1

  The town of Harrison in 1959 was a demanding place. Still scarcely developed, plunked may be the word, in the wildest of north western terrain. Trapped between the ocean and mountains. Only one cliff-side road (the type that urges you to immediately put your seat-belt on) connected the nearest neighboring town. It was for awhile hard to believe people lived there annually.

  Old Lea wasn't yet old, but she wasn't young either. 1959 was her peak year of house obsession. She made up excuses to be alone almost every day so she could watch the house. She sat for hours fascinated by the listless people stirring occasionally by windows or in the yard. Some days she watched from afar with a pair of binoculars and other times she went right up and stood on the porch. On this day in 1959 she watched from afar. She was tired of being warned by the neighbours. Keep outta there! they might yell. One time Evan Casper actually yelled Watch out for those Communist Pigs! Lea laughed over that for awhile. She knew what was going on was bigger than the plot of some pulp spy novel Evan picked up at the flea market.

  She had never spoken to a house-dweller, and never would. Any day they would be gone and new strangers would listlessly stir in exactly the same fashion. From one day to the next Lea would see entirely new faces. But they're still the same people, she thinks for no reason at all.

  During the 1950s Lea became an addicted fan of science fiction movies and books. She decided the house-dwellers were definitely akin to Bodysnatchers. She began calling them Space Pods, and would continue to do so until her death. One might think when George Romero appeared in the late 60s she might have started calling them Zombie Flesh Eaters, only it never caught on. The cannibalism theory was kicked around at some point but always seemed far-fetched. The dwellers never left the house to acquire victims.

  Lea had watched the house two hours a day for the last week. She hadn't seen anyone else around, except for the odd quick glance from hurrying pedestrians. Two days ago she saw a baby in a stroller pointing at the house.

  2

  Lea needed a dime for the payphone. She intended to call her sister Jodie and cancel hanging out tonight. Then to watch house for a few hours. Packed in her bag was enough food and drink to get her through a decent stakeout.

  "Can I borrow a dime?" she asked Tom Pitkin, who was sitting on some steps near the only payphone in Harrison. Tom was a bit younger, about to turn 20. He looked serene then. He was still unfazed by the house. Eventually he got hit by the house obsession harder than anyone before.

  "Sure," he said absently.

  He handed her a dime and she fed it to the machine. After a long pause her sister answered the phone.

  "I can't make it tonight," Lea said.

  "You're going to watch the house."

  "You know."

  "Everybody knows."

  "They do?"

  "Stealth isn't your focus, walking right up to the porch. Even putting your face to the window sometimes. You've got to stop, Lea."

  "I can't."

  "Get on with your life like everyone else is doing. There's nothing we can do about the house so just forget about it."

  "No, I don't want to. I'll talk to you later. Sorry I'm not coming over tonight."

  Lea clicked the phone back onto the worn receiver. She heard the quarter drop into the silver belly of the machine, where it would be digested for two weeks until the coin-collector emptied it.

  "They're right, whoever you were talking to."

  Lea almost jumped. She had forgotten Tom was still sitting nearby.

  "How do you know?" she asked him.

  "They're right about the house. You gotta forget. Move on. Paint the tree. Climb the fence. You gotta..."

  Lea cut him off, "That's good. Thanks. I'll pay you back."

  "You better."

  She headed off down the sidewalk, thinking about the advice to forget the house.

  Some people give me advice for my own well-being, thought Lea. But really they're telling me to forget about the house for their own sake. Everyone's busy trying to forget, meanwhile I blatantly remind them.

  I don't want to forget the house. It is a reminder that something extraordinary is happening around me.

  3

  Lea didn't arrive at the house until 6pm. It was already near pitch dark.

  Maybe I won't stay as long as I planned.

  She sat down on a stump and got her binoculars out of the bag. The window was fully drawn and she saw a young male and an older female in one room. A child sat in another room playing with a toy telephone.

  Never seen them playing with anything, she mused. After thinking for a moment realized she hadn't seen many possessions at all in the house. If you walked right up to a window and peered in, there were no couches, tables, or lamps. Not even any pictures of Grama on the wall.

