The buzzing got louder, or it felt louder. She couldn’t really hear it, so much as she could feel it moving on her skin. Under it.
A voice answered, “Denise?” but it was just her mom, calling from downstairs. “What are you doing up there?”
Denise came down the steps, half-dead from relief. “Nothing, why?”
Sally wasn’t in the living room or dining room. Denise didn’t know where she was, because she couldn’t see her. “Then what’s that strange noise? Are you playing music?”
Denise followed her mom’s voice down to the parlor, and found Mike there too. They were both looking up at the light fixture, one of the last old pieces that remained. It was probably just glass and not crystal, but it would be real pretty when they got it cleaned up.
The light was probably not rocking back and forth, swaying like a pendulum. It was probably not keeping time to some odd humming that sounded more like a grumble than a song.
“You hear it too,” Sally said with a gulp. “Don’t you?”
“What the hell is going on?” Mike asked without taking his eyes off the fixture. Then he looked over at Denise, who hadn’t answered her mom yet. “What are you doing with your phone?”
She quit holding it out like a torch, and dropped her arms to her sides. “I was looking for a good signal,” she explained, in case they would think her EVP recording efforts were weird. They probably weren’t working anyway, so she tucked the phone into her pocket and wandered back into the living room.
Sally wrinkled her nose. “What’s that smell? Please tell me nothing is on fire. The electricians supposedly took care of the knob-and-tube a couple of days ago …”
“Mom, I don’t think it’s fire.”
The light fixture rattled, its glass bits clinking together. The windows rattled too.
Denise backed out of the room, in case another section of the ceiling was going to drop. She left it just in time to see a dark, nebulous shape spill slowly toward them, slipping down the stairs. It took her breath away. She literally couldn’t answer Mike, when he asked if New Orleans ever got earthquakes. Even if she knew, she couldn’t have told him. She couldn’t say a word. She opened her mouth, and nothing came out.
The dark shape didn’t have much shape to it at first—it was a blob about the size of a person, and then it sprawled and spread. It poured along the floor in every direction, pooling around Denise’s ankles and leaving them cold. She shivered, even though it must’ve been eighty-five degrees down there.
It could’ve been hotter than that, and it wouldn’t have mattered. She froze anyway.
She watched the tall, ragged shape take form—assuming the shape of a tall, heavyset man with hunched shoulders, and long arms, and big hands. He didn’t have much of a face, just a pair of eyes that were holes in the smoke, white and bright. He stayed put on the stairs, but the dark fog around his feet sprawled toward the parlor. What if it got Mike, or her mom? What would it do to them?
She unfroze herself. Scared beyond words, she tore her eyes away from the figment on the stairs and darted back to the parlor. “Mom, we have to get out of here!”
“You’re right … that smell. It might be a gas leak, or poisonous fumes, or …” Sally stopped at the “or” because she’d just noticed the putrid swirl of darkness moving across the floor.
“Out,” said Mike. “Everybody. Now. We can come back later, when we figure out what’s going on.”
Joe had other ideas.
The windows rattled harder, and the doors all shook, thundering in their frames. Outside, something huge clapped against the house. A second something followed it. Then a whole volley of bangs, one after the next.
It was the window shutters. Every last one of them slammed shut.
Glass broke, and sprayed inside. Sally shrieked, and when the power went out in a loud, grand poof of sparks, Denise screamed too.
She felt around in the dark—it was so very dark, with the windows all covered up, and the lights all turned off—but she found the parlor entrance and knew that the front door was just a few steps to the left. All she had to do was reach it, throw it open, and get the hell out.
Mike and Sally had the same idea. They were right behind her, pushing her even as they felt along the wall.
Denise found the doorknob. She grabbed it, twisted, and yanked. The door swung inward about a foot. “Everybody, come on!” she said, but it wasn’t that easy. Hard and fast, the knob yanked itself out of her hand and the door shut itself again.
Mike pushed her aside. “Here, I’ve got it.”
