The House That Jack Built: A Humorous Haunted House Fiasco

by Jonathan Paul Isaacs

  The BMW screeched to a standstill in front of them. Snap popped out of the driver’s side door. “All ready, sir!”

  “Thank you, Snap. That’ll be all.”

  The intern dashed back into the building as Mr. Chalmers walked around to the driver’s side.

  “Mr. Chalmers!” Nate cried out.

  “Yes, Nate?”

  “My question! How could you fire me? ME? Of all people, one of the few employees you have that actually gets stuff done for you? It’s not fair.”

  Mr. Chalmers shrugged. “Life’s not fair, Nate.”

  “But I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked? Haven’t I? I mean, is there anything I could have done differently?”

  “I guess you could have sat on the other side of the table.”

  The Orb CEO disappeared into the metallic box of German steel and sped off.

  2

  Nate had completely lost the motivation to take his car into the shop. He shuffled in defeat to the roof of the parking garage and tossed his box in the passenger seat. The drive home revealed new noises coming from under the hood. Peachy. How was he going to afford repair work now? And what other consequences might be coming his way? The last thing he needed was his insurance to go up while being unemployed.

  Nate’s cell phone buzzed with an incoming text message. It was from his girlfriend Cindy.

  Nate, I’m sorry, but this isn’t working. I’ve started dating someone else. Your stuff from my place is in a box on your front doorstep. It’s me, not you. Take care.

  He kept glancing back and forth between the road and his phone. Cindy was breaking up with him? Via text?

  Nate hit dial.

  “Hello?”

  “Cindy, this is Nate.”

  “Nate? Oh. Um, hi.” It was clear she was surprised and must not have seen his name on the incoming call. Even Steve Jobs didn’t get it right 100% of the time.

  “What the hell?” he asked.

  “I’m really sorry, Nate. It’s been fun, but we’re not right for each other. You understand, right?”

  A car changed lanes right in front of him and Nate had to quickly stomp on the breaks. He could feel his temper revving up. “No, I don’t understand, Cindy. I thought we were having a good time together?”

  “Nate, come on. Your idea of a good time is we sit next to each other on the couch, watch some 80’s action flick, and have sex. That’s what every date has been like for the past two months.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  There was a heavy sigh on the line. “I’ve started dating another guy, Nate.”

  “Don’t do it, Cindy. I’m not okay with that.”

  “It’s not your choice. You don’t have a say.”

  “I do have a say! Relationships are two-way. Maybe you need to change your expectations? You said yourself it wasn’t me, it was you,”

  “I lied. It’s you. I was trying to be nice.”

  “Dammit, Cindy, I’m having a rough day and I need someone to be there to back me up. You can’t leave!”

  “Please don’t shout at me.”

  “I’m not shouting!” he shouted.

  “Yes, you are. Anyway, I’m going with this other guy so it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  Anger welled up inside of him. “Stop. I’m telling you, you can’t see anyone else. I’ll kick his ass.”

  “He’s a cop.”

  “Um, okay, forget I said that. Cindy, look. Stick with me here. I can change. Let’s go out Friday. I was going to play poker with the guys but I’ll blow it off. You can pick what we do—just, uh, let’s not blow the budget.”

  “Not interested.”

  “I promise you, I’ll try.” Nate tried to turn on the witty charm. “You can pick whatever it is that you want to do instead of an action movie. The only thing we’ll keep the same is the sex part.”

  Silence on the line. The eye-rolling was almost audible. “Sorry, Nate. It’s over.” A pause before she added the conciliatory, “We can still be friends.”

  A token offer with absolutely no substance. But perhaps an opportunity as well? “Okay, that’s cool. I can try. Hey, you know your friend Jessica? The one with the blonde hair?”

  “Jessica Scott?”

  “Yeah, her. I’ve had a crush on her ever since we went on that double date last summer. She’s really hot. Maybe you can fix us up?”

  Nate heard some kind of snort right before the line went dead.

