The Riverhouse

by G. Norman Lippert

  The cottage groaned suddenly, enormously, and began to slide beneath him. It juddered and rammed into something buried in the bluff, slamming again to a halt. Windows shattered all around and the chimney disintegrated, falling ponderously apart and leaving a gaping black hole in the side wall. The Riverhouse painting fell into the darkness. Shane slipped on the wet floor and collapsed, falling full length with his fingers on the doorstep, gripping it. He struggled to pull himself forward, fighting the tilt of the floor.

  “Come with me, son,” the corpse of Wilhelm rasped in his ear. It was grinning, although Shane wasn’t sure that it had much of a choice.

  Cold rain ran into the house in splattering rivulets, soaking him and making the floor slippery. Shane bared his teeth and moaned, straining his arms, inching forward. He got one elbow over the edge of the doorstep. The porch had folded down, away from the door. Its roof was entirely gone, pulled away and to the side, leaving nothing but booming clouds overhead.

  Shane could see out over the yard. Its angle looked all wrong. It seemed to slope precipitously away from him, and yet Shane knew that it was actually level. It was the cottage that was falling away, sliding, grinding, disintegrating into the river behind it. It wouldn’t last much longer. His arms revolted against him. They trembled, strained to the limit. The skeleton pulled him, breathing its rotten breath into his ear, laughing.

  Movement caught Shane’s eye. He glanced toward it and saw something small and dark, moving stealthily, approaching the cottage. A flicker of lightning revealed it, lit in its bright, green eyes. It was a cat; Tom the cat. Shane felt a giggle of madness bubble inside him. And then, he heard the cat’s strange, high voice. It was yowling.

  “RRooooowwwwwww!” it cried, long and thin under the roar of the storm.

  Wilhelm’s corpse stopped pulling Shane. It went still on his back, the bony hands loosening their grip ever so slightly.

  “RRRROOOooooowww!” the cat howled, as if it were in heat. It crept slowly across the yard, closing the gap between them slowly, lifting its feet stealthily above the wet grass and putting them down without disturbing a single green blade. “Yooooowwww,” it said. “YOOOooowwwww!” It sounded almost human.

  Wilhelm’s corpse shuddered. It began to push away, not taking its gaze from the advancing cat. Shane took the opportunity to scramble upright. He gripped the doorframe and pulled himself out onto the remains of the porch. The skeleton had gotten tangled in Shane’s clothing, however, and it came as well, suddenly scrambling, trying to disengage itself.

  “No,” Wilhelm said. “How…?”

  “YOOoooww!” the cat cried, and it sounded like a word. It sounded like it was saying the word “you”, over and over, accusingly. Another series of lightning flashes barraged across the sky, and in the flashes, Shane saw more than a cat. A human figure seemed to be crawling across the yard, its head raised, glaring at Wilhelm. It was rotten and wasted, bent over in a deformed parody of the cat’s stealthy creep. It looked vaguely, perversely female. Shane suddenly recalled something Steph had said a long time ago, as if in a different life. When I was a little girl, she’d told him, I thought all cats were girls.

  “Yooouuuu!” the cat-thing howled, its voice no less damning than an accusing finger. “You!!!”

  “No!” Wilhelm’s corpse cried, its bony joints still caught in the fabric of Shane’s shirt. It ripped and pulled, tearing itself away from him, its ghastly face still locked onto the approaching creature. Shane finally saw Wilhelm’s dead body in its entirety. Tufts of black hair still clung to the cracked skull, along with the partial remains of a face, dried and leathery. Its clothing was rotted and threadbare, pocked with moth holes. Amazingly, the corpse no longer seemed to be smiling. The jaw creaked open and Wilhelm’s voice rasped, “You’re dead!”

