The Haunted

by Michaelbrent Collings

  “LEAVE ME ALONE!”

  4

  The First Night

  7: 42 pm

  ***

  Cap was still working steadily, settling into a good rhythm that he figured would have him done up here in only ten or fifteen more minutes, when the light went out.

  “Dammit.”

  He felt blindly for the pull-chain to the light bulb. He felt more than a little foolish doing so, his hands waving around drunkenly above his head, trying to find a tiny chain hanging nearby. But after only a few moments his little finger brushed against the beaded chain, and he quickly grabbed it and pulled. He didn’t know what he hoped to accomplish; after all, the light had gone out, so it was most likely that its filament had broken somehow, or that a fuse had blown. Either way, pulling the chain wasn’t going to help much.

  He was more than a little surprised when the light went back on in response to his touch. But he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He didn’t relish the idea of going hunting around the house for the fuse box and then trying to find which one had cut out in the middle of the darkness.

  Especially at night. Near the forest.

  Cap banished that thought as quickly as he could, and did it the best way he knew how: by getting back to work. He smiled to himself. Sarah had this image of him as a happy-go-lucky guy, as someone completely laid back who was never bothered by anything. He had tried to tell her over the years that that wasn’t true, but she never listened. So she didn’t know that in reality he was sometimes a ball of nerves. Wracked by doubts, just like anyone. Worried about life, torn by regrets over the past, concerns about the future.

  The one thing he did know how to do, though, was keep that stuff under control. And the best way he knew how to do it was by keeping himself occupied in the present. The past couldn’t be heard over the noise of hard work, the future couldn’t be glimpsed over a mountain of chores. So when thoughts of the forest –

  (no, not the forest – it was the shadows, the moving shadows)

  – threatened to intrude, he threw himself back into what he was doing with gusto. Not that there was much left to do. Only a few boxes and items remained to be put carefully on the shelves that sat like rickety skeletons in the attic.

  He picked up one of the boxes and pushed it up onto the top shelf. It wasn’t a heavy box, but was a bit bulky and awkward, so he almost dropped it when he levered the edge of the box up onto the shelf, pushed it forward… and it refused to move. The forward momentum stopped as fast as if it had hit a brick, and the energy of his push rebounded back at him. He stumbled, almost fell. As much by willpower as anything else, he stopped himself from pitching backward, planting his feet firmly and catching the box half on his right shoulder, half in his hands.

  “What now?” he said aloud. Normally he didn’t talk to himself, but for some reason he felt better hearing the words. He needed some company up here, even if the only company was himself.

  Once he had regained his balance, he put the box down. Then he stood on tip-toe, but wasn’t quite tall enough to see onto the upper shelf to discover what had kept the box from moving.

  Cap reached up, felt around, and almost immediately his questing fingers bumped into something. He grunted in surprise. It felt odd, some kind of rectangular object, long and flat, its edges wrinkled and rough.

  He pulled the thing down. It was a book. Large and leatherbound, it looked not merely like it had been in the attic a long time, but as though the house might actually have been built around it. It was about sixteen inches to a side, and six or seven inches thick. He looked at it a bit more closely, and realized why he hadn’t recognized it as a book by its feel: it wasn’t merely a book, but was in fact some kind of album. The pages were thicker than normal, made of brown paper. He opened the cover and saw that the book was some kind of scrapbook, filled with news clippings that folded out when he opened the pages.

  He wondered where it had come from. It looked old, the leather on the cover cracked and dry and rigid. He could hear it crackle as he reclosed the cover, looking for some indication of whose it might be.

  There was nothing.

  He shrugged and put the book down beside the box he had been trying to move. He picked the box back up and quickly put it onto the top shelf in the spot the book had occupied. Then he picked up the book and pushed it onto the top shelf as well, resting it sideways between the box he had just placed and another one next to it. He made a mental note to mention it to Sarah. She liked old stuff, and might get a kick at looking at the family history or whatever it was that the aged book held.

  Cap picked up another box – less than half a dozen things left and he’d be done for the night – and moved to the shelves. He was interrupted once more, though, as the light flashed and then went dark again.

  “Seriously?” he said. The sound of his voice was almost startling in the darkness this time. As though the darkness was an advance soldier of an attacking army, and though it had been temporarily rebuffed by the light, it had returned with reinforcements.

  He fumbled for the light switch again. He should have been able to find it immediately this time, but for some reason his questing hands found only empty air. He didn’t want to move around too much – first because he knew he was close to the chain, and more importantly because he didn’t want to trip over the boxes nearby – but no matter where he turned, he couldn’t find the pull-chain.

  Anxiety reared up again. Not panic. Not exactly. But definitely something related. A first cousin to the feeling, a precursor of impending terror. The feeling grew, pushing its way up from the base of his stomach, wrapping itself around his heart, and then reaching to the base of his throat. He felt a scream there.

  Relax, he thought. It’s just the dark. Nothing here that can hurt you. Geez, get a grip.

