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Ron’s eyes opened, sure he’d heard a noise overhead, a single thump – something dropped onto the attic floor.
He listened.
Steps. Someone was on the stairs, like the night before.
Then he remembered: Jake was downstairs, sleeping in the guest room off the main hallway.
It’s probably just him, moving around.
He listened, straining. The steps resumed, sounding for all the world as if someone was slowly marching up the stairs.
Maybe he’s coming up to see me about something.
Then the sound stopped.
Despite his best effort to remain calm, fear began surging through his veins, nagging at him to do something. He threw off the cover and swung his feet to the floor, feeling the softness of the rug under them. He stood, naked, and looked out the window.
In the moonlight, he could see something moving on the ground outside. It was indistinct and he could only make out part of it beyond the edge of the porch.
What is that? he wondered, then walked to the set of bay windows in the sitting area adjacent to the bedroom. Away from the porch, it would offer an unrestricted view of the back yard.
He looked down through them, suddenly alarmed, frozen in place. People were outside. They were facing the house, looking into the windows on the ground floor. As he watched, a half-dozen moved around each other, changing position to gain new vantage points.
Burglars! he thought. I need to warn Jake! He wanted to break free of his paralysis, but found his feet glued solidly to the floor. Something was off; the people outside didn’t look right. What at first he thought must be men in dark clothing, casing the house, he now realized were both men and women moving strangely, not walking normally. He tried to observe their legs and their feet as they shifted positions, but everything below their knees seemed shrouded in shadow.
Their legs aren’t moving, he thought, still watching carefully. Their bodies move, but I can see their upper legs, their thighs, and they aren’t shifting, aren’t going back and forth like a normal person walks.
Then he realized they were disappearing into the darkness, fading as a group, as though their image had been made by a projector with a bulb that was going out. Slowly they became more and more indistinct, until only the outline of their bodies remained. Then the image suddenly intensified and the entire shape of their forms returned, becoming visible as though power had been restored to the projector.
Now there were more; a dozen figures all staring at the house, peering into the ground floor windows, dissatisfied with what they saw, shifting to gain alternative perspectives through different windows. It wasn’t a group of teens looking for a way in to rob the place; it was a mixture of men and women of different ages, dressed in a variety of clothing from various eras, some looking recent, while others looked from the latter decades of the last century.
What are they doing? he wondered, still in shock, still frozen in place, unsure that he wasn’t dreaming. Their appearance seemed unreal, and his mind churned as it tried to calculate an explanation; someone was playing an elaborate trick on him. That had to be it.
Jake, he thought. He’s projecting this into the back yard, trying to scare me. They’re just images on his phone…he’s got one of those tiny projectors, and he’s fucking with me.
One of the figures slowly raised its head, scanning the second story. Ron suddenly felt the need to hide so he wouldn’t be seen in the window, but it was too late. The eyes of an older man dressed in a suit locked on him, and he saw the ghostly figure begin to rise from the ground, levitating away from the others.
This isn’t Jake’s doing, his brain tried to communicate through the fog of fear that kept him locked in place. Standing naked he felt completely exposed, but for some reason he couldn’t move his arms to cover himself, or step back from the window. The image of the levitating figure was so fantastically unreal, so bizarre and frightening and intriguing at the same time, his brain wouldn’t let go, wouldn’t allow him to move other than to stare at the image and try to figure out what it was…how it could possibly be there, doing what it was doing…floating.
Outside, the man’s feet rose above the heads of the others, while they continued looking into the house from the ground floor. His feet were bare; the skin looked pale white and translucent, almost as though he could see through it. The figure continued to ascend, his arms slowly rising out in a crucifixion pose. Ron looked at his face, confirming that the man’s eyes were still fixed on him, that he knew he was in the window, just inside the house.
They’re looking for people, Ron realized. This one found me.
The edges of the man’s mouth slowly curled up, showing emotion for the first time. The figure began to drift toward the window, and as it got closer, the man moved his arms from his side, now reaching forward as though he wanted to grasp something.
When the image was just feet from the window, Ron’s brain suddenly released the hold it had over his body. His skin contracted, giving him the shivers. The figure continued to drift toward him until its outstretched fingers were inches from the glass.
Ron backed up rapidly, unable to break his gaze from the apparition. He slammed into a wall behind him, fully expecting to see the figure’s hands pass through the window and into the room.
Instead, the man’s face came right up to the panes and stopped.
He’s so close, his breath should be fogging the window, Ron thought. But there’s no fog. He doesn’t have any breath.
He’s dead.
The man’s eyes were locked on him at first, but then drifted, searching inside the room. Ron could feel adrenaline surging through his body, a reaction to the sensation of being targeted. He felt singled out for the kill.
“Jake!” Ron yelled at the top of his lungs, unsure if anything had come out. It felt like a scream in a dream, trying to mouth words and force them out, but just uttering nonsense.
“Jake!” he yelled again, raising his right hand until he felt it slide across a switch faceplate. He groped at it awkwardly until his fingers flicked it upward; light filled the room, making him wince.
