"Okay, Mr. Jingle—sorry... Walt. Your phones are all hooked up, and now I just have to do the TV cable line."
"Sounds good," Walter said, tossing the rag on the counter and wiping his hands on a tea towel. As the technician turned to resume his work, Walter stopped him. "Hold on a sec. You've been giving me the stink eye the whole time you've been here. What's going on?"
The technician turned around, looking nervous. "It's not you, sir. It's... it's the house." His eyes darted around then shot to the floor after a second, like he was afraid to look for too long.
"And what's wrong with it?" Walter asked, putting a hand on his hip.
"Well... this place is famous. Infamous, I should say. Some people say haunted, even."
A shade of red washed over Walter's face. "Don't you start with that," he barked, grit in his voice.
The technician stared at him wide-eyed like he'd just been slapped. "Oh... I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean anything by it. It's just... a lot of bad things have happened here, and I would hate for something to happen to you or your little boy over there."
Walter's eyes shot over to Noel, then they fixated on the technician's face, as deadly as a cobra. "Shut up," he said. "Shut your damn mouth! I don't want to hear about hauntings, or monsters, or murders, or any of that garbage! There's nothing wrong with this place."
The technician stood up straight, his own cheeks getting rosy. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'll just get back to work."
"You'll do no such thing!" Walter seethed. "Get out!"
"But sir..."
"Get the hell out of here!" Walter shouted. He grabbed the technician by the collar and dragged him to the front door. The young man's feet scuffed on the hardwood, trying to get his balance from Walter's violent tugs. The door didn't open any sooner than he was flung outside into the snow, nearly falling to his knees. Then Walter slammed the door shut, and the technician was never seen again.
Walter took a few steps forward in the entryway and tried to suck in a deep breath. He managed one glance at Noel who was careful to stare blankly at the wall ahead of him, then he went back to cleaning the kitchen.
Walter took another sip of bourbon and set the glass down on the ledge of the piano above the fingerboard. His nerves had been frazzled lately trying to come up with these three jingles in such a short amount of time, but the alcohol soothed his nerves. He wouldn't go crazy with it, he knew that; he just needed a bit to take the edge off.
His fingers lazily tinkered around on the keys, plucking soft notes out of the huge instrument. His eyes settled on a pile of papers and pictures sitting on the piano that he'd taken out of a box after he chased off the technician. He picked up one of them, an old newspaper clipping. The article featured a grainy black and white picture of him sitting in the chair next to Leno from his hometown's newspaper, celebrating a hometown hero. Man, what a long time ago that was, he thought. He grabbed another article that talked about the boon in sales Sears had experience that year because of his catchy jingle that nobody could get out of their head. Next he grabbed the little plaque that Sears gave him as a commemoration of his service to them and their success. They'd also sent him and his wife a thousand-dollar gift certificate, good for any Sears store in the country, that they had bought a few pieces of furniture with for their house. Furniture that Walter had sold in their move to this cottage. He tossed the plaque back on the piano and a swell of notes reverberated in the large black frame.
Walter sat up straight on the bench. He'd been fidgeting with a lot of little things to stave off the inevitable, but now he knew it was time to get back to work.
He delicately placed each finger in their position on the keys with his thumb on C and sucked in a deep breath. He'd finished two of the jingles, and he knew they'd be good enough to be accepted. All that remained was the third.
But something niggled at him that told him they weren't good enough. Musically, they were sound. But his former glory hung over him like a cloud, shaking its head at any idea he conjured. The notion that he was washed up stung him as it had for every year since those Sears days. Sometimes he just wanted to burn all the memories in a big fire and piss on the ashes. But they were with him like an old friend, just like the drink.
He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind, then he pressed down one of the keys, letting the rest of his fingers flutter into an improvised melody, letting whatever notes come to him that may. They sounded pleasing to his ear, and he continued. His ring and pinky fingers tapped up to the high notes as his left hand played a chord in the middle. He sped up, becoming animated. For any observer, it would have appeared as watching a maestro on the stage in an opera house. But the more furiously his fingers worked, the more he knew he was a fraud.
Walter's hands slammed down on the keys and a loud rumbling noise stretched out of the piano like a yawn.
"Damn it!" he yelled. He saw red, but he breathed deeply, trying not to lash out. He took another sip of bourbon with a shaking hand and set it back down on top of the piano.
Maybe it was time he took a bit of a break. He stood up and left the room, glancing at the clock in the living room, surprised to see that it was already dinnertime.
"You hungry?" he asked.
Noel snapped out of his trance. "What?"
"Dinner," Walter said. "How 'bout it?"
"Okay."
Walter looked around at what they had, but he remembered it wasn't much. He threw together a few ingredients and made them some dry turkey sandwiches with a bit of mustard.
"I don't like mustard, remember?" Noel said.
Walter chewed a few bites looking at his son. "Well that's all the turkey we have left, champ. Can you try to eat it anyway?"
Noel ruminated over this. He looked down at the sandwich with a distasteful eye.
"Kinda like how I said you'll just have to get used to the house?" Walter said. "Come on, give it a chance."
