In Absentia (Black Acres Book 1)

by Ambrose Ibsen

  Julian replied quickly. “Honestly, I think it's great.” He looked to Kim tentatively, hoping she might echo his sentiment.

  “Y-yeah,” she replied. “I mean, the price is good and it's pretty big, I guess.” Her lack of enthusiasm was clear, but it did little to dissuade Julian.

  “We need to talk about it, of course, but I really like this place. I like it a lot more than any other house we've seen so far, and for the price, well...” he paused, grinning, and looked to his wife. “I don't think we can beat it.” Pulling Kim aside a few paces, he leaned in, speaking quietly. “I think this is it. I think this is the one!”

  “I'm glad to hear you like it,” replied Edwin, sending a puff of smoke skyward. He knocked a cone of ash from his cigarette and leaned against the side of his truck. “I'm pretty flexible about the price. I know this is your first home, so if you're really interested, I think we can work something out. The house has been vacant so long. I really think Marshall and Dakota would be sad to see it in this state. Houses get lonely too, you know.”

  Julian nodded. “So, you knew the former owners well, then?”

  Edwin took a pensive drag, nodding. “Yes, they were good friends of mine. Good, good people.”

  This gave Kim pause. She stepped forward, smoothing out her hair as the breeze kicked it up. “I'm sorry, they were friends of yours? What does that mean?”

  At this, Edwin grew visibly uncomfortable. He chuckled slightly, but the sound died away on his lips, stifled by a nervous puff of the cigarette. When he'd sucked the thing nearly to cinders he threw it down into the gravel and put it out with his heel. He turned his head this way and that, trying to find the right words. “Well, uh, yeah. They were good friends of mine for many years. See, the thing of it is, though...” He cracked a sheepish smile. “I suppose I should have told you this first-thing, you know, before I showed you the house and all, but... you understand, this isn't the kind of thing that you'd put in an ad for a house you wanted to sell.”

  Kim arched a brow and gave Julian a sidelong glance. “What do you mean?”

  Edwin cleared his throat. “See, a little more than seven years ago now, Marshall and Dakota, well... they disappeared. Vanished. Just recently the courts ruled 'em...” He paused, trying to think of the right word. “What do they call it... dead in absentia. You know, missing so long they've been declared dead. And they didn't have any family, those two. No kids-- poor Dakota was always crying about that. So they wrote me into the will, wanted me to manage their affairs if something ever happened. Never expected that they would just turn up missing, of course, and obviously I'm not pleased about ending up with the house in this way. I'd have much rather never received the thing, but...” He gulped. “Here we are. I certainly hope that doesn't bother you; it's still a fine house, and they were both very proud of it in life. It was their legacy, and I'm sure they'd want it to be lived in. Sorry for not being more forthcoming about all that. It's been seven years but it's still mighty hard for me to talk about. Seems like just yesterday they were still here.”

  Kim wasn't quite sure how to react.

  Julian, however, clapped his hands. “So, I imagine you've got some paperwork we can look over, yes? I'd like to see the terms you have in mind for this sale.”

  Chapter 3

  Two truckloads was all it took to transplant the entirety of their apartment to the Beacon estate. As its proud owners, Kim and Julian set about making the place their own.

  Kim was not without her reservations, however.

  To start with, the house was so ugly to her in so many regards, it was hard for her to know where to start. Everything needed renovated, everything was in need of cleaning and fixing, and after sitting vacant for seven years, the house had to become accustomed once more to being lived in. This meant that the floors settled rather loudly at all hours of the day. The pipes could be heard to rattle and sometimes expelled brackish well water. The lights were unreliable, too, often flickering or going out entirely for brief stretches. One by one Julian sought to address these problems, but the list was long and with every day they spent in the new house it seemed only to grow longer.

  Finally, when the place was liveable and they felt they could stay there without much difficulty, the pair took to unpacking their things. Then, some days later, with most of the moving boxes out of the way, they were ready to start working on the house.

