Yes, Mrs. Halloway

                Leah loved being a housekeeper, even if no one really knew what she did. Normal people didn’t hire her; her services were for clients that were too rich to care about anything beyond their daily 5:30 p.m. martinis. Everyone else assumed she was either a maid, an interior decorator, or a glorified housewife. At times, she felt like all three.

But Leah loved her job because it meant she had control.

She controlled everything: their homes, their days, their meetings, their kids. She even controlled their frilly little dogs that still didn’t know how to not shit on the $5,000 carpet. Without her, their lives descended into chaos, but for a fee only a CEO could afford, she held that chaos back by the nape of its neck.

Mrs. Halloway, her latest client, was no different from the others. Recently retired and divorced in the same year, the 67-year-old woman had dominated the divorce court and walked away with half her husband’s pension and their family’s entire sprawling Montana estate that was carved into the magnificent countryside. Built on the backs of centuries of cattle ranchers, the home took 15 landscapers, four maids, one personal chef, and two pool boys to run, all of which Leah managed. She hadn’t wanted to make the move from Washington to come here, but after their initial meeting, Mrs. Halloway had proved that she could make it very worth her while. She hadn’t looked back ever since the first direct deposit hit her checking account.

Two months later, she checked the messages on her phone as she sat in her idling car. The brightness of her phone filled the dim interior, illuminating what the rapidly descending sun ignored as it disappeared beyond the mountainous horizon. Darkness pooled just past the windshield as night arrived, settling around the still unfamiliar property.

She nodded to herself before tucking the phone into her bag and turning the car off. As she stepped outside, the silence of the Montana scenery enveloped her. She shuddered as she hiked her purse further up her shoulder. Up until now, she had spent her days in the constant noise that made up Seattle. Mrs. Halloway’s home was miles away from her nearest neighbor, and the quiet of it all still raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She locked her car and hurried towards the large front doors.

The enormous marble foyer greeted her as she shut the doors behind her and took in her surroundings. The checkered floor reflected the chandelier that hung from the high ceilings, nearly intertwining with the staircase that curved elegantly to the second floor. The front mahogany table held a vase overflowing with peonies, nearly impossible to get this time of year, along with a tipped over Birkin bag that had spilled its contents on the floor.

Leah sighed as she scooped up the lipstick, keys, and bottle of pills before tucking them back into the purse. “Mrs. Halloway, I’m worried Laurent will eat these pills if you keep tossing them on the floor.” Her voice echoed throughout the space, but no one replied.

She tucked the bag into the crook of her arm and made her way to the brightly lit kitchen. It was her favorite room in the entire estate; butcher’s block countertops and steel appliances and floor to ceiling windows that boasted one of the best views of the state. She dropped both purses on the massive island and pulled her phone out, checking her messages. “Do you want me to call Greg to make some dinner for you? I know it’s late, but you should still eat something.”

“No, thank you,” Mrs. Halloway called from the top of the stairs.

She frowned down at the email on her phone. “Months in and I finally get a thank you?” She muttered, scrolling through the wall of text. “Some dessert, then? Dr. Mason said you shouldn’t go so long without sugar.”

Mrs. Halloway didn’t reply. A door opened and closed upstairs, the old woman likely holing herself up in her bedroom as she was oft to do at this time of night.

Leah rolled her neck as she placed her phone down and turned, bracing her arms back on the island as she surveyed the world outside the windows. The setting sun had painted the mountains in pink and purple, the colors so saturated it looked as if a master had painted them. The grass plains that crawled between them and the house swayed gently in the mild autumn breeze, looking for all the world like the ocean waves she had left behind in Washington.

Her phone buzzed, and she flipped it over to find an unknown number on the screen. Leaving it where it was, she made her way to the fridge to retrieve the chardonnay Mrs. Halloway had taken one sip of and declared “cheap.” The wine smelled expensive enough to Leah as she poured herself a heavy glass and closed the fridge with her hip.