The image of the man in the window disappeared.
Ron paused for a moment. His heart was racing. His mind immediately formed an explanation, a bullshit reason for what he’d just seen. He hoped he hadn’t actually yelled, that he hadn’t accidentally woken Jake and that his friend wasn’t currently coming up to see what was wrong. This was all some kind of dream, he thought. I’m just waking up now. I turned on the light, and I’m finally waking up.
But the story his mind was inventing irritated and frightened him, making him feel as though he was deluding himself, making himself crazy. He flipped off the light and looked at the window, wanting confirmation that he really had seen what he thought he saw.
The window was empty.
He slowly walked to it, this time covering himself with his hands, wishing he had grabbed his robe. As he looked down into the back yard, he saw the figures once again. The levitating man was gone, but a few others that were close to the ground floor windows were still there, still looking at the house as though they wanted desperately to come inside.
Tap, tap…
Ron turned his head to look back into the master bedroom. In a window that faced the other side of the house, he was shocked to see a face staring in at him. It raised a finger to the glass and slid a fingernail against the pane, making a nerve-shattering screech. Ron recognized the face as the levitating man, and when it registered that Ron had seen him, it smiled.
Ron ran for the light in the master bedroom and flipped the switch. The brightness seemed to banish the image from the window.
He stopped for a moment, catching his breath, trying to think.
Is it still out there? he wondered. I can’t see it in the window, but is it still there?
He grabbed his robe, tossing it around his shoulders and tying it up. It was impossible to see anything outside wit
h the light on in the room.
He placed his hands against the glass, and bracing himself for a shock, moved his head between his cupped fingers, shielding the light. He expected to see the man’s face just inches away, staring at him.
Instead he saw the south side of the house, empty except for the blackberry bramble a few feet away, and a ravine beyond from which trees grew at haphazard angles, slowly waving in the wind.
Fuck this! he thought, and walked out of the room and into the upper hallway, turning on lights as he went. When he reached the ground floor, he walked through the kitchen and to the living room, illuminating everything. He approached one of the ground floor windows, one of the ones he knew the figures had been looking in, expecting to see them still outside, staring in.
Once again, light from inside made looking out impossible without the aid of a flashlight, or placing his hands against the glass to shield his eyes. He stepped up to the window and raised his hands, looking out quickly.
The backyard seemed empty.
“Wha…?” Jake mumbled behind him, emerging from the guest bedroom.
“Sorry,” Ron said, still staring out the window. “Thought I saw something.”
“Should I get my shotgun?”
“No, not yet,” Ron answered, not turning from the window.
Jake paused for a moment, then padded off. “I gotta piss.”
Ron kept staring out, remembering what Jake had said about the place being haunted. If I tell Jake what I saw, he’ll use it to confirm his stupid idea. I’ll tell him it was just a deer. Lame, but better than listening to his “haunted” bullshit.
“Anything?” Jake asked, returning from the bathroom.
“Nah, just deer.”
“Deer woke you up?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh. I’m back to bed then.”
“Yeah. Sorry for waking you.”
Ron waited until Jake had returned to the guest room and shut the door, then made his way back through the house, turning off lights as he went. When he reached the master bedroom, he walked to the bed and slipped off his robe. He glanced quickly at the window where he’d seen the levitating man’s face, fully expecting it to return, bracing himself for the jarring image – but nothing was there.
As he slipped under the covers, he knew, once again, it was going to be hard to go back to sleep. I’ll get up in a few minutes and check out the window again. Leave the lights off, so I can see out easily.
Slowly he drifted off, forgetting his idea to check on things, and didn’t rouse again until he heard Jake moving around downstairs with the light of day streaming through the windows.
Chapter Seven
When Ron came down the stairs the next morning, Jake was already up, drinking coffee, staring out the windows into the back yard.
“Morning,” Ron said, walking past him to grab a mug.
“Morning,” Jake replied.
“How’d you sleep?”
“Not good.”
“Sorry I woke you up.”
“Nah, wasn’t that,” Jake replied, still staring out the windows. “Whatever was in the back yard last night kept waking me up. And I don’t think it was deer.”
Ron reconsidered telling him what he’d seen, but still hated the idea of encouraging Jake’s irrational thinking. Worse, he knew if he did, he’d be crossing a personal line: the craaazy line, he thought. What does it say about me if I claim I saw a bunch of ghosts in the yard, floating around like ducks in a pond? No going back from that, I’m in loony tunes land from that point on.
Is that what they were? Ghosts?
He hadn’t thought of the term the night before, but in the light of day he wasn’t sure what word would better describe them. What else drifts over the ground without moving? Floats in the air? Disappears when you turn on the light?
Vampires?
Werewolves?
Some other kind of fucked up entity?
Entity? Is that what I saw? Entities in the back yard, looking in?
Goddamn it, there’s so much to do here, so much work that needs to get done, I don’t need to be focused on shit like entities and vampires and werewolves, I need to…
“Ron?” Jake asked.