  Is this a new development?

  Lea thought back to a time when she saw a dweller, an old man, raking leaves in the front yard. That was the only other time she had seen one handling a tool or object. As far as she knew all they did was sit, walk, and stand.

  What about think? Do they even think or reason? Or are they vessels like the Bodysnatchers. That one with the rake at least knew enough to know that he wanted his leaves raked. And the child seems to understand the purpose of a telephone.

  She saw the child, a girl about the age of 7 or 8, hold the receiver up to her ear while dialing a number.

  She methodically dialed 10 digits, area code and everything.

  Smart little stranger.

  They were more than strangers to Lea. They were phantoms. The level of mystery surrounding them made it hard to focus, as if they were nothing more than memories crowding up an otherwise vacant house. In no way haunting or invading this... world of normal folk. Only lingering. Then passing through.

  Lea thought they were Space Pods, indeed, but not hostile. She figured their disposition was simply to wait. Irrelevant to probably all living creatures here on earth. She hoped for this anyway, while wondering if they were slowly planning an attack via replication like in her beloved stories.

  Invasion of the House-Dwellers! Invasion of the Alien Space Pods! Invasion of the Communist Pigs! Starring Lea Glover as the Idiot Who Stumbles Into An Invasion. Also starring James Arness as one of the Defense Guards who tries to save the town. Only they're too late...it's an Unhappy Ending! Poor Lea's acting career was just taking off too!

  Lea snapped her head around at the sound of a loud horn blaring from one of the neighbouring yards. She had gone into a trance and felt badly dazed from the jolt of the horn, almost faint. Green blotches skated across her field of vision. Her ears rang. The dwellers obviously didn't hear or care about the noise. Lea saw Evan Casper (Communist Pigs!) standing near the bordering fence holding a bull-horn. Before either of them spoke, she thought about how much she envied the person with a connected yard to the house. An envy not shared by most of the town.

  "I told you to watch out for those Commies!" he yelled.

  At first Lea was puzzled. Evan only yelled at her when she got too close to the house. Today she had only planned on hanging back and watching through binoculaurs. Then she looked around and realized she was standing on the back porch.

  I don't remember...

  A few more steps and she'd have found herself reaching for the doorknob, striding in, and saying something stupid like Alright, what the hell's going on here?

  "Don't worry about me!" she yelled back, "And put that horn away, you'll deafen the block!"

  "Get outta there! Right now!"

  Way too scared of Russian Spies. He suspects more.

  "Cool it, Evan. They're not dangerous."

  "What do you know about it? I live next door! I've seen things!"

  "Like what?" asks Lea, not hiding her phenomenal interest.

  "Never mind...and if I was telling you I wouldn't be shouting across the lawn!"

  Lea said no more and decided it was time to leave for the night. She desperately wanted to learn whatever secrets of the house he knew, but didn't want to force anything. The story would eventually unfold.

  During her walk home a hammering rain soaked her to shivers. She got home, dried off, and went to sleep. Tomorrow would be the day in which afterwards Lea never went near the house again.

  4

  She overslept.

  By normal standards she hardly slept at all, but during her year of obsession she learned to cut down on sleeping to heighten her house watching time.

  She was given the first knowledge of the day by a set of non-digital clock-hands. They told her it was 8:47.

  Breakfast, then phone Jodie and maybe meet up with her to make up for yesterday.

  "Hey Jodie."

  "Evan Casper phoned me last night."

  No hello. Cut-to-the-Chase Jodie.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  "What'd he say?"

  "He said your house-watching has gotten worse, you constantly wonder right up to the porch."

  "I didn't mean to walk that close."

  "That's the point. He said you look like a catatonic vegetable or something." Had George Romero been around at this time Evan Casper would have described Lea as a zombie.

  Catatonic vegetable, thought Lea. Either one of those words is enough.

  "They could be dangerous."

  Lea finally said what she had wanted to for a long time.

  "That's not why everyone keeps warning me. You just want to be able to get on with your own life and I keep reminding you of the house."

  "What? We all care about you!"

  "Sure, but admit it's also true."