Her phone buzzed again. She glanced at it over the rim of her glass; it was the same unknown number.

With an annoyed swallow of her wine, she plucked the phone from the counter and answered, balancing it between her ear and shoulder as she replaced the sip she had just taken. “Yes?”

“Leah,” a voice barked.

She put the bottle down as she frowned at the windows. “Yes?”

“Leah, help me!”

She stiffened at the words. “What? Who is this?”

Heavy, wet breathing was the only answer on the line.

She scoffed as she swirled the wine in her glass. “Listen, if you’re some kind of pervert-”

“It’s me, you idiot! Mrs. Halloway!”

She froze. “Mrs. Halloway? What number are you calling from?”

“The landline inside the panic room.”

Fear, sharp and raw, ran down her spine. One of the maids had given Leah a tour on her first day – Mrs. Halloway had claimed to be too tired to do it herself – and had pointed out the panic room. It was nothing more than a tomb, bolstered by a steel door thicker than her forearm and a keypad that only Mrs. Halloway knew the code for. Leah and the maid had laughed quietly to themselves as she described the doomsday prep on the inside, and how the Halloway family had stocked it from floor to ceiling with dried foods that wouldn’t expire, along with canned, filtered water.

But the panic room was in the basement.

“You can’t be in the panic room,” Leah said, levelling her eyes at the corner of checkered floor she could see from the kitchen. “I just spoke to you upstairs.”

“That wasn’t me,” the caller insisted. “It’s one of them.”

“One of who?” She asked, placing her glass on the counter and taking a few steps closer to the foyer. From what she could see, it was still empty, save for the peonies that had littered a handful of petals on the ground. The staff had all gone home at least an hour ago, but maybe one of them had stayed behind for something.

“Those creatures,” the voice heaved. “My mama taught me about them when I was a girl. They only come out at night, and they look like you but they aren’t you… ain’t human,” she asserted, a hint of a southern access bleeding through.

It was the accent that made her pause. Mrs. Halloway had grown up in Alabama before she married and moved here. She had worked hard to get rid of the drawl, but it still came out when she was tired. “Mrs. Halloway, you aren’t making any sense.”

“Lord Almighty, what the hell am I paying you for? Get help!”

She opened her mouth to reply but stopped when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. It was the pill bottle she had placed back in the Berkin bag. Haloperidol. Reaching into the bag, she turned the bottle slowly in her hand, the small pills rattling softly as she did so. Mrs. Halloway was on antipsychotics; she didn’t know how she forgot it, but her doctor had implored Leah to make sure she took them every day. “Did you take your medication today?”

“Of course I did, you dumb-”

“Leah,” a voice called from the top of the stairs. “Would you come up here, please?”

She froze, her grip tightening around the phone. The voice sounded like Mrs. Halloway. “Did you hear that?”

“Don’t listen to it!”

“I was so exhausted when I got home that I left my pills in my purse. Can you bring them to me?” The voice called, sounding for all the world like her boss. There was no accent to the words. “You know how forgetful I am when I’m tired.”

Leah tucked the pills silently back into the purse as she thought. The voice was Mrs. Halloway’s… but so was the voice on the phone. She tried to remember the maid’s tour all those weeks ago. The door to the basement was in the living room, which was two rooms away.

“Don’t reply to it,” the caller said, hissing into Leah’s ear. “The more you interact, the stronger it gets.”

She began to back away from the foyer. There was a sitting room and a large living room behind her, and beyond that, the basement. All she had to do was see if the door to the panic room had been armed. If it wasn’t, she could go back upstairs and figure this out.

Footsteps came from the foyer staircase. “Leah? I’m afraid I won’t ask again.”

Before she could think twice, Leah kicked off her heels and bolted silently towards the elegant sitting room. She tripped going down the step that led to the sunken floor and clattered into a standing Tiffany lamp.

“Where are you going?” The voice called from behind her, closer now.

She righted herself and took off, dodging the maze of unused furniture and too slick carpets as she slid through into the living room. “Mrs. Halloway, what’s the code for the panic room?”

