The Haunting of Ironwood

by Jeff DeGordick

  The Haunting of Ironwood

  Jeff DeGordick

  Contents

  Foreword

  1. Job Interview

  2. Those Dreaded Words

  3. The News

  4. From Bad to Worse

  5. Stumbling in the Dark

  6. Ironwood

  7. Pictures

  8. New Hire

  9. Settling In

  10. Lights Out

  11. The Chained Door

  12. Bedtime

  13. Bad Omen

  14. Tail

  15. Prying Eyes

  16. Decisions

  17. Voices in the Night

  18. Caged

  19. Instructions

  20. Rat in a Cage

  21. Window of Opportunity

  22. Dress Up

  23. Breaking Her In

  24. Dinner

  25. No Place to Hide

  26. Prisoner's Blues

  27. To the Rescue

  28. The Axeman Cometh

  29. Coming and Going

  30. In the Dark

  31. A Friend in Need

  32. Where There's Smoke, There's Fire

  33. Breaking Out

  34. Open Sesame

  35. Show and Tell

  36. Ace up Her Sleeve

  37. Bad Dreams

  38. Breaking and Entering

  39. Katie's Choice

  40. Dizzy

  41. A Real Mouthful

  42. The Old Flames

  43. System Shock

  44. The Truth

  45. Reintegrating

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2019 by Jeff DeGordick

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover images copyright © Shutterstock

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  Also By Jeff DeGordick:

  The Haunting of Bloodmoon House

  The Witch of Halloween House

  The Winterlake Haunting

  A Haunting at Hollow's Cove

  The Ghosts of Jasper Bayou

  Job Interview

  "Bra size?"

  "Excuse me?"

  The man sitting across the table from her was short and a little stout. He leaned forward. "Bra size."

  "Um... 34B." She had an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach. "Why do you need to know all this?"

  He raised an eyebrow as if she had just asked a strange question.

  "It just seems weird, is all," she added.

  The man picked up the clipboard sitting on the dining room table and leaned back in his chair. He took off his reading glasses and set them on the table and tapped the paper attached to the clipboard with his pen. His eyes scrolled down the list of things he'd written already, then he scribbled something else.

  "I like to be prepared when I hire someone," he said. "I need someone to watch this house while I'm away, and I'm very particular about whom I trust to do so."

  Katie shrugged. "Just as long as you don't need a vial of my blood," she said with a laugh.

  The man stared at her.

  "You don't... do you?" she asked.

  "What I need from you is a commitment to do exactly as I tell you," he said.

  She swallowed and sat rigid in her chair.

  He set the clipboard down. "I'm satisfied with your credentials, Miss Travers. I'll need you to live here for the upcoming week while I'm away on business. It's not going to require much, other than that you be present at all times and watch over the house. I don't like people coming up the drive onto my property and skulking around."

  "Is that why you have those bars over your windows?" Katie asked, pointing them out.

  He turned in his seat and acknowledged the dining room window behind him. It was shut and there were thick iron bars bolted over it on the outside. The bars were the first thing Katie noticed on all the windows when she walked up to the peculiar-looking three-story house. The next thing was how the exterior wasn't made of bricks or covered in siding; it was all made of the same finished brown wood, like an old barn.

  "Yes," he replied. "Like I said, I don't like anyone poking around. This house is very dear to me."

  The wind picked up outside and the house groaned.

  Katie looked around. "This house seems pretty old. When was it built? All the walls and ceiling made of wood... I haven't seen that before."

  "Ironwood has stood for thirty-six years now," he said. "I had it built when I was just twenty-two years old."

  "Ironwood?"

  A strange smile came over the man's face. "Yes, that's what I call it. Do you know why?" His eyes widened a little.

  Katie shook her head.

  He stood up, his chair scraping against the wooden floor. He walked over to the wall and put his hand on it, sliding his rough palm down the wood. "This entire house is made of Australian buloke; ironwood—the strongest wood in the world. Means it's very hard to cut through." The ridge of his hand moved back and forth on the wall in a sawing motion.

  Katie swallowed. If her hands were clasped any more tightly together in her lap they may have started bleeding. "What did you say you did again?"

  "I'm in sales." He looked at his watch. He had a short layer of hair that wrapped around the back of his otherwise bald head, with a few strands on top. It reminded Katie of the head of a fly.

  "You'll start on Monday, then, yes?" he asked.

  Katie found herself at a loss for words as he slowly circled the table in the dining room. Everything about the man had given her the creeps since she got there. Alarms were going off in her head and a red flag was being waved in her face like the start of a NASCAR race. When she broke out of her momentary trance, he had a handful of her hair between his fingers, feeling the texture of it.

