As he drove back to his home, he considered the man’s suggestion to have the address changed. How does one go about that? He mentioned the county, some office of theirs, I imagine.
Would the fire department really not be able to find me in an emergency?
If my alarm company were to call the cops when an alarm went off, would the cops not be able to locate me, either?
As he followed the twisting roads on Mt. Soltis, he remembered how he found the place the first time, when Google Maps had sent him to the wrong area. Eventually he managed to sort it out and find the property, but he completely understood why Randy had become lost. Difficulty in finding the place had been part of the reason, he suspected, that there were so few bidders.
Most of them gave up, like I almost did.
Ahead on the one lane road, a rare occurrence: an approaching vehicle. He recognized it as the brown van usually parked by one of the houses on the route. The road was narrow, so they’d both have to move over for each other. He selected a spot that looked safe, hoping his right tire didn’t slip into an unseen ditch.
As the van slowly passed, it came to a stop mid-way. He gave a friendly wave, as was the custom between drivers on the hill, but noticed that their window was down.
He lowered his own window and saw an older woman in the van. At first he thought it was Patricia Neal; her hair set firmly in shape, looking stern yet slightly worn-out. She glared at him, and he noticed little differences in her face that confirmed she wasn’t the long-deceased film star.
“Hello,” he offered.
“You up on Pinedo Road?” Her voice was as deep as Neal’s, and just as raspy; he imagined she was a heavy smoker.
“Yeah, just bought it.”
Her eyebrow went up as though she was intrigued, then Ron got the impression that she changed her mind about what to say, and instead, her arm came out of the window, swinging wildly to point at the road. “You’re the one kicking up dirt!”
“Oh?”
“Speed limit is 20 on the mountain! You should do 10 on these dirt roads, be considerate of all the mess you’re making!”
“I’ll be sure to slow down.”
She eyed him. “Sometimes I have grandchildren over. I don’t want you running into them, creating a hazard like it’s the city. You’re from the city, I expect.”
“Yes, you’re right.”
“And now you’re here, in the country.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m Jane Hughes, and I live in the blue triple-wide up around the corner.”
“I’m Ron Costa. Nice to meet you.”
“Well, I’m pleased to meet you too, because I’ve been wanting to talk to you about how fast you’re driving.”
“I will slow down, I promise.”
“You move from the city for a change of pace, I imagine, so there’s no sense in racing around these roads like a house a’fire.”
He stared back at her; having apologized and agreed to her point several times, he was unsure that agreeing again would satisfy her. He looked in his rear-view mirror, worried they might be blocking the road, but quickly realized they could stay there chatting for another ten minutes and likely not encounter another car. He decided to change the subject. “You’ve lived here long?”
“My entire life,” she replied, rolling up her window, ready to move on now that the subject wasn’t his driving. She pulled a gearshift near the wheel and slid away from him, leaving him on the side of the road.
He raised his window and continued on. Geez, I thought I was going pretty slow already. Don’t want to antagonize the locals, though…guess I need to lighten up, at least when I pass her place.
As he turned onto his property, snaking through the overgrowth, he appreciated that the driveway had been part of the reason he’d won the bid, too. When the property was for sale, the road was overrun with blackberry branches. He remembered how they scraped against the side of his car the first time he drove Elenore to look at the place. Most people wouldn’t have bothered, he thought. They took one look at that road and thought, “I’m not going down that!”
Just exactly why I wanted it, he reminded himself. A place so remote, so tricky to enter, people would give up before driving to it. Of course he’d trimmed back the worst blackberries once he closed on the property, but the road was still small and had the feeling of being rarely used. He tried to imagine a fire truck maneuvering down it, and had to admit it seemed like a tight fit.
When he finally reached the house, he was surprised to see Jake’s truck parked in front. He pulled up next to it and got out, searching for his friend. Jake was in the back yard.
“You’re early!” he said, walking up to him.
“Nice house!” Jake replied, smiling. “Went for the mansion in the woods, huh?”
As long as Ron had known him, Jake always smiled. He stood six foot two and was stocky but not fat, wearing a worn cap with the logo of a metal bearings company. They shook hands.
“No problem finding the place?” Ron asked.
“Your directions were spot on. And you’re right, Google was no help. I’ll bet you like having a place no one can locate, eh?”
Ron thought about his conversation with the postal worker. Up until that morning, he definitely considered it an asset; now he wasn’t so sure. “I do like how quiet it is.”
“That brown house a quarter mile before the turn off, that your closest neighbor?”
“As far as I know. You saw the gated-off road at the other end?”
“Yeah,” Jake replied, as they walked around to the front of the house. “You know where that leads?”
“Well, I assume it was the original road to the house, the one the address is based on. That gate looks like it’s been chained up for a long time, though.”
They walked to the driveway. Opposite the small road that led out, a metal gate was chained to a post. Beyond were the faint makings of a path tucked into the side of a slope.
“The realtor thought they used it to haul in everything,” Ron said. “Maybe a temporary arrangement with the land owner. Once it was built, they switched to using this other driveway for some reason.”
