Walter was sitting at the bar, staring at the wall ahead of him and nursing a drink in his hand. His mood seemed sad at a glance, but not overly so.
Noel came closer, and when he reached the threshold between the living room and the den, he froze.
Two of the three brothers were sitting in armchairs to his left, and the third one was standing near the bar behind his father. He'd been obscured by the living room wall at first, but now Noel saw him clear as day.
The three brothers had been quietly engaged in conversation with each other, but as soon as Noel walked in, they abruptly stopped and stared at him. The brother standing by the bar was taller than the other two, a lanky young fellow with a wild mustache perched above his lip. He grinned at Noel and produced a knife, placing the tip onto the surface of the bar and twirling it around.
Walter took a drink, then he looked over at his son, only moving his neck as much as it would allow. "Good morning. What's the matter?" He studied the surprise on Noel's face.
Noel looked from his father to the three brothers, one by one. They all maliciously grinned at him like they were about to jump up at any moment and grab him. Noel stood rooted to the spot, not knowing what to do. He looked at his father again, and saw that there was something slightly off about him. His hand holding the glass shook a little.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," Walter said, forcing a smile. There was a shakiness to his voice. He seemed nervous. He didn't glance around him, only staring at the shelf of alcohol bottles ahead.
Noel's words jumbled on his tongue, and he struggled to force them out. "Behind you," he said.
"Behind me, what?" Walter asked. He twisted his head toward the brother standing by the bar, and he cried out in pain. He softly placed a hand on the back of his neck and groaned, then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a bottle of aspirin, fishing a few of them out.
The three brothers leered. But they didn't seem to be interested in Walter at all; only Noel. The two that were sitting in the chairs stood up and took a few steps toward him.
Noel felt every eye in the room on him, and he backed away. He turned and hurried around the corner. He glanced over his shoulder as he went, making sure no one was coming after him. He stopped when he got to the stairs, trying to sort through every confused thought in his head. His father was hard to read, and he couldn't tell whether he had actually seen the ghosts or not.
He headed upstairs and went into his room to think. It was the only place that gave him a modicum of safety. He shut the door and looked out the window, watching as the clouds in the sky shed their snowy load and choked out the sun. He felt his heartbeat slow down, but he was still every bit as nervous as he was downstairs. Looking out the window, he searched for Emily. But there was no pink in the white expanse.
He turned around and looked at his room. "Emily?" he said. "Where are you? I need to talk to you." He waited, wondering if she would open his door or simply walk through it. His eyes went to the closet, but nothing came out of it. Maybe she would pop out of the other wall, or perhaps the ceiling. "Emily?"
The ceiling above him groaned.
He looked up.
That familiar sound of slow movement across the floorboards in the attic stretched over him. He listened to it, tracing the location with his eyes as it went to the edge of his room, then passed over to the study. It slowly headed toward the back of the house over the master bedroom, before it became too faint to hear.
The door leading up to the attic in the hallway brushed into his mind. A million different possibilities lay beyond it, but which one would it be? Swallowing and taking a deep breath, Noel headed for the door.
He was going to find out what was up there.
The Blood-Stained Past
The door was in front of him. A long cord hung down from it, but he would need something to stand on to reach it. The sound in the attic had faded completely, and Noel wrestled with himself whether he wanted to go on or not. The door stared at him silently, not judging him one way or the other. His little hands balled into fists at his sides, cementing his decision.
He found a chair at a little desk in the guest room across the hall from his—the one he now knew once belonged to Emily's brother. He dragged it under the attic door and climbed up on it. He stretched up on his toes. His fingertips batted the handle tied to the end of the cord away as he attempted to grab it.
When it settled, he tried again, batting it the other way. He waited, poised, and when the time was right, he made a little jump. His hands reached out and Noel grasped onto the knob with both of them. His weight wasn't enough to do much of anything to the attic door, and for one scary moment he swung in the air, suspended by the cord. His feet almost came off the chair completely as the cord swung, but then the door in the ceiling moved and the stairs unfolded.
