Why aren’t the detectors going off? Ron wondered as he awoke, reaching for his robe, wrapping it around him. He ran for the door.
The hallway was dark; he switched on a light, looking for the source of the smell. The air appeared clear; no smoke anywhere. The smoke detectors were all silent; he looked up at one directly above him on the ceiling. Its little green light blinked once, a signal that it was working and everything was fine.
But he could smell it.
He heard movement downstairs, and looked over the banister, into the living room. Jake had come out of his bedroom.
“You smell that?” Ron called down.
“Yeah,” Jake replied. “Something’s burning.”
“Think it’s outside? A neighbor?”
“I don’t know. It’s strong. I’ll check.”
As Jake walked to the front door, Ron crossed the hallway toward Terrell’s bedroom. He reached for the handle and felt warmth. Suddenly he was confused; something he’d once heard or seen about the danger of providing oxygen to a fire stopped him from opening the door.
“Not outside,” Jake called up. “Things smell fine out there.”
“I think it’s up here,” Ron replied, and heard Jake climbing the stairs. He knocked on the door. “Terrell?”
“What’s he doing in there?” Jake asked, as he arrived at his side. “Burning incense or something?”
“Smells like wood,” Ron replied, and knocked again. “The door handle is warm.”
“That’s not good. Want me to open it?”
“I don’t know, could that feed the fire, if there is one?”
Jake stepped to the door and pounded on it with his fist. “Terrell? You in there?”
They waited a few seconds more, hearing nothing.
“Fuck it,” Ron said, and grabbed the handle, turning it and pushing the door open. “Terrell?”
The room was empty. The futon had been slept on, and Terrell’s backpack was on the floor next to it, but the kid was gone.
“Where is he?” Jake wondered.
“He said he might wander,” Ron replied. “The smell is stronger; it’s definitely coming from here. Where’s…” He walked to his right, where a shadow formed an odd patch on the wall. “Turn on the light, would you, Jake?”
When the light came on, Ron could see the discoloration distinctly. Small wisps of smoke emerged from it, like steam. “It’s inside the walls,” he said, trying to understand what he was seeing. “Something’s burning in…”
“Fuck!” Jake shouted, cutting him off. Ron turned to his friend, who was frozen, staring at the ceiling over the door.
Terrell was there, fully dressed, tucked against the corner of the ceiling and the wall, stretched out with his eyes closed as though he was sleeping.
Upside down.
At first Ron was angry, wondering why the kid would pull such a stunt, assuming that whatever was burning inside the walls was his doing, something he’d cooked up as part of his ghost hunt.
“How the fuck is he up there?” Jake asked, fear in his voice.
“I have no idea,” Ron replied, looking around the room, seeing more discolorations in the other walls; it appeared to be spreading. “We need to get him out of this room, though. There’s a fire behind the walls. We’ve got to call the fire department and get out of the house.”
“Terrell!” Jake yelled, walking under the kid, trying to wake him. “Terrell! What the fuck are you doing up there? Come down!”
Terrell remained frozen, his eyes closed, his body still and stiff against the ceiling.
“We’ve got to get him down,” Ron said, and went for the futon frame, sliding it across the floor until it was next to the door. He climbed on top of it; it gave him the couple of extra feet he needed to reach Terrell. He grabbed at the kid’s jacket and tugged, expecting the body to fall, but it didn’t; Terrell remained attached to the ceiling. “Terrell!” he called again, slapping at the kid, trying to wake him up.
Terrell’s eyes finally opened. He seemed disoriented and confused. Within seconds the look changed to fear, as he realized where he was. Ron grabbed again at his jacket and pulled. Suddenly Terrell dislodged completely, falling onto Ron as if some kind of switch had turned gravity back on. The two of them collapsed onto the futon frame, breaking it in half.
Jake rushed to help them up.
“Come on,” Ron said, gaining his feet. “We need to get out of here.”
They stumbled out of the room, Ron leading, Jake pushing Terrell ahead of him. They made their way down the stairs and out the front door, into the cold of the night.
