Read sample The Vanishers | A Paranormal Gothic Thriller – perfect for fans of Atmospheric Horror and Psychological Suspense

PROLOGUE

Everyone in this diner is looking at me like I’m strange.

Well, I’m sure used to that by now. It wasn’t always that way, of course. I mean… I’m blonde-haired, just turned thirty and once – a million years or so ago, before the terrible times happened – people said I was pretty. But now I realize that I look old beyond my years. I’ve lost a lot of weight, my face is pale and gaunt and I’m trembling noticeably right now, even though it is the first real warm day of spring.

I make my way – unsteadily – over to a stool at the diner’s counter and sit there quietly, without talking, even when a guy comes over and asks for my order.

“What’ll it be, ma’am?” he asks, and smiles.

I stare at him with a confused look on my face. Nothing people say these days – even simple questions like that – seems to make sense to me anymore.

“Ma’am,” he repeats.

“Pardon?”

“My name is Danny. Danny Heller. I own this place. What do you want?”

I think about it for a second, then say: “Do you think I could have some tea?”

“Tea, sure.”

He walks over to the kitchen area, pours a cup and brings it back to me.

“How about something to eat?” he asks. “A sandwich? Some soup? Maybe a nice piece of pie? We got some nice pies today. Apple. Cherry. Lemon meringue.”

“Lemon meringue?”

“Sure. Want a piece?”

I nod. “Yes, that would be nice.”

Danny Heller cuts an extra large slice of the pie, places it on a plate and carries it back to where I am sitting. I begin to eat. Silently and without any emotion. That’s how I do everything, now.

“Are you from around here?” he asks.

“No, not from around here.”

“What’s your name?”

“Uh, I’m Megan.”

“Well, I’m glad to meet you, Megan. Are you just visiting around these parts?”

“I’m…” I trail off and hesitate, because it’s painful to say the right words. “I’m… I’m looking for a vacation house.”

“Hey, we’ve got some good ones! The lake, at this time of year, is one of the prettiest spots in all of Michigan. Or anywhere, for that matter. Have you looked at many houses?”

“Not here. Other places.”

“You’ve been traveling, then?”

“Yes. I’ve been traveling quite a bit.”

The truth is I have been traveling – for nearly a year. I started back east, moving from resort town to resort town along the New England coast. When fall came, I started moving down along the coast, toward the winter resorts. Miami Beach. The Gold Coast. The Gulf Shore. Then, with the advent of spring, I came north and inland to look at lake areas. Ohio. Minnesota. And now Michigan.

In all of these places, I’ve done the same thing. Gone through ads for house rentals. Checked with real estate brokers. Driven aimlessly around shore areas, looking.

Always looking.

Looking for the house.

The house I can never forget.

The house of my nightmares.

Danny Heller breaks into my thoughts. “We have some local house listings on that bulletin board over there,” he says, pointing to a wall at the end of the counter. “People with a place to rent put stuff up there. Maybe you’ll find something you want.”

I get up from my stool and walk over to the bulletin board. I look through the ads posted on it without really expecting to find anything.

But then I see it.

And I scream.

I scream so suddenly and so loudly that everyone in the diner stops eating and looks at me.

It’s a scream that gathers momentum as it goes on, like a runaway train, terrifying everyone there.

“What’s wrong?” Danny says, rushing over to me. I point to a picture of a house in one of the ads.

“It’s here,” I whisper.

“What?”

“The house.”

And it is.

The house I’ve been looking for.

The house from Pleasant Street.

“I don’t understand,” Danny is saying.

“It’s the house,” I sob. “Oh, my God, it really is the same house…”

1:MEGAN AND PATRICK

“Oh, Patrick, it’s wonderful!” I clap my hands together in excitement, do a little jump in the air and then look around one more time. “I mean, check out this house! Can you believe we really found it? Talk about luck.”

My husband puts a finger to his mouth and makes a hushing sound.

“Quiet,” he whispers, “Yeah, Megan, I know it looks terrific, but let’s try to keep our enthusiasm under wraps a little for now. We still have to talk money. So let’s play it cool for now.”

“Okay, Patrick, but this place…”

“I know.” He grins. “I know.”