Noel let go and toppled off the chair, trying to get out of their path. Despite the fright of their sudden movement, they extended gracefully, awaiting his ascent.
A coldness lowered from the dark hole in the ceiling, like it had a human form just like him, using its legs and feet to climb down the steps one by one, using its arms to reach out for him.
Noel swallowed. He got up to his feet and timidly stepped onto the first stair, gazing up at the dark square in the ceiling. He never took his eyes off of it as he ascended the rickety stairs one by one. As he neared the darkness, he realized that he should have brought a flashlight or a candle with him. He thought of turning back to get one, but his climb into the dark unknown seemed assured now, like he was being carried up by a tractor beam.
The first thing that struck him was how cold the attic was. A violent wind snaked its way through the darkness and wrapped itself around him, making him shiver. He thought of turning back, but there was a mesmerizing light at the other end of the cramped space.
It was a window, small and round, overlooking the back of the property and the lake. The pane of glass in it was partially cracked and broken, allowing the violent winds of the winter storm to rush in. A beam of light cut through the darkness and cast itself against the dusty hardwood, leaving a small pile of snow to slowly melt on its surface.
But anything else in the attic was impossible to see; it was all covered in a murky cloak of blackness.
"Hello?" Noel found himself asking. He stepped through the darkness very slowly.
But aside from the sound of the wind, there was nothing. Nothing but the blackness. And he was in the midst of it.
He kept the open attic door behind him at the edge of his mind as he ventured forward. "Is anybody there? Emily?"
The groan of old wood sounded from somewhere ahead of him in the darkness.
Noel's body petrified. "Who's there?" he asked. "Sh-Show yourself!"
He walked forward, looking left and right. Even though he could see nothing, he felt like there were terrible creatures waiting just behind the veil of darkness. And if he looked away, he would be halfway down their gullets, his body mashed by their sharp and smelly teeth. The small light that was the open attic door behind him shrank until it was no bigger than a speck of dust in his mind.
His throat was dry, and he tried to swallow but he couldn't. He found himself venturing forward without knowing it, getting closer and closer to the window, bracing himself against the bitter cold.
The floor groaned again and Noel stopped and spun around, searching through the darkness for the origin. The sounds echoed peculiarly off the bare walls and slanted ceiling, making it hard to detect the direction they came from. Something squeaked along with the stressed floorboards, and the noise was a lot louder and scarier now than when he had first heard it from the floor below.
Then the attic became still and rested aside from the wind and snow through the window. Noel held his breath.
A shape entered the fringe of light. It was squatted low, something he couldn't make sense of, silhouetted against the muted glow behind it.
Noel cried out and stumbled backward. His heel
caught a box and he tumbled onto his butt.
"Hello there, boy," a voice said. "Get up, now. Don't let yourself be frightened by me." The voice spoke in a thick accent, one completely foreign to Noel's ears. The dark shape in the light didn't move.
Noel slowly rose to his feet, not taking his eyes off of it. He took a step closer and then to the side, changing his angle. When his eyes adjusted, he saw what was in front of him a little clearer.
An old man sat in a wheelchair, wearing a strange uniform that Noel was unfamiliar with. His face and skin were incredibly wrinkled, and he was a hundred years old if he was a day. Despite the waxiness of his face, it was decidedly sharp and gaunt. His sallow eyes sat sunken into his skull, and he looked like the very embodiment of a living skeleton.
Noel recoiled.
"Don't let an old man scare you," he said. "My name is Heinz. What's yours?"
Noel tried to choke out his name, but he couldn't manage it.
"Little boy, then," Heinz said. "I'll call you that."
"W-What are you doing up here?" Noel stammered. "And why are you dressed like that?"