Noel lifted the sandwich to his mouth and took a bite. He chewed it, feeling the sting of the mustard on his taste buds. His eyes scrunched up, but he kept chewing and swallowed it down. He wiped the crumbs off his mouth and felt queasy in his stomach. But he didn't complain anymore.
After they finished eating, mostly in silence, Walter went back to work and Noel went upstairs. He wanted to be alone, wanted to be away from the mind-numbing monotony of living in this place. He went into his bedroom and shut the door, sitting on the sagging bed.
The radio that his father fiddled with was sitting on his dresser, and he saw that there was a box of some old toys he had sitting on the floor.
Noel reached into the box and rooted around for something to play with, but he felt bored with it before he even started. He looked out the window at the soft snow.
A strange scent filled his nostrils. It was something vaguely familiar, sitting on the edge of his memory at first. Then it came to him: something he'd smelled when he was really young and his grandfather was still around. Something his grandfather had put in his mouth and brought a match to. It was pungent, but not as foul-smelling as a cigarette.
But where was it coming from?
Noel looked around his room, but he couldn't determine the source of it. Cautiously opening the door to his bedroom, he went out into the hallway and stood before all the doors staring over him like he was dinner. He swallowed a lump down his throat and walked forward. The floorboards creaked, and the house was silent save for some far-off piano notes.
He stopped at the next door on his right, which sat open a crack. He pushed it and it whined on its hinges, opening into a study filled with fine, old wood and dusty books.
A large cherrywood desk sat on the left side of the room with a tall leather office chair in front of it. To the right were a series of cherry bookshelves, filled with dusty tomes. A large, elaborate throw rug stretched across the hardwood floor, and a rocking chair sat on it next to the bookshelves. A window was situated in the back wall that overlooked the woods at the side of the property.
> But no one was in the room.
Noel cautiously entered, looking left and right as soon as he crossed the threshold.
"Hello?" he asked softly.
Everything was still except for the gentle rustling of the trees out the window. But the smell was more pungent than ever. The pipe smoke permeated the air, soaking it like water to a sponge. The stale scent of it was stained on everything in the room, but a strong, fresh cloud overpowered it, and Noel could tell the distinction. He scrunched his nose up.
Noel walked across the room to the window. He pushed it open, letting the cold, crisp air filter into the room. His heart settled as soon as the icy breeze touched his face.
Something creaked behind him.
Noel spun around.
The rocking chair was moving back and forth.
Noel backed against the wall, splaying his hands out to either side of it. His eyes darted around like mad, searching for the intruder. But there was no one there.
Panic overcame him, and he pulled the window shut then ran out of the room. He didn't stop until he was in his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
He dove under the covers and pulled them up to his chin, lest some monster get him. He stared at the wall ahead, trying to calm himself down.
But the creak of the rocking chair could be heard through the wall. It was gentle and quiet, almost like it didn't want to bother him. He couldn't get it out of his head.
Noel squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will it away. But it was a nasty, pervasive thing, it was.
He dragged his eyelids open again and glanced over at the radio sitting on his dresser. He shot out of bed and flicked it on, and a song came on, loud and clear. His father indeed appeared to have fixed it, and the sound washed away the dull creak of the chair on the other side of his wall.
Noel climbed back into bed, pulling the sheets up high and letting the sounds of an unknown song wash over him. He closed his eyes, and gently he rested. Halfway through the song, he started to forget about the terrible chair and the nasty smell next door. And just after that, the song on the radio became strained. A ring and hiss of static washed over, like the radio started to lose the signal. And then something, so soft, so quiet, could be heard amongst the chattering din.
Noel's eyes pulled open wide.
A dull scratching noise came across the airwaves, followed by another rush of static. And the high, evil voice of a woman swam through the noise. It was so insidious, that he could tell whoever was uttering the sounds was smiling.
"Noel..." she said. Then she laughed, cackling like a witch.
He pulled the covers all the way over his head and clutched the ends of it with white fingers.
Bad News
Like a butterfly's tender wings, Noel's eyes fluttered open. He stared at the ceiling, and then around the room, trying to get his bearings. Fatigue covered his body like a blanket and he languidly moved around in bed. He searched for a clock, but there was none. His room was dark, and when he shifted up onto his elbow and lifted the corner of the blind, he saw that it was dark outside, too. He hadn't realized it, but he must have drifted off earlier.
Noel closed his eyes again and tried to fall back asleep, but something disturbed him. His bladder was fit to burst, feeling like a heavy balloon sitting behind his crotch. He squirmed around, rolling onto his side and stuffing the pillow between his hands, but nothing helped.
He tossed the corner of his covers off, still groggy. He sat on the edge of the bed and the fibers of the carpet tickled his bare feet, and he realized that somewhere in his sleep he must have taken off his socks. But he was too tired to put them back on just to make a bathroom trip.