The woman who owns the house approaches us now. She is a kindly looking woman with silver hair and twinkling eyes, and looks to be in her seventies. She introduces herself as Ellen Monahan.

“Patrick Foley,” my husband says.

“And I’m Megan Foley,” I tell her.

“So, Mr. and Mrs. Foley, do you like my house?” she asks.

We sure do.

Patrick and I have been looking along the Connecticut shore for a place to spend the summer for the past three weekends, without much luck. And now we’re starting to run out of time. It’s May, and summer is already in the air.

This year, I’m determined to spend those beautiful summer weekends with my husband, at an idyllic retreat by the beach. I plan to read, get plenty of sun and unwind from the pressures of my job. I’m an underpaid and overworked assistant district attorney in the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

In a few weeks, Patrick’s teaching duties at New York University, where he is on the faculty as a professor of English literature, will be over for a while. He’ll have the whole summer off to relax and work on a book he’s trying to write about fifteenth-century plays.

We can’t afford what we originally wanted to do, to rent an entire house for the whole summer. So instead we’ve been looking for some kind of Airbnb arrangement, with a bedroom in a shared house, where we could stay from June through to Labor Day.

On that morning – the morning when Patrick saw the ad for the house in Stone Beach, Connecticut as he scanned through a vacation homes site on his iPad – we were sitting in our apartment in Greenwich Village, New York City. He showed the ad to me very excitedly.

“What do you think, Megan? You want to drive up there and take a look?”

“I don’t know. We’ve seen so many places that didn’t work out, it might be another waste of time.”

“But maybe this one will be different. Besides, the weather report says it’s going to be gorgeous today. It’ll be a good ride. And I’ll even treat you to lunch somewhere where we can sit and watch the ocean. So, what do you have to lose? It’ll be a nice day even if the house turns out to be a dump.”

“Since you put it like that, how can I possibly say no?”

“You mean it?”

“I mean it. Let’s go see the dump.”

But, of course, the house turns out not to be a dump.

Not at all.

It is a huge, old, white clapboard house sitting right smack next to the ocean, in the town of Stone Beach. There’s a big porch in front with a wonderful old wooden swing to sit on; perfect for summer evenings. Inside, the kitchen looks big enough to cook for an army. Next to the kitchen is a spacious dining room with a table in the center where as many as a dozen people can eat. There are six guest bedrooms. All of them have views of the water and are so big we could pretty much fit our entire New York City apartment in any one of them. And then there’s the living room. It is everything advertised and more. There are oversized, soft, easy chairs and a couch; a luxuriously thick shag carpet; and, last but not least, a huge audio-visual area with a giant TV screen and surround sound.

Everything about the house is big, it’s more like a mansion than just a house. Makes me wonder how Mrs. Monahan and her husband can afford a place like this, especially when they’re renting out summer shares at such a low price.

It’s not just the inside that is so great either. There’s a spectacular garden and a long yard in the back that goes all the way down to the beach. There’s a big garage, too, with ample parking for several cars.

The furniture in the house – the living room and the bedrooms and all the rest – looks old. Like Mrs. Monahan and her husband, I suppose. It also appears to be very expensive.

Both Patrick and I are very impressed – and delighted we have found such a great summer house.

“Look at this,” Patrick says when he sees the video setup. “Baseball all summer, watching movies like we’re in a theater. This is going to be heaven.”

“Hey, we’re supposed to be here to enjoy the outdoors, remember? You know – sunshine, the beach, lots of exercise. If we rent this place, I may never get you away from this TV screen the whole summer!”

He smiles. “I just hope we can afford something like this. Let me try to negotiate the price with the owner.”

The price negotiations begin as soon as we’ve seen the whole place.

“Well, Mrs. Monahan,” he begins.

“Ellen,” she says. “Call me Ellen.”

“Ellen,” he says, and smiles. ”Your place certainly seems very nice, I suppose. Of course, it isn’t exactly what we wanted…” He glances over at me, signaling to me to keep my emotions in check while he haggles over money. I’m a lawyer, I think to myself, but somehow he always has to handle the money. Male ego?

By now, Patrick is wrapping up his opening speech. “Nevertheless, we might be interested if the price is right.”