The old man looked down at himself, then he lifted his arms and wrapped his bony hands around the wheels of his wheelchair. Seemingly with a tremendous effort, he rolled himself forward more into the light and turned himself fully to Noel.
Any murky shadows that clung to him were cast off, and Noel could see him clearly now. He wore a black military uniform, complete with epaulets and medals, including a silver medal in the shape of a square cross with an adorning eagle.
Noel took a step back, afraid of the man, though he looked like he was in no state to harm a butterfly.
"I was an SS commander in the German army," Heinz said. "I wear this uniform like it is a tattoo etched into my flesh."
Noel didn't understand.
"Have you heard of the Jews?" Heinz asked, his cheekbones flaring up.
Noel shook his head.
"World War II?" he continued.
"I don't know," Noel said. "I don't think so."
"I was a trusted confidant of the Führer himself. Our work—my work—that I did with these two very hands has been the greatest honor of my life. Have you ever done something you were proud of?"
"I guess so," Noel said, so frightened that he wondered if he should speak at all.
"Tell me," Heinz implored.
Noel thought for a moment. "Um... I made a bowl for my mommy in school. We made it out of papier-mâché."
Heinz nodded. "And did you do a good job? You worked hard on it?"
"Yeah," Noel replied. "I spent all day in class on it, and then I even kept working on it after school, decorating it before giving it to her."
"And do you miss your mommy?"
"What?" Noel asked.
"I saw you and your father out in the back by the lake. But no mother. Do you miss her?"
Noel paused, eyeing the frightening figure before him. He still had a hard time getting over how ghoulish the man looked. "Yes..."
"That box," Heinz said suddenly, lifting his arm and pointing to the one Noel had tripped over. The sleeve of his uniform hung loosely from his shriveled arm, like it was five sizes too big. "That was my downfall. That is why I am up here in the attic, waiting and watching. But what I wait for anymore, I do not know."
"What do you mean?" Noel asked.
"After the war, I was brought over to America as part of Operation Paperclip, and I later retired with full honors from both the Americans and the Germans." A lurid smile crept over his sagging face. "When I became too old to care for myself, I was placed in a nursing home and fell in love with a nurse who cared for me there. She didn't want me to rot in a place like that, so she brought me home with her to this cottage and cared for me."
Noel gulped. "Is that... the nurse?"
Heinz chuckled. The sound rattled in his throat; a horrid thing. "No, she was a nurse, not the nurse. My beauty is long gone. I had my things brought up in boxes to the attic here when I moved in, though she never looked inside. I told her not to; just some old knickknacks and such, nothing that would interest her. But then one day, just like you, she tripped over that very box and my uniform spilled out. She saw what I was in my old life.
"The next day, she helped me up to the attic and sat me in this wheelchair because she had a surprise for me. Something she said she had set up in the back field that I could only see properly from above. She told me to wait and watch, then she left the attic and pushed up the stairs, placing a lock on the door. I waited and waited, staring out the window for her surprise.
"Hours later, hungry and sitting in my own filth, I knew she wasn't coming back. I discovered the overturned box with my uniform sticking out of it, and I knew what she had seen. I knew why she had left me up here to starve to death."
"I don't get it," Noel said. "What's so bad about your costume?"
"Nothing!" Heinz said commandingly. His eyes glinted in the light, looking like two blue stones under the murky water of a thin river. "I put it on that night. I struggled to do it myself, nearly falling out of my chair, but I put it on and I never took it off until I drew my final breath. And now in death, I'll wear it for all eternity, and I'll do it proudly."
The tone of Heinz's story struck Noel. He thought about how he was planning to leave his own father behind. Though he didn't quite understand the meaning of Heinz's tale, he understood that if someone did something bad, maybe it was okay to leave them behind in a place like this.
"Was she a good mother?" Heinz asked.
"Yes."
"What happened to her?"
"She died in a car accident."
"And who was driving?" That frightening smile touched his face again, like he was enjoying this.