  They'd bought the thing for a steal after the signing of some few papers. Edwin had given it to them for an even better price than he'd advertised, at least partially because he'd felt bad about his little reveal at the end of the tour. Though it was a minor detail that had nothing to do with her, Kim found herself thinking a great deal about the previous owners and wondering just where they'd gone. That two people had simply vanished from their home of more than four decades out in the middle of nowhere didn't sit well with her. It was one of those uncomfortable, unexplainable things, conjuring up thoughts of alien abduction or the Bermuda Triangle. Moving into their house almost didn't feel right. She felt, in some small way, like she and Julian were intruding, imposing on the missing owners.

  Still, as the days passed and they began debating on what room to renovate first, she worked to put all of these thoughts out of her mind.

  It was decided after much deliberation that the archaic-looking upstairs bathroom would be the first to get gutted. The house was in a remote location, far from any hardware store or the like, so parts and supplies would have to be shipped in at great cost from the city. This wasn't a huge concern to them, and it was a luxury they could afford, but it did serve to slow things down.

  One afternoon, after a late breakfast, the pair made their way up to the bathroom with sledges and chisels and squared up the space. The water in the bathroom was shut off, and the targets of the day's work were decided upon. It was quite simple, really. Nothing was to be spared.

  The two of them got into the spirit of the renovation, doing their best to dress the part. Julian wore a sleeveless t-shirt that put his thin frame on full display. He'd neglected to shave in the days since their move, giving his square jaw a sandy rash of stubble. He'd always been skinny, and as he hoisted the sledge over one shoulder, preparing to knock in a bit of drywall, she was struck by how thin he'd grown working in the city all that time behind a desk. For her part, she swept her hair back into a ponytail and threw a red bandana around her head. Together they looked like something out of a home and garden reality TV show.

  The tiles around the shower were the first to come down, knocked loose by a gentle tapping of the sledge. The stubborn pieces were then chipped away by a chisel and hammer. One-by-one the tiles clattered noisily into the tub, and before long the drywall behind was in clear view. Weighing their next move, Julian made some measurements and then drew a large, black X on the wall, pointing at it with his sledge. “X marks the spot!” he said with a grin. And then, hoisting up the tool, he made his first swing.

  They took turns tearing into the drywall, hitting only specific areas to avoid messing with the pipes, and made room for the new tub and shower they'd ordered. It would be delivered within the week, and in the mean time they'd be forced to use the small shower stall in the other bathroom downstairs. With each subsequent strike, more of the drywall fell away, revealing hardy studs and sending up clouds of dust. When they'd torn down most of the marked section, Julian reached inside and finished the remainder by hand, tugging on the jagged bits and breaking them away.

  As he did so, he paused. Something in the wall caught his eye.

  “What is it?” asked Kim, leaning against the old porcelain sink, wiping at her brow.

  “Hold on,” he said, reaching into the wide opening and bending down. Slowly, he drew something up out of the cavity. Dusting it off, he looked it over closely. It seemed to be a slip of paper.

  “What is it?” she asked again, sidling up to him. Peering over his shoulder, she saw it was a photograph. It was old, the graininess of the image bespeaking a
time some decades passed. The subdued oranges and yellows of some nearby light fixture highlighted a pair of subjects, a young man and young woman, leaning against one another, both of them smiling. “Who is that?”

  Julian studied the photo for a time. “I dunno,” he admitted, knocking a cloud of dust from his mop of blonde hair. “Probably the former owners. It's an old picture. They probably slipped it in the wall here back when the house was being built.”

  Kim looked up at him. “People do that? Leave things like that behind?”

  He nodded. “I remember helping my dad work on our old house as a kid. People leave all sorts of things behind as mementos. Under floorboards, in the walls. Kind of like a time capsule or something like that.”

  It was a sweet picture. The people featured didn't appear much older than Kim or Julian themselves, and they smiled warmly. “They look young,” she said after a time, taking the photo from him. “I bet they were around our age.”

  “Could be.”