Ellen Monahan nods thoughtfully.

“I see,” she says.

“What is the price?”

“$5000.”

“$5000 a month, huh?”

He looks over at me. I think, that’s a little more than we’ve budgeted, but still, this place is so great…

Mrs. Monahan’s next words change the game completely.

“Oh, dear me, no! Not $5000 a month. That’s $5000 for everything. For the whole time you’re here.”

Patrick and I stare at her in amazement. “You mean for the entire summer season?” he asks her.

“Yes. That’s not too much, is it? You see, my husband has been ill, and I need—”

Patrick interrupts her: “Oh, no, that sounds fine… I mean, we’ll take it.”

“Very good. Do you want to put down a small deposit now? Or, if you prefer, you can wait until later.”

“I’ll give it to you right now,” Patrick tells her. “In fact, I’ll write out a check for the whole amount.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I insist.”

Patrick takes out his checkbook and begins writing the check, despite Mrs Monahan’s continued protestations that it isn’t necessary to pay the entire amount right away. But Patrick’s not going to take a chance on somebody else coming along and offering more money to grab this place.

“Now, of course,” Mrs. Monahan says as she watches him write out the check, “you also get free meals as part of this. I cook them or, if you prefer, you can do your own cooking using anything in the kitchen. I provide all of the groceries and anything else you need to prepare your meals.”

“Free food?” I say incredulously.

“Yes. And you have sailboats at your disposal whenever you want them, a private beach and use of our video unit – which I imagine you’ve already looked at.”

Patrick glances at me, tries to suppress a grin and quickly hands the check to Mrs. Monahan.

“That sounds fine,” he says.

He asks her for a receipt, which she writes out now and hands to us. I put it into my purse.

“Well, Mr. and Mrs. Foley, welcome to Pleasant Street,” Mrs. Monahan says. “I hope you’ll have a wonderful summer here.”

Later, as we eat lunch at a seafood place on the water near the town of Mystic, Patrick and I giggle like school kids throughout the entire meal.

“I still can’t believe it,” I say as I gulp down my shrimp salad with some wine. “It’s almost too good to be true.”

Patrick nods and looks out at the boats bobbing peacefully in the harbor in front of us. The sun is glinting off the water, dazzling our eyes. It’s an absolutely beautiful day.

“This is going to be a wonderful summer, isn’t it, Megan?”

“It sure is.” I pick up my wine glass and propose a toast. “To our new home on Pleasant Street.”

2: HIGH HOPES

We drive to the house on the first Saturday morning after the Memorial Day weekend. It is a gorgeous morning – bright sunshine, beautiful skies with only a few white clouds drifting by, and temperature in the seventies. The first real taste of summer. I’ve packed some fruit and nuts and soda in a bag, and Patrick and I eat and drink as we travel up Interstate 95.

“What do you think the people are going to be like?” I ask as we see the first sign for the Connecticut Turnpike.

“Huh?”

“The people. The other people we’re sharing the house with. What do you think they’re going to be like?”

“I don’t know. Mrs. Monahan said there were a few other couples. One guy is an accountant. There’s a public relations executive, too.”

“Yuk!” I scowl. “Sounds boring. No actors? No painters? No bank robbers?”

Patrick looks over at me and smiles. “I guess you’ll just have to make do with me. I can be pretty exciting sometimes, you know. Or at least, I have my moments.”

I take a bite out of an apple and grin back. “So I hear, big fella. Well, we’re gonna find out soon enough.”

“Anyway,” Patrick says, “it really doesn’t matter if all our summer housemates are stiffs. The house is so big we can spend the whole season there without seeing any of them if we want. That’s one of the reasons I like it so much.”

I take a swig of soda and think again about how lucky we are to have found this place…

The idea of a summer house seemed wonderful when we first discussed it during a blizzard in January, as we sat huddled in our apartment watching the snow falling outside on Washington Square Park. Those plans and dreams had gotten us through the bleak months of January and February and the gloomy, rainy days of early spring that followed. We spent hours at night and on the weekends poring over maps to pinpoint the spot where we wanted to go.

