One Door From Heaven

introduced him to a homicidal psychopath who collects teeth still firmly fixed in carved-out chunks of jawbone, gums attached. Nevertheless, though just a boy, he is sufficiently well informed about the darker side of human nature to understand what he saw in that jar.
        "Serial killers," he whispers to Old Yeller. Serial killers. This concept is too complex for the dog to grasp. She lacks the cultural references to make sense of it. Her tail stops wagging, but only because she feels her brother-becoming's distress.
        Curtis still must find a bowl for the orange juice, but he's not going to look in any more nightstand drawers. No way. Otherwise, only the closet remains unexplored. Movies and books warn that closets are problematical. The worst thing that you could dream up in a nightmare, no matter how hideous and fantastic and unlikely, might be waiting for you in a closet.
        This is a beautiful world, a masterpiece of creation, but ii is also a dangerous place. Villains human and inhuman and supernatural lurk in basements and in cobweb-festooned attics. In graveyards at night. In abandoned houses, in castles inhabited by people with surnames of Germanic or Slavic origin, in funeral homes, in ancient pyramids, in lonely woods, under the surface of virtually any large body of water, even also on occasion under the soap-obscured surface of a full bathtub, and of course in spaceships whether they are here on Earth or cruising distant avenues of the universe.
        Right now, he'd rather explore a graveyard or a scarab-infested pyramid with mummies on the march, or the chambers of any spaceship, instead of the closet in these serial killers' motor home. He's not in an Egyptian desert, however, and he's not aboard a faster-than-light vessel beyond the Horsehead Nebula in the constellation of Orion. He's here, like it or not, and if ever he has needed to draw strength from his mother's courageous example, this is the moment.
        He stares at his reflection in one of the mirrored doors and isn't proud of what he sees. Pale face. Eyes wide and shining with fear. The posture of a fright-buckled child: tensed body, hunched shoulders, head tucked down as if he expects someone to strike him.
        Old Yeller turns her attention from Curtis to the closet. She issues a low growl.
        Maybe something hideous does lurk in there. Perhaps awaiting Curtis is a discovery far more disgusting and terrifying than the teeth.
        Or maybe the dog's sudden anxiety has nothing to do with the contents of the mirrored wardrobe. She might simply have absorbed Curtis's mood.
        The closet door rattles. Probably just road vibration.
        Resolved to live up to his mother's expectations, reminding himself of his remorse over failing to rescue Donella, determined to locate a suitable juice bowl for his thirsty dog, he grips the handle on one of the sliding doors. He draws a deep breath, clenches his teeth, and opens the closet.
        As his reflection slides away from him and as the interior of the wardrobe is revealed, Curtis sighs with relief when he fails to find jars of pickled eyeballs arrayed on the one long shell. None of the garments hanging from the rod appears to be made of human skin.
        Still wary but with growing confidence, he drops to his knees to search the closet floor for anything that might be used as a bowl. Lie finds only men's and women's shoes, and he's grateful that they don't contain a collection of severed feet.
        A pair of men's walking shoes appear new. He takes one of these from the closet, puts it on the floor near the bed, and fills it with orange juice from the plastic jug.
        Ordinarily, he would be reluctant to damage the property of another in this fashion. But serial killers don't deserve the same respect as law-abiding citizens.
        Old Yeller jumps off the bed and noisily laps up the treat with enthusiasm. She doesn't hesitate or pause to consider the taste-as though she has drunk orange juice before.
        Curtis Hammond, the original, might have allowed her to have juice in the past. The current Curtis Hammond suspects, however, that he and the mutt are continuing to bond and that she recognizes the taste from his recent experience of it.
        A boy and his dog can form astonishing, profound connections. He knows this to be true not entirely from movies and books, but from experience with animals in the past.
        Curtis