He didn’t have it. He pulled until the knob popped off in his hands and a smattering of nails fell across the floor. He kicked them away and announced, “I’m going to break a window! Those shutters are rotted out—they’re practically cardboard. We can kick right through them.”
She sensed her stepfather moving past her. He was in a rush, looking for something big enough and solid enough to chuck right onto the front lawn. “Bash them in! Use the dining room chairs!” she suggested.
To her right, there was a clatter.
To her left, there was a knock on the door. Denise nearly jumped out of her skin.
Everything went quiet. Her mother breathed hard and fast, and her stepdad stood with the skeletal shadow of a chair in his hands.
“Hello? Is anybody home? It’s me, Terry …”
Of course it was Terry. All it took was a text saying something weird was afoot, and it was like Denise had raised the Bat-Signal. She flung herself at the door, knocking back with both hands. “Terry, can you hear me?”
“Yeah, open the door.”
“I can’t! We’re trapped in here!”
Sally joined her at the door. “And the power’s gone out!” she added.
Denise almost told him to call the cops, and then she remembered her own phone. She whipped it out of her pocket. The microphone was still running, but she minimized the app and pulled up the call function. She entered 9-1-1, and hit SEND.
Nothing happened.
She tried it again.
“Denise?” Terry called.
She tried to sound calm when she told him through the door: “Terry, my phone isn’t working. You have to go get help.”
“You want me to call the police? What do I tell them?”
Sally answered, “Tell them we’re stuck in our house!”
“Trapped,” Denise corrected her. “Tell them we’re trapped, and there’s an intruder.”
“There’s an intruder?” Terry sounded suitably appalled.
“There’s a something. Just make the call!” she yelled, trying not to think about the looming, lanky figure of Joe—who was surely stalking around them, even as she spoke. Just because she couldn’t see him, that didn’t mean he wasn’t there.
“I’m calling, I’m calling …”
Then he was crashing. She heard the boards break and she knew, suddenly and with great horror, that he’d fallen down in the same hole that almost ate Mike. How could he have seen it? The porch light was out, just like everything else. “Terry!” she screamed, and she pounded on the door with her fist, and with the useless cell phone. It didn’t matter if she broke it. “Terry, are you okay?!”
Mike swung the chair again and again, but could only break more glass. The shutters were holding. “I swear and be damned!”
Okay, so Denise couldn’t make any calls. Could she turn on the flashlight app? Her screen had a big, fresh crack in it, but she found the light and called it up.
It was blinding for a few seconds. Her eyes adjusted, and she saw her mother squinting, holding her face away from the light. “Jesus, girl. That’s bright, but good thinking. Mike, we’re coming with a light.”
“Light won’t make a difference,” he said. He huffed, puffed, hoisted the chair, and took another swing. This time Denise could watch him. This time, she saw the chair break against the rotted wood shutters that should’ve splintered into dust if you sneezed on them. His face was tig
ht with fear and maybe pain. He was bleeding through his shirt.
“Honey, I think you’ve popped your stitches again …”
“I don’t care!” He threw what was left of the broken chair at the wholly intact shutter, and leaned over, putting his hands on top of his legs and breathing too hard. “What is going on?” he asked the universe at large. “What do we do?”
Denise swung the light around the room, and could not tell which shadows were only shadows, and which ones were moving with slithering, nasty grace along the floors. Or the walls. The pattern on the paper seemed to move. She blinked, and wasn’t sure that was it at all. “I think we’re asking the wrong questions.”
“What do the right questions sound like?” Sally’s eyes tracked the mobile darkness. She watched it climb, crawl, and creep around the corners until it took the wobbly, loose shape of a tall man once again. Mike put his arm around her, in turn, and guided her toward the foyer. It was the middle of the first floor, and farthest from any corners.