Originally, we thought about joining some friends at a place in the Hamptons, or maybe Fire Island. But quick trips to each location changed our minds. First off, Long Island was incredibly expensive. But more important than the money was the atmosphere. And we didn’t like the atmosphere in any of the Long Island places we visited. Too many people, too many smug and hip New Yorkers, too many swinging singles – just the kind of thing we were trying to get away from. Besides, Patrick and I needed to be alone – someplace where we didn’t know anyone – so we could come to terms with our own problems.

Patrick and I have been married for eight years. None of it has been easy. Twice we’ve come close to breaking up. We’ve had some terrible fights, with lots of screaming and crying. All of that is why I have such high hopes for this house. I see it as a kind of oasis, somewhere Patrick and I can retreat, lick our wounds and re-establish a loving relationship. A place away from all the pressures that have been eating away at us

So Connecticut is better for us than the more obvious options like Long Island or the Jersey Shore. It is less crowded than the other shore areas, especially as far out as Stone Beach. But it is still close enough for me to commute to and from my job at the district attorney’s office at the start and end of each week.

Patrick – who doesn’t have to be back at school until September – is convinced he can use the time to finish the book he’s been trying to write in between classes for the last two years. He needs to do that to firmly cement his place at the university. Publish or perish, that’s a college professor’s fate, as he often reminds me.

Of course, it would have been nice to have an entire house to ourselves. But that is financially impossible. So this option seems to be the next best thing. People we don’t know and a house big enough to avoid the others whenever we want to. All of which is just fine with me.

The morning traffic isn’t very heavy. In what seems like no time, we are pulling into downtown Stone Beach, rolling down the main street with the bright sun shining down on us through the sunroof of our car. On the radio, Bruce Springsteen is singing about spending the summer on the beach. I turn up the sound and began tapping my foot to the beat. I feel good. Really good.

Patrick looks over at me. “You remember exactly how to find the house?” he asks.

I shake my head – no. We’ve been up here before, that first time, of course, but now all the side streets look the same.

“I thought you knew.”

“Afraid not.” He grins. “You want to turn around and go back to Manhattan?”

“No way.”

“Okay, let’s get some help, then.”

We park the car and walk over to the nearest place we see, a drugstore on the corner. A gray-haired, bespectacled man, wearing a white coat with a tag on the front which says J. Thackery, Pharmacist, comes out to greet us. We tell him about the problem and ask if he can help us find Pleasant Street.

“Pleasant Street.” He laughs loudly. “I reckon I can help you with that. I grew up right near there, on Orange Street. A block away from where it crosses Pleasant.”

He tells us to keep heading in the same direction, make a right at the second traffic light and then follow it for five blocks or so toward the ocean.

“You’ll see the sign for Pleasant Street right there. And there’s a big red house with a picket fence on the corner in case you miss it. Just look for that and you can’t go wrong.”

He looks at the two of us. “Where you from?”

“New York City.”

“Up here for the summer?”

“That’s right,” Patrick says. “We’re staying at a house – 32 Pleasant Street.”

“Well, you picked a good spot. Pleasant Street is right next to the water. Lots of the houses have incredible views. It’s a nice quiet street, too. You’ll like it.”

“Thanks for the help. I guess we’ll be seeing you around later.”

We start to leave. But just before we get out the door, Thackery calls out after us.

“What did you say the address of your place was again?”

“Thirty-two.”

“Thirty-two?” He looks confused. “I can’t really think which house thirty-two is.”

Patrick describes the house to him.

“Are you sure it’s on Pleasant Street?” Thackery asks after a long pause.

“Sure. Why?”

“Well, like I said, I’ve lived in this town all my life. Know that area like the back of my hand. And I can’t remember any house that looks like the one you’re telling me about on Pleasant Street, son.”

Patrick smiles. “Maybe I’m not describing it very well. Anyway, it’s there, believe me. We didn’t rent it online or anything. We’ve been there. We saw it.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Thackery says. “Seeing is believing, I guess. I hope you two have a nice summer. And remember where we are here. Drop by any time.”

“We’ll do that. And thanks again.”

After we leave, I say to Patrick, “That was weird, huh? I mean about him not remembering the house. That’s not an easy house to forget.”

“Maybe he’s just getting a little bit senile. He seemed nice enough, but he was getting up in years.”