  "Maybe for Evan and the rest of the town. You know I don't want you to get in trouble. Please say you'll stop going as often."

  "Okay, I'll cut down," lied Lea. She had no intention of cutting down. Her recent trance-like behaviour had not deterred her.

  "I've said my part. It's up to you. Bye."

  Click.

  Lea sighed, feeling guilty. Jodie was her only living relative within 500 miles. She didn't want to be dishonest. Except the drawing power of the house that afternoon was too strong to deny.

  It's funny, how people can suddenly give up cold turkey the hobbies that once held near domination over their lives. Later in the evening of that same day Lea would feel completely done with the house. Struck with a long overdue wallop of disillusionment. Then came desertion of a once cherished obsession.

  For now, she couldn't wait to trek over to the house. Her meagre breakfast was enough. Lea grabbed her coat.

  5

  Evan Casper was sitting on the porch, waiting for Lea to arrive. He walked right up to her, as if about to whisper in her ear. Lea was surprised. He seemed calmer than usual.

  "You're late," he said.

  "Late?" Lea asked.

  "If you know when the right time is you can see them change. It's already happened."

  "You see new people arriving?"

  "They don't arrive."

  "They appear? And the old ones vanish?"

  "No, they change."

  "You mean...still the same people?"

  "Not people."

  Lea was exhilarated. Almost frightened.

  "Aliens?" she asked.

  "No."

  "What are they?"

  "In my house we can talk."

  Lea jumped at this opportunity to learn about the strangers.

  "Okay."

  Evan directed her in through the sliding glass door in the back yard. Once inside Lea turned around to see what kind of view he had of the house. It was a good view. Lea could see into most all of the back windows, including a small room upstairs that she had never noticed. Looked as if it belonged to part of an attic or loft.

  "Drink?"

  "No thanks." Lea didn't want to waste time.

  "You want to find out about the house. I'll tell you one story."

  "Have you been inside?"

  "No."

  "Oh," she said disappointingly. She was sure he had.

  "I've seen one of them leaving the house and followed them."

  "You have?" That was even better.

  "One night a couple years ago," he began, "I was watching the house. A man and a woman had been there for a week or so. They barely moved for hours, then all of a sudden the man walks out the front door and heads for the trail across the road, the one that goes to Gilbert River. What are the odds after all these years I get to see one of them leaving the house. I couldn't pass up this opportunity. Threw on my boots and coat and walked out the door. All the way down to the river I stealthily followed him. He either didn't notice me or pretended not to."

  "What--" Lea started to ask.

  "Be quiet if you want to hear this. When we got to the water I waited back in the brush to see what he would do. He went to the water's edge and walked right into the rapids. I couldn't believe my eyes. Middle of the night in winter. The rapids were high and mighty, not to mention cold enough to make icicles of your blood cells. Anybody'd surely have been swept down the river like a twig... but this guy walked through the river like he was on one of those moving escalators. All the way to the other side.

  'Now this is the part I'm unclear about. When he got to the other side of the river he retrieved something buried in the ground. It was square-like and opened, so maybe a box or suitcase. It was dark so can't be entirely certain. When he opened it I heard a song playing. I'm sure the language of the lyrics or talking, whatever it was, did not come this planet. Strange, eh?"

  "Yes," replied Lea.

  Space Pods? she was about to say. Evan continued.

  "The box wasn't solely for playing music. It was full of stuff. He kept rearranging things, tools or mementos. I didn't get a clear look at anything."

  "Do you think the song was a form of communication?"

  "I don't think so."

  "If you didn't get a good look at anything, how is this going to help me learn about the house?"

  "Knowing that at least one time someone from that house has left the property is good enough, isn't it?"

  Lea supposed it was, only she wanted more.

  "Anyway, you didn't let me finish," Evan said, "After about an hour he gave up and crossed the river. I waited for him to get a head start on the trail and then emerged from my hiding in the brush and followed. He went back into the house and sat in a chair. I watched for another hour, none of them moved. When I woke up in the morning both the man and woman were gone and three different people were in their place."

  Lea was annoyed to hear Evan let out a sigh of relief, as if he had told a satisfying story to its completion.