  Turning the photo over, Kim dusted it off further. On the reverse she found a bit of writing. It was rendered in a rough hand, so that it was hard for her to read. Standing beneath the light, she squinted and tried to make out the harsh characters. “There's something written here. It's sloppy, but...”

  “What does it say?”

  When she managed to decipher it, she almost dropped the photo. Clearing her throat, she read it again and again, doing so once out loud, before laughing incredulously. “You're in our house. We're coming back for it.”

  Julian laughed, giving her a playful shove. “Oh, shut up.”

  She glanced up at him, the amusement draining from her face and only the apprehension remaining. Kim offered him the photograph. “No, really... look for yourself.”

  Snatching up the picture, Julian glanced over the reverse. “Hm,” he said after a time, holding it between his fingers and flipping it back over. “That's... interesting.” He loosed a little laugh, unsure of what to make of it.

  “What the hell's that supposed to mean?” Kim's arms broke out in gooseflesh, and without even thinking she begun to cradle herself. Something about that photo didn't sit well with her. Looking briefly at the smiling faces on it once more, she almost felt as though there'd been a subtle shift in their expressions. Like the smiles weren't genuine, had grown narrower, more savage, and were hiding some sort of sinister intent.

  Julian shook his head and set the photo down on the edge of the sink. “I don't know. I guess... I guess the folks who lived here before us just had a weird sense of humor or something.” He shrugged and dusted off his hands.

  If the people who'd left that photo there had intended it as a joke, Kim wasn't finding it funny. Mathematically speaking, the odds of finding such a thing in the wall were slim; that they'd stumbled upon it in their renovations seemed to her anything but dumb luck. Someone had wanted the two of them, specifically, to find it. Kim felt certain somehow, but she couldn't articulate why. She gulped as she appraised the photo, even from afar, and then glanced out into the dim hallway. “I need a break,” she said. “Come on. I'll make us some lemonade.”

  Chapter 4

  The installation of the new tub was an ordeal that took them nearly two whole days of work. A slight miscalculation on their part about the dimensions of the thing required a number of last-minute adjustments, and when all was said and done Julian had thrown his back out and burnt through all of his patience. Limping about in his pajamas for the next few days he made a point of sleeping in and lounging about, postponing any further work on the house until he felt up to it. The bathroom still needed some work; a new toilet, new sink and a fresh coat of paint, but at least it was functional.

  In those days, spent lounging, the two of them really got to know the new house. Though its gaudy flourishes clashed with their sensibilities, they felt for the first time that they were the masters of their domain. They could do anything they wanted to this house, and thanks to its remoteness, they could listen to their music or television as loudly as they wanted. Back in the city, in their cramped little apartment, they'd always been at the center of feuds with the inhabitants of surrounding units. They'd always had crooked landlords telling them what they could or couldn't do to their apartment. But not here. This space was their own. They were like caged animals set free.

  And for Kim, at least, the freedom came as a shock. The almost intoxicating degree of liberty and openness they now had in their grasp made her feel aimless, adrift. She assured herself that it was merely because the house was unfinished; that, once they'd picked out new furnishings and completed their renovations, she'd grow used to it and it would feel as natural to her as the old apartment they'd left behind, except with none of the limits. She spent her days catching up on reading, living a somewhat bohemian life in the house for nearly a week before their work resumed.

  She'd packed along her small library of cherished books. Some hadn't made the cut and had been sold off to the second-hand bookseller back in the city, but those that did, mainly handsome, leather-bound editions of her favorite classics, now sat upon a wide, wall-mounted shelf on the wall opposite the fireplace. She leafed through them, getting lost in the stories languidly. And due to the lack of distractions in this new home, she felt herself time and again almost slipping into the stories full-on. Absorbed in her reading, she subsisted off of coffee and tea, along with whatever bland food they had on hand. Grocery stores were not exactly common in the area, with the closest one clocking in at some forty or so minutes by car. The appliances worked well enough for hot beverages and cooling lunch meat, and they feasted on sandwiches and jasmine tea. Sometimes, while munching on roasted turkey sandwiches, Julian would give a little grin and suggest they simply order a pizza for delivery. Pleased with himself for the joke, he'd laugh, insisting that they only needed to find a chain pizzeria whose policy guaranteed something along the lines of “Thirty minutes or it's free!”