We’re at our parked car now and get in. I’m still thinking back to that conversation with old Mr. Thackery and about how strange – and maybe even a bit disturbing – it seemed.

But I don’t say anything more about my concerns to Patrick. Instead, we just drive to Pleasant Street.

Pleasant Street is right where Thackery said it was, and as soon as we turn the corner, we see the house. It’s just as we remember it. Perhaps even bigger and more impressive than it seemed the first time we saw it.

Some of the other people staying in the house are already there. A young couple toss a frisbee back and forth on the front lawn. Another man and woman sit on the porch swing. Alongside the house, other people are lying on deck chairs and sunning themselves.

We drive up the long drive and park the car close to the house. Patrick and I take our luggage out of the car and began lugging it up toward the porch. I’m astonished again by how big and magnificent the house looks. Even more than the first time we were here. Huge yard in the front, a massive front porch, terrific view of the ocean behind it. The house itself really does look more like a mansion than an ordinary house, and I remember all the bedrooms and other spacious living areas inside. By the time we get to the porch, Mrs. Monahan is waiting for us. She holds the front door open.

“Hi there,” she says, and smiles. “Any trouble getting here?”

“None at all,” Patrick says. “The traffic was very light.”

“It’s a beautiful day,” she says to us, looking up at the blue sky. “I think it’s going to be a lovely weekend. Come on in, put your stuff away and start to enjoy yourselves.”

And then we walk in through the front door of 32 Pleasant Street.

Our summer has begun.

3: THE HOUSE ON PLEASANT STREET

That night, Patrick and I play a game of Monopoly with the other people staying at the house.

At first, I don’t want to do it. “You said we weren’t going to have to get involved with the others,” I complain to him. “Said we could just stay to ourselves. I don’t want this to be like a college dormitory.”

Patrick shakes his head and sighs. “It won’t be. But it’s our first night, and we should be polite. Besides, it’s a good chance to check everyone else out. Aren’t you a little bit curious to find out who we’re sharing this house with?”

“Not particularly,” I reply. “Anyway, I already saw a few of them on the way in. I think I could happily live my life without knowing them any better.”

“You thought they were that bad?”

“Not bad. Just terminally weird.”

Patrick looks exasperated. “C’mon, you’re being difficult.”

“I want to read,” I say, pointing to a pile of books on the table next to me. “That’s one of the things I was looking forward to doing here.”

“You’ve got all summer to read. What difference is one night going to make?”

In the end he wins out, and we go downstairs to join the others. This is what happens with most of our disagreements: I eventually give in and let him have his way. It’s one of the things that has caused so much tension in our marriage.

Maybe I married too young, who knows? I was a senior at NYU then, while Patrick was just finishing up his doctorate. I wanted to go to law school before getting married, get my future plans off the ground. That spring, I’d been accepted by Harvard, which had probably the finest law school in the country. A degree from Harvard could make a young lawyer’s career.

But Patrick kept pushing for us to get married right away instead. “You’ll go off to Boston and disappear into all those law books and I’ll never see you again,” he would argue.

Eventually, we reached a compromise of sorts. We got married, and I went to law school at NYU instead of Harvard. Patrick seemed happy with that solution. I was always a little disappointed, although I never really talked much with him about it. NYU Law School was nice, but I had really wanted to go to Harvard.

There have been more arguments – many more arguments – between us since then.

For example, Patrick wanted me to go into corporate law. “There’s a lot of money there. Plus it’s good, civilized stuff – working on wills, probate, that sort of thing. No sweaty criminal courtrooms and unsavory muggers,” he said.

He even arranged, through a friend, for me to get a job with Rosenstone, Gladden and Jacobs, one of the top corporate law firms in town.

I turned the offer down. Instead, with some help from my faculty advisor at NYU, I managed to snag an appointment as an assistant district attorney in the Manhattan DA’s office. The hours there are long, the pay low and the working conditions often not very comfortable, but I love it. At first, I came home feeling exhilarated after every long day in the big old building in downtown Manhattan that houses the borough’s criminal court system. The good feeling usually didn’t last very long, though. I tried to talk to Patrick about it; he didn’t understand why I didn’t just get another job – and pretty soon the fight was on between us.

