Always in the past, Marco, the Allards’ Doberman, would galumph from his dog house to bark a greeting at the Jeep from just inside the fence. Today, no excited Marco appeared. To Blake, the house looked deserted. Drapes or blinds covered the windows. The garage doors were shut. None of the family’s three autos was parked haphazardly along the gravel drive.
“Are the Allards away?” asked Blake.
Their uncle gave him a strange look. “Didn’t your parents tell you? The Allards were killed last year. I put it all in one of my long e-mails to your mom.”
Blake was shocked. “She never said anything to us.” Neither he nor Jamie could pull their eyes away from what was now a place of sadness.
Uncle Jack sighed. “Sometimes I think my sister doesn’t read my messages very closely—or at all. I know I’m long-winded and probably put everything including the kitchen sink into my communiqués. Now that I think about it, I’m surprised it didn’t come up when we talked.”
“Mom’s been so busy, with Gran being sick all these months,” Blake temporized, eyes still on the house that was—mercifully—soon hidden by a stand of pines. “She’s spent more time at Gran’s house than she’s spent with us. And Gran kept arguing about not wanting someone ‘underfoot’ all the time and never going to—what do they call it?”
“Assisted living,” Uncle Jack said. “I guess I should have been there for both of them, instead of up here with the dogs.”
Now Blake was getting uncomfortable, feeling he’d accidentally guilt-tripped his uncle. He was grateful when Jamie piped up, “But how were the Allards killed? Did they crash their car?”
“Some people broke into the house while the Allards were in town. The family unfortunately came back too early. . . .”
“That’s awful!” cried Blake. “What about Marco?”
“They killed him first. The police figure he was trying to defend the house.”
“Did they catch the guys who did it?” Jamie wondered.
“Not so far. But the police are pretty sure they’re somewhere nearby. There’s been no more trouble in the immediate area; but there have been one or two break-ins over toward Moss Creek and Ferndale. Luckily, no one else has been hurt.”
“Those towns are miles away,” said Blake.
“The police think, because of what happened to the Allards, whoever did it won’t pull anything back this way again. But I’m still not taking any chances with you guys. While you’re here, you keep close to the house. Since I’m here all the time, I keep a pretty sharp eye on things. But you tell me right away if you see anything—anything—suspicious.”
The three rode the rest of the way to Uncle Jack’s place in silence. Their mood improved when his two golden retrievers and Australian shepherd—Alphonse, Gaston, and Sheila—piled out of the screen door to jump all over the boys and their master, vying for attention and trying to nuzzle each other out of the way to get the lion’s share of petting. Blake was saddened to recall how Marco had roughhoused with the other dogs when the Allards would stop by the house on their evening walk. Poor Allards, thought Blake. Poor Marco. Still, it was hard to stay blue with the dogs licking their faces and making them laugh.
Finally Jack shooed the dogs off while they brought in the luggage.
The living room, with its massive fieldstone fireplace, was just as Blake remembered it; the big, polished coffee table—a sliced redwood burl with ragged edges—was covered with magazines like UFO Today, Cemetery Dance, and Weird Tales. Blake could hardly wait to start exploring his uncle’s library to see what new treasures awaited.
Because their parents weren’t along, Blake got the big second-floor corner room to himself, with its window looking west and south. From the south-facing window he could see over the trees that clustered along Ridge Road to the green-shingled roof of the Allards’ house. When he opened the window to let in a little breeze, he imagined for a moment that he could hear a dog barking. Since his uncle’s three hounds had been left inside, he knew it wasn’t one of them. But there were so many dogs in the area, it could belong to anyone. Still, there was something in the barely heard sound that made Blake think of Marco.
Blake quickly unpacked, then went into the room next door with the bunk beds he usually shared with Jamie. His brother was lying on the top bunk normally assigned to Blake as the oldest. His clothes were strewn across the lower bunk, which was as far as he’d gotten with unpacking. Jamie was playing a game on his Nintendo DS Lite handheld.
“Aren’t you going to finish unpacking?” asked Blake.