“That’s why your address don’t work,” Jake observed. “It’s based on this old road.”
“I’m guessing. I wish a property came with something like a Carfax, the way cars do, so you could see what exactly happened to it over time.”
Jake turned to look at the building’s facade. “Housefax? Yeah, that’d be somethin’. Take all the fun out of it, though.”
“Not fun finding out the well’s dry.”
“Dry?”
“Well, low producing. The guy from the drilling company considered it dry. I got a water delivery coming tonight.”
Jake walked to the side of the driveway, where a huge 2,500 gallon storage tank sat next to the well. “Low producing isn’t uncommon. That’s why you have the tank. What’s the flow?”
“Under a gallon a minute.”
“How much under?”
“I think he said a half gallon.”
“OK, so, all day long, and overnight too, this well pumps what it’s got into this holding tank. That’s thirty gallons an hour, so overnight you’ve got two, three hundred gallons right there. Why’s this tank empty?” He bent down, looking at the well and the various pipes and wires that came from it.
“The well was turned off at the power breaker,” Ron said. “I tried turning it on, but no water came into the house, so I turned it back off.”
“Go turn it on,” Jake ordered, his attention drawn to a broken piece of PVC pipe that rose an inch from the ground near the tank.
Ron walked into the garage and threw the circuit breaker marked for the well, then walked back out to where Jake was on his haunches.
“Hmm, nothing,” Jake said, pointing to the broken piece of PVC. “Maybe that’s not it. Well, one thing’s for sure,” he rose and walked to a black domed cover on the ground, lifting it to expo
se the tank underneath, “this here’s your reservoir, and the equipment that pumps water into your house.”
Ron joined him. The tank was empty. “It was full of water when I bought the place.”
“They might have filled it just so water would run while people looked at the property,” Jake replied, lowering the cover. “I think the setup here is, the huge tank feeds this underground reservoir when needed. Not sure how the well plays into it. Maybe it never did.”
“Seems complicated.”
“For someone who’s only used municipal water, sure, but out here in the sticks there’s all kinds of setups. We get this plumbing fixed, we can find out exactly how much water you’ve got, and set up a system that works a bit better.”
“So, I’m not screwed?”
“Well, you might not get ten gallons a minute, but I’ll bet you’ll be fine most of the time if you can build it up. The water table probably drops during the dry months, so you might need to augment it with a delivery or two, but we should be able to get this thing operational to some degree. I think.”
Ron felt like a huge weight had been taken off his shoulders. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said, patting Jake on the shoulder.
“City boy like you trying to live out here in the woods,” Jake replied. “Kinda funny.”
“If I’ve got a well that will keep me in water, that’ll be enough.”
“We’ll see how Elenore feels about it after she smells it.”
“Smells it?”
“Well water isn’t always pretty,” Jake said, kneeling again to examine the broken pipe.
Chapter Six
“Why’s it so dark in here?” Jake asked, taking a swig of beer.
It had been a long day of tasks. They made a mid-day trip into town for hardware, and Jake spent the afternoon fixing pipe, cutting wood to replace exterior trim, and tearing out the bad handrail on the upstairs deck. They both worked well into the night. Now, they were sitting in the living room, drinking, shooting the shit.
Ron looked up at the recessed lighting two stories above. “I gotta get one of those long poles to change the light bulbs. You know, one of the telescoping ones.”
“Like they use at banks.”
“Yeah.”
“Sure is quiet,” Jake said, taking another mouthful. “If quiet’s what you wanted, I think you got it.”
“Listen,” Ron replied, holding his hand to his ear. “No sirens. No dogs barking. Nothing.”
“I heard a train earlier.”
“Far in the distance.”
“You lived twenty-five years in the city…”
“Twenty-eight,” Ron corrected.
“…I think all this silence is going to drive you crazy. You’re not used to it. Any little noise will wake you up.”
Ron thought of the previous two nights he’d spent in the house and wondered if he should tell Jake about them. No, he thought. I’d just sound stupid.
“I’ll admit I had to turn on a fan the first night,” Ron replied, “to make some white noise.”
“Defeating the whole purpose. You can run a fan anywhere and drown out sounds.”
“I’ll adjust, trust me. Just gotta ease into it.”
“And Elenore?”
“When she comes back from Europe, she’ll ease into it.”
“I’ve never known her to ease into anything. I can’t imagine she likes this place.”
“Why do you say that?” Ron asked, knowing that Jake had hit upon the truth, but pretending otherwise.
“Come on, the problems!” Jake answered. “The well, the septic, half the molding, the cat piss in the tile grout, you name it.”
“I like to think of them as opportunities.”
“Beer bottle half full kinda thing?”
“You know me.”
“I’m surprised she agreed to it. Hard to picture. Every time she comes out to our place, she always comments on how rural it is, and she’s got that tone. This is far more rural than my place.”
“You have a well and a septic system,” Ron countered.
“Half of America has a well and septic,” Jake answered. “Doesn’t mean shit, just means you got enough room for a leach field.”