The problem, I’ve decided, is that Patrick never sees me as a real person with a mind of my own. I never complain about his job, even though I think teaching Elizabethan literature is about the most boring existence imaginable. But if that’s what he wants to do, more power to him. Still, he thinks nothing of trying to run my life.

He is a good husband in many other ways, of course. Loving, good-looking, personable. My friends all tell me he was a terrific catch. “Don’t ever lose him,” they say. Well, I don’t want to lose him. But, on the other hand, I don’t like him always trying to fit me neatly into some kind of niche, so that I can be the kind of wife he wants. The problem with that is I’m not very good at fitting into other people’s niches. Never was, even when I was a kid. And probably never will be.

The Monopoly game is being played on the porch. Mrs. Monahan has set up a huge table in the center, pulled chairs around and laid out an assortment of food. When we get there, most of the others are already scattered around the porch, waiting to start the game.

“Check out the guy in the Yale t-shirt,” Patrick whispers. He points to a man who looks to be in his thirties, with curly, fashionably styled hair. “He’s Rick Newsome. The woman with him is his girlfriend, Amy. I talked to him when I came downstairs before. He’s a book editor in New York, you know.”

I look the man over, then turn back to Patrick and shrug. “So?”

“So? He may be able to help me get my book published. A little inside influence never hurts. So be nice to him.”

I smile sweetly at Patrick. “I’m always nice.”

“Well, be especially nice.”

Newsome spots us now. “Patrick,” he roars, “C’mon over here.”

We stroll over to where Rick Newsome and his girlfriend are sitting. The girlfriend has blonde hair and the angular kind of face that suggests she might be a model or actress. She’s wearing a very revealing short skirt, and her legs are curled up under her, giving anyone who wants to look a real eyeful of thigh. She is listening to music on an earpiece from her iPhone, tapping her fingers on the arm of her chair to a song.

“This is some joint, huh?” Rick Newsome says. “I’ve been to a few summer places, but I’ve never seen anything like this. The place is a friggin’ palace.”

Patrick smiles and replies, “I know what you mean. It’s a real find, all right. Listen, Rick, this is my wife, Megan. Megan, Rick Newsome.”

“And this is Amy, she’s here with me,” Rick says, pointing to the young blonde woman. She’s still listening to music and seems oblivious to our conversation.

I shake hands with Newsome and nod toward Amy.

“How ya doing, Megan?” Newsome asks.

“I’m doing fine,” I reply.

“Your husband here tells me he’s a college teacher. What do you do?”

“I’m a lawyer.”

He pulls back in mock horror. “Uh oh, my ex-wife didn’t send you after me, did she?”

“I’m not that kind of lawyer. I work in criminal law.”

“Oh yeah? Where at?”

“Manhattan. I’m an assistant district attorney with the Manhattan DA’s office.”

Rick Newsome puts his hands up in the air and acts startled again. “Oh no, don’t put the handcuffs on me. I didn’t pull that job!”

I try my best to smile. It isn’t easy. The joke is getting old and tired. The truth is, it was old and tired the first time he did it.

Fortunately, Rick and Patrick soon get into a discussion about book publishing. Advances, publicity, the growing popularity of ebooks and Audible – that sort of thing. I don’t find any of it very interesting. I sit down next to Amy.

“How do you like it here?” I ask her. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Huh?” Amy turns down the sound on her iPhone and looks at me blankly.

“I said, are you enjoying yourself here?”

“Oh, sure.”

“What have you been doing, Amy? Sailing? Swimming? Fishing?”

“Oh wow, I like swimming. I mean, I’m really into swimming.”

She doesn’t seem the greatest conversationalist in the world, but I keep trying. “Are you a good swimmer?”

“Well, I don’t actually swim. But I’m really into the idea of it. I like to watch people doing it. It’s like… beautiful, you know.”

“But you don’t go into the water to swim yourself?”

“In the water? Oh, of course not! It would ruin my hair.”

“Right.”

I’m extremely grateful when the rest of the people show up and we start the Monopoly game.