  "I still don't understand."

  "I thought you would fill in the blanks....He left the box. The box is still there. I know it is!"

  "And you've never gone after it?"

  "I almost did. Then my interest in the house vanished like it has with so many others. One day I woke up and realized I didn't care. Whatevers going on, my life is better not knowing. But I think you need this. You either need to give up the house cold turkey, or progress to another level of understanding it. Watching the house all day and never learning anything about it isn't good. I've seen people around here perish in frustration. They reach a mental stalemate and wind up swept under the rug in some place."

  Had Lea seen Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (not to be released until next year), she might have thought Evan's reference to a mental institution as some place had an eerie parallel to the words that so enraged Norman Bates when speaking of the fate of Mother.

  "You're right. I'm gonna go crazy if something doesn't change."

  Evan nodded his head.

  "I'll get going. I don't want to bother you anymore," she said.

  Lea put on her shoes and opened the door.

  "Forgetting something?" Evan asked.

  Lea checked her pockets. She didn't remember taking anything out while she was sitting down.

  "I don't think so."

  Evan laughed. "I never told you what part of the river. You'll be looking for years!"

  "Oh, right," said Lea. Laughing awkwardly, feeling stupid.

  "You know where all the kids jump into the river?"

  Lea knew where he meant. The spot on the river where cliff-like rocks made for the most prime jumping location. All the kids flocked there in the summer. There were three good perches to jump off, each of varying height and challenge. Kids who only jumped from the lowest perch were apt to be called one of the multitude of names from the ever-expanding Sissy Dictionary. They called the spot Trois Jumps. Why the inclusion of french, Lea didn't know.

  "I know it. Trois Jumps."

  "Yeah, that's it. The box is buried just beside the jumps. On the eastern side, there is a flat area of dirt. It's somewhere in there. I wish I could be more specific. The area isn't very big so who knows, maybe a few guesses and you'll find something. The man from the house dug it out with bizarre ease and no tools, but I suggest you bring a shovel. It might have already been found after all this time. I don't think it has."

  Lea did not own a shovel. She asked Evan if she could borrow one.

  "There's one in the back shed, grab it on the way out. Whatever you find, don't tell anyone you were here talking about the house. Throw the shovel in the river."

  Evan slowly sauntered up the stairs and shut himself inside one of the bedrooms.

  I guess that's it.

  6

  The shed was chained up with a padlock. She was about to turn back and ask for the key when she noticed it was unlocked. Rusty from two decades of pacific rain, the lock looked as if it would wither to dust at the breath of a crippled butterfly. Instead it creaked off with ease.

  Broken lawnmowers littered three corners of the shed. Boxes labelled Christmas Decorations were piled up in the fourth. Lea guessed they hadn't been used in a long time, like everything else in here. She shuddered after hearing the scurrying of whoever's home this now was.

  Where's this shovel?

  Her eyes moved along the shed contents. A moldy calendar from 1941 barely clung to the wall.

  Stuck in the past, but not forever young.

  A black and white photo of a sunset represented the month of November. The 25th was scrawled with the words Cancel Plans.

  Maybe Evan wanted to stay home and watch the house.

  She moved on, rooting around under bundles of rope and behind some assorted tires. Thick dust set off a sneezing attack. Lea, reeling, sat down on a wooden stool to catch her breath. She spied a yellow inflatable dingy tied to the wall, fully blown up. Everyone in Harrison who lives near the Gilbert River owns a water vessel. Whether it's a dingy, canoe or one of those rubber donuts.

  Lea got up and pulled the dingy from off the wall. It revealed a whole rack of gardening equipment, among which was a shovel.

  Yes!

  She also noticed a pair of gloves and a flashlight.

  He won't miss them.

  She put the gloves in her pocket and inspected the flashlight. The batteries looked corroded, yet amazingly it worked. Miracles do exist.

  Time to solve this mystery. She trudged to the river.

  7

  Her excitement faltered when she got there and remembered she had to first cross the river. Trois Jumps is inaccessible from the other side. Well... accessible through miles of barbed nightmares. A labyrinth of disconnected trails. She would never find it. The only way to get there was across the water.

