“It has six little wireless cameras to place around the house. And look, the tablet you use to see the video can double as a digital photo frame. What else does it have? Let’s see. Built-in recording. 32 gigabyte SD card. Motion activated.”
Meow.
“Kind of pricey. Maybe I should wait—no, I’m going to do it. I need to feel like my job site is secure. No more missing tools, no more phantom writing, no more bogeymen.” Nate swiped through the site. “There. Done, with two-day shipping. You can help me put the cameras up around the house when they get here.”
Gilligan climbed over his shoulder until he was sitting directly on Nate’s stomach. The cat stared at him. Pet. Me.
Nate obliged as he let his mind drift to the screeching melodies of Dave Mustaine on the Jambone. He closed his eyes. The beers were good. The music was good. The purring cat was good.
The current song ended and the thrash metal was replaced by momentary silence.
Thump, thump, thump.
Nate’s eyes flicked open. “What the hell is that?”
It sounded like it came from the attic. Nate looked over at the open windows. The air was still, so the noise wasn’t from the wind.
The next Megadeth song started to play. Nate started to fumble with his phone and sent Gilligan off his chest in protest. It took a moment before Nate could shut off the music.
Thump, thump, thump, THUMP.
The sound was louder now, almost … frustrated? It reminded Nate of his old apartment complex. Any time he did something loud—have a few friends over, watch the ball game—the old married couple underneath him would whack the ceiling with a broom handle. It was their way of signaling displeasure at the ruckus.
“I wonder if Matt didn’t secure some kind of pipe. I gotta go see what that is, Gilligan. But I need backup.” He looked a few feet over. “Adolf!”
The Doberman was asleep again. He didn’t budge.
Nate gave up. It was up to him, but after a six pack worth of bravery he felt invincible. He grabbed a length of lead pipe left by the door as scrap.
“Better not be Rick,” Nate said with trepidation. “I am from Texas. Someone breaks into my house, it will be on like Donkey Kong.”
He crept up the stairs, using his phone flashlight to illuminate the dark, mysterious void in front of him.
Nothing so far.
An errant thought crossed Nate’s mind. He put down the pipe and flicked through the screens on his phone to the next Megadeth song. He pushed play. Even when heard from the top of the staircase, the Jambone did an impressive job of loudly screaming out electric guitar rhythms. Nate let it play for several seconds before he hit the pause button.
Thump-thump, thumpity thump thump THUMPITY thump-thump.
Again, Nate thought back to his cranky apartment neighbors. The thumping so closely resembled the weird Morse code messages they used to communicate their request to shut the hell up.
Where was it coming from? The attic?
“Do I have an attic?” Nate said.
He swept slowly through the second floor. After several minutes of exploration, he found himself in front of what he had assumed was a closet door. Only the door was right across the hall from another closet, which didn’t make sense.
Meow, said Gilligan from down the hall.
“Shhh.”
Nate put his hand on the doorknob.
He took a deep, calming breath.
And he opened the door.
A narrow, dusty set of stairs led upward.
14
The light from the iPhone cast an unworldly pallor on the stairway. The way the steps wound to the right with their awkward vertical spacing made it almost like climbing a ship’s ladder. Nate proceeded carefully upward. The ancient wood creaked in protest.
The top of the stairs emerged into a long, open space that stretched the length of the mansion. The attic. Support beams stretched from the floor joists to the inside surface of the roof, which was low enough that Nate had to stoop over unless he stood directly in the middle. At the far end of the attic was a round window that let in the dimmest glimmer of moonlight.
A solitary pile of crates rested several feet away from the stairs. Nate made his way over to them.
Dust covered everything. The boxes were constructed out of wood planks and had a very old-timey appearance to them. One was leaning against a support and looked to have some sort of writing on its side. A quick hand wipe revealed a number of words stenciled in faded black.
Lt. Colonel McAuliffe
2nd Cavalry Regiment
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
The lid was nailed shut.