“What would Terry do?” Denise said for starters. “God, I hope he’s okay.” She thought of Lucida Might, and how that fictional heroine had found a tunnel under Desmond Rutledge’s porch. Terry knew about that scene. She crept back to the front door and peered around—it looked like Joe had faded back into the swirling black. Thank god. Maybe he couldn’t take the shape for that long? She pressed her ear against the door. “Terry?” she called again, as loud as she could. She dropped to her knees, and called down to the floor, and to anything underneath it. “Terry, can you hear me?”
No response.
Mike was shaky all over when he asked, “Well? What would Terry do?”
“And why does it matter?” asked Sally.
Denise said, “Terry’s got some funny ideas, but he gets results.” She pulled out her phone, and tried to dial 9-1-1 again. It didn’t work. She returned to the microphone and, yes, it was still recording. She held it up again, and asked in a slow, clear voice—like she was trying to explain math to a Saint Bernard: “What … do … you … want?”
She counted to ten, listening to the persistent rushing buzz that filled the house, and filled her ears, and made her forget that she’d ever been able to hear anything else. Then she replayed what she’d recorded. Her own words were too loud, because she kicked the volume all the way up.
“What do you want?” she heard herself ask.
Fizz, static, hum.
I keep what’s mine.
Sally and Mike jumped, but Denise yelled at the darkness. “That’s all you ever say! You have to be more specific! Tell me what you want!”
She heard something else, something below. Some rustling noise, and it might’ve been Terry, rallying from his fall. She prayed that it was Terry, and she didn’t pray very often, so she wasn’t sure she was doing it right. But she did it with all her heart, as she held up the phone and counted to ten. She held her breath, and played back the last few seconds.
Fizz, static, hum.
A different voice, this time—a woman, her words as soft as petals: Let me out so I can help.
“Who is that talking?” Sally demanded with a shrill note of hysteria. “Who’s saying that? Is it Vera?”
Denise didn’t answer. She tried again, counted to ten, and played back the clip.
Fizz, static, hum.
The man spoke this time: … bring this house down. Destroy everything …
“I heard that. I heard that loud and clear!” Mike’s words quivered around the edges.
Denise rewound and pressed the button. She wanted to hear the woman again.
… Let me out, so I can help …
“This is the craziest damn thing I ever heard. Where’s my phone?” asked Sally. “Yours don’t work to call the cops, but mine might.”
“Where’d you put it?” her husband wanted to know.
“In my purse. It’s in our bedroom. Where’s yours?”
Mike was so shaken, he wasn’t sure. “I can’t remember.”
… let me out …
Something moved in the walls, or under the floor. Denise shined the phone-light all around, but she couldn’t see anything except the swirling murk. “Please be Terry. Please don’t be a rat, or something worse,” she whispered to the scrambling noise. Then she called out, “Vera Westbrook!”
… so I can help …
Mike and Sally were retreating, clutching each other, fumbling toward the bedroom in search of Sally’s purse.
“Vera, don’t let him do this!” A whiff of perfume tickled her nose—a tiny tendril of sweetness that cut through the god-awful gloom and the stink of death that otherwise filled the house. Something about the soft smell of roses and lilies chased out some of the terror. Something about the thought of it, the hint of it, the clue of it … jogged something loose in Denise’s head. Something about Eugenie Robbins, and Lucida Might.
Two snippets of text tumbled around in her skull, knocking against each other, making sparks.
My dad used to say that Joe sometimes hid “Easter eggs” in his stories, little pieces of autobiography, here and there.
“You’re the biggest liar of all! You hide behind a man’s job, with a man’s title and a man’s gun.
“All you need is a man’s name.”
Denise gasped.
Everything clicked together.
Something banged underneath the floor. Denise jumped, spun around, and almost dropped the phone—but held it fast and firm. Carefully, she kicked a response, like she was knocking “shave and a haircut.”
“Terry? Is that you?”
A muffled, “It’s me,” made it up through the floorboards. “I’m okay. My phone’s busted, but the screen still has a little light.”