  “Ssso are yoooouuu, lover,” the cat-thing hissed. In the lightning, it had begun to stand, to pull itself into a slightly more human posture. But still it stalked, creeping forward. It was horrible. Long sheets of black hair hung from its skull like seaweed. The eyes were blank holes. The grin was more giddy than Wilhelm’s had been. It was still vaguely catlike. “But I knewww you’d never leave me… I knewww if I only waited…”

  “I meant to,” Wilhelm’s corpse said, still trying to clamber away, not noticing that it had gotten its skeletal foot lodged in the crack between the porch and the leaning cottage. “I always… you know that…”

  “I spent nearly all of my lives waiting,” the cat-thing said. “But you caaaaame baaaack… just like I kneeeeww you would. I thought you would be only a ghost… a wisp of a memory, useless to me, but you put on your best for meeee… you put on your body, so I could touch you… so I could loooove you. Just like we planned. Don’t you remember?”

  Wilhelm began to flail, to clamber backwards, and yet his distraction made him reckless. He was caught in the jaws of the broken porch. His hand broke away between two planks. His jaw clacked and jibbered. Shane could’ve sworn that his remaining hair was sticking up in terror.

  The cat-thing was nearly upon them. It paid Shane no attention at all. It scooped Wilhelm up into its horrible arms, and lightning lit it brightly, revealing it in all its rotten horror. It looked a little like the cat, and a little like Christiana. It was neither.

  “Mad!” Wilhelm shrieked, throwing up the remains of his hands, beating uselessly at the thing as it embraced him, pulled him upright. “Madeleine! I didn’t mean for it to happen like this...!”

  “Yoooouuu promisssed,” the thing hissed. “You promised to take me away from all thissss… but it isn’t too late. Yoooouuu came back… Kissss me, lover… kiss me like you used to…”

  The thing opened its mouth, revealing a set of long, yellow fangs. The mouth unhinged, yawned wider and wider, distorting the face. It looked like a cat hissing, and still the mouth grew, eating into the face, exhaling with rapture. The Madeleine-thing gripped Wilhelm’s head. It drew him forward, into its yawning jaws, and it bit the front half of his skull off. His head shattered, exploding with bits of rotten flesh and tendon. Wilhelm’s hair was caught in his lover’s teeth, and still he screamed, beating weakly at the thing’s head and shoulders. The Madeleine-thing moaned with ecstasy. It opened its jaws again, and pushed Wilhelm’s corpse further inside.

  Shane could watch no more. He lunged forward, forgetting his spent muscles and overworked lungs. He threw himself up onto the yard and grabbed fistfuls of the wet grass, using them as handholds, pulling himself forward. With maddening lethargy, he struggled to get his feet beneath him. Rain pelted him in sheets, chilling him to the bone, but he barely noticed. Behind him, both the cottage and Wilhelm seemed to scream. Their mingled shrieks filled the air, rising, rising, until they passed right out of the range of Shane’s hearing. He pelted across the grass, stumbling and slipping, but managing to stay upright. Finally, as he reached the perimeter of the woods and felt the blissfully hard surface of the packed driveway beneath his feet, he turned, panting, leaning with his hands on his knees.

  The pickup truck had rolled sideways as the gravel pull-off caved in beneath it. The cottage itself was keeled backwards, half crushed and nearly unrecognizable. Its broken windows were like black eyes, staring up at the sky in shock. Gradually, accompanied by a deep, guttural groan, it began to slide. It moved as if in slow motion, turning on its foundation, the stonework disintegrating and popping loose in chunks. It swiveled and slid backwards, imploding in on itself as it went. The shed came into view as it splintered into sticks. For one second, Shane saw his bicycle inside, glinting in the lightning, tumbling backwards. And then, just before the structure slid away entirely, Shane saw the round window on the upper side of the east wall. Its glass was shattered and gaping, leaving glittering fangs all around. In the lower arc of the window, a tiny shaft of pale white still stood. Shane glimpsed it for less than a second, but it was long enough for him to see, and to remember. The candle’s flame was dark. It had finally, and forever, gone out.

  T
he crash of the cottage was almost entirely lost in the grating rumble of the rest of the bluff as it finally gave way. The death rattle of its destruction carried down the driveway as a sustained tremor, a dull roar that Shane felt as much as he heard. And then, finally, it was over.

