FORTY-TWO
I stood, once again, enveloped in darkness, on the verge of panic. Flipping open the lighter again, I put my thumb on the spark wheel to fire it back into life, but it was beyond hot and I only managed to singe the opposable digit. I let out a sharp cry as I dropped it to the ground. It bounced away and snapped shut with the sound of a pistol hammer being cocked. My thumb felt as though it had been stung by a wasp and I jammed it in my mouth to soothe it.
Now I was even more frightened. With my hand on the doorknob I twisted and pulled again.
Nothing.
I hadn’t heard anything from the guys on the other side of the door and wondered if they had even walked around from the garage yet. They sure were taking their sweet time.
Or had they left me? Had they decided to play some cruel joke on me and gone back home, leaving me with the ghosts?
But I wasn’t alone. I had Frisbee with me.
“Frisbee? You there boy?” I whispered.
For a moment I thought he too had abandoned me until I felt something cold and wet brush the back of my leg. I almost let out another cry before I realized he had licked me, letting me know he was still at my side.
I let go of the knob and squatted down and grabbed him around the neck, holding onto the bandana that Steve had tied there. I pulled him close, feeling safer. He licked my face as I felt around for the lighter, but it was gone, lost in the dark. I couldn’t open the front door and I really didn’t want to have to feel my way back to the garage to get out, so we stayed put and hoped for rescue from the others.
And like an answered prayer I finally heard them.
“Hey, Ricky, you inside yet?” It was Jason. They had come around to the front.
“Jason,” I called out. “I unlocked the door but it still won’t open.”
I heard the handle being jiggled back and forth and it made me think of chain glad ghosts. Frisbee whined once as he heard the guys out front.
“Is there another lock on it? Like a latch or a chain or something?” he asked, his voice muffled by the door.
“I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean you don’t think so? Can you see one or not?” It was Steve asking this time.
“I can’t see anything. I dropped the lighter. It’s pitch black in here.”
Steve, sounding a bit worried, asked, “You didn’t lose it did you?”
“No. It’s by my feet somewhere. I just can’t see it. Come on guys, get me out of here.”
“Alright, hold on,” Steve said. “Step back from the door.”
The handle rattled back and forth as it was turned. Then something thumped against the door and another thump and then a third. The door screeched a bit and sounded ready to give. One final shove and it opened, spilling in the blessed sunlight.
“Just a little tight in its frame,” Steve explained, panting. “The wood might have swelled from the rain or something.”
I was very thankful to be out of the darkness and back into the light as if I were some kind of Bizarro vampire. Frisbee had made me feel safe while we were alone but having the guys back with us was quite a comfort as well.
Spotting the Zippo on the floor by a coat closet, Steve bent to retrieve it. We all moved into the living room area to get a better look at the interior of the house. At that moment, with the five of us standing there, I noticed that the place wasn’t all that scary after all. It was just a normal looking house, like ours. A bit empty and dirty, but surely it couldn’t be haunted.
The walls were trashed, holes having been kicked and punched into them. Above one of the holes someone had written: YOUR MOMS STINKHOLE! Graffiti art hung like diseased tumors from floor to ceiling. Bottles and cans and cigarette butts littered the hard-wood floor like dead soldiers. We now saw why the place had been boarded up. It was dry and crumbly and ready to fall in on itself.
A massive fireplace stood against the far wall that looked like it had puked up brown glass and black sludge from its brick mouth. Walking up closer to inspect it I could feel a cool breeze run past me and up through the chimney. The flu inside was open and it sucked air like a living beast.
Jason and Cory had moved on to the kitchen, checking inside cupboards and underneath the sink. Whoever had lived here last seemed to have taken everything with them. The place was bare except for the trash.
I walked past the two into a small laundry room. Two spigots hung from a wall where a washer could be hooked up. A door was set to the left that would have led outside had it not been boarded over. According to the legend, the fireman that had lived in this house had come home to find his wife just outside that door, lying in a pool of blood and glass. I shivered, envisioning the gory site and walked back to the living room.
Steve was walking slowly down the hallway, lighter held in front of him, Frisbee creeping behind. Their shadows were made animate by the flame and danced. We followed.
The first door we came to led into a bathroom with a shattered sink and a shattered mirror. The bathtub stunk and looked as though someone had used it instead of the toilet. Chunks of feces floated in murky brown liquid, a mouse hidden among the waste.
“Oh, gross,” Cory gasped and plugged his nostrils.
“Yeah, let’s go check out the other rooms,” Steve said, pointing down the hall.
We came to a bedroom next. Inside, like the living room, beer cans and cigarette butts lay scattered about. An old mattress sat in one corner, condoms littered its edges.
“I didn’t know your mom came up here, Cory,” Steve said as he turned back.