“Terry, oh my God—hang in there.” She turned to look for Mike and Sally, but they must’ve made it to the bedroom to hunt for their phones. She could hear them rustling around, looking for Sally’s purse in the dark. “Mike! Mom! Terry’s under the floor! Get a saw—we can cut him out, and leave through the hole in the porch!”
The whole house shuddered at this announcement. Joe Vaughn was angry, but Vera was in there too; the roses and lilies stayed and rallied, faint but pure. Reassuring, but hardly strong enough to mount a challenge from wherever she was.
… find me …
… said the voice on the recorder.
… let me out, and I will help …
Mike came charging back in, Sally’s phone aloft. “The phone’s not working, but the light is fine.” He demonstrated this by shining it right in Denise’s face. “There’s no Internet, either. No signal of any kind.”
… let me out …
“We’re in one heck of a dead zone.” Denise let out a short, maniacal laugh. The house groaned, and something large, somewhere unseen, cracked with a noise as loud as a gunshot.
Sally was right behind Mike. “Terry’s okay? Where is he?”
She tapped the floor with her foot. Terry said something loud, but unintelligible, confirming his continued survival and strange location. “He went under the house, just like Lucida Might did, in the comic.”
“What’s a Lucida Might?” Sally asked.
Mike said, “She’s the girl detective from that comic Denise found in the attic.”
“Me and Terry have been reading it together. Mike, come on—get him out of there. This house can’t hold up much longer.”
“There’s no power. The Sawzall won’t do us any good.”
“Where’s the pry bar?” Sally asked.
“Over there. Give it to me,” he gestured with his free hand.
“No, I’ll keep this. You take the sledge.”
Denise got down on her hands and knees, and spoke into the floor. “We’re coming for you, Terry. Get away from this spot—we’re coming through the floor.”
It was easier said than done. Mike and Sally reasserted Denise’s warning to move away from the chosen demolition spot, then set to work prying, pulling, and slamming the sledge into the
old wood floors that they’d thought about trying to save and refinish, just a week before.
Denise held back and aimed Sally’s phone-light while they swung and pulled and swore. She tried not to shake, but it was hard. It was cold in there—as cold as she’d ever wanted the AC to make it—and the house wouldn’t stop moving, moaning, and vibrating.
One-handed, she pulled out her own phone and loaded up the microphone again.
“Denise, don’t.” Her mother said, then jammed the pry bar between two boards and leaned her whole weight on it.
“But I can’t hear them without it,” she protested, and before Sally could say anything else, she called out to the house, and anything in it: “Vera, I don’t know where you went!” Ten seconds passed. Fizz, static, hum.
And the woman came through, her soft voice answered with a southern white lady accent: I never left …
Everyone stopped. Even the house stopped. Mike and Sally stared at Denise’s phone.
“Vera again,” she explained weakly.
From under the floor they heard Terry ask, “What did she say?”
Denise flashed Mike and Sally a worried look. Her phone pinged. She looked down and saw that the microphone had been recording. She pressed the playback button and heard Vera again.
… house of horrors.
She couldn’t tell if Mike or Sally had heard the message or not; it was faint, and hard to hear over the loud, angry sorrow of the house as it strained to hold itself together. She handed her mom’s phone back to her, turned on her heel, and ran for the stairs with her own phone’s light bobbing madly, showing the way. “Sometimes there are Easter eggs!”
She heard Mike ask, “What?” but didn’t catch her mother’s response. The sound of her footsteps stomping up the steps drowned it all out. The vivid white light rocked back and forth as she climbed, clinging to the rail with one hand, and trying to steady the phone with her other.
Her foot caught something small and rolling, and she almost lost her footing—but they were only nails, lying loose across the stairs. Then there were more, pounded into the step, ready to trip anybody coming or going.
“Dang it, Joe! You’re such a jerk!” she said as she dodged them. “You and all these stupid nails …” Nails are supposed to hold things together, she thought. They weren’t supposed to drive people away. Joe sure did have a lot of things backwards.
The Agony House Page 18
