Later

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Marsden’s house came into view. It was like one of those Hollywood Hills mansions you see in the movies: big and jutting out over the drop. The side facing us was all glass.

“The house that heroin built.” Liz sounded vicious.

There was one more curve before we came to the paved yard in front of the house. Liz drove around it and I saw a man in front of the double garage where Marsden’s fancy cars were. I opened my mouth to say it must be Teddy, the gatekeeper, but then I saw his mouth was gone.

And given the red hole where his mouth had been, he hadn’t died a natural death.

Like I said, this is a horror story…

I don’t like to start with an apology—there’s probably even a rule against it, like never ending a sentence with a preposition —but after reading over the thirty pages I’ve written so far, I feel like I have to. It’s about a certain word I keep using. I learned a lot of four-letter words from my mother and used them from an early age (as you will find out), but this is one with five letters. The word is later, as in “Later on” and “Later I found out” and “It was only later that I realized.” I know it’s repetitive, but I had no choice, because my story starts when I still believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy (although even at six I had my doubts). I’m twenty-two now, which makes this later, right? I suppose when I’m in my forties—always assuming I make it that far—I’ll look back on what I thought I understood at twenty-two and realize there was a lot I didn’t get at all. There’s always a later, I know that now. At least until we die. Then I guess it’s all before that.

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