Terrell was slowly regaining his senses. “Why are we out here?” he asked, finally able to assess where he was.
“Do you have your phone?” Ron asked Jake. “Mine’s inside.”
“Yeah,” Jake replied.
“Call 9-1-1,” Ron said.
“Wait,” Terrell replied, holding up his hand between Ron and Jake. “Why?”
“There’s some kind of fire,” Ron said. “We smelled it. It’s what woke us up.”
“Where? Exactly?”
“In your room,” Ron answered. “It’s burning inside the walls, spreading. We need a fire truck and while they’re coming, we should…”
“Don’t call,” Terrell said to Jake.
Jake looked at Ron, phone in hand, wondering what he should do.
“Listen, Terrell,” Ron said, “there’s a fire in your room. It’s behind the walls. It’s going to…”
“No,” Terrell replied. “If you call the fire department, you’ll just be embarrassed. Don’t call them.”
Jake lowered the phone. “Embarrassed?”
“Let’s go back to the room,” Terrell replied, looking at Ron. “Please.”
“There’s no time to waste, Terrell,” Ron said. “I can’t afford to have the house burn down. I…”
Terrell cut him off again. “Come with me,” he said, and marched back inside.
Ron looked at Jake, who gave a big shrug, still holding the phone. “Do I call, or not?” Jake asked.
“No!” Terrell shouted over his shoulder.
Ron ran to catch up with him, and Jake followed. When they got inside, Terrell was already at the top of the stairs. He waited for them to catch up, and the three of them walked to Terrell’s room.
“Door’s closed,” Terrell observed. “Did you shut it behind you, when we left?”
“I don’t think so,” Jake answered. “We just ran out.”
“And the lights are out in this hall,” Ron added. “I had turned them on.”
“Smell anything?” Terrell asked.
Ron sniffed at the air; he couldn’t detect any smoke, but that didn’t assure him. Olfactory fatigue, he thought. “I can’t smell anything, but that doesn’t mean…”
Terrell reached for the door handle, turned it, and pushed it open. The room was dark. The other two looked into the room from behind him.
“I know we left the light on,” Jake said.
“Do you see it?” Terrell asked quietly.
At first Ron thought Terrell meant the light switch, but felt a shiver of horror as he realized it wasn’t the switch Terrell was referring to. Something else was in the room. He strained his eyes, trying to take in the shadows.
Then he saw it; a tall, thin figure in the exact center of the room, slowly twisting to face them. It was darker than everything else around it, and the longer Ron stared, the more he was able to clearly distinguish its edges.
“I see it now,” Ron whispered.
“What?” Jake asked.
“In the middle of the room,” Terrell said, stepping forward until his hand slipped past the doorframe, searching for the light switch. A few moments later, it clicked.
For a split second it remained as light filled the room, even though the shadows had gone. In that fraction of time, Ron saw its eyes, saw that it wasn’t staring directly at him, but at Terrell. A look of irritation passed over its features. Every instinct in Ro
n’s primordial brain told him that the dark creature standing before him was a threat.
Then it evaporated quickly, disappearing from sight.
“What the fuck was that?” Jake asked, his voice breaking with fear.
“Very, very…” Terrell said, walking into the room, looking down at the broken futon, “…troubling.”
“Troubling?” Ron asked.
“The fucking devil!” Jake said, turning to Ron, his eyes wide with horror. “Did you see it? Did you see that fucking thing?”
“I did,” Ron replied, turning his attention to the walls, looking for the discoloration he’d noticed earlier. He couldn’t find any, and couldn’t smell anything, either.
“That fucking thing is in your goddamn house!” Jake said, his voice rising with intensity. “The devil’s inside this fucking house!”
“That wasn’t the devil,” Terrell replied.
“It looked like the fuckin’ devil!” Jake replied loudly, working his way into hysterics. “It was right there! We all saw it!” Not receiving the confirmation he wanted from Terrell, he turned to Ron. “Goddamn it, Ron, it was standing right the fuck there!” He emphasized each word, pointing to the center of the room.