"My daddy," Noel said.
"You blame him for it, don't you?"
Noel nodded.
"We all have secrets that we hide, even from those closest to us," Heinz said.
"What do you mean?" Noel asked.
"Your father said it was just an accident, right?"
"Yeah."
"And you don't believe him? You don't believe that he is blameless?"
"No."
Heinz's smile became maniacal, a truly frightening sight on his withered and evil face. "We all keep our secrets," he said. "That doesn't make us any less proud of what we did."
The words cut right into Noel's heart. Whatever suspicions he'd had about his father on the night of the accident, he had always believed it was truly an accident. It couldn't be anything more, could it? His father certainly couldn't be proud of what happened, right? As much disdain as he had for his father, Noel pushed the thought out of his mind. But new creations sprang into his imagination, however terrible and misshapen they were.
The squeak of a wheel echoed through the attic, and Noel snapped his head over to Heinz.
He was slowly rolling himself toward Noel. He moved at a pace slower than a turtle, but he moved steadily. Noel's skin turned white as the snow coming in through the window. Everything in the attic felt even colder suddenly, and his teeth chattered. He backed away from Heinz's approaching form.
"Won't you stay for a little longer?" Heinz's raspy voice came out.
Noel took a step back.
"Just a little longer with me up in this cold, dark place," he said. "You wouldn't want to leave me alone, would you?" His voice was friendly, but there was something nearly demonic hiding behind his body language and his slow approach.
Noel walked back and back, the floor groaning under his feet. He found himself having a hard time moving quickly or turning around, mesmerized by the appearance of the old man drawing near.
Heinz closed in to within a foot of Noel, then he dumped himself forward and lunged out of the chair for him with an agility that Noel would never have guessed. "Stay!" he cried, swinging his arms in the air for Noel.
Noel shrieked and jumped backward as Heinz hit the floor. Noel's foot reached for more hardwood behind him, but he
hadn't realized he'd gotten so close to the open attic door. Then he tumbled down, and the cold blackness disappeared like it had been a fleeting dream. He took a hard fall down the stairs, bumping and twisting along them before coming to rest in the upstairs hallway.
The last thing Noel noticed before he turned his face to the floor and groaned was the dark square in the ceiling and the sound of violent wind coming in through the attic window.
Bath Time
Noel sobbed from the pain and sudden scare of his tumble down the attic stairs. He wrapped his arms around his body, trying to abate the pain from a stair hitting his ribs. A wafting chill touched him, and for a moment he thought it came from the attic, but the sound of the blowing wind came from below.
"Noel?" Walter called. The front door of the cottage shut and heavy boots clomped up the stairs. When he saw his son lying on the floor, he rushed forward and scooped him up. "Are you hurt? What happened?" He looked him over with frantic eyes, peeling Noel's arms away from his stomach. He peered up at the open attic door and made a disapproving noise. "Are you okay?" he asked again.
Noel's eyes were squeezed shut, hot tears running down his cheeks, but he managed to nod. His father was dressed in his winter coat, having just come in from outside, and the coldness transferred over to Noah, making him shiver, like he was trapped in a snowman's bear hug.
"You're okay," Walter said, carrying Noel downstairs. "What did I tell you about the attic? I said nothing was up there."
Noel wanted to answer him, but he was crying too hard.
Walter brought him into the living room and laid him down on the couch. He kneeled next to him, waiting for Noel to calm down. Seeing that he was chilled, he grabbed a blanket and covered him. When his sobbing subsided, he asked, "Why did you go up there? Did you hear something again?"
"No," Noel lied. The sound was weak, his voice strained, like he struggled just to get the single word out. "I was just curious."
Walter let him rest, then inspected him when he felt a little better. When he saw that nothing was wrong, the look of worry melted off his face. He glanced out the back door. "The storm's really coming down out there," he said.
The Box Set of Hauntings and Horrors Page 29
