Haunted Houses

by Robert D. San Souci

  But they hadn’t taken two steps into the hall in their search for a way into the basement they were certain lay beneath, when there was suddenly a rush of wind past them to the stairway that climbed steeply up into pitch blackness.

  That wind couldn’t have come from outside, Eric thought. I closed the window, and nothing else was open.

  Up the stairs it swirled, churning years of dust and debris into a whirlwind that grew and grew until it reached the head of the stairs. There, the churning air began to glow like captured moonlight. Then, slowly, it began to change into the transparent form of a woman.

  “That’s the ghost of Emily Summerton,” Eric said, unable to take his eyes off the figure. He was aware of a terrified Tyler bobbing his head up and down like one of those nodding toys Eric sometimes saw in the back window of a car. The flashlight hung limply in his friend’s hand, light pooling around his feet.

  The ghost was wearing an old-fashioned white ball gown covered in sparkling crystal beads. Eric remembered Tyler saying something about the dress being given to her by the pirate Durand. She was buried in that dress, he suddenly remembered—and wished he hadn’t.

  The ghost began to descend the staircase, floating down, rather than taking real steps. She was holding a candelabrum overhead that flickered with black flames that seemed to suck light into themselves, making the glowing figure stand out even more.

  At first the ghost seemed not to notice the wonderstruck boys. But, when she reached the foot of the stairs, she beckoned for the youngsters to follow.

  “She wants us to go with her,” Eric said.

  “No way.” Tyler shook his head emphatically.

  The figure gestured again. Her eyes, like two black marbles, seemed to bore into Eric’s head. You must come. He clearly heard the soft voice in his head, even though the dead lips never moved. It was undoubtedly a command. The boy was sure he could hear an unspoken Or else underneath what was said.

  “I, um, don’t think you want to tick off this ghost,” Eric said.

  He took a step closer to the phantom. Tyler resisted, until the figure turned her full gaze on him. The cold black eyes locked on his. After a moment, he began to shake from head to toe.

  “All right,” he said finally. “I’m comin’.” He sounded frightened out of his wits. But he took a step forward.

  Satisfied, the ghost began to glide down the long hall with the boys in tow. Tyler got control of himself. He began to sweep the flashlight from side to side. Rotting furniture, crumbling drapes, and spiderwebs filled every corner, some even completely covering doorways that opened off the hall. Here and there, they could see marks in the dust coating the floor that probably indicated Rufus had passed by. Whatever dealings Rufus had with the ghost, she hadn’t scared him off. Eric began to feel a little better.

  Three-quarters of the way down the hall, the figure in glittering white stopped and pointed to a sealed doorway. Eric tried to open it, but it was stuck. Tyler pulled his screwdriver out of his backpack and set to work. In a few minutes, he had freed the ancient lock.

  The boys stood on either side as the ghost started down a rickety flight of steps toward what was clearly the basement. She paused only long enough to indicate that the boys were to follow. In the middle of the damp, musty area below, she lingered for a moment, pointing to one wall. Then the figure began slowly fading from view, her arm outstretched, until she was gone.

  “What was that all about?” Tyler wondered when he could find his voice.

  “I think she was trying to show us something important. Maybe Mad Dan’s treasure.”

  The wall she had been pointing to was stacked with old trunks and wooden boxes. Their hopes up, the boys eagerly dug through the containers, but they found only dusty, cracked dishes and silverware so tarnished it was solid black; some old hats, dresses, and boots that dampness and neglect had reduced to mildewed debris unpleasant even to touch; and not much else.

  Moving one stack of crates to see what was behind it, Eric discovered an opening, little more than a crack in the wall that a full-grown man might just—barely—edge through if he turned sideways. Borrowing Tyler’s flashlight, Eric slipped inside, returned a few minutes later, and reported, “There’s a tunnel lined with bricks on the other side of this wall. I’m going to check it out. You don’t have to come.”

  “I’m not staying here by myself,” said Tyler decisively.

  When they had both squeezed through into the narrow passage beyond, they began moving cautiously along the tunnel. They followed its twists and turns for a long time, until Tyler said, “We must be real near the water.”

  A little farther on, they found a deep hole, like a dry well. When Tyler shone his flashlight into the depths, they saw something like metal glimmering. Tyler, his fear apparently forgotten, said, “That’s it! We found Mad Daniel Durand’s treasure.”