  He spent the rest of the drive to his apartment fuming until exhaustion eventually took over. What a crappy day. His track record so far was no job, no girl, no car—undamaged, anyway—and no clue about what to do next. Nate wandered through his front door and set the box of his belongings on the kitchen counter. A look inside the freezer revealed an empty ice tray and a bottle of vodka. So, no dinner either. Great.

  Gilligan, Nate’s overweight gray tabby, trotted into the kitchen and meowed at him. Feed me.

  “Hey, little buddy.” Nate was still staring at the fridge, oscillating between calling for Chinese or pizza.

  He meowed again, a long, drawn out one. Feed me, dammit.

  “Glad to see you, too.” Nate pulled a can of Whiskas out of the fridge, a dirty fork from the sink, and mushed the contents onto a plate. Gilligan tore into it, purring. Nate looked at the fork he was holding and was hungry enough that he briefly wondered what Whiskas actually tasted like, but better sense prevailed and he opted for Chinese.

  He walked over to the table where he kept his phone and take-out menus. He noticed the message light blinking on the base unit. He didn’t know why he still paid for a separate phone aside from his cell. The only person who ever called it was his mother.

  Predictably, it was her. The message was terse and said simply to call back. He hit redial.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Oh, Nate, honey. Thanks for calling so quickly. Are you doing okay?”

  Don’t answer that, he said to himself. “Sure, Mom. You know—the, uh, usual. What’s up?”

  “I have some bad news, I’m afraid.”

  “Well, it usually comes in threes, but I’m an overachiever. Right?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing. Sorry. Go ahead.”

  “Do you remember your Great Aunt Edna?”

  “Dad’s aunt? Yeah, I guess. I mean, I know who she is and that you and dad talked about her a lot. I don’t really remember the last time I saw her. Man, I haven’t thought about her in forever.”

  “Well, she passed away over the weekend.”

  “Oh, wow. I’m sorry to hear that. She was pretty old, wasn’t she?”

  “In her eighties, I think.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Your uncle Marty called me. He said to say hello.”

  Uncle Marty. Dad’s brother.

  Nate’s dad used to ride motorcycles. Without a helmet. A car accident about five years ago ended that hobby. Nate had taken it hard. His father lived, but a traumatic brain injury meant Dad would never be the same. Uncle Marty had stepped in to help handle all the legal and medical issues.

  Dad. Nate had always looked up to him, all the things he could do. He had wanted to be just like him. Of course, nature often had a different plan. For example, Dad worked on the bike all the time and had some proven handiness with tools. That must have been a recessive gene, as it was one thing that Nate did not inherit.

  “Tell him hi back.”

  “Okay, I will.”

  Silence.

  Nate puzzled through how weird this conversation was going. “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you sound awfully solemn about all of this. I mean, I’m sorry for Aunt Edna’s passing, but … well, it’s not like we were close to her. I know I don’t remember much. Wasn’t she, like, bat-shit crazy?”

  “Yeah, she is. Was. Her health was deteriorating for a while—had some dementia going on, other mental probl
ems, but refused adamantly to be put into any sort of assisted living. She wasn’t doing well.”

  “Right,” Nate said. “So, what’s up?”

  “Well, there’s this one thing.”

  “What?” Nate wished his mom would just spit it out already.

  “You probably don’t remember, but Edna lived in a great big mansion in Louisiana. By herself. It was one of these old estate houses that used to belong to some plantation back in the 1800’s. It was falling apart when your dad and I visited her once upon a time, when you were just a baby.”

  “Okay. So?”

  “Well, I don’t understand all this. It’s really strange.”

  “What’s strange, Mom? Just tell me.”

  “Apparently, Edna must have really liked you, because she bequeathed the house to you in her will. You’re the new owner.”

  3

  “She left you a house?” Brad Bosch asked.