“Calm down,” Ron said. “You’re shouting.”
“You’re right I’m shouting! Did you see that? That wasn’t no ghost, man. That thing looked just like the fucking devil!”
“It wasn’t the devil,” Ron replied, still inspecting the walls. “There’s no such thing as the devil.”
“I just fucking saw it!” Jake replied with an angry growl. “Don’t tell me I didn’t see it!”
Terrell suddenly looked concerned. “My traps. I need to check them.” He grabbed his backpack and walked out, headed downstairs.
“He was right about the fire,” Ron said, placing his hand in several spots on the wall, checking for heat. “They’re cold. Whatever we were seeing before, it’s not here now. No sign of anything burning, or burnt.”
“Jesus Christ, Ron, tell me you saw it!”
“Yes, I saw it!” Ron replied, turning to his friend. “I already told you I saw it. Calm the fuck down, you’re giving me the jitters.”
“I’m waaay past the jitters, man.”
“Where’d he go?” Ron asked, looking out the door after Terrell.
“He said something about traps.”
They left the room and went downstairs, finding Terrell by the kitchen door. He was flicking light switches, causing overhead lights to turn on and off. “Do you have one that will light up the yard?”
Ron went to a different plate on the wall and threw the switch.
Terrell, standing in front of the glass door that led to the back deck, reached for the handle, but stepped back once he saw what was outside.
Coming out of nowhere, thick billows of fog now swirled against the glass, making it impossible to see the deck chairs a few feet away.
Ron walked to the windows that looked out over the back yard and pulled up the blinds. The entire back yard was gone, immersed in a thick, greyish fog that blew and billowed against the panes, reflecting the light of the flood, making it impossible to see anything but the mist.
“Where the fuck did that come from?” Jake asked.
Ron walked through the house to the front door, leaving Jake and Terrell in the kitchen. He flicked on the front lights and reached for the door, but by virtue of its large oval decorative glass, he knew before he had it cracked that the weather phenomena he’d seen in the back yard wasn’t duplicated here; the front yard looked as clear as when they’d ran out into it, just moments before.
He stepped onto the porch, looking into the distance. The lights by the garage were not as powerful as the floods on the side and back of the house, but he could see all the way to the bramble and the beginning of the driveway that led into the woods. It was completely clear – no fog at all.
As he stepped down from the porch, Jake came up behind him. “What the fuck, Ron? How…”
“I don’t know,” Ron replied. “Doesn’t make any sense.”
They stared out into the darkness, stumped for the next thing to say. To Ron the illogic of the events was piling up, reaching a point where it was easier to simply go numb than to try and formulate explanations.
They heard Terrell behind them, and as the sound of his footsteps changed from the decking to the soft crackle of dirt, Ron saw a wall of fog suddenly form out of thin air, at the farthest spot down the driveway. It billowed and churned over itself, widening out, moving rapidly toward them.
“Jesus Christ!” Jake said, his eyes glued to the approaching mist.
As the fog reached the end of the driveway and entered the yard, Ron watched in horror as a solid dense wave rose several feet into the air behind the blackberry bramble that surrounded the house, curling over the brush and falling down to the ground where it crashed like water, roiling for a moment, then hurling toward them. The hair on the back of his neck rose from the sheer magnitude of the spectacle.
It felt as though they were under siege.
“Back!” Ron said. “Back in the house!”
The fog obliterated any view behind it, rapidly erasing the yard as it tumbled forward, covering fifty feet in a matter of seconds. Jake turned to run, but Terrell appeared frozen, watching the phenomenon with fascination. Ron grabbed him and pulled him back, snapping him into action. They raced behind Jake, running through the open door. Jake slammed it shut just as the fog spilled in behind them, hitting the house. Some made it through the crack of the door before it had completely closed; Ron watched as it quickly dissipated in the warmth. Through the oval window of the door they could see it churning, twisting against the door as though it had sealed them inside and intended to keep them there.