“There’s plenty of time,” Jamie said offhandedly. “Anyway, I can find stuff easier on the bed than in a drawer.”
“It’s sad about the Allards,” said Blake, pushing aside some clothes to sit on the lower bunk.
“Yeah,” agreed Jamie. Then a thought struck him. He leaned over the edge of the upper bunk so he could see his brother. “Uncle Jack said whoever did it is probably still hanging around, robbing more people.”
“Uh-huh,” said Blake, unable to guess where Jamie was headed.
“Maybe you—we—could help nail the crooks.”
“How?” Blake was completely lost now.
“Use your esp—I mean, ESP—power. You said people who have it sometimes help police solve cases.”
Blake snorted. “Get real! Those people are psychics—pros. Besides, do you think the police are going to listen to a kid?”
“Oh,” said Jamie, disappointed. He went back to his handheld.
But Blake was thinking, I wish I could help catch whoever killed the Allards and their dog.
After a late dinner—tamale pie and chocolate sundaes—the three watched Alien: Resurrection, one of Uncle Jack’s favorites. Though it was nearly midnight before they headed to bed, Blake had trouble getting to sleep. When he did finally drift off, his sleep was troubled by strange dreams. In one, he was in the woods, looking for a path. No moon or stars were visible, but there was a sliver-white sky glow that illuminated everything. He had no idea how he had come here. All he knew was he had to find a path out of the woods or something bad would happen. Now he could hear men’s voices behind him. He couldn’t understand what they were saying, but he sensed they were looking for him, they were angry, and they were getting closer.
Suddenly, between two silvery tree trunks, a familiar black shape appeared. “Marco!” he called. The dog looked at him, gave a single bark, then turned and ran a little ways into the woods. When Blake didn’t follow, the dog looked back over his shoulder and whined, somehow suggesting puzzlement. “I’m coming,” Blake called. Marco sprinted into the woods, leading Blake along a path that zigzagged through the trees.
There were angry shouts behind him. His pursuers had found his escape route. The boy ran as fast as he could, but the others soon gained on him.
He broke free of the trees. Before him was an upsweep of silvered lawn. In the far distance, at the crest of this high, steep slope, was the Allard house—no bigger than a dollhouse. Halfway there was Marco’s dog house, looking three times as big as in waking life. The structure was made of shiny metal; the band outlining the door was so bright it seemed painted in quicksilver.
Marco was pacing frantically in front of it. Occasionally he barked at Blake, as if to hurry him along. But the slope kept growing steeper. When the boy risked a look back, he saw three blurry figures had followed him onto the hillside and were getting closer.
The Allard house remained distant and tiny. Blake was sure his only hope was in reaching Marco’s house, where the dog was now barking out a stream of ever-more-insistent yelps. But Blake was finding that advancing uphill was like moving through glue.
Voices that now sounded more like growls and snarls—barely human—were almost on top of him. Somehow he found the ability to slog more quickly toward the dog house. Marco disappeared inside it a moment before Blake reached it. “Marco!” he called, but there was no answering bark from the pitch-black interior.
A big hand
grabbed his right shoulder; a second locked on his left arm, just above the elbow. He twisted to one side, then the other, and broke free for a moment. He had only an instant to choose whether to hurl himself into the darkness of the dog house or continue struggling uphill, hoping to stay a step ahead of the others.
The blackness in front of him was frightening, but what was behind him was worse.
He plunged through the doorway.
Time seemed to stand still. Then something terrible came roaring out of the dark; at first he thought it was Marco—but it was something else, too. He had only a momentary impression of fiery eyes and hideous jaws in a muzzle twisted by rage. Unable to look, Blake buried his face in his hands. Behind him, the menacing sounds of his pursuers turned to shouts, then screams. But Blake was so overwhelmed by the shock of it all, he was screaming, too.
He was still screaming when he was shaken awake by his uncle. He could see Jamie staring wide-eyed from the doorway. The bedroom was filled with soft, early-morning light.