  Rain fell all around. It shushed among the trees, which stood strangely still now, without any wind to move them. It was as if the storm had finally spent itself. Shane shivered, both with cold and with a sense of debilitating, morbid exhaustion. He felt as if he could lay down right there on the gravel of the driveway and go straight to sleep. He didn’t dare, of course. The Madeleine-thing had probably gone with the cottage, but he couldn’t be sure. It was simply too dreadful even to think about.

  He turned and began to shuffle down the hill toward the Valley Road.

  Lightning flashed among the distant clouds. In its white flicker, Shane saw the glint of metal and glass at the foot of the driveway; Christiana’s car, of course. He angled toward it, knowing that it was no use. The Valley Road would be flooded and impassable. And besides, Christiana’s keys had been on the kitchen counter in the cottage. They were at the bottom of the river now, buried in a grave of brick and stone.

  Shane reached the car, sloshing through the mud on the driver’s side, and tried the door. It was unlocked. He plopped inside and pulled the door shut after him, finally shutting out the persistent roar of the storm. He reached instinctively for the ignition and his fingers struck something, producing a low, musical jingle. He thought of Hector’s rattle, but that wasn’t it, of course. It was Christiana’s keys. He looked and saw them hanging from the ignition, glinting darkly. He wasn’t all that surprised, considering.

  He turned the key and the car started right up. The radio sprang to life, loud, shocking him for a moment. For a split second, he was convinced that it was playing “The Good Ship Lollipop” at him at full volume, but of course it wasn’t. Christiana had had a soft spot for oldies. For now, the local golden age station was playing an old Anne Murray song. Shane thought it was called “You Needed Me”. He turned it down, but let it play on. For the moment, he was simply too tired to do anything but sit there.

  The car was probably still too stuck in the mud to move, especially after all the rain of the night. The Valley Road was probably impassable, although it was slightly possible that the northbound lane, the length that ran away from Bastion Falls, might still only be covered by a half foot or so of water. Maybe it didn’t even matter what he did. He sighed, exhausted and numb, bereft and shocked at everything he had seen. What could possibly matter after all of that?

  On the radio, Anne Murray sang, “You held my hand when it was cold. When I was lost, you took me home. You gave me hope when I was at the end…”

  Shane drew a deep, shaking breath and turned, peering out of the car’s rear window. The road seemed mostly clear at the end of the driveway. Maybe he should give it a try. Maybe he’d make it. Maybe he wouldn’t. But he could at least give it a shot. He owed that much to Christiana. It was too much to think about moving on after everything that had happened, too much to comprehend the enormity of living life in the wake of the Riverhouse. But he could maybe handle shifting the car into reverse and pushing the gas a little. Just to see what might happen. The next steps could handle themselves.

  He exhaled. He shifted the car into reverse. Slowly, he pushed the accelerator.

  Somehow, the car moved. Maybe the tires had settled enough into the mud, adhered enough to it to form a tentative grip. Maybe. Or maybe somebody had given the car a little push. Shane didn’t think it mattered.

  He backed slowly out onto the Valley Road, leaving long, muddy tire tracks on the wet pavement. A moment later, he shifted into Drive. Slowly, he pressed the accelerator and the car rolled forward. Shane steered weakly, and let the car pick up speed. Water splashed up into the wheel wells, but it was manageable. He thought he’d probably make it to the top of the hill. After that, he didn’t know what would happen next. Neither did he care.

  On the radio, Anne Murray continued to sing. Shane let her.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  From the Bastion Falls Monitor, November 5, 2009

  Historic Local Landmark Destroyed in Mudslide; Potential Victim Still Missing

  The building that once housed painter Gustav Wilhelm’s art studio, famed for his portraits of presidents and royalty, was lost to a mudslide yesterday which destroyed it and most of the bluff it had been built upon. Current owner of the structure, Shane Bellamy, 35, escaped the destruction with minor injuries, although a friend, Christiana V. Corsica, 30, who had been hiking nearby at the time, is still missing.

  “It’s never a good idea to take nature for granted,” Franklin Sherman, head of the Jefferson County Department of Parks and Recreation, said in an interview this morning. “Erosion is a serious threat to any riverfront property, no matter how long it seems to have stood the test of time. We can only hope that Ms. Corsica wasn’t in the area when the slide took place, although we should be careful not to be too optimistic at this point.”