Nate was dying to know what was inside. He thought for a moment. In the bright iPhone light, the corner of the crate revealed a small gap of air that Nate immediately recognized as an opportunity. He took the tip of his lead pipe and jammed one end against the gap. After a few minutes of prying the pipe back and forth, he had enough purchase to lean his weight down and lever open the edge. Another minute and he had the entire lid off.
The crate was packed with straw. Nate reached his hand in and felt around. His fingers closed around something very hard and dense.
He pulled. The next thing he knew Nate was holding a rifle. Not just any rifle, but a very old rifle. The barrel exterior was hexagonal and clamped tightly to a polished wood stock with an odd but elegant shape. It was straight out of the history books.
“The Civil War, to be exact,” Nate said aloud to himself.
A faint rustle sounded behind the crate.
Nate lowered the rifle and grabbed his lead pipe.
“Gilligan?”
The cat appeared around the corner.
Nate relaxed. Just his helper.
A further search through the straw revealed three more rifles. Nate replaced the first one and moved on to see what was in the next crate, smaller and squarer than the first. Again, Nate started on a corner and rocked the edge of the pipe into whatever gap he could manage to widen. He got the top off and saw nine glass bottles filled with some kind of amber liquid, each stoppered with a cork and wax seal.
Nate used the edge of his pipe to scrape off the wax. Then he was able to twist the stopper back and forth until it popped free. He sniffed the bottle. Then, feeling bold, he lifted the bottle up to his mouth and poured a small amount into his mouth.
Bourbon.
“Pretty good, actually. I wonder how old it is.”
Meow.
“Yeah, pretty old, I bet.”
The next container was some sort of steamer trunk. The clasp had a loop for a padlock but luckily there was no sign of one. Nate found several pairs of heavy woolen pants, white shirts, and a great gray overcoat. Each was decorated with military-looking trim. Folded amongst the clothes lay a small notebook that appeared to be some kind of personal journal.
Nate took the journal and held it out to the cat. “What’s this, Gilligan?”
Meow.
The book had a black leather cover with a dried flower pinned to the front. Nate opened it and an old photograph fell out. He picked it up and saw a portrait of a man wearing a Confederate uniform. He looked a lot like the dude in the portrait that hung alongside the grand staircase. Nate studied it for a moment before he thumbed through the journal itself. The pages were filled with the loopy cursive of a feminine hand. He was mesmerized by it for some reason and decided to take it with him.
“I’ll have to read through this later. Maybe it’ll tell me about where all this stuff came from.”
Gilligan hopped into the middle of the trunk and sat on the clothes to help with the investigation.
Nate scanned the remaining boxes. There were maybe a half-dozen more of varying sizes. He suspected they were all filled with similar memorabilia. It was quite a find, but one that he thought could wait until daylight to go through the rest of it. The spookiness of the attic was getting to him.
Nate turned to leave and saw one last bundle tucked between the
edge of the floor and where the roofline connected. A deep feeling of curiosity washed over him and he decided to open one more. This one was a dusty blue blanket wrapped around something stiff, secured by a simple rope tied around the middle.
Nate unfurled the blanket and found a short pole, a Confederate battle flag, and a saber with a tarnished, silver-capped sheath.
“Gilligan, this is absolutely awesome.”
His cat stretched.
“Look at this stuff. This is museum quality. It’s a glimpse into the history books. I’m kind of shaking, actually.” Nate pulled the saber halfway out of its sheath, admiring its beauty.
Gilligan sat down next to him. Meow.
He slid the saber back away and looked down at the tabby.
“Do you know what this means?”
The cat stared at him, unblinking. Donation to a museum? Preservation of history?
“That’s right.” Nate smiled. “Funding for the budget.”
☠ ☠ ☠
The following day, the sun was joyful and shining. The ghost of Colonel Rufus McAuliffe was not.
“What is this word, ‘abay’? What does it mean to ‘abay’ my saber?”
