Noel screamed. He sat in his bed, hyperventilating and shrieking until his throat got hoarse. He looked around and recognized that he was in his new room in the cottage, and then he slowly became quiet. He watched the door, expecting his father to come in, but he didn't. He cleared his throat and looked down at the sheets covering his lap and legs. They were the same star-pattern sheets from his old house, but as if he hoped he could awaken from his nightmare and find himself back in his old home, he was sadly disappointed. The same mess and strange posters were there, but the old stained sheets were gone. He leaned over and looked around on the floor, but his father must have taken them out of the room.
He pulled the sheets away and inspected the bed under him to see if he had wet it. He sometimes did when he had nightmares, but the sheets were dry. Relieved, he climbed out of bed. Lifting the blind with a careful finger, bright light poured into the room and he knew that it was morning.
He stumbled out of his room, pressing his palms to his tired eyes. He glanced down to the end of the hallway, but the door to the master bedroom sat open; his father must have already been up. Then he heard the dance of piano notes bouncing around downstairs.
His heart seized in his throat, remembering the night before. He thought it was his father playing when he'd woken up from the couch, but it couldn't be. His father had already been asleep, rousing to use the bathroom when he came upstairs. If his father was down there now, he had to warn him of what happened.
Noel hurried down the stairs and bounded down the hall, trying his best to ignore the pantry door. He only slowed down when he got to the den, then he apprehensively rounded the corner into the game room, afraid of what he might see.
But Walter was sitting at the piano, alone, his fingers fast at work. The music sounded okay to Noel's untrained ear, and it seemed like it was going a little better for him than it did last night. Walter sat upright, and he twisted his shoulders and worked his body into the notes. That told Noel that he was in an approachable mood.
"Um... Daddy?" Noel said.
Walter didn't hear him, continuing on with his tune.
"Daddy?" Noel repeated, taking a few steps into the room.
The playing stopped and Walter uttered an audible sigh. He twisted around on the bench seat and looked at his son. "What is it?" he said shortly.
"Um, last night when I was... I was sleeping on the couch, and..."
"Come on, Noel, Daddy's real busy right now. What's the problem?"
Noel fiddled with his fingers nervously, trying to describe the chilling sounds he heard coming from this very room the night before. "I think there was a ghost here," he continued. "It was playing your piano."
Walter's face soured. "Listen, I got too much work to do. I've got one jingle in the pocket and I'm working on the second one. I think I'm real close to getting it, which will put me ahead of schedule. But I have to keep working, okay?" He turned back to the piano and tried to remember where he left off, uttering another sigh at his son making him lose his place.
Noel stared at the back of his head. It wasn't the first time that he'd been ignored by his father. Ever since his mother died, he got a lot of that. It was always "busy" this, or "not now" that. Eventually, Noel learned to keep quiet. This was another reminder of that.
His stomach rumbled.
Noel stared at his feet, as if not being able to see his father would soften his reaction. "I'm hungry," he said just above a whisper.
This time Walter didn't cease his playing. He half-glanced over his shoulder while trying to keep time with the measure he'd crafted. "Not now, kiddo. There's a box of stuff in the kitchen from the old house. Make yourself some breakfast, okay?"
Even in all of Walter's dereliction of duty in fatherhood, Noel had never found himself having to make his own breakfast before. But, facing the fact that he had no other choice, he sauntered to the kitchen.
The atmosphere in the house seemed lighter than the day before when they moved in, and in some ways it seemed like all the oddities and horrors he'd experienced the day before were like a distant dream. That blackened, roiling feeling in the pit of his stomach was still there, but now it was dormant; hibernating.
There was a box sitting on the kitchen counter right next to the refrigerator, just like Walter said. Noel was too short to see inside so he grabbed a stool from the island and pushed it up against the counter. Climbing up, he peered into the box and saw a couple old, half-eaten boxes of cereal, two-thirds of a loaf of bread of questionable freshness, and a jar of unopened pickles.