“Easy, easy,” Uncle Jack soothed him, patting Blake’s shoulder. “You were having one heckuva nightmare, buddy.”
“Guess so,” Blake agreed. His voice was raspy from screaming.
“Too many aliens or too much tamale pie,” chuckled Uncle Jack. He thought a moment. “Remember anything about it?”
“No,” said Blake, happy the dream had fled as he woke up.
“Too bad.” His uncle laughed. “I could have worked it into one of my books.” He squeezed Blake’s shoulder to let his nephew know he was teasing.
Though the details of the dream were gone, the awfulness of it lingered in Blake’s mind.
Later that morning, their uncle announced he was heading into town to do some shopping. Jamie chose to go along, but Blake, who was still feeling a little off-kilter, asked to stay. His uncle didn’t object: another signal that he respected Blake’s new maturity. “But stay close to the house,” he warned. “If you see anything or anyone that looks funny, dial 9-1-1, then call me on my cell. The number’s on the desk. There’s been too much bad business hereabouts. Promise me—”
“I promise—and I’ve already memorized your number.” He recited it, and Uncle Jack nodded. “Aces! Okay, we’re off.”
After they left, Blake read for a while, but he quickly grew restless and abandoned his book. He would have played with the dogs, but they’d gone into town, too. They loved to ride in the Jeep, their heads hanging out the open windows, tongues lolling, soaking up the sun and the wind and the smells.
This made Blake think of Marco, standing foursquare in the flatbed of the Allards’ pickup. He loved life, too, poor pup. They all died. It’s so unfair.
He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and began walking with no particular goal in mind. Soon he found himself on the path that led through the trees to the Allards’ place. He knew he was stretching the bounds of his uncle’s “stay close to the house” rule—but the adjoining property wasn’t that far, he reasoned.
The wooded stretch was lovely, and it lifted his spirits. But when he stepped out on the Allards’ land, he felt some of his early-morning, post-nightmare anxiety and gloom descend. The area looked so lonely: the house with curtains and shades pulled, the closed garage and empty gravel drive, and, saddest of all, the dog house, with the dented tin water dish beside it, bearing, in fading letters, the name MARCO.
The weather changed abruptly. The sun vanished; Blake saw thickening drifts of high fog flowing in from the Pacific Ocean far to the west. There was a sudden chill in the air as the mild breeze grew into a steady draft. Birds and crickets pretty much ceased their songs.
With a glance at the dog house, he climbed onto the Allards’ porch. Piles of dried leaves and bunches of pine and redwood needles crunched underfoot. He tried the front doorknob, but the place was locked up tight.
Remembering something that he’d read in one of Uncle Jack’s books, he pressed his hands against the glass panes of the doors, fingers splayed out, closed his eyes, and imagined that he could receive messages from beyond. But, if there was some psychic energy around, he couldn’t tune in to it.
It seemed to him that the house wasn’t haunted—except to the degree that it brought back memories of the former owners.
He wandered over to poor old Marco’s dog house. Gently, he touched the roof.
Blake snatched back his fingers. He’d felt something like an electric shock. At the same moment, he’d had a vision of Marco rushing toward him across a vast, dark expanse: only it wasn’t just Marco. It was like two creatures occupying the same body. One was the loving dog he knew well; the other was a beast with red eyes and slavering jaws that seemed to have ripped free of Blake’s nightmare, which he suddenly recalled in way-too-vivid detail.
Then something shifted. He wasn’t looking at dogs from heaven or hell or wherever: He clearly saw three men at the edge of the woods, staring up at the Allard house, where a porch light shone that hadn’t been on a moment before. The day was dark, as though several hours had passed.
The watchers were not the shadowy, faceless, almost shapeless figures of his dreams. They were three all-too-human monsters who were planning to “get rid of the dog—and anyone else who crosses us.” He saw and heard them clearly: one guy, short but muscular, looking like someone who worked out in a gym, holding a gun; one, half a head taller but flabby-looking; and the third, youngest-looking of all. Something made Blake think the taller man might be the brother of this last guy, whose head swiveled side to side as he asked, “Are we being watched? I got this creepy feeling.”