Ron looked up again at the dark ceiling. He was a little uncomfortable, as though the house might be listening to the criticism; he had the strongest feeling that he needed to defend it from Jake’s comments, as well as justify his decision to buy it. “I think Elenore’s fine with the place as long as I solve all the problems. The foundation, the structure is sound. It’s little things. I mean, come on, it’s obvious that the people who lived here before basically abused the place. It needs some TLC.”
“Well, we might get all the mechanics taken care of, but solving the vibe, hell, that’s gonna be a tough one.”
Ron paused, surprised that Jake used the same word the postal worker had said. “Vibe?”
“You know, how it feels.”
“No, what do you mean?”
“The creepy vibe, man. I assume that’s why you bought it. Hard to ignore.”
“You think it’s creepy?”
“This place is fucking haunted as hell, I’ll bet.”
“Really? You think so?”
“Sure feels like it.”
“I don’t feel anything like that. I loved this place the minute I saw it.”
“Doesn’t mean it ain’t haunted.”
“What makes you think that? Just a weird vibe that I don’t feel?”
“Well, it’s so fucking big, for one thing. That’s always a sign of trouble. Huge houses have lots of opportunity to have weird shit going on in some corner somewhere.”
“Interesting,” Ron replied, smirking a little. “I assume you have more reasons than just that.”
“OK, so then there’s the entryway. You come in, and there’s those stairs, going all which ways.”
“I thought it was a feature, not a problem. Kinda convenient.”
“It ain’t normal. Never seen a staircase like that.”
“So, stairs, gotcha. What else?”
“You gotta admit, that back bathroom is creepy as hell. Seems really dark, too.”
“I just don’t have the right fixtures in there yet. They made some really strange decisions I’m still trying to figure out. In the office upstairs there’s a forty watt bulb in a single outlet fixture on the ceiling, but in the closet there’s two seventy-five watt bulbs in a double. Closet is nice and bright, the room is dark as hell. Makes no sense. Once that kinda stuff is fixed, the mood will be better.”
“I haven’t been into the crawlspace yet, or up in the attic, but I’ll bet there’s plenty of problems there, too.”
“Problems? The inspector didn’t mention any problems in either.”
“I mean weird shit. It’s always the crawlspaces and the attics that have the creepy stuff.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t think this place is a little whack. I’ve known you for twenty years, I know you don’t like normal, boring stuff, that you’re drawn to this kinda thing, stuff with character and that kind of shit. I just don’t understand you leaving the city. I always thought of you as an urbanite.”
“It’s always been the retirement plan. There’s no way I could retire with a mortgage.”
“You lived in that Portland house the entire time I’ve known you. It must have been close to paid off.”
“It wasn’t close; I refi’d it a couple of times,” Ron replied, getting up to grab more beers from the kitchen. “What pushed me to do it was the price of things. I made enough money selling it to pay cash for this place, so I’ve got no mortgage here. I own it all, free and clear. That’s why.”
“You coulda bought a condo on the river,” Jake called.
Ron brought him another bottle. “Like you wouldn’t take a bullet to the head before you’d ever buy a condo.”
Jake twisted the cap. “You’re right about that. But I bet it�
��s what Elenore would have preferred.”
“Couldn’t get the kind of deal on a river condo like I got here. I had to move out of the city to make it work financially. The prices were crazy, that’s why I could cash out like that.”
“Did you make enough to buy this place and fix all the shit we’re gonna have to fix? These are big ticket items. It won’t be cheap.”
“I hope so. There was a good chunk left over.” He paused for a moment, feeling as though he’d defended the place pretty well. “So…what do you think is first to do? Of the major stuff?”
“Well, the plumbing,” Jake replied, drinking. “Have you noticed the water pressure is weird? When I run a tap, or a toilet refills, the pressure isn’t constant. Goes back and forth.”
“Yeah, it’s almost rhythmic. At first it bugged me a little, but now I don’t mind it at all. When it pulses like that, the house is…I don’t know, it’s like it’s alive. Breathing. Almost a heartbeat, like the pipes are its veins. I decided I kinda like it.”
“Well, thanks a fuckin’ lot for putting that idea into my head. Now I’m gonna be creeped out by that, too, like every time I wash my hands I’m rinsing them in blood.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Even though you might like it, it’s a problem. We need to replace your pump regulator, which is probably the culprit. All that stuff looks rusted and corroded as hell, and needs to be changed out and redone before it craps out completely.”
“It’ll make the pulsing stop?”
“It better. Ain’t supposed to pulse like that. Probably putting stress on the pipes.”
Like it has high blood pressure, Ron thought, aware that he was continuing to ascribe human traits to the place, but unable to stop. He liked the idea that the house had life; it gave it charm. He was a little disappointed that the pulsing would stop once Jake corrected the regulator. He’s right, you’re a glass-half-full kind of person, and you’re inventing stupid reasons to like the house that balance out the problems of the past few days. Compensating. Stop it.
While Jake continued to explain the plumbing, Ron found himself wondering if there was some way to keep the regulator, despite knowing it had to go.
The Coldwater Haunting Page 5
