his head. "No. Wasn't me."

Where the hell was it, then?

"Alright," Lincoln said absently and went back to his room. He sat on the bed and sighed. Maybe he didn't he leave it on the nightstand. Maybe he unthinkingly sat it somewhere else. He mentally retraced his steps and decided that he couldn't have: He went directly from here to the dining room table, and he was certain that he didn't bring the journal with him.

This didn't make sense.

Tales of spirits.

His head spun. No, that couldn't be it, he cautioned himself. He was jumping at shadows. He'd find it somewhere tomorrow and laugh at himself. Oh, that's right, I remember now. That happened a lot. Normal.

Totally and completely normal.

Lugosi laid his pencil down and sat back from the desk with a burdened sigh. He was almost done with his homework and wanted to finish it, but he didn't feel good. His stomach was heavy and queasy and a twinge above his left eye threatened to turn into a full blown headache. He ran his fingers through his hair, which was down now, and scratched his head. He hoped he didn't have food poisoning; it could be a false memory, but now that he was thinking about it, those crab cakes he had for dinner did taste kind of funny.

It was by sheer coincidence that it didn't start until he got home.

He threw his head back and darted his gaze left and right - a circle of shadows pressed incessantly around the edge of the light cast by the lamp, waiting to flood hungrily in the moment it was turned off.

Why did they have presence? Shadows aren't supposed to have presence...aren't supposed to feel like they're alive.

The hairs on his arms raised and the twinge in his head flared. He rubbed his temple with his fingertips and bared his teeth against the hot, sickening pain. Usually when he had a headache, he took a long, hot shower, but the thought of standing up made him tired. He glanced at his bed, pushed flush with one wall because that's how he liked it, and wondered if his legs would even support him long enough to get there.

Only one way to find out.

Eh, in a minute.

He puffed his cheeks and blew a slow exhalation. Wasn't he listening to music?

While working on anything, be it school work or house work, he did it to music. It was kind of like a numbing agent and made the sting of mundanity a little easier to bear. When he sat down, he set his iPod next to the lamp and picked his way through equations to Exodus, Metallica, Rob Zombie, and Cradle of Filth, the crashing cacophony of blistering guitars, slamming drums, and growling vocals closing out the world around him.

Now silence so loud it made his ears ring held sway and had for a while. He was so focused on his work and the sickly nausea twisting through him that he must not have noticed when it stopped. He picked the iPod up and hit the button on the side, but the screen didn't light up.

Ever since Mom stepped on it, it hadn't been acting right. He needed a new one, and those things weren't cheap.

Dropping it back onto the desk, he drew a deep breath, got up, and went over to the bed, where he sat heavily on the edge and hung his throbbing head. It was dumb and irrational, but he was coming to really dislike this house. He tried telling himself it was being resentful over leaving the apartment, but he didn't think it was. The atmosphere didn't feel right and the smell...he couldn't put his finger on it, but something permeated the air, so slight as to be almost indetectable. It wasn't mold or mildew or rot, it was...he didn't know, but it was really starting to bother him. That's probably where this feeling sick crap came from, not crab cakes.

The sudden feeling of being watched came over him and he looked up, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. The shadows teemed alone, not moving but giving off the impression of motion nonetheless. A cold, steely band tightened around his heart and his breath locked in his lungs. It was crazy, but he could sense eyes watching him from the darkness with malicious intent.

Insistent feelings of being monitored and persecuted are two major symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia...and the earliest too. No one goes from relatively normal to boarding up all their doors and windows to keep out the spy cameras overnight. It's a slow progression...one that often beings in the sufferer's teenage years.

Say...at sixteen.

All the same thoughts and fears from earlier came rushing back and his stomach clutched. He pressed his palm to his clammy forehead and tried to will them away but couldn't. Was he going crazy? Did leaving the apartment somehow trigger an underlying mental illness? He didn't even care that much, though. If it bothered him that much subconsciously, it would have to bubble up and seep into his conscious mind at least a little; he'd have to feel the resentment knotting in his chest, have to actively disdain the idea of moving. He did not, though.

When his parents started looking for a house last year, he was largely indifferent. He was worried he'd have to change schools and leave his friends behind, but, knowing how important communication is in relationships, familial or otherwise, he brought his concerns to Mom and Dad and they readily agreed to stay in Royal County. Problem solved. When they told him about 122 Lutz Drive, he was stoked. He wasn't exactly happy that it was so far from the center of town - he liked being able to walk everywhere he needed or wanted to go - but Mom and Dad were pretty liberal with letting him borrow the car, so it wasn't that big a deal.

Overall, he didn't mind the move, he really didn't.

Something wasn't right, however, and it had to be in his head because what else could it be?

The house itself?