He stepped down from the stool and opened the fridge. Everything inside was grimy and filled with unknowable stains and spills, and the smell made Noel's nose scrunch up. It was largely empty inside, other than a few things that Walter had already placed there. These things were a carton of eggs, milk, and a bottle of mustard. Noel eyed each one carefully, then he withdrew the carton of eggs, holding it carefully as if it were some kind of cherished prize.
He placed it on the counter and then looked at the stove next to him. He never cooked anything before, but he saw his parents do it, and also people on TV, too. A rack of old pots and pans was nailed to the wall behind the counter, and Noel stretched up on his toes, struggling to pluck a frying pan off a hook. He put it on one of the elements on the stove and looked at the dials. He twisted one and blue flame shot up underneath the wrong element. He turned it off and tried another one. On his third try, the flame found its way underneath the pan. Noel stared at it, mesmerized. He didn't know what he was doing; he just knew now he had to wait. He opened the carton of eggs, which only had four remaining, and he plucked one solitary egg out and carefully placed it on the counter, still stretching up on his toes for everything.
Content that he'd done everything he had to do so far, Noel leaned his back against the kitchen island and drummed his fingers on his stomach. His eyes wandered around, and they fell on an old radio sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter next to the dining room.
He walked over to it and flicked it on, hearing a whine and then a hiss of static. He played around with the buttons and dials, finding the tuning knob and slowly twisting it in each direction. The crashing din of the static waxed and waned as he waded through the void of airwave nothingness, catching nothing more than glimpses of faraway stations. The cottage must have been so isolated that nothing clear came through.
Noel played with it, trying to find something. And then, with a ginger twist, the very fringes of something came through the tinny speakers.
He twisted his head and placed his ear to it, trying to make out the noises. It sounded like a faint whisper of voices, but what they were saying was indiscernible. He tried to adjust the knob just a smidgen, but he realized that only made him lose the signal. So he put it back and left it alone. Then, he listened.
He squinted his eyes, as if that would help his hearing. He thought he could just make out what they were saying, and then his heart lurched.
"Death," he heard. "Kill," came next. It sounded like a female voice, and there was maliciousness in it. Then the strangest sound followed, like something hard dragging against something else. It made Noel cringe like nails on a chalkboard.
Noel grabbed the knob again and gave it a violent twist. The noise washed away and was replaced with pure static. His heart galloped in his chest. It was so loud that each heartbeat sounded like a knife slapping against a cutting board.
Except the sound wasn't coming from his heart. It was coming from behind him.
Noel turned and saw a butcher knife fly down and slam into a huge cutting board sitting on the kitchen island. It was dug out and hoisted into the air by a beefy hand, then it slammed down on the wood again. A spatter of blood flew to the side, highlighted by the light coming through the window. A giblet of meat spilled over the edge and fell onto the floor with a tiny splat. Another crash of the knife sent a bone fragment sailing through the air. The wet suck of the blade pulling away from the meat echoed in the kitchen.
A huge mountain of a man stood behind the kitchen island, harshly chopping the meat. The light coming in from outside was behind him, making him into a vague black mass. He looked like his head was touching the ceiling from Noel's point of view, and he was nearly as wide as he was tall. An enormous muscular arm guided the cleaver as it slammed down into the carcass.
Noel's mouth fell open.
The man set the knife down on the board and his shadowed head rose. His eyes couldn't be seen, but Noel knew they were staring at him. Then the edges of his cheeks widened, like he was smiling.
Noel shrieked and stumbled backward. His heel caught on a stool and he fell over it, raising a racket.
Walter ran into the kitchen a few moments later, his eyes wide and bewildered. "What's going on?" he demanded. "Are you okay?" He hurried to Noel and picked him up off the floor, and Noel spun around as if some ghoul had just grabbed him. When he saw that it was his father, he settled down, but only a little.
"It was... I saw... There was!" he sputtered. "A monster! A monster there! He was huge!"
Walter looked around the kitchen but saw no one. "Noel, settle down! There's no one here."