“Huh?”
“You’re pouring coffee on the counter.”
Ron snapped to awareness, righting the carafe and looking down at the mess he’d made. “Fuck! Clumsy. Sorry, not quite awake yet.”
“It’s your counter, don’t gotta apologize to me.”
Ron reached for a roll of paper towels and began soaking up the spill.
“At first I thought it was a tree or the branch of a brush,” Jake continued. “Now I see there’s no plants anywhere near the windows, so it wasn’t that.”
“A tree or branch?” Ron asked.
“Tapping at my window.”
Ron froze. Like the tapping I heard – saw? The ghostly finger that briefly emerged from the dark and disappeared again?
“And there was this scraping sound. A tap, and a scrape, like someone was at the window, wanting in.”
It wasn’t my imagination! Ron thought. Jake heard it too. “Interesting that you should mention that,” he said, finally pouring a proper mug and deciding – since Jake had brought it up first – to take a small incursion into Crazytown.
“Interesting? Why?”
“I heard the exact same thing night before last, at my window upstairs.”
“An animal maybe? Has to be, right? Maybe a bat?”
“Did you see it? Whatever made the noise?”
“No. I was trying to ignore it. Kept waking me up.”
“Well, whatever was at my window wasn’t a bat.”
“So, you saw it?”
“Yeah.”
“What was it?”
Do I tell him the truth? Ron wondered. Here’s another line to cross; once I step over it, it’ll be hard to come back.
“There was a finger,” Ron finally replied. “And a face.”
He intended to gauge Jake’s thoughts by watching his reaction, but he didn’t have to bother – he could feel Jake’s stare without looking.
“A finger?”
“Yeah.”
“Like, a person’s finger?”
“Yeah.”
“On the deck outside the windows up there?”
“Yup. I got up to look at it, and I saw a finger on the other side of the pane. It tapped the window, and scraped down the glass with the fingernail. Then it disappeared.”
Jake looked a little confused. “Disappeared?”
“It was like it came out of a fog, then pulled back into it.”
“So, it was foggy?”
“No, not really. I just mean something was concealing it.”
“And you saw a face?”
“Very faint. Disappeared, too.”
“Was there a body attached to this finger and face?”
“No.”
Jake sat still for a moment, staring from across the room, before a wave of the willies passed over him, briefly making his entire body shake. “Fuck! I hate that kind of shit! You want me to just pack up and head home? Keep up with that shit and I’ll be outta here!”
“You were the one who said you thought the place was haunted.”
Jake smiled as his features relaxed. “Oh. So, you made it up to teach me a lesson.”
“No, I’m not making it up. It scared me to death. It’s one of the reasons I asked you to bring a gun.”
Jake looked at him again, trying to decide if his friend was lying or not. “You’re fucking with me.”
“No, I’m not,” Ron replied, walking into the living room and sitting on the couch. “That’s what I saw, night before last. If you think that’s creepy, you don’t want to know what I saw last night, in the back yard.”
Jake seemed skeptical. “You are fucking with me.”
“No, it’s why I got up.”
“You said it was a deer.”
“You heard it too.
You know it wasn’t deer.” Ron wasn’t entirely sure if Jake would swallow what he was about to tell him. If he doesn’t, he’s already set it up as bullshit designed to scare him, so I can go with that if I need to backtrack. “I saw figures moving outside. They were drifting over the lawn, coming toward the house, looking in the windows. When I turned on the light in my bedroom, they were gone.”
“Looking in the windows?” Jake asked, his voice expressing a new concern that hadn’t been there before.
He’s buying it, Ron thought. “Yes. Before I turned on the light, I watched them for a while. They were…geez, how do I put this? It’s like they weren’t all there.”
“What’s that mean?”
“There were times when you could see through parts of them.”
“Like, transparent?”
“Exactly. They all seemed interested in the ground floor windows, but one of them noticed me watching from my room upstairs. It…” He wasn’t sure how to relate the levitation to Jake.
“What?” his friend asked, hanging on what he was saying.
“It…floated up. To my window.”
“Fuck it!” Jake spat, and marched out of the room.
Ron watched as his friend left, headed for the guest bedroom. He could hear the man moving things inside, and the sound of a luggage zipper. He’s packing! Ron thought. Damnit, I’ve pissed him off!
Ron rose from the chair and carried his coffee to where Jake was busy tossing things into an open bag on the bed.
“What are you doing?” Ron asked.
“If you think I’m staying here with that kind of shit going on in your back yard, forget it.” He pulled the plug on an electronic device by the bed and began wrapping the cord around it.
“You’re not leaving,” Ron said. “Stop.”
“I’m not into all the weird woowoo shit, like Freedom,” Jake said, tossing the device into the open bag.
“What’s that?” Ron asked.
“What?”
“What you just put in your bag? What is that thing?”
“This?” Jake replied, lifting it back out. “It’s a noise machine.”
“You give me shit about using a fan for white noise, while you’re using that damn thing?”
The Coldwater Haunting Page 6