Meow, said Gilligan.
“eBay, ‘abay’, whatever. Neither makes any sense. What does it mean, Cat?”
Meow.
Rufus’s eyes grew wide.
“He’s going to sell it?”
Meow.
“Goddammit!”
The cat broke eye contact.
“He can’t do that. He can’t! He has no business even being in my attic. Those are my last worldly possessions. He has no right to even touch them!”
Meow, meow.
“Well, I wasn’t trying to make him go up there. I was pissed off! Listening to the god-awful racket all day long—first the carpentry, then that, that noise coming out of that little black box. What the hell was that, anyway, some sort of … satanic gramophone recording?”
Meow.
“Mega-what?”
Meow.
“Mega-death?”
Meow.
“Ah, forget it. Whatever it was, it was shit. High-fidelity shit. I just got so, so frustrated that I couldn’t help myself but beat the hell out of the floorboards up here! How else am I supposed to signal my displeasure to this fool? I told him to leave—in blood, mind you—and he just keeps hanging around like some vagrant. Can he not read? Can he not think? Can he not sell my belongings?”
Gilligan paced in a little circle.
Rufus’s eyes narrowed.
“Cat?”
The tabby crouched, looking up at the ghostly apparition. Meow?
“I’m sorry for what I am going to now have to do to your idiot owner. Retaliation: Level Three.”
Gilligan’s ears flattened. Meowrrrrr.
“Oh, of course I’m not going to kill him. Why would I make him a ghost? Then I’d have to hang out with him.”
Meow.
“But it’s getting serious now, ‘cause I’m just about out of levels. It’s not going to be pleasant for him. Or for me, for that matter.”
15
“Hello? Anyone home?”
“Up here,” Nate yelled, pleased to hear Anna’s voice from the porch below.
The echo of high heels clacked up the grand staircase and paused in the upstairs hallway. “Where are you?”
“In the front bedroom. The one on the left.”
Anna appeared in the doorway looking radiant as ever. Today her hair was pulled back into a short ponytail and she wore a gray jacket with an LSU pin. She held some sort of basket.
“Found you.”
“Yes, here I am,” Nate said, lowering his caulking gun.
“What are you doing?”
“Caulking.”
“The windows?”
“Yes.” Nate turned to the window frame closest to him. “Matt said the existing ones weren’t square and were letting in a bad draft.”
“So you replaced them?”
“Matt did. He said no one would buy the house if they intended to sleep in a bedroom with windows like the old ones. Well, except me, since this is where I’ve been sleeping.”
Anna nodded with approval. “Then he put you to good work—even if it’s unsupervised.”
Nate held his caulking gun up like a six-shooter. “And I’m armed. And very, very dangerous.”
Anna giggled her beautiful giggle. “I brought you something.”
“You did?” Intrigued, Nate put his caulking gun down at his feet, knocking over yet another Gatorade bottle full of dark liquid.
Anna wrinkled her nose. “What flavor of Gatorade is that?”
“Huh?” Nate looked down. “Oh. That’s dip spit. Not Gatorade.”
“You dip?”
“It’s Matt’s. He, uh, forgets where he leaves his bottles. They kind of get spread around.”
“Oh.”
Nate wiped his hands on a nearby cloth. “But that’s not why you’re here. What did you bring?”
“A home spa kit.” Anna pulled a little red blanket off the basket in a sort of voila motion that revealed an array of little jars and accessories.
“Wow, that’s really nice of you,” Nate said. He reached into the basket and pulled out a … thing. “What’s this?”
“That’s a loofah. See—this one has a handle. You use it to scrub your feet and get all the dead skin off.”
“Cool.” Nate rummaged through the basket to see bath salts and lotions. He imagined Anna using them in her own bathtub.
“This is really nice of you, Anna. Thank you.” He took the basket from her and set it gingerly next to the window he had been working on, as if the placement now signified formal acceptance of the offering.