  But he knew that was a lie. It wasn’t just darkness. There was more than that here. Something worse hiding in the room. It was never the dark that hurt you, it was what the dark hid. The monsters that kept to the shadows and waited until a shroud of black cloaked them from view.

  The scream disappeared from his throat, but there was no relief to be had. Panic replaced the urge to cry out, a burgeoning warmth that replaced the icy fear but was no comfort. It spread through him, trickling through every vein, every cell of his body, and when it had completed its takeover, it would own him completely. And never let him go.

  Then, just as he felt himself about to give in, about to lose himself in the irrational fear (and what other kind of fear was there but the irrational, for rationality fled in the face of terror, the ability to be a thinking human ran before the onslaught of horror), his fingers felt the cool links of the chain. He grabbed it like a man about to fall of a high cliff would grab a tethering line. Grabbed it like it was the difference between life and death. Worse, like it was the difference between damnation and saving his very soul.

  He pulled the chain.

  All remained dark.

  He had no choice but to move now. He couldn’t stay where he was, not with the creeping beast of terror looking to claim him as his own. Movement. Movement was his only hope. To walk, to run, to flee the unknown monster that hid in the attic.

  Cap flung out his arms, raising his hands and moving them back and forth before him as he tried to find the banister that led down the stairway to the hall. He regretted not propping the door open with something. Too late. Next time.

  If there is a next time.

  Shut up! he practically screamed within himself. But that was no good, either, the scream in his mind just fed the fear. The beast of his terror raised its head.

  He shuffled forward, almost jumped out of his own skin when his right foot bumped into something. But it was no monster, no slithering fiend that would attack him in the darkness. Just a box. It moved with a susurrant whisper only an inch or so across the rough planks of the attic floor. Cap felt himself grow even more tense. As though he had given away his position somehow. That wa
s ridiculous, he knew, but somehow he got the feeling that there was someone else in the house. Someone hunting him. And he had just told them where he was.

  Cap froze for a moment, wondering what to do. Then he forced himself to move. More quickly this time.

  And it’s not because I’m scared, he thought to himself. Just keeping busy. Getting things done.

  He almost tripped over one more box, and then his questing fingers found the side of the banister. He gripped it tightly with both hands, like a giant toddler who was big enough to go down the stairs but not self-confident enough to walk them with ease. His knees threatened to shake.

  He moved down, one step at a time. He was almost at the bottom – he thought; deep in the stairwell he was in perfect darkness, descending the stairs slowly so as not to injure himself in the murky space.

  Almost there, he told himself. Just get to the door, get out, and figure out how to fix the lights. And maybe finish things up tomorrow, when the sun was out and he’d had a chance to clean off the window in the attic.

  Then he heard the scream. And not just a scream, it was a shriek, a wretched wail of terror that saturated the attic, and probably the rest of the house. It came from beyond the door to the hallway.

  “Sarah!” he shouted automatically, the panic that had threatened to take him now moving beyond threats and sending its first attack wave screaming into his brain. He jumped down the last steps, hoping that he wouldn’t land wrong and break his neck or his back in the process. His foot came down hard, on a stair he hadn’t anticipated. His ankle rolled to a ninety degree angle. He hoped he hadn’t broken it.

  No matter. He took the last steps. Reached out fast enough that his knuckles bruised as they impacted the hardwood door. He fumbled for the knob. Found it. Twisted it. Shook it and cursed.

  The damn thing was locked!

  He grabbed it with both hands now. Rattled it hard, then harder still. The entire door was shaking in its frame, but the door itself –

  (how did it get locked there’s no way Sarah would have done it so how did it get locked what’s GOING ON HERE?)

  – remained firm.

  The scream came again. Louder this time. Pure terror contained in a vessel of madness, ready to be poured out upon anyone in its range.

  “Honey?” he cried. “Sarah!”

  Still no answer. Just that painful, neverending scream.

  Cap took a step back – as far back as he could go on the small landing at the base of the attic stairs – and launched himself at the door as hard as he could. What felt like fire licked through his shoulder with bright tongues of pain as he impacted. The door stood firm and unmoving.

  And the scream continued.

  But instead of disabling him, the pain in his shoulder spurred him forward again. And again and again and again, smashing into the door with his shoulder time after time. The scream surged around the pain, an eerie accompaniment to the discordant music of his ragged breathing and the blood surging through his temples.

  After six hits, the scream was still going on. Cap slammed into the door again, but he suspected it would be the last effort before his body refused to continue. The door still didn’t give. But he thought he heard splintering from the wood of the jamb. New strength filled him with this small victory, and he resumed his attack with even more fervor.

  But as hard as he hit, as many clicks or creaks of overstrained wood he heard, the door remained as solid as a door guarding hidden treasure. And it did guard hidden treasure. Or rather, it kept Cap from getting to his treasure.

  The screaming from outside grew even louder, followed by a few short barks of terror, shouted words. Cap couldn’t make out what was being said, but Sarah sounded afraid. Terrified.

  Silence.

  It happened so fast Cap almost didn’t even realize. The ghost-sounds of the screams still played in his mind, his ears rang with them.

