Read Shallow Veins (The Obscured Book 1) for Free Online Page A

bottom, they come back to Mary and Kevin. They pull out notepads and forms and take their official statement. The first thing Kevin asks is, "Did you check the basement?"
    "We searched the whole house, no sign of intruders, no forced entry. If there was anyone in the house he's long gone now. Usually it's junkies looking for meds. Saw you coming up the driveway and got spooked." Kevin understands what's going on here: this cop is giving him a stock speech, memorized from hundreds of other calls, recited to make victims feel safe.
    "And the spare bedroom?"
    Officer Banks sniffs, barely hiding his anger. "He just told you, we checked the whole house." Again that knowing nod to another officer. Then he turns to Mary. "I understand you're shaken up but there's no reason for concern. Is there anything else you need before we go?" Kevin knows what he means. He would punch Officer Banks in the mouth if he could.
    "No thank you, officer, you've been great." Mary leads Kevin back to the house, letting the officers wrap up.
    That night, instead of sleeping, Kevin stares at the ceiling trying not to look at the air vent on the far wall. His heart booms in his chest and his palms sweat, but he refuses to look.
     
     
    **
     
     
    In the following days Mary notices a change in Kevin. He's distant, easily startled, and he's not eating as much. Instead of finishing his dinner and looking for something to snack on, he rarely clears his plate. She knows he's losing weight when he brushes his teeth next to her and she can see his shoulder bones in the mirror. She asks him if everything is good but he brushes aside the questions with vague allusions to feeling ill. Then he says he has a lot of work to catch up on, goes into the office and shuts the door.
    Once alone, he doesn't code. He's afraid of letting his guard down, of losing himself in that place with no eyes on the sinks, no ears to the floor.
    When Mary is off at work, Kevin pours himself a glass of water, sits at the kitchen table and watches the basement door. He waits for phantom sounds and reappeared bodies. He doesn't know what else to do to ease the feeling that the moment his back is turned, horrors will be unleashed from those stairs. Felix lays at his feet, occasionally asking to be let outside, but when Kevin doesn't notice the scratching at the door the dog sometimes has accidents. He pees in the corner and whines, sorry for what he's done.
    Once, Kevin is so lost listening to the basement he forgets Felix outside for almost two hours. No matter how much he apologizes to Felix, scratching behind the dog's fuzzy ears, he hates the way it makes him feel.
    “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Felix puts his paws up on Kevin’s knees, letting himself be pet. His fur is cold, his nose dry, but he blames nothing on Kevin. He’s just happy to be back inside with people, warm, getting scratched under his chin, tongue out, eyes squinted, and the sight is so silly after such a cruel oversight that Kevin can’t help but chuckle. “You don’t hold grudges, do you, pal?”
    He’s looking into his dog’s eyes, smiling for the first time in a week, when he hears it.
    The sound is faint at first, so much that even Felix with his sensitive hearing doesn’t seem concerned. It registers as nothing more than an electric shaver left running, sputtering through its last moments before the rechargeable battery dies. But as it continues on it gains in volume, varying in pitch and speed until it moves from something mechanical toward a surgical dampness, like a liposuction vacuum sucking up watery fat.
    Man and dog notice it at the same time, far off in the house, in a forgotten closet, an electrical outlet, maybe even on the roof, an antenna gone mad. Like the smell in the basement it’s hard to pinpoint, but unlike the smell, the sound becomes more and more obvious, coming closer, up the hallway, winds its way up like a moray eel emerging from a split in oceanic rock.
    Kevin and Felix