Anna was wringing her hands. “Spa stuff has always helped me relax, and I figured you probably could use something to de-stress your day. All of this continual remodeling.”
“Yeah, yeah—for sure. I’ll absolutely use it.” Nate pulled out a small glass jar of peach-colored cream and tried to smell the scent through the lid.
“Besides,” Anna began. She was awkwardly silent for a moment.
“What?” Nate said.
“I’m really embarrassed you had to deal with all that stuff from Rick,” she said, the words tumbling out. “It was wrong of me to even drive out here with him following me.”
“I’m not worried about it,” Nate said. “I just sorry for you. It’s not fair that he keeps bothering you while you’re at your job.”
“He’s been doing that a lot lately.”
“Doesn’t he have to work, too?”
“He’s unemployed.” Anna had a sheepish look. “Partly because of the arrest record.”
“What did he get busted for?”
“Arson.”
“Oh,” Nate said. He hoped Adolf was doing his job patrolling the perimeter of the house.
“But the main part of it is really that he’s just a loser,” Anna interjected. “He sits around all day, drinking and shooting pool instead of looking for a job. In any event, he was bothering me again and I was trying to get rid of him, and it was a bad decision to head over here. You’re my client, and that was wrong.”
“I thought I was your boyfriend,” Nate said with a wink.
Anna let out a nervous laugh that was just a little too loud. She just stood there, staring at him, her plastic Realtor smile glued to her face.
A long, weird silence hung between them.
With a start, Nate realized how uncomfortable this was for Anna. Her hands were a kinetic ball of fidgeting. He imagined that if he were to poke her with his finger that she would snap free like the coiled spring of a mousetrap. What was the big deal? It couldn’t be just embarrassment. Hell, Nate embarrassed himself all the time, to the point where he was just used to being a dolt. No, this was something else, a sort of self-consciousness that reminded Nate of being back in high school, when he really wanted to ask out the pretty girl but was t0o intimidated—<
br />
Naw. Really?
She did bring me a spa basket.
Nate stood dumbfounded, unable to grasp that maybe the secret admiration he had for this beautiful woman could be mutual.
“Hey,” he said. “Does being your client preclude me from asking you out on a date?”
Anna’s hands seized like an overheated V-8. “A date?”
“Yeah. A date. Can I take you out to dinner?”
“Dinner?”
“Yes. Dinner. It’s a common dating ritual in Western society, where a guy expresses his interest in a girl through a mutual consumption of food.”
“Interest?” Anna blinked, still trying to comprehend.
He smiled. “Yes.”
A long pause. Then a fragile smile—a genuine smile—formed on her lips. “I’d love to.”
“Are you sure?” Nate laughed. “You’re stiff as a board.”
Anna blinked. “Oh. Sorry.” She let out a sharp breath and tensed her shoulders in an effort to relax.
“Hey, it’s just me. A random guy from Texas who caulks windows badly. Don’t worry about what’s-his-name earlier. Not a big deal.”
“Okay, okay.” Anna gave a confirming nod. “Just nervous. It’s been a while.” She smiled again.
“How about tonight?”
Anna thought hard for a moment. “Actually, I think tonight would work great. My mom has Des. Okay, let’s try it.”
“Great. You pick the place.”
“Okay. I will.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” By now they were both grinning like fools.
Anna called later that afternoon and said she would pick him up at five. That way, Nate didn’t have to navigate to what she called an “obscure but bodacious” little Cajun place that was her “favorite restaurant in the whole wide world.” Nate had to dig through his bags to unearth one of the few acceptable button-down shirts he had brought with him. Finding a pair of pants without paint on them was harder.
The restaurant was on the outskirts of Lyon and consisted of a small house with a large courtyard. Nate and Anna were seated at a little round table underneath a fancy pergola and had a great view of the nearby creek. Anna ordered a glass of wine. Nate went for a Bud Light.
The House That Jack Built: A Humorous Haunted House Fiasco Page 10