  Citizens familiar with the history of the river valley will recall that the studio’s sister property, the official Wilhelm residence once known as the Riverhouse, was torn down in August of this year, after decades of water damage and deteriorating conditions.

  Gustav Ferdinand Wilhelm moved to the Missouri River valley from New Hampshire in the spring of 1933, bringing with him both a worldwide distinction and a unique culture of the arts that has remained in the area to this day. While Wilhelm himself was only known to occupy the properties until the mid-nineteen forties, his artistic impression, and the mystery of his life after Bastion Falls, has left a lasting mark on the culture of the town. Thus, while the properties had long since been broken up and resold, the demolition of both the studio and the Riverhouse in such close proximity seems to mark a particularly poignant end to a decades’ long era.

  From the St. Louis Post Dispatch, November 7, 2009

  Jefferson County sheriff's deputies are investigating a death Wednesday near the River Valley Road seven miles north of Bastion Falls. Col. Jay Sappington said 30-year-old Christiana V. Corsica of St. Louis was found dead Wednesday morning, having apparently drowned during a flash flood while hiking.

  "It appears the female died sometime during the recent flood and was discovered in the woods this morning by parks workers sent to clean up an outdoor storage facility," he reported.

  Sappington said officers are unsure of the circumstances surrounding the death at this time, since the body seems to have suffered at least two puncture wounds, either before or after the time of death. The body has been sent to the state crime lab for an autopsy.

  "Floods can move very quickly, carrying debris with an awful lot of force. The body could very well have been damaged by broken tree branches, or thrown against some sharp objects during the deluge.” Sappington said. “At this point, we are operating under the assumption that this was an accidental death. We’ll know for sure once we get the results of the autopsy, but I’m not expecting any surprises."

  He said the autopsy is scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  On the one year anniversary of the night that the cottage fell into the river, Shane went for a bike ride along the river trail.

  It was a crisp, cool day, but bright, without a single cloud in the hard sapphire sky. He parked the Saturn in the gravel lot at the end of the park, two miles north of where he used to live. It wasn’t Christiana’s Saturn, but it was similar. Hers had gone to her parents, along with the rest of her worldly goods. Shane knew how such things worked, of course. His Saturn was a similar model, but dark silver in color, with four doors and a new Thule bike rack attached to the trunk.

  Shane climbed out, unhooked his bike (no longer a Trek, but a perfectly serviceable used Giant) and straddled it, squinting around at the park and the trail. The ball diamond was empty, with a carpet of leaves covering most of the outfield. Th
e tiny cinder block building that housed the restrooms was locked for the season. Beyond a line of ancient trees, the river moved serenely, fat and lazy, brown in the sunlight. Apart from the wind, nothing moved. No one was in sight. Shane stood on the pedals, pushing the bike forward and angling onto the trail connected to the gravel lot.

  It was the first time that Shane had been back on the trail since that fateful night. It wasn’t that he’d stayed away on purpose, exactly, or so he thought. It was just that there was too much associated with the area, too much loss and sadness, too much ugliness. Worse, not all of it was his own. The river valley collected such things, hoarded its occupants’ horrors like teeth on a necklace. It wasn’t that the river valley was evil, necessarily. It just couldn’t help being what it was. It was a boundary land, and a particularly powerful one. This is one of the thin spots, Christiana had told him, or maybe that had only a dream. After all, she’d been dead by then. One of the thin spots, where reality is worn almost all the way through to the other side. You can sense it, can’t you? Shane could. He guessed that, deep down, everyone that came here sensed it. It was the very thing that drew them, like moths to a flame. Everyone is fascinated with the cliff edges of life. Everybody thinks they can creep up to the edge and peek over and not fall off. Nobody remembers that there are other things out there, unseen and sneaky, waiting to give a little push at just the right moment. Shane knew that now, but he’d paid a very high price to learn it. When he was honest with himself, he knew he was still paying it.