  “Maybe,” said Eric. “But it’s down there, and we’re up here. I want to check it out.”

  Tyler’s triumphant smile faded. But Eric assured his friend, “Getting down’s no problem.”

  “How? I sure don’t see any steps or ladders.”

  With a smile, Eric pulled out the coil of rope he’d brought, saying, “Help me put some knots in the rope so the climbing is easier.” When this was done, they tied the end of the rope securely to a sturdy iron ring—one of several they found embedded along the tunnel wall. Then they lowered the length into the well.

  “I’ll be okay,” said Eric, sounding less sure now that the moment of truth had come. “But if anything happens, you run and get my dad.”

  Leaving the flashlight with Tyler, Eric turned on his lantern, tying it to his chest with some twine Tyler found in his backpack. Then he began to climb down.

  At the bottom he found an oak chest bound with copper bands. These, he guessed, were what had reflected the light earlier. He scraped away the moss and patina that obscured a brass plate affixed to the top of the chest. On it was etched DISTURB THIS NOT, OR THE CURSE OF PYRAT DAN FALL UPON YE.

  Eric felt a chill far deeper than the cold damp at the bottom of the well could cause. Did he dare to risk a pirate’s curse? But his eagerness to discover what was inside the chest made him think how many times he’d read that people in olden times—Egyptian pharaohs and kings and such—were always using warnings like that to frighten people away. Probably it was only an empty warning.

  Probably.

  Still, his hands were shaking when he tried to open the chest. But the ancient lock held; the lid refused to budge. He knew he needed Tyler’s tools. There was enough rope to loop through the handles at both ends of the chest, so Eric did that. He rocked it carefully, testing the weight, and decided that the two of them, working together, could manage to haul it up. It couldn’t be filled with gold or it would be heavier, but Eric imagined there were enough diamonds and rubies to make the boys and their families wealthy for life.

  Once the end of the rope was firmly anchored, Eric shimmied up it, helped by the well-placed knots. The boys began to haul the chest, but when it was halfway up, the rope burst into flames that gave off a stink of burning sulfur. The chest dropped to the bottom of the hole. Leaning into the pit, the boys, to their dismay, saw the chest had cracked in two. A few gold coins and some jewelry had spilled out, but the main contents were horrible. Scattered in the mud were the bones of a man’s skeleton—only the skull seemed to be missing. And, issuing like steam from a ruptured pipe, the ghost of Headless Dan swirled up through the gap between the halves of the container. The truncated figure shook its near-transparent fist at them and swiped at the air with a transparent cutlass.

  “How can it see us with no head?” asked Tyler.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care! And I’m not staying around to ask,” insisted Eric.

  “Me neither!” echoed Tyler.

  The two charged back along the tunnel toward the basement. They were sure they could hear the sounds of pursuit behind them, spectral boots thudding down the
brick-lined passage, the angry sounds of a ghostly cutlass striking the wall with a loud cling-clang.

  They squeezed through the narrow entrance to the tunnel, not caring how much they scraped hands and arms. Then they raced across the basement and back up the stairs to the main floor. There they came to a screeching halt.

  The ghost of Emily Summerton was waiting for them in the hall. Her pale form hovered just above the floor, blocking their way to the front door. With a groan, Eric realized that all the doors along the hall that had been open earlier were now firmly shut.

  “We can’t get out,” he said hopelessly, even as he was desperately looking for some way to escape.

  Tyler just made a choking sound in his throat, The words formed in Eric’s head: Give him eternal rest.

  Then we can be together in eternal peace. From the expression on Tyler’s face, Eric knew his friend had heard the same thing.

  Now they could hear the headless horror clump-clump-clumping up the stairs from the cellar.

  “How can we help you?” cried Eric, tears of frustration starting from his eyes.

  Give him back what he seeks.

  Eric was about to ask what she meant, then he guessed. “His head. He has to have his head back.”

  The ghost nodded once, then vanished. Eric was suddenly aware that the sounds of pursuit had stopped. Both ghosts had gone. The hall doors could now be opened. But when they tried to open the front door or the side doors or any window, they found them sealed fast. Locks wouldn’t give; glass wouldn’t break; wooden doors had suddenly become as hard and immobile as the steel doors on a bank vault.

  “I think we’re stuck here until we find the head,” Eric said finally. “Otherwise, we might just disappear like you said others have.”