  There wasn't a damn thing, save for open space and scarcely-tread road, within thirty minutes of them.

  For having sat vacant so many years, the house proved in good condition. The basement showed evidences of water damage in a few corners, and the attic was little more than a number of dusty rafters wrapped in discolored, fluffy insulation. Those would need cleaned up, and Julian wondered if there might not be a mold problem in the basement. Studying the walls, he recalled the details of some documentary about mold toxins and suggested they have a professional come out to test the air for spores when the other work was through. She was happy to let him have his way. Though sore, he marched about the house with an air of triumph, throwing his ankles up on chairs, opening and closing doors and stomping on the well-worn floors like a king in his own palace.

  In their few years as a married couple, Kim had never seen him this happy. Back in the city, prior to the sale of his screenplay, he'd been something of a homebody. Especially in those weeks leading up to its completion he'd been prone to mood swings and long silences. It'd disturbed her, made for the first significant disruption to their married bliss. The sale had turned everything around, however. They could afford to move out of that stifling unit, with its leaky roof and occasional ant infestations, and into this enormous house. This place had its share of aesthetic flaws and structural abnormalities, but in time they could all be fixed, and Julian could sense it. For almost a year he'd shopped around his screenplay and fretted over it. Now that it was out of his hands, he was back to living.

  While up in the attic one day, remarking on the sheer volume of insulation, Julian came upon something curious tucked up against one of the rafters. The attic was not a large space, and the ceilings were low, so that in order for him to enter he would have to ascend a flight of stairs and stay hunched, walking carefully along the rafters lest he take a dive through them into the story below. He did so nimbly, keeping his hand on a ceiling beam and zeroing in on something amidst the pinkish fluff. Plucking it up, he hopped back to the stairwell, the beams beneath hi
s feet groaning for their load, and took to dusting it off. He frowned as a little cloud of dust and insulation drifted off of it and then held it up to the dim-burning bulb that hung from the ceiling by a black coil of wire.

  “Huh,” he said, looking it over. He made a face she'd never seen before. Kim was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, watching as he studied his find. His eyes were narrow, and the corners of his lips were turned up in a little smirk, but beneath it all there was something of fear. She could see it in the way his Adam's apple trembled, in the way he gulped and pushed on down the stairs without looking, but instead by guiding a shaky hand along the wall. By the time he'd reached the foot of the stairs he'd recovered, but a touch of the discomfort she'd glimpsed still plagued his expression.

  He handed the thing to her and shot her an expectant look. “A photo,” he announced.

  Kim unfolded the thing in her hands. It was curled up in on itself and not a little discolored, probably due to the changing of the seasons over the course of many years. How long the photo had been sitting in the attic they couldn't guess, but that it'd been a long time there could be no doubt. The reverse featured nothing, but the photo itself gave her pause. “What... what exactly am I looking at here?” she asked, turning it slightly and crinkling her nose as if she'd just smelled something foul.

  Foul was about as good a word as she could think of for the sight she found in that photograph. There were six individuals pictured. The scene was grainy, rather dark, save for the far-off orange glow of some lamp. It almost looked like firelight, but the subjects had been photographed indoors and there was no sign of a hearth in frame. If not for the masks the subjects wore, they would have almost blended into the murky background, as was the case with their bodies below the neck. But those masks, made of a bright, white material like plaster and lent something of overexposure by the elements, waxed repellent as she took them in, one-by-one. They were all the same, featuring two clumsy, small eyes, a ridge of a nose, more fully-molded in some than others, and a wide, exaggerated smile. A small hole existed at the center of this smile to better allow the wearer to draw breath. Six faces crowded the frame, all of them close together and all of them baring their plaster-forged grins for the photographer.