  Brad was also an Orb employee and possessed one of the very few even-keeled personalities there. He worked in the accounting department. Normally there would have been no reason for him and Nate to get along or even know each other. But in a strange twist of fate, they had met at a company mixer after Nate had been hitting hard on a girl who turned out to be Brad’s girlfriend. Now the three of them had become the closest friends.

  “Yes, a house,” Nate replied. “It’s crazy, I know. It’s not like we were close. The only time I vaguely remember even meeting her, I was really little. My mom said we were visiting her for a week. I guess I didn’t like my dinner because I pulled off my diaper and took a crap in the middle of the kitchen floor.”

  “Well, obviously that was a critical and endearing moment.”

  “I guess.” Nate pushed his salad around with his fork. The café they were eating at wasn’t very good, but it was cheap, and that was a prime consideration right now.

  Sarah chuckled from the other side of the table. “I guess you must have been one cute baby to overcome that maneuver.”

  “I was a cute baby,” Nate agreed.

  “And fat, I bet.”

  “With rolls you could butter.”

  “Jesus, stop,” Brad said. The leftover flirting was a running joke at this point but Brad pretended to stick his finger down his throat just the same. “There’s got to be a reason your aunt would leave you something like that, Nate. Why? What does she expect you to do with it?”

  “That’s just the thing, Brad. I have no idea.”

  They all ate silently for a few moments.

  “I still can’t believe I got canned,” Nate said at last.

  “Me neither,” Brad said. “Fucking Orb. That sucks.”

  “You sure your accounting buddies didn’t put me on some list?”

  “You know what Chalmers is like,” Brad snorted. “You have a better shot running a civil liberties parade in North Korea than steering that cracker. So don’t look at me. I just sit on the hill and count the bodies.”

  “I heard Trevor Brandt took over project management,” Sarah said.

  “What?!” Nate exploded. “That asshole?”

  “Yep.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Nate said. “How the hell do these things happen?”

  “Easy,” Brad interjected. “Shit floats.”

  “Huh?”

  “Shit floats. You’ve never heard that expression? The shitty people rise to the—never mind.”

  They ate some more.

  “Is it nice?” Sarah asked, changing the subject. She sipped her Diet Coke through a straw.

  “Doing project management?”

  “No, moron, the house your aunt left you.”

  “Mansion, not house.” Nate shrugged. “My mom said it was kind of dumpy.”

  Brad chuckled. “Right up your alley. You should move in tomorrow.”

  “And do what?”

  “Maybe you should fix it up,” Sarah said. “Move into it and work on it. It’s not like you’re working now, right?”

  “Ouch,” Nate winced.

  Sarah smiled and kicked him under the table.

  “It’s in the middle of nowhere. Why would I move out to the middle of Louisiana?”

  “It’s a mansion?” Brad interrupted, going backward.

  “Yeah.”

  “You could throw an epic house party. You wouldn’t have to worry about trashing it if it’s already trashed.”

  “Not interested.”

  Sarah had a very thoughtful look on her face. “No, Nate. Really. You should fix it up and flip it.”

  “Seriously?” said Brad, incredulous.

  “Seriously?” repeated Nate, also incredulous.

  Sarah looked at them both like the idiots they were. “Don’t you guys watch TV?”

  “Sports,” said Brad.

  “Netflix,” said Nate.

  “Jeez, guys. If you watched something intelligent, like HGTV, you’d see that plenty of people make money off of flips. Otherwise, they wouldn’t do it.”

  Everyone thought deeply about this new and exotic idea.

  “How would that work exactly, Sarah?”

  Sarah narrowed her eyes. “You’re asking me? You beat on shit with hammers, I don’t know. You guys are the men.”

  Nate was stroking his chin, deep in thought. “I wonder if I could pull that off.”

  Brad ate a potato chip. “Who’s going to do the work there, pal? You?”

  “Sure.”

  “You—who have never used a tool in your life.”

  “I’ve used tools.”

  “Xbox controllers do not count.”