  The door clicked. Cap put out his hand, not sure he believed what he had heard. He tested the knob. It was unlocked! He kept turning it. But slowly! Oh, so slowly. He had no way of knowing what – if anything – was hiding beyond.

  The turning of the doorknob was a special kind of agony for him. Who knew what had happened to Sarah? What kind of horror was being visited on her right now? But at the same time, he didn’t want to fall prey to the same trap, whatever it was. He couldn’t do her any good then. The need for caution warred with his desire to run out and save his wife.

  In his younger days, Cap had been a soldier, paying for college with four years of his life. He could still remember the vegetation, the thick air so alien from what he was used to, the strange places and people. And especially the danger. Cap had never been on a SpecOps team, but he knew how to sweep a room, how to check it for hostages or hostiles. He also knew how dangerous going through a door could be. Anything or anyone could be waiting for you on the other side, waiting patiently for a person to poke an unsuspecting head around the door before blowing it off… or worse.

  His need to find Sarah overwhelmed the urge for caution. He tensed, ready to pull the door open and rush through before anyone knew he was there. But in the instant that he was ready to do so, the door flung itself open, almost hitting him in the face. A creature was beyond the portal, a shadow in shadows. It was the size of a person, though utterly featureless.

  The thing lurched toward Cap with a cry.

  Cap stepped away instantly, dropping automatically into a crouch, ready to fight back. Then he recognized the thing’s voice.

  It was Sarah.

  5

  The First Night

  7: 51 pm

  ***

  Sarah didn’t want Cap to look in the closet under the stairs. She didn’t want him to find what she had found.

  What she wanted was to leave. To walk to the car, get in, and drive like madmen out of here. Something wasn’t right about the place. When she had first looked at the house, it had seemed so perfect, so right. Inviting. A home without someone to live in it, and a sad thing for that.

  But since the kitchen that morning, she had not felt like the master of the house. She felt more like an interloper. Someone who didn’t belong. As though a psychic eviction notice had been slapped to the front of her brain.

  The closet door was shut, though Sarah was sure she had left it open when she ran to get Cap. He reached out and rested his hand on the small knob of the concealed closet door.

  “No, don’t –” she began.

  “Don’t what?” said Cap. His voice sounded as lively and upbeat as ever, but when he looked at her, she thought she saw worry peeking through his eyes. “Nothing’s going to get me, hon.” He shook his left hand, which held the thick fireplace poker they had found on the hearthstone. It seemed like rather a sad little weapon to Sarah, but she had to agree that it was better than nothing.

  Cap reached out with his free hand and opened the door. Sarah noticed that he stood somewhat to the side of it, as though half expecting to be shot by a burglar hiding in the closet.

  Sarah knew it wasn’t a burglar. Nothing so common or easily dealt with as that. She didn’t know what it actually was, but this seemed to be an awful lot of trouble for a common thief to go to in order to rob a still mostly-unfurnished home.

  Cap pulled open the closet. There was an almost inaudible whoosh as the seal between the door and the frame was broken, and air whiffed out of and into the closet at the same time. Cap had only opened the closet a crack, but now he moved more directly in front of it, presumably so he could pull it the rest of the way open and see what was inside.

  “Don’t,” squeaked Sarah.

  “I don’t want to,” said Cap. And they’d been married long enough he didn’t have to add what came next, for she heard it in her mind, and the voice that said it was his, as plain and real as if he had said the words himself: “I have to.”

  He pulled, and Sarah reflexively dropped her gaze and put her face in her hands. Like a baby, believing in some primal core of her bod
y that if she couldn’t see, then neither could she be seen.

  That position only lasted for a moment, though. She looked up almost immediately, her fingers splayed to allow her to peer out between them without completely abandoning the symbolic protection of having her face covered.

  Cap walked into the closet.

  “No!” she shouted. And this time the word was strong. Panic drove adrenaline through her. “Don’t go in there!”

  Cap turned, still in the closet. Sarah’s pitter-pattering heart slowed a bit as it dawned on her that she could see Cap. Where before the closet had resisted her ability to see into it or for light to enter its domain, now the interior was easily visible.

  And there was nothing there.

  No coats.

  No boxes.

  Just empty space for storage. If Cap hadn’t been in there the closet would have been completely empty.

  Cap looked around the closet a long time. He felt the walls, rapping on them occasionally as though checking for secret panels or hollow spots. He felt around the interior jam from top to bottom, running his fingers along looking for heaven only knew what. But he was looking around, and that made Sarah feel inordinately better.

  Finally, he completed his inspection and returned to Sarah’s side. She didn’t look at him; she continued looking into the closet.

  Neither of them spoke.

  Finally, Sarah: “There was someone in there. I heard him. Or her. Or it.”

  Sarah could hear the concern in Cap’s voice as he said, “Which was it? A him or a her?”

  Sarah shook her head. She couldn’t tell if Cap’s concern was born of the fact that he believed her and was concerned about what was going on in their new house, or of the fact that he thought Sarah had lost about half a bag of marbles. And her next answer wasn’t going to help that at all.