Cory gave him a light punch to the arm, almost causing him to drop the lighter. “Shut up.”
At the end of the hall was a master bedroom. We entered it and noticed that it had been cleared of all trash. This was the only room in the house that didn’t look partied in. Although clean, two objects were left behind: A chair and a battery powered lantern.
“Hey, cool. Jason, go see if that light works. This lighter is getting really hot.”
Jason walked over and turned the lantern over searching for a button or switch. He found one on the back and pressed a small rubber plunger and to our amazement it did work. Light washed through the bedroom almost blinding us. Steve snapped the Zippo shut and stuck it in his pocket, licked his fingers. I knew how he felt.
With the room illuminated, we noticed two more doors, one leading into another bathroom at one end and one leading into a walk-in closet at the other. Cory looked into the empty closet and said, “Whoa, I bet this is where that fireman hung himself.”
“That’s just a made up story,” Jason told him.
“Well come here, then. Check it out,” Cory challenged.
We went over to the closet and stood inside. There was no ceiling, just rafters. And, there would certainly have been plenty of room for someone to tie off a rope and end their life in it.
“See?” Cory said. “I bet he even used that chair right there to stand on. How much you want to bet?”
Steve shook his head and sighed. “And then what? He just kicks the chair out into the middle of the room while he chokes to death?”
“Well, I don’t know. Maybe,” Cory said back. “Maybe whoever found him hanging moved it out. Ha. Ever think of that?”
Again, Steve shook his head. “Whatever. Like Jason said, it’s nothing but a story.”
Cory rolled his eyes. If he was trying to spook us it hadn’t worked. Instead he went up to the chair and gave it a kick with the sole of his shoe. It went tumbling across the room and almost collided with the lantern.
“Hey, watch it,” Steve scolded him. “You almost broke the light.” When he looked back to the spot where the chair had sat he cocked his head and stared, his eyebrows growing together as he focused more intently on the wooden floor. Creeping over, he bent low. He gazed down at a stain, a dark maroon color.
“What is it?” I asked. “Paint?”
“No,” he answered. “Everything’s painted white in this room, not red. It loo
ks like blood.”
Now it was starting to get creepy again.
“Blood? How do you know?” I asked.
“Cause I know what dried blood looks like, that’s how,” he told me.
“I bet it’s the wife’s blood,” Cory began rambling. “The fireman’s wife. When he came home that day, he found her outside on a broken table and he dragged her inside and-”
“Alright, Cory,” Steve said. “We all know the story. It’s not the wife’s blood. That’s just a bunch of bullshit. Now shut up!”
Cory fell silent for a few seconds, looking embarrassed. “Well, I’m just saying.”
Frisbee came up on Steve’s side and sniffed at the stain, whined. As his hand went down to touch it the dog halted him with a bark. Steve looked at Frisbee and said, “What?”
He barked again and trotted over to the bedroom door, stopped and looked back at us. We all watched him, wondering what it was he was doing. At the threshold he gave another bark, louder this time and I don’t know, maybe it was just me-I was well aware of the fact that dogs couldn’t talk-but I swear the sound he produced almost sounded like; come! Or maybe it was the feeling of the sound.
We looked at each other, not moving and Frisbee gave us a few seconds before starting in again.
BARK. BARK. BARK. BARK.
Come. Come. Come. Come.
“Shhh,” Steve pleaded. “Come on, Fris. Quiet down. Someone might hear. You’ll get us in trouble.”
He padded back over and clamped his jaws on Steve’s shorts, tugged, let go and gave another bark; come!
Steve looked at us and we stared in wonder at the dog. “Let’s go, guys. I think Frisbee smells trouble or something.”
So we made our way out of the bedroom and back into the hallway. Back out into the filthy living room and into the entryway. But just before we stepped outside, Steve said, “Shit, we forgot to turn that lantern off.”
“I got it,” Cory said and jogged back down the hall to the room. He came back with it in his hands, the light jumping from floor to ceiling as he moved.
“Turn it off so it doesn’t kill the battery,” Steve told him.
Cory stopped in front of us, a big grin on his face.
“Oh, I’ll turn it off alright.” He turned and threw it as hard as he could toward the fireplace. It sailed, in slow motion, across the room and when it collided with the bricks it exploded into a hundred pieces.
We stood there looking at him, mouths agape.
“What did you do that for?” Jason asked.
“Yeah, we could have kept it,” I said.
Steve, looking disgusted once again, shook his head at Cory’s stupidity. “Damn, Dayborne, why do you always have to do stuff like that?”
Cory, of course, just laughed.
Outside, Steve was able to get the door shut, though it took a couple of good pulls to do it. He put the hasp back into place and set the bolts in their holes and said, “Come on.”
Frisbee Page 50