Noel spun around and looked to spite him, but came to the same conclusion when he saw that the kitchen was indeed empty.
"What are you doing in here?" Walter asked. He stepped past Noel and tidied the overturned stool, then he walked to the stove to put the frying pan back. He grabbed high up on the handle, not realizing that the element was on, and the heat burned his hand, making him drop it and shout in pain. "Goddamn it, Noel!"
He twisted the element off and glared at his son. Noel glanced away, feeling ashamed, but at the same time not knowing why it was his fault.
"Get out of here," Walter said.
Noel walked away as Walter steamed. He glanced over his shoulder at the kitchen island where the man had been, but there was nothing there. No mess, no trace.
Digging In
Things settled down by the afternoon. Walter took a break from his work to bring in the rest of the boxes from the car that he'd neglected earlier. He placed each one in the room its contents needed to go, and he spent a little time sifting through each one and fishing out the most important items. Noel spent a lot of time in the living room, staring out the glass door at the snowy field.
His mind drifted to the lake, trying to figure out why he had such an unsettling feeling about it. It was picturesque, yet it felt the same to him as the cottage did. He searched the trees for the girl, but she was nowhere in sight. He even thought about venturing out and looking for her house on the other side of the woods. Even if he got lost in there, it would be a better fate than being stuck here. But all that was just delaying the real problem.
Noel glanced over at the kitchen where his father was, then he cleared his throat and got up.
Walter was bent over, cleaning the inside of the fridge with a rag. He had a long list written out on the counter with everything they had to get from town, and he had already placed what little implements they brought from their old house in cupboards, drawers or around on the counter. He plucked his head out from the fridge when he heard Noel's soft footsteps. "Oh, hey there, kiddo," he said. The anger that he'd laid upon his son earlier seemed to be gone.
"I want to leave," Noel said.
Walter's face fell. "Noel, please don't start this again. You're killing me."
"I don't like it here!" he shouted, more from anxiety than anger.
"There's nothing here, kiddo. Just us."
"I saw it! I saw the monster! He was right here!" Noel eyed the area right next to Walter where the giant man had been standing. His high voice cracked, and tears streamed out of his eyes.
Walter looked down at the rag in his hand, then he tossed it onto a shelf in the fridge and closed it, wiping his hands on his pants. He knelt down and held his son by his shoulders, looking him dead in the eye. "Hey, it's okay, kiddo," he said. "Everything's all right, just calm down."
"I don't wanna calm down!" Noel began to hyperventilate. Snot ran out of his nose.
Walter pulled him into a tight hug. Noel squirmed at first, but Walter just held him until he settled down. "I know you don't like this place, and your mind can start to imagine all kinds of things here. It's an old place, and there's a lot of strange noises and shadows that you're not used to. And you know that you usually see things when you have one of your blackouts, right? But those things aren't real." He let go of his son and motioned around them. "Look, there's no one here. I promise you."
Noel just sobbed, knowing that this was all an exercise in futility.
The gentle smile that Walter had put on his face slid off as he looked at Noel. Though he was only six years old, Walter knew he was far sharper than most his age, and that leveling with him would get the best result. "Look, we're not doing so well right now with money. The life insurance we got from Mommy is gone, and we're running on fumes. This place was the only one I could get at this kind of price. It was dirt cheap, and right now it's all we can afford. The choice was either this or living under a bridge."
"I'd rather live under a bridge," Noel said, wiping his eyes.
"But your Mommy wouldn't want that for you," Walter said.
Noel looked up at him suddenly.
"I know you miss her, and I know you probably wish every night that it was me that died in that car crash. Hell, you probably hate my guts for it, but I'm all you've got. I know we don't like the circumstances we've been put in, but we're just gonna have to find a way to live with them."
Noel didn't know what to say. His father hit the nail on the head, and he was surprised to hear it from him, though he wouldn't dare admit it to his face.
"Just a few weeks and then the money will come in," Walter said. "You just got to bear with me until then. After we get the money, we'll see where we're at." His eyes became full of apology and pleading. "We have no choice."