  Tyler shuddered, but all he said was “It must be hidden somewhere in the house. At least, that’s what the old stories say.”

  “Can you remember anything more from those stories?” asked Eric.

  His friend thought for a minute, then said, “There was another story about Ezra Summerton showing the head to his daughter, who fainted away. When she recovered, she asked that he give it to her, to bury properly and give her lover rest. But the old man only laughed at her and said it was hidden where she’d never find it, where he could watch over it day and night, so the ghost would never rest, and his daughter would forever see the error of her ways.”

  “Nice guy,” said Eric bitterly. Then he considered, “If he watched it day and night, it must have been near him when he slept. And didn’t you say old Ezra died of fright in his bed? It all makes me think he might have hidden the head in his bedroom.”

  “Makes sense, I guess,” said Tyler, not sounding totally convinced. “We sure got nothing to lose by searching.”

  They climbed the stairs and started looking into the rooms along the upstairs hall. At the very end, behind fancy double doors, they found what had to be the master bedroom. The huge, heavy wood bedstead, carved all over with angels’ and devils’ heads, and a bureau were the only pieces of furniture. They peered under the bed and in the empty bureau and behind the dusty drapes and pulled the few rags and odds and ends out of the closet, but found nothing.

  Not sure exactly what he was doing, Eric began tapping on the walls and floor, hoping to hear some sort of hollow sound that would indicate a hiding place. But everything seemed solid.

  Faint dawn light was beginning to brighten the filthy windows behind the shreds that had once been the finest curtains.

  “People will start searchin’ for us, soon’s they see we’re gone,” said Tyler, dropping wearily onto the edge of the bed, raising a small cloud of dust. Then he flopped back onto the bed, raising an even bigger cloud.

  “I’m not sure how soon they’ll think about coming here,” said Eric worriedly. “And I’m not so sure what they’ll find will be very pretty. We have no food or water. Maybe the ghosts will just get impatient and make us disappear.” Then he slammed his right fist into his left palm. “It has to be here!”

  “We’ve looked everywhere: under the bed, in the bureau, through the closet. We banged on the walls and floor. There’s nowhere you could hide anything as big as a head. There’s nothing else in here, ’cept old Ezra’s bed.”

  “Then that’s got to be the answer,” said Eric. He began pounding and slapping at the heavy carved headboard.

  “You gone crazy?” asked Tyler, sitting up.

  Eric ignored him and just kept poking, prodding, slamming, and running his fingers across the headboard. Suddenly, a portion of the wood slid aside to reveal a secret space. From inside, Eric pulled out a roundish shape, about the size of a football, swathed in grayed linen strips.

  “Don’t unwrap it,” said Tyler. “I am not up to any unwrapping!”

  At that instant, the door to the bedroom, which they had closed on entering, burst open. The ghosts—Emily Summerton and Daniel Durand’s headless figure—stood framed there. The ghastly pirate leaned upon his cutlass, but Emily was smiling. On an impulse, Eric tossed the linen-wrapped thing to the ghost, which dropped the cutlass and snatched the parcel in midair.

  “How’s he do that with no head?” asked Tyler.

  “You’re the one who told me not to ask silly questions about how ghosts do what they do,” Eric reminded the other boy. There was suddenly a blaze of white light. Daniel Durand, now a whole man again—and smiling—stood beside his lady love. He bowed to the boys; Emily Summerton curtsied.

  Then they vanished.

  “Not a bad night’s work,” said Eric, when his amazement at the recent events had eased a little. “We helped a couple of ghosts find rest, and we found at least a part of the pirate’s treasure.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Tyler said. “I almost forgot what’s down in the well.” Then he paused. “Do you think the ghosts will let us take that stuff?”

  “I think they’re mixed up in much more important stuff now. I don’t think they’ll ever come back,” Eric assured his friend.

  “I guess we can’t tell their story to anyone,” said Eric thoughtfully. “I mean, who’s going to believe our ghost story?”

  “It’s too good a story not to tell—sometime,” said Tyler. “But only when the time is right. And the gold and jewels will be proof that we aren’t lying.”

  “That’s right,” Eric agreed as they started downstairs. They paused to open the front door on another sunny Findings Island morning. The storm had blown over, and the gentle breeze wafting in was fresh with promise. It was a very good day indeed.