“Knock it off,” said Body Builder, clearly the leader. “The family’s gone, and there’s no one around.” They headed toward the dog house. Marco appeared, growling, sensing something amiss. The leader raised his gun—
Then the vision was gone. But Blake was sure he’d seen the criminals who had killed the Allards and Marco.
Blake stood for a moment, shaking. A quick survey of his surroundings revealed no ghost dogs or criminals. It was midafternoon again. No light burned on the porch.
Still feeling light-headed, he started back to Uncle Jack’s.
The others weren’t home yet, so taking some Oreos and chocolate milk into the library, he rooted through his uncle’s collection for books on animal ghosts. He was surprised to find there were quite a number of them.
He learned some interesting things: Stories of ghost dogs were common all around the world. They sometimes appeared as big white or black creatures with glowing or fiery eyes and tongues. Occasionally, one was headless. He read about someone robbing a haunted house who was chased away by two ghost dogs. Blake also found the story of a ghostly dog that returned to help clear his master who was charged with murder. But a ghostly black dog could mean trouble. To be haunted by one meant misery or bad luck. In England, such creatures were thought to linger where a murder or some other crime had been committed.
Closing the last book, Blake wondered if he had encountered Marco’s ghost earlier in the day. Maybe what he’d envisioned had been a bit of the dog’s memory of that awful crime. Did that mean the animal’s spirit was still around? Why? Anger seemed the best guess. Remembering the snarling demon dog that replaced easygoing Marco, he shuddered. It seemed the animal’s rage was directed at the men who had committed the crime. But there was something so raw and mindless in that recollected emotion that he wondered if such a ghostly creature would be a danger to anyone whose path he crossed, not just the guilty.
He heard the squeal of brakes; a moment later, the Jeep doors slammed. He took his dirty dishes into the kitchen and went to help unload the groceries.
At dinner, Blake asked, “Uncle Jack, do you believe in ghosts? I know you’re always writing about them. But do you really think there are such things?”
The man considered. “I’ve never actually seen one. But I believe it’s quite possible. I guess I’m like that guy who said, ‘I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’m afraid of them.’ I find
them interesting to read about, fun to write about, but I don’t think I ever want to meet one up close.”
“What about animal ghosts?”
“Lots of people believe they exist. If people have spirits, why not at least the more-evolved animals like monkeys, cats, or dogs?”
“I thought I saw the ghost of Marco. But he was angry. He scared me.” Blake carefully avoided saying where he had had his ghostly encounter.
“He’d have every right to be,” Jack responded. “Cut off by greed and cruelty from life and from the humans he deeply loved.” He shook his head.
“I think I saw the guys who did it.”
“What? Where?”
“In a kind of dream, only I was awake. Maybe it was a vision. I don’t know. I think I should tell the police.”
“Not a good idea. I know Sheriff Madigan. He’s the last person who’d believe that you got some kind of psychic message. And he’d probably be annoyed and say you were interfering. No”—he shook his head firmly—“I don’t want you mixed up in this ugliness. Let the police handle it. Look, I don’t set many rules, but this is one you’d better make up your mind to follow: Stay nearby and stay out of trouble. Agreed?”
Blake nodded.
Uncle Jack turned to Jamie. “The same applies to you.”
“I don’t even like ghosts,” Jamie said.
“Okay, let’s do the dishes and have a hand of draw poker—penny limit.”
Blake and Jamie were careful to keep away from the Allard place for the next couple of days. While their uncle worked at the computer in his office, they hiked to the top of nearby Fairview Hill, waded in the creek on the eastern edge of the property, and generally goofed off.
On Friday, their uncle suggested, “Let’s take in the monster double-header at the cinema. It’s two of my favorites, Creature from the Black Lagoon and It Came from Outer Space—both in 3-D, with genuine cellophane-and-cardboard 3-D glasses.”
Haunted Houses Page 15
