Curiouser, I crept to the top of the stair and listened to the darkness. Nothing. The stillness was absolute, but my curiosity would not be deterred. It had to come again.

I tiptoed carefully down the stairs, wanting neither to disturb whatever it might be nor to call attention to myself. As I made my way, the silence overwhelming, I began to doubt my own perceptions: could I have been dreaming, earlier?

My eyes soon fully adjusted, I was able to deftly avoid the dolls and other debris of first the living room floor, then the pantry. No, wait: I must certainly be traveling the wrong direction. There was no question. I would never have heard such a noise from this deep in the house, past the pantry and into the kitchen, the dining room, behind closed doors — and nothing could have gotten out of the lab.

I turned back.

Traversing the now familiar territory of the living room I navigated each trap and obstacle with supreme effortlessness. At this point, I admit, I did become quite impressed with myself. In any case, I snuck around stealthily to the sliding doors of my last and greatest hope: the back patio.

Out on the deck, the autumn thick but crisp, I found myself suddenly disoriented; why was it as dark, out here, as in the house? The motion sensor should have triggered a light; there must be an electrical problem. What I’d heard, however, was certainly more than a blown fuse.

Stillness pervaded as if a viscous liquid, seeping outward from the house. I pressed on, down the patio stairs onto the paving-stone walkway, progressing straight back through the yard. Here is where I must state that I do not know any longer what compelled me; there was nothing where I was going.

Past the in-ground pool, where the path ends, into the tall grass — what a long yard, I never really thought of it — right up almost to the fence. Not the sides, bordering the neighboring properties, mind you, but the very back of the yard, behind which was nothing but dense woods and eventually highway. But just short of the fence — so tall and uniform, and unusually flat on top, I never noticed — that’s when it came again. Distant, behind me.

Every bit as ghastly.

I turned back.

A concern came over me. I thought of Marie and the girls. Perhaps now was the time for caution: I ducked down low, creeping back ever so slowly on bent knees. Back through the tall grass, back past the pool. Indeed — what a very long yard we had.

I was barely to the end of the pool, just noting its black and perfect sheen in reflecting the near-vacant sky, when I saw past the porch to the flicker emanating from the small rectangular basement window of my lab, right at the base of the house, where I made out her little face in the light and understood the graveness of my error.