“I ain’t telling you that!”

Leah stifled a groan as she moved. The space was dark, all the lamps turned off for the night, and she blinked as her eyes adjusted to the dimness. Where was the door to the basement? “Just give me the code!”

“You don’t need the code,” the voice said from the sitting room. Leah turned, nearly flipping over the leather couch as she looked over her shoulder.

Mrs. Halloway stood in the sitting room, peering into the darkness at her. Her eyes reflected like an animal’s as the still teetering floor lamp cast light across her face.

Leah made a noise in the back of her throat as she bolted for the basement door and threw it open. More darkness greeted her, but she stepped into it and slammed the door shut behind her, locking it for good measure.

The steps led down into a finished basement, with more marble floors and leather furniture. She made her way to the bottom and looked around for a light switch but couldn’t find one. “Where the hell are the lights in this place?”

“Get back outside and call for help!”

“Why can’t I get in there with you and call for help inside the panic room?” She pushed the button to place the call on speakerphone as she fumbled for her phone’s flashlight. It shone across the floor as she took trembling steps.

“There’s no room in here!”

Something slammed against the basement door above her. She yelped as she picked up the pace, scanning the walls for the panic room until she spotted the enormous door.

The red light on the keypad blinked, indicating it had been armed.

She braced her shoulders against the fear that gripped her as she walked to the door and slapped a palm against its cool surface. “Mrs. Halloway, tell me the code.”

“No!”

The basement door rattled again.

“Please!”

“How do I know it’s really you out there? You could be one of them.”

“That’s crazy-”

“Do not call me crazy!”

She sighed as she slapped the door again. “Okay, you’re not crazy, but please let me in before this thing does… whatever it’s trying to do!”

“Eat you,” she sniffed. “Mama always said they want to eat you.”

Her heart thumped in her chest as she lifted the phone to her mouth. “Mrs. Halloway, open this door right now, so help me God!”

The basement door opened on creaking hinges.

She whirled around and pressed her back against the cool surface of the panic room as footsteps started down the stairs. “Leah, I asked you to bring me my pills.”

The voice no longer sounded like Mrs. Halloway, nor did the thing look like her as it stepped down onto the basement floor. Its limbs had elongated to an impossible length, stretching out the clothes until they ripped along its gray skin. Those animal eyes blinked down at her from above a muzzle dripping with too many teeth. Somehow, Mrs. Halloway’s dyed red hair still sat as a tuft on the crest of its head.

It smiled at her with lips that stretched further than they should have.

Leah sucked in a breath to scream, but a whirring noise came from behind her head moments before the door to the panic room opened. She fell backwards and inside just as the thing sat down on its haunches, readying to leap towards her.

“Move!”

She moved, pulling her legs in tight as the real Mrs. Halloway slammed the door in the creature’s approaching, horrible face. The steel clanged as it impacted but held firm.

Leah, mere inches from the edge of the door, rolled over and threw up her wine.

“Who said you could drink that chardonnay?”

She finished her retching and wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand before looking up. The room was larger than she had imagined, but the maid had been right: every inch of the walls was stocked with dried goods and bottled water. A flatscreen tv was mounted on the far wall, along with the landline that still lay off the hook. A large couch and a handful of tufted chairs lined the perimeter. Laurent, her terrible, pill-stealing Bichon Frise, lay on an embroidered cushion and watched her with round eyes.

Mrs. Halloway sat perched on a chaise, her pert nose wrinkled at the sight of the vomit.

Her eyes didn’t reflect in the light.

Before Leah could reply, a terrible screech came from outside the door. She pressed her hands to her ears to block it out as it reverberated through the reasonably sized room.

Mrs. Halloway only lifted a groomed brow at her. “We’ll wait here until morning, and then you can get this cleaned up. Did you confirm my lunch with Susan tomorrow?”

Leah groaned as she pulled herself onto a chair. “Yes, Mrs. Halloway.”