Blowout

long dead.
    The steps weren’t carpeted, just bare solid oak, beautifully finished, and his footsteps echoed loud in the silent air. He felt the weight of each step, sure his feet were sinking just a bit into the heavy planks.
    He reached the top of the stairs and paused a moment to listen. He didn’t hear anything. He felt along the wall until he found a light switch. He flicked it on and the long corridor lit up. Here the floor was carpeted with thick old broadloom. He went into room after room, all bedrooms, most looking long empty, except for a well-used boy’s room with posters of old rock groups on every wall, all sorts of toys and games covering the surfaces. There weren’t any clothes strewn about and the bed was made. There was an old signed football from the undefeated 1972 Dolphins sitting in the middle of it. At the end of the corridor there was a huge master suite, the bed made, the whole space neat as a pin. He opened a closet to find a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt lying on the floor, and a pair of women’s boots, one lying atop the other. He went into each of the five old-fashioned bathrooms, searched more closets than he cared to count, and finally he eased into a den of sorts, the walls covered with prints of London and Paris. There was no big media center, just a TV on a stand in the corner and what looked like a TV Guide lying precariously on top, a pool table, several easy chairs, and one ratty leather sofa that looked like it had been used for at least two generations.
    There was only silence, thick and dead.
    Whatever they had heard, no, whom ever they had heard, was gone. Savich felt helpless, something he hated. He wondered if the man who’d made these noises had simply slipped out of one of the upstairs windows. Savich walked slowly back along the corridor, alert, his SIG steady in his hand. Suddenly he felt something, something that was close, something right behind him. Savich froze for an instant, then quickly, crouching low, he whirled around, his SIG up. No one was there, not even a dust mote, but the odd thing was that there was a heaviness in the air itself, as if something should be there, as if perhaps it was, just invisible to him. He shook his head at himself.
    He had no idea what was really going on. The only one who could clear things up was the woman downstairs, seated on that flowered sofa, staring into the fireplace, wearing a dress more suited to summer than this bone-cold winter night. He could give her tea, calm her down, get her talking, convince her to let him take her to the sheriff.
    He’d nearly reached the stairs when he heard another noise. It was above him.

CHAPTER
2
    A N ATTIC . He’d heard the creak of footsteps overhead, as if someone were walking from one board to the next, carefully, slowly, so as not to fall, trying to move as quietly as he could. Savich got his brain focused and calm. So some fool was in the attic, trying to scare the bejesus out of him. The same fool he and the woman had heard before. He hadn’t gone out a window after all.
    Angry now, Savich forced himself to stillness. He kept staring upward, waiting for another footstep to pinpoint where the man was, but there was nothing, only the quiet of an empty house.
    He saw the attic pull cord nicely camouflaged against a window, down at the end of the long hallway. He trotted to it, unlooped it, and pulled it down. The stairs slipped smoothly down from the ceiling, their lowest rung touching the hallway carpet.
    Darkness poured down. He pulled out his Swiss Army knife with its penlight and switched it on. It was better than nothing, though not much.
    He climbed the stairs, every sense heightened. He kept his feet firmly planted on the wooden ladder when his head and chest cleared the attic opening and looked around him as far as the meager light from the penlight would penetrate. It was black as Sean’s pirate eye patch, with no windows to let in the moonlight. He remained on the ladder, unwilling to climb all the way into the attic. It was too dark and he knew himself vulnerable, even with his SIG. He continued to flash the penlight around him, but its range was so limited, he couldn’t make out anything more than ten feet away.
    Finally, he spoke. “Is anyone up here?”
    There was no sound, not a whisper of a sound. The air itself seemed old and dead, like breathing inside a mausoleum. He circled the penlight again.
    He stopped once again, listened. “Is anyone up