He looked up into the writhing darkness, the feeling of being watched stronger now. He nervously licked his lips and scanned the room, certain that if he looked hard enough, he would see something - a gallery of white, ghostly faces maybe, or Zelda from Pet -

Savagely, he shut that thought out. He didn't know what to think right now, so he'd sleep on it. Best thing to do when your mind's all wound up is let it rest and untangle. That's what Dad always said, and though it might not be cool for a sixteen year old to admit this, his father was a wise man. Cool too. For a middle aged guy.

Lugosi kicked out of his shoes and whipped his T-shirt off, tossing it onto the floor. He weighed taking his pants off, but didn't have the energy, so he stretched out on top of the blanket. He realized he left the lamp on, but he wasn't getting up to turn it off.

Even if he had the energy.

Lacing his hands over his chest, he stared up at the ceiling and waited for sleep to take him, certain that he would lie awake and plagued by self-doubt.

Instead, he dropped off in minutes.

On the desk, the lamp went dark with a click...and the shadows rushed in.

On his second night in his new home, Lincoln Loud woke suddenly in the dark, his heart pounding and his naked torso slathered in cold sweat. Normally, he swam gradually and reluctantly from the depths of sleep, but not now; it was as though a switch had been thrown - one second he was unconscious, the next he was fully awake, his mind clear and his eyes wide open. The dream he was having before rousing lingered in his brain like morning fog, and for a moment he entertained it, his eyes squinting slightly in concentration. It was so vivid he could still feel the soft, cool dirt under his feet, the stale wind against his face, the splintered banister trailing his palm as he descended the basement stairs, drawn to a section of wall like steel to a magnet. The barrier was not meant to be crossed, a voice rapsed from his right, and his heart crushed in terror. Bright red light shone through the cracks between the stones, and the smell of decay swept into his nostrils. His heart thundered and his knees trembled.

Something was in the wall.

And it wanted out.

That was when he opened his eyes and crossed into the land of the living. A tingle raced down his spine and the night grew malevolent, the darkness hostile. He glanced at the clock on the nightstand, the soft green glow putting him in mind of corpse light...whatever that was.

3:00am.

He turned to Lucy; she lay on her side, the blanket pulled halfway to her bare shoulder. Her back gently rose and fell.

Taking a deep breath, Lincoln sat up and swung his legs out from under the cover. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he raked his hand through his hair and swallowed against a sandpaper throat. The heavy feeling of dread from the dream remained with him and he stopped his hand mid-reach for the lamp, surprised at the panic beginning to claw at his soul. He was a grown man, almost forty, but in that moment, he was a small child again, too afraid of the dark, and what it hid, to even move lest he attract something's attention. He imagined a twisted-faced ghoul hiding under the bed, its hooked fingers creeping across the floor toward his bare, unguarded ankle, and caustic terror erupted in his chest. He hurriedly snapped the lamp on, filling the room with soft, amber light, and forced himself to stay where he was instead of blasting up and running aimlessly away.

In his mind's eye, he saw himself fleeing not out the front door, but into the basement.

The urge to get up and go down there gripped him and he almost stood, but stayed himself. Just to check, a voice in his head seemed to say. Make sure everything's okay.

But it was okay. His dream was just that, a dream. There was nothing down there, nothing hidden behind the stonework.

He went back to the red light filtering through the cracks, pulsating like the throb of a beating heart. He could distinctly feel its heat on his cheeks, could hear the low, teeth-vibrating thrum that accompanied it like a vampire's trusty familiar, could even smell it...a ripe, sickly-sweet odor like rotting meat.

What was it?

Nothing! It was nothing. A dream. Dreams don't make very much sense sometimes, and this was one of those times. When Sharon the realtor showed him and Lucy the house, he was uneasy down there. He didn't know why but he was, so it only seemed right that he would have a nightmare about it.

No, no, he knew exactly what it was: Symbolic of his worries that something was wrong with the house. It wasn't a pressing concern, especially after checking the attic and finding it sound, but it was undeniably in the back of his mind. A million and one things can go wrong with a house the size of theirs, and his brain took that anxiety and turned it into a nightmare in which something was wrong...something he could neither fix nor explain.

Talk about scary.

Feeling a little better, he got up and started into the hall, but remembered that he and Lucy had their own bathroom now and went to turn around...but kept going instead, his feet carrying him to the top of the stairs as if of their own violation. At the top, he stared down into the sea of shadows below, his hand tightening around the rail. Just check...go and check. Maybe something's wrong. Those thoughts came from the ether, and he licked his dry lips; it was almost like they came not from within, but from without, spoken by an external source, a dark siren's call that his body yearned with feverish intensity to follow.

Was he still dreaming?

The possibility seemed remote, but the moment it occurred to him, he knew that it must be so. He was lost in the folds of another nightmare, this one more vivid than the last. He crossed to the bathroom on numb feet, used it, and went back to bed, his chest tingling with a sensation of the uncanny. Just a dream, he told himself, it's all just a dream. He closed his eyes and sleep took him almost instantly.

Deep below, in the basement, a thin, pulsing red light bathed the walls in an eerie glow.