“I need to get to my traps,” Terrell muttered, turning to go back to the kitchen. Ron and Jake followed him.
“Are you crazy?” Jake asked as they approached the rear windows. The fog in the back yard was still there, pressed so tightly against the house it almost looked like a film of grey had been painted on the panes of glass; only the occasional twist and turn of the mist gave any hint that there was still motion there, a force pressing it against the house.
“Those traps…” Terrell started.
“…can wait,” Ron cut him off. “You can’t go out in that.”
“It’s just…” Terrell started again. They all knew he was about to say “fog,” but he stopped himself.
“Fog doesn’t do that,” Jake said.
“He’s right,” Ron added, remembering the feeling of threat he felt in the front yard. “Something’s wrong with it. You step out into that stuff, I’m not sure you’ll come back.”
Terrell’s head tilted a little to one side as he considered what Ron was saying. “You may be right.”
“What do we do now?” Jake asked.
Ron checked his watch. “It’s 3 AM. We make some coffee, and we sit in the living room and wait until morning. Unless either of you think you can get back to sleep?”
Both Jake and Terrell nodded in agreement.
Chapter Eleven
Ron felt a hand at his shoulder. He opened his eyes.
Although the adrenaline and coffee had managed to keep them up for a couple of hours, the conversation eventually halted, and both Jake and Terrell drifted off, sitting in the living room. Ron found himself with heavy eyelids too, and fell asleep in an uncomfortable position in a recliner.
Now, waking up, he had been in the middle of a confusing dream and found himself trying to make sense of it; lots of intersecting lines and angles, geometric forms that extended out into the distance, making streets and walkways. A voice in the distance…no, not a voice, more of a sense of presence, something that was watching him as he moved through the patterns. The lines converged to form a hallway; doors passed on the sides as he walked, not sure where he was headed, but knowing he had to keep moving or the presence would manifest. There were screams…the sound of
slicing, of cutting…a dull thump. All the while, the presence was watching, taking in every move he made, calculating.
He felt his body revolt at being revived; an ache brought on by lack of sleep. Jake was shaking him gently.
“Sun’s up, fog is gone. Kid wants to go out.”
Ron reached for the recliner’s lever and lowered the foot rest, forcing himself to stand.
Terrell was by the kitchen door. “Everything looks fine now,” he said, staring through the glass of the door to the back porch and the yard beyond.
“I told him to wait until you gave an OK,” Jake said to Ron.
“Why would that matter?” Ron asked.
“Well, as the homeowner, I assume you’re the one with the liability insurance.”
Ron turned to the window where he’d raised the blind in the middle of the night. Sun, filtered through clouds, lit every square inch of the previously impenetrable yard, making things look like any ordinary day. “If you want to go out, go out,” Ron said. “We’ll come along.”
Terrell opened the kitchen door and stepped onto the deck, Jake and Ron following closely. They moved as a group, making their way down the deck’s steps and into the yard. Terrell crossed to the spot in the bramble where he’d placed one of his items. He knelt down to look at it.
“That’s odd,” he said, reaching to retrieve it. “I covered it with soil. Now it’s completely exposed.” He pulled it from the ground and raised another small device to his eye; it looked like a small kaleidoscope, or magnifying glass inside a tube.
To Ron, the small stone Terrell was examining through the tube looked like any common rock.
“Huh,” Terrell muttered.
“What?” Jake asked.
Terrell didn’t reply. Instead, he slipped the rock inside his pocket and moved to another spot, retrieving another of his traps. “This one’s exposed, too. Something uncovered them. Very odd.” He held it to the kaleidoscope, turning it over. “Hmm.”
“What?” Jake demanded, more insistently.
“There’s data, but I can’t read it,” Terrell replied. “Normally I can. Read it.”
“Data?” Ron asked.
“Hard to explain,” Terrell replied, leaving them to hunt for another at the back of the yard.
The Coldwater Haunting Page 12