I haven’t played Monopoly in a long time, but I understand the basics of the game pretty well. Amass as much property – especially houses and hotels on high income spots – as you can, and drive your opponents into bankruptcy. In fact, I now remember that I was a very ruthless and successful Monopoly player in my younger days. Not that there is much competition for me tonight. The other people staying at the house don’t exactly look like Mensa members. I study them as the game goes on.

First, of course, are Rick and his girlfriend, Amy. I already have a pretty good idea of what the two of them are all about, and they don’t disappoint me. Rick calls everyone babe and man, and cracks a lot of bad jokes. Amy plays the entire game with music from the iPhone playing in her ear.

Then there’s Paul and Joseph. They are married, and seem very happy together. I surmise this from the way they look lovingly at each other, touch constantly and coo whenever either one makes money from a property. Good for them. They probably get along better than me and Patrick.

Another couple is Dave Beecham and his wife, Shirley. He’s a public relations executive, while Shirley tells everyone she is a housewife and a mother. She says this with a great deal of pride, as if she has just taken a course about confidently asserting one’s role in life. Actually, Dave and Shirley aren’t too bad, but there is a problem — their kids. Two of them, boys aged ten and eight. I can tell from the look in their eyes that they’re going to be trouble. Right now, they are in the other room quietly watching the big TV, but I figure it’s only a matter of time until they start causing havoc. Before now, I’ve never even thought about kids being in the house. Bad, bad, bad, I think.

Finally, there are the Snydermans. Charlie and Helen. He’s an accountant, she teaches elementary school. But the startling thing about the Snydermans is their size – they are immense. Both appear to have consumed enough food to feed half of India. During the brief time I spend with them that night, Charlie devours three ham sandwiches, half a chicken, several pieces of chocolate cake, some Twinkies and a bag of onion and garlic potato chips. Mrs. Snyderman isn’t quite up to her husband’s pace, but she is close. And when they’ve finished eating everything in sight, they still look hungry. I’m afraid that at one point they might eat some of the Monopoly cards.

I whisper to Patrick, “Boy, if the food really is free here, ol’ Mrs. Monahan is going to lose her shirt on this pair.”

The game takes a couple of hours, ending a little before eleven. I win it – by building expensive hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place and collecting a lot of other valuable property as well. When the game is over, everyone troops inside and starts watching a movie on the big TV. I excuse myself, saying I’m tired from the long trip up and want to get some sleep. Patrick tells me that he’ll stay and watch a little TV with the others, but he’ll be up soon.

Once I get back to our room, I climb into bed, make myself comfortable with a couple of pillows and begin reading a Stephen King book. Actually, I feel pretty good about the way things have gone. The evening really hasn’t been that hard to get through, plus now I feel Patrick and I have done our bit socially and can feel justified spending time by ourselves.

As it turns out, I don’t get very much reading done. I’m too tired. Before long the book drops out of my hands and I drift off to sleep.

It is later, much later, when I feel Patrick crawl into the bed next to me. He leans over and kisses me on the neck. Sleepily, I kiss him back. Then he kisses me again.

We haven’t done a lot of lovemaking lately, but suddenly it seems like a perfectly natural thing to do. We come together in a way we haven’t done in a long time. Since the beginning of our marriage. It is passionate, wild, exciting. Like something out of a movie or a sexy novel. When it’s finally over, I prop myself up on one elbow, look over at Patrick and smile.

“My God, that was something else! This summer could turn out to be interesting.”

“See, I told you this house was a great idea,” he says, and grins.

From the window next to the bed, I can see the first rays of early sunlight already beginning to appear. “Omigosh, it’s almost morning. I’ve got to get some more sleep. And you must, too. There’s a million things I want to do.”

We kiss one more time, then both of us roll over and close our eyes.

At first, I feel warm and wonderful from our lovemaking. But after a while I begin to feel a little chilly, even though it isn’t cold out at all. I pull the blanket up over myself, but it doesn’t help very much. I’m shivering, even under the blanket. It isn’t just the cold, either.

A vague feeling of uneasiness has come over me, and I’m not sure why.

Finally, as Patrick snores contentedly next to me, I drift off into a fitful sleep. But I still can’t get rid of this nagging feeling that something is wrong here.

Terribly wrong.

Even though I’m not sure what it is.