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maintenance. The red eye blinking at him from the darkness of the drain.
Henry does the only thing a grown man can do upon remembering such a series of events: he laughs.
“An eye in the drain?” he says. As bad as the wounds on his body are, he can’t believe what he thought he saw. He laughs again. What else can he do?
Henry is about to head downstairs to take care of maintenance step number five— turning the boiler on so it can gulp the oil and send steam throughout the house into the metal radiators—when the phone rings. The sound startles him. He hadn’t realized how bad his hands were shaking until this moment; his entire body is rocking.
Henry hurries to the phone and answers, but there’s only silence on the line.
“Hello?” he says. “Sarah?”
There’s a brief burst of static, the crackle of a voice, and the line goes dead. Henry hangs up and tries to dial the number for the condo in the city, but there’s no dial tone. He’s not terribly surprised. He lives in the middle of nowhere and phone problems aren’t uncommon, even in this fiber optic day and age. He waits in the kitchen for a few more minutes, hoping he might get lucky and the phone will ring again, but there’s nothing.
Henry returns to the top of the cellar stairs. His trusty flashlight, which sits next to the boiler where he left it, is cutting a bright corridor through the darkness.
Thump-thump-thump.
Henry cocks his head, puzzled. This sound isn’t from the boiler. The boiler is switched off, after all. The boiler is metallic and big. This noise was small and wet.
Henry stands motionless while his frazzled brain attempts to decipher what he could have heard.
Thump-thump-thump.
And this time, the flashlight moves.
And then comes a growl, deep and guttural, like the one that greeted him when he looked into the cellar drain.
Henry’s instincts take control and he’s bolting through the living room and up the stairs before the flashlight in the cellar has even settled back into place.
THE BIRTH OF THE ARTIST (6)
H

enry stared at the tree house, which
    seemed larger and more dangerous than he remembered—maybe because he could finally climb up there and discover what was hidden inside. The snowdrifts had blown around the base of the mammoth tree, forming something like a ramp to the lowest branch. From there it would just be a matter of careful climbing. He had climbed smaller trees; he knew he could do it.
    So why was there such a tight knot swelling in his stomach?
Henry reached for the lowest branch. That was his only answer to the questions his body was asking him. He climbed and he kept his eyes locked on the next branch. All he could do was keep moving. He imagined what he must look like to someone watching him: the bright yellow rain slicker slowly ascending the thick trunk of the tree.
A few minutes later, the winter air was biting at Henry’s fingers through his gloves; his hands and his feet were starting to ache. To make matters worse, the wind was gusting, blowing chunks of ice and snow off the branches, pummeling him as he climbed. Twice he almost lost his grip, and his stomach lurched into his throat each time.
When he finally arrived at the bottom of the tree house, Henry gasped in relief. He reached for the latch that held a trap door in place. He struggled to release the metal latch, which seemed to be frozen in place. He debated taking off his right glove to get a better grip, but he quickly dismissed the idea. His hands were cold enough.
Henry stood on his tippy toes to gain more leverage; his legs were wobbly. He grunted and put all of his weight into turning the latch— which suddenly gave way, flipping to the side. The heavy wooden door swung open faster than Henry had expected, passing within inches of his face. He was so startled he almost stepped backwards. His eyes instinctively shifted to the ground far below the barren tree branches covered in ice and snow.
Henry stared in horror as the ground zoomed up at