Noel got up and opened his bedroom door. The hallway upstairs was dark, and he wasn't sure if his father was asleep or not. But he was too tired to think about much at the moment. He reached up and flicked on the light switch in the master bathroom and a solitary bulb attached to the wall above the sink came on. It bathed the bathroom in a dull yellow glow, highlighting an old porcelain vanity with a big chip out of it, a toilet sitting next to it, and a clawed-foot bathtub wedged into the end of the room. The mirror above the vanity was cracked, and spider-web lines stretched across it surface, coming to a central point near the upper-left corner of it. A shard of it was missing.
He walked to the toilet, his feet freezing on the cold tile. Noel pulled down his pants and underwear to his ankles, then he twisted around and sat on the toilet. He wasn't quite tall enough to sit properly, and his feet dangled in the air.
His bladder began to empty, and he felt the pressure drain away like someone had popped the balloon with a pin and the air was slowly hissing out. His face melted into an expression of contentment as his eyelids slid closed. He felt the stream coming out of him and peacefully waited for it to end. When he was finished, he hopped off the seat and pulled his pants up, turning and flushing the toilet.
The thing was old and howled at him with a violent rush of water. It startled him, and the pipes in the walls made a terrible rattle. Just another unsettling thing about this house.
Noel turned to wash his hands and saw that there was a small footstool in front of the vanity. His parents had one at his old house, but this one was different, and he wondered if the people who lived here before them had children around his age. He pulled it out, then stepped on it so his arms could easily reach above the sink. He turned on the tap, an old rusted thing, and water came out—thankfully clear. He stared up into the mirror, which still reflected fine despite its dizzying web of cracks. The pale light above him highlighted only a little into the hallway behind him, leaving the rest in darkness.
A bar of soap that Walter had brought from their old house sat at the edge of the vanity, and Noel lathered up his hands, rinsing them off in the cold water. He twisted the tap off and leaned slightly on the stool, drying his hands on a towel hanging on a bar next to the mirror.
When he leaned back, he saw the reflection of a woman in a white nightgown walking across the hallway behind him.
Noel jumped and nearly toppled off the stool. A sharp intake of breath nearly made him cough.
The woman stopped behind him, her silky, almost glowing reflection visible just over his shoulder. A sickly pallor clung to her face. Her eyes bore into the back of his head.
Every hair on Noel's body stood on end and his skin crawled, feeling like he was covered in bugs. He held his breath.
And then the woman glided out of view. Now the only thing the mirror reflected was the darkness of the hallway.
Noel stood frozen on the stool for a long time. He listened for any noise at all, but it was silent. He wasn't sure there had even been any footsteps in the first place. But he had seen the ghastly woman as clear as day. Where he was tired before, now he was suddenly wide awake.
He trembled as he carefully stepped down from the stool. The cold tile greeted the soles of his feet again, and he ventured to the door. His tiny fingers wrapped around the frame, and he looked toward the master bedroom where she had gone. But there was no sign of her. The hallway was empty, just as it had always been. He turned his head in the other direction, but there was nothing there, save for warm light painted on the walls around the stairs coming from the bottom floor.
Who was that woman? Was she the one he heard on the radio?
Suddenly Noel heard a muffled voice downstairs. It was his father's.
He gave another glance down to the end of the hall, but seeing no one, he crept out of the bathroom and headed to the stairs. His father seemed animated, and he could just start to make out his words as he made his way toward the lower floor, tiptoeing so as not to make any noise.
"So what are you telling me, Hank?" Walter said.
Noel was halfway to the landing now, and he took another step down, holding onto the bars of the banister and peering through them. He could just see his father at the edge of the kitchen around the corner.
Walter stood with one hand on his hip, and the other
holding the corded phone to his ear. He faced the wall away from Noel, and though Noel couldn't see his face, he knew from the demeanor of his voice that it wasn't a happy conversation.
"Cut the shit, Hank," Walter said. "Give it to me straight." He leaned forward, taking his hand off his hip and twirling the cord of the phone with his forefinger. He started to walk around on his short leash, but then he stopped suddenly, facing the dining room now. "No..." he said, his face draining.
Noel took another step down the stairs, one up from the landing now. He swallowed a lump down his throat, already forgetting about the woman he'd seen walking down the hallway.
"All three of them?" Walter shouted. "All three are dropping me?! Why?" There was a pause as Walter listened to the voice on the other end. "I said a week, Hank, and I meant it! I've already got two done, and the third's on the way! Done, Hank! You hear me? I can give them to you right now!" Another pause. "How am I supposed to eat, Hank?" Another pause. Then rage. "After twenty-six years?! Don't do this to me, you son of a bitch!"
Then the scene descended into chaos.
Walter pulled the phone away from his ear, pivoted on the spot, and slammed it against the edge of the kitchen counter. His whole body was gripped by frenzy, his skin a sheet of red, as he smashed the phone repeatedly. The plastic bent, then snapped. The receiver flew through the air, bouncing off the kitchen island and clattering on the floor in the entryway, making Noel jump. The jagged bottom half he clutched cut his hand in the frenzy, and blood started pouring out of it. But he didn't notice this until he had ripped the cord out of the phone, pulling the cradle itself loose from the wall, and flung it across the living room. His fist went into the wall next, denting it, and only then did he notice the damage he'd done.
The Box Set of Hauntings and Horrors Page 23
