Two
   
   With grim persistence, John and Jennifer spent the whole of the following morning 
clearing out the bedroom and bundling up everything into plastic trash bags - sheets, 
clothes, shoes, drapes, broken pictures, everything. Together they rolled up the 
mattress, tied it with webbing straps, and carried it into the yard. It stunk even more 
strongly than it had yesterday evening - a kind of thick, sweet, skunky odor, with a 
rusty-metallic undertone. As soon as they had propped it up next to the garage door, 
ready to be driven to the city dump, Jennifer stepped back well away from it and took a 
deep breath of fresh air.
   'Really hums, doesn't it?' John remarked, his nose wrinkled.
   Jennifer said, 'It's disgusting. I wonder what on earth it was?'
   'Well, you heard the good Sergeant Clay. He didn't think it was any kind of creature 
known to man.'
   'He was high,' said Jennifer. They both were.'
   'You think so?' asked John, mildly surprised.
   There's no other explanation, is there? The way that other one was sniffing like that. 
They were both as high as kites.'
   'I don't know. They didn't seem like they were high to me. I thought they were very 
rational.'
   'What's rational about saying that something nonhuman has destroyed your bedroom? 
That's not rational at all.'
   John made a face. 'Well, no, I guess it isn't. But on the other hand, what happened 
wasn't very rational, either, was it? Whoever or whatever it was, how did it manage to 
break into the house completely unnoticed, tear the whole bedroom to pieces, and get away 
without anybody seeing him? Or it?'
   'He could have slipped out when we ran upstairs to see what was going on.'
   'But how? All the door were locked.'
   There was a key in the back door,' Jennifer reminded him.
   'Of course there was. But I checked the back door myself last night and it was still 
locked, from the inside.'
   'Maybe one of the cops locked it,' Jennifer suggested.
   'You mean he found it unlocked and didn't tell Sergeant Clay? That's hardly likely.'
   Jennifer folded her arms tightly. 'If you really want to know the truth, I don't care 
how he got away,' she declared. "That's up to the police to find out. He was probably an 
expert locksmith.'
   'It wouldn't make any difference if he was Harry Houdini, he couldn't have relocked a 
two-inch-thick mahogany door from the outside, now could he?'
   'So what exactly are you suggesting?' Jennifer demanded. 'The supernatural? The 
Amityville Horror?'
   John smiled and shook his head. 'Let's just get this stuff cleared up, shall we?'
   They dragged the last of the trash bags out into the yard. It was a crisp but sunny 
day; a purple martin fluttered onto one of their bay trees and bounced up and down on a 
branch, watching them inquisitively, John wiped his hands on his jeans, then said. 'How 
about a glass of wine?'
   They sat on the brick wall in the sunshine with tall tulip-shaped glasses of chilled 
Chablis. Although the yard was completely secluded, they could hear the bustle of 
Philadelphia all around them: the rushing of traffic up and down Front Street, the 
scratching of jets taking off from Philadelphia International Airport, the thrumming of 
feet on the sidewalks of Market Street, the distant racketing of air-hammers and pile 
drivers around Center City.
   Jennifer said, "The only thing that really frightens me is that he might come back.'
   John sipped wine and set his glass down. 'I've thought about that. I've asked a 
security company to come over tomorrow and install a proper alarm system. They may 
recommend that we put bars on the windows, too.'
   'What about tonight?'
   'I've thought about that, too. Jack Pelling goes on vacation this afternoon; he said 
that we could borrow his house for as long as we want.'
   'Well, that's sweet of him.'
   T wasn't planning on staying here tonight anyway,' said John. 'I mean, quite apart 
from the fact that I don't relish another sleepless night on that couch, it'll do us all 
good to get away for a couple of days. Did you see Lenny this morning? He looked like he 
hadn't slept in a week.'
   'Did he have nightmares?' asked Jennifer.
   John shook his head. 'I don't know. But he didn't say a word when I took him to school 
this morning. He just sat in the car and stared out the window.'
   'Oh, poor Lenny. We'll have to make sure that he goes to bed early tonight.'
   John said, Tomorrow afternoon we can go to Strawbridge and Clothier and choose 
ourselves a new bed. Then maybe we'll go to Gimbel's and pick some new wallpaper.' 
   'It's clothes I need, not wallpaper,' Jennifer protested. 'I don't even have any 
underwear.'
   'You mean, underneath that dress, you're completely naked?'
   'Yes, as a matter of fact.'
   John put his hand on her knee and edged it a little way up under the skirt. 'Why 
didn't you tell me that before, you brazen temptress?'
   She firmly pushed his hand away, then kissed him on the nose. 'Because we don't have a 
bed, that's why.'
   'What's wrong with the couch? What's wrong with the rug? When we were first going out 
together, we did it in the office stockroom, for God's sake.'
   She kissed him again, quickly, flirtatiously. He leaned over to kiss her in return, 
but at that moment the front doorbell rang.
   'Rescued from ravishment in the nick of time,' she said with a smile, and went to 
answer it. John grunted in amusement, and leaned back against the wall, finishing off his 
wine.
   Two or three minutes went by without Jennifer reappearing, and eventually John went to 
see what was going on. Standing in the front hall was Mrs. Scuyler, Lenny's teacher from 
school; and there, too, was Lenny, pale and quiet, and looking more like his dead mother 
than ever.
   'John, darling,' said Jennifer. 'Mrs. Scuyler's brought Lenny home. It seems he hasn't 
been feeling too good.'
   John put his arm around Lenny's shoulders. 'Hey, champ, what's wrong? Have you been 
sick or anything?'
   'He wouldn't tell me,' said Mrs. Scuyler. She was a fussy, motherly woman with wild 
gingery hair that refused to behave itself. This morning she was wearing a vivid green 
tent-dress that made her look even more gingery than usual. 'But Mr. Dreyfus said he was 
very quiet in gym practice, and when I took him for math he started to cry, didn't you, 
Lenny? So I brought him home.'
   'That's very nice of you, Mrs. Scuyler,' said John. 'I don't know whether Lenny told 
you, but we had a break-in here at the house yesterday. I guess it must have upset him. 
It certainly upset us.'