"Okay," Noel said feebly. He didn't have the emotional fortitude to argue anymore, and his father's words held a mirror up to him. Maybe Noel was being too harsh on him, even if he did try to keep his resentment secret. And he did wish night and day that it had been his mother who survived instead. He knew if that happened, they wouldn't be stuck in this mess. They would be back in their old home, and he'd get to stay at his old school with his old friends. But instead the rug had been pulled out from under him just as suddenly as that car slammed into that tree and stole his mother.
"Cheer up, kiddo," Walter said, lifting his chin with his knuckle. "I fixed that radio you were trying to listen to. It was just switched to the wrong frequency. You should get a few stations now. I put it up in your bedroom."
Noel felt an unpleasant tug at his solar plexus, but he was too drained to care right now. He was more concerned with what he'd seen in the kitchen and wondered if they would even make it for another few weeks here. He hadn't seen the face of the monster, but he knew it wasn't friendly. And he absolutely knew it was real. Even his imagination couldn't come up with something that frightening.
There was a knock on the door.
Walter's head perked up. He stood up and opened it, leaving Noel standing in the kitchen.
The bright morning sunlight flooded into the entrance as a man dressed in a navy blue uniform stood several paces away from the house. A white work truck was parked behind him, and he held a cell phone in his hand. He glanced up from it when the door opened. "Hi... Mr. Jingle? I'm here with AT&T."
"Oh, hi there," Walter said. "Perfect timing, come on in." He moved out of the way and motioned for the young man to enter, but the technician remained standing several paces away from the door. He looked around at the entire façade of the cottage, zoned out in thought. "Well?" Walter asked.
"Oh," the man said. "Sorry." He stepped forward, reluctantly at first, then he shook it off and entered the cottage.
Noel watched as he came in, seeing him make the same expression on his face as he stepped through the thresho
ld that Noel had when he first came in.
"And please, call me Walt," Walter said, shutting the door.
"Oh," the tech said suddenly. He looked down at his phone again. "You're Walter Jingle!"
"The very same."
A smile stretched across the young man's face. "I remember seeing you on Leno back in the 90s!" Excitement animated his every movement, like he just met the most famous celebrity.
"Thought you'd be a little too young for that," Walter said with a smile. "It's always nice to be recognized, though."
"Yeah! I remember the jingle you did for that Sears commercial! No one could get the damn thing out of their head! So are you still at it after all these years, or are you retired?"
"Still at it," Walter said with a shrug. "In fact, I'm working on a few new ones right now. I've got my piano in the other room."
"No kidding?" the tech said. "That's so cool! Listen, do you think maybe you could play that old jingle? I'd love to record it for my mom. That commercial used to drive her nuts, but she would still get a kick out of it."
"Sure, no problem," Walter said, "but, uh... do you think you could hook up the phones and the TV first?"
"Oh, of course!" the young man said. "Sorry, I got a little starstruck, I guess." He looked down at the information on his work phone. "So yeah, phone and TV today, huh?" He glanced around. "So where are you having your phones plugged in?"
"Well there's a phone at the edge of the kitchen there," Walter said, pointing to a yellowing old corded phone attached to the wall that came with the house, "and I've got a cordless one I brought from my old house that I'm putting upstairs in the master bedroom."
"Okay, I'll get right on it," the young man said. He hesitated before he moved, staring suspiciously at every part of the cottage. He gulped, not realizing that Walter was looking at him, and when he met his gaze he offered a weak smile then reluctantly got to work.
He fiddled with phone lines in the dining room, punching numbers into a tablet he pulled out of a pouch on his work belt, and occasionally he phoned into the office to switch things on from their end. Walter went back to cleaning the fridge, and Noel sat like a lump on the couch in the living room staring at a gentle snowfall coming down through the back door. When the technician was finished, he lifted the phone in the kitchen off its cradle and tested it. When he was satisfied, he returned to Walter.
The Box Set of Hauntings and Horrors Page 22