  Wish I'd grabbed that dingy, Lea thought. She inspected the river.

  Probably the tamest time of year. There isn't a better time to cross without a boat.

  Lea was right about it being the tamest time of year for the river. Only that wasn't very consolatory considering the immense speed the water was travelling. Jagged rocks rose up from the river like sentry guards. Water passed over them effortlessly.

  If I'm swept downstream...the Sentry Guards have a short guest list.

  If you looked long enough at the river it was as if the bath-plug of the world had been pulled and all the scenery was rushing away downstream. When the ground pulls away you know that for a split-second you'll see the nothingness of space revealed beneath it. Before you are also pulled with the river.

  8

  You can swim this.

  Lea had a feeling there would be no problem swimming across this river. She'd done it before (not for years) many times.

  How are you going to bring the shovel? You're not. Dig with your hands.

  She threw the shovel in the river as Evan said. Before it had a chance to be contaminated with whatever worried him. The gloves were tucked in her back pocket. The flashlight secured in her belt.

  They'll get wet but who cares.

  Wasting no time testing the water, Lea jumped feet first into the icy world of the river. Instantly upon hitting the water she knew she would not make it to the other side. She frantically swam to beat the current, but distance closed on those snarling Sentry Guards. It was now only a question of whether to turn back or to take her chance dodging the rocks. The scenery did not rush downstream, it stayed motionless and vanished faster than Lea could comprehend.

  It's a new film now...White-Water Terror! In the lead role is our ill-fated star Lea Glover! She's the only person in the whole film...no heroes to the rescue! No curious dogs are going to stumble upon her and dutifully alert the sheriff like that dumb show. Rumour has it she actually died while shooting the river scene and they used the footage in the final cut like some kind of depraved snuff film! "Total Realism," says the Producers, "that's what movie-goers want these days!"

  Lea barely swept clean between the sentry guards. She was grateful for that, but was still travelling down the river fast and couldn't latch onto anything. A drop unexpectedly sent her into a whirlpool. She felt a tug at her feet as the powerful vacuum sought to pull her under. For a second she had a vision of branches that were gnarled hands grabbing relentlessly at her ankles. The rivers hands. As she went fully underwater she was transported to Earth's other world, that place below the surface where humans are just flailing mammals. She was tossed around like a gerbil in an out-of-control wheel. No longer able to run but desperately hanging on while the the colors and shapes of the world melted into a kaleidoscope of matter and nothing else.

  When her lungs tasted water there was blindness.

  After the blindness there was coughing. Then came life.

  9

  Lea was washed onto a rock and survived the night. She would survive many other nights. She lay unconscious for a time. Lungs saturated with the river. After sunrise the noise of a nearby raven awoke Lea from her blackout. There was coughing for a long time. The raven did not reply.

  10

  The house did not reply either. It was a distant idea to Lea. At once she knew the obsession was gone forever. Washed away with the river. Punched from her mind as if maybe she had struck her head on one of the Sentry Guards after all.

  What am I doing? Half-dead and freezing, sitting in the middle of the river. Looking for alien artifacts on some wild goose chase. That's the real movie...Wild Goose Chase! Starring the typecast Lea Glover yet again as the Gullible Idiot. With Evan Casper as The One Who Sells Her the Deal!

  "Fuck Evan Casper!"

  This time the raven replied.

  11

  When Lea knocked on Evan Casper's door looking ragged and angry she knew she wouldn't be welcome, but she didn't expect his reaction. She didn't even hear his first question.

  "Who the hell are you?" he asked.

  "I didn't get the box. I couldn't make it across the river. I passed out and almost died. I'm giving up forever. Here's your gloves and flashlight. I threw the shovel away like you said."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "What?"

  "Who are you?" asked Evan again.

  "What are you doing? It's me, Lea."

  "What are you doing? I've never seen you before!"

  "You told me about the house last night."

  "I don't know what house you're talking about. Now get off my porch before I get my weapon!"

  He slammed the door before she could speak one more syllable.

  12

  Evan Casper vanished the next day.

  Lea never looked at the house again.

  Tom got older and meddlesome.