  Nate was looking off into space. “You know, I could totally do this. My dad used to do this. I’m his son. Replace some old doors, slap on some new paint. Sell it to a new owner and make a bunch of money. It’s just brilliant.”

  “You think you’re going to do this long distance, pal? Good luck.”

  “No. I’ll have to move.”

  Brad dipped his head down and stared. “You. Move to Louisiana?”

  “Well—not indefinitely. Just for a little bit. I can live out of this house while I fix it up. Then I’ll unload it for a million bucks and move back.”

  “A million bucks?”

  “Yeah. It’s a mansion, remember?”

  Sarah seemed to be enjoying the fantasy. “Brad and I will come visit you for moral support. With a pit stop in New Orleans each way. Par-tay, y’all!”

  “Wait—stop. This is—Christ, I’ve jumped off the Titanic into a lifeboat full of crazy people.” Brad looked hard at Nate, genuinely concerned. “Nate, renovating a house takes a lot of money and a lot of skill. You don’t have either. I mean, where are you going to get, what, a hundred grand? What’s it going to take to buy lumber and fixtures and crap?”

  “That’s what my credit card is for.”

  “You’ll pass your credit line by a mile.”

  “Then I’ll just open a second one, and a third.”

  “And how are you going to pay the minimum monthly balances?”

  “With the fourth and the fifth.”

  A dark expression passed over Brad’s face. Funny how accountants all had that same look. “This is a bad idea, Nate. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

  “I’m out of a job and I just inherited a mansion. It’s time for adventure, dude!”

  He changed tack. “Okay. Think about the labor, then. Day in and day out. Hard, hot, sweaty manual labor. That’s not you, dude. You work in software.”

  “You know how I’m telling you I always have trouble falling asleep?” Nate said. “Maybe being worn out will do me some good.”

  “You can’t fall asleep?” Sarah asked.

  “Not easily. Long time problem I’ve had—guess my brain just spirals out of control, and I can’t relax.”

  Brad snorted. “Except at work. You doze off all the time.”

  “That’s different.” Nate straightened up, bristling. “That’s only when I’m trying to read technical spec
s.”

  “When you’re reading anything. If you drove past a library, you’d have a narcoleptic seizure.”

  Nate frowned. “Look—that’s irrelevant anyway. I’m not going to be reading a whole lot while doing a reno. Like you said, I’m going to be doing lots of manual labor. And I’m ready.”

  Brad regarded him with a cool expression. Then he took another sip of his drink. “Well, when you’re curled up alone in the bathroom of your mansion and crying like a little bitch, don’t call me for help.”

  Things moved fast. Nate’s lease on his apartment was conveniently up, so instead of renewing he just focused on getting everything boxed up to move into storage. Storage, in this case, being his parents’ house.

  Easter weekend was busy.

  “So how long are you keeping your things here?” his mother asked as she watched Nate unload yet another carload into her garage.

  “Just a few months, Mom. It’ll be temporary, I promise.”

  “Just a few months,” she repeated. She was standing in the driveway, arms folded while she stared at the stacks of Home Depot boxes. The skepticism was audible.

  Nate paused with a milk crate full of books in his hands. “Yes. Really. Look, I’m sure you agree it doesn’t make any sense for me to haul everything I own all the way out to Louisiana, and store it in some house where my goal is to sell said house and immediately move back. Right?”

  “If your timeline is that short, why don’t you just keep your apartment?”

  “I need every cent I’ve got to make this renovation work.”

  His mother wrung her hands. “It’s going to be a hundred degrees every day starting in about four or five weeks, you know. My car is going to be baked.”

  “I’ll buy you a sunshade for the windshield.”

  “A hundred degrees. Every day. Did I say that loud enough?”

  “Mom. Just a few months.”

  “Uh-huh,” she replied. “If it’s any longer than that, your stuff is going on Craig’s List.”

  Nate closed his car door and carried the last of his business suits over his arm. “These need to be stored inside. I’ll put them in the guest closet, okay?”