  She bolted backward in her chair. "What are you doing?" she asked, standing up.

  "You're free to use the television," he said, motioning to the open living room right next to them. "Any food you use—any mess you make—make sure you take the garbage out on Thursday morning. And make sure you take it all the way out by the road. I don't want the truck coming up the driveway." After a moment of silence, he added, "Monday, yes? Nine o'clock."

  Katie's mouth fell open. She backed away from him, slowly at first. Then she found her words and her footing. "I can't. I mean, I don't know. I have other job interviews I have to get to." She pretended to look at a watch on her wrist even though she wasn't wearing one. She nearly tripped over her feet as she turned around and hurried through the kitchen to the front door. She didn't say goodbye or even look back over her shoulder, and then she was running past the blue Volvo sitting in front of the house and down the long and winding driveway through the trees.

  The man stood on his doorstep, staring at her until she disappeared from sight.

  Those Dreaded Word
s

  Katie headed back for her apartment. She had been so frazzled by the strange man living in his house up the isolated drive in the woods that she forgot she actually did have another job interview lined up right after. By the time she remembered, having already traveled eight blocks past it, she ran back to the bank only to be told that her interviewer had stepped out for the day after she didn't show up. She passed a Waffle House with a Help Wanted sign in the window on her way back and handed in a crinkled résumé she had in her purse. But she was met with only a glum smile from the young and pimple-faced employee who took it from her.

  The bus drove by as she walked down Lounds Street on the warm summer day. She didn't have a car and didn't even like to spend the money on bus fare when she could help it, so she was used to walking around town on her own. It looked like she struck out again on the job hunt and she was ready to return to her apartment and crash on the couch. No, the bed, she thought. This kind of defeat called for the starfish position where she would stare up at the ceiling and contemplate where she had gone so wrong in her life.

  But her one saving grace for all her disasters and mistakes was her boyfriend Josh. He ran through her mind again and she realized she hadn't heard from him all day. She pulled out her cell phone and punched in a text: I love you.

  She slipped the phone in her pocket and kept walking. The memories from the strange house on the edge of town lingered: the odd, almost rotten smell as soon as she had walked through the front door; the strange photos on the wall in the front hallway of a woman smiling (she had been in all of them. Just herself, no one else); the way the house was just a little too cold for comfort.

  Katie had already exhausted her job search online and turned to the local newspaper in desperation the day before. In it, she saw an ad in the classifieds for a house-sitting job. The person who listed it gave a phone number and the name Earl. Nothing else. She had taken the trek across town earlier that morning and arrived with thoughts in her head of a whimsical and cozy Victorian-era house. What she found was a peculiar sight. The house seemed a little too tall for its floors. Those barred windows that at first made her feel like she had accidentally wandered into the wrong neighborhood. The way how when she had walked up the very long and winding driveway through the trees and stood before the house, she couldn't hear any of the sounds in town anymore—no cars, no buses, not even the calls of any birds as far as she remembered. It had been beautiful out all day, but when she arrived the sky was somehow dim.

  She shuddered from a chill as the sun beat down on the back of her neck and she turned into an alley for a shortcut.

  A dumpster sat ahead next to bags of garbage by the back door of a restaurant. The bags jostled and rolled around as she approached and a mangy cat sauntered out of the mess.

  Katie turned up her nose at the sorry thing and pressed up to the opposite wall from it until she was out on Facer Road.

  Her cell phone rumbled in her pocket and she heard the telltale chiming of Christmas bells—her favorite. Her heart swelled at the sound, knowing it was Josh. She hadn't seen him since Tuesday and after a rough week all she wanted to do was fall asleep in his arms. She took the phone from her pocket and swiped across the screen, smiling in anticipation of his requited profession of love.

  The message from Josh said: We need to talk.

  The News

  Katie rapped three times on the door. Loudly. She waited for Josh to answer and when he didn't she knocked again and took a few steps back on his porch and stared up at his bedroom window.

  The mailman walked up the steps behind her without her noticing and slipped a few letters in the box. "Afternoon," he said with a smile, then he walked down the steps and carried on along the peaceful suburban street.

  Katie couldn't return the friendliness; she was too angry. She knocked on the door again. "Josh!" she called.

  She pulled out her cell phone and texted him: I'm standing outside your door. Come out here. Just talk to me.

  His truck was in the driveway, so she knew he was home. She waited on the porch, watching the peaceful afternoon roll by. Some children were throwing a baseball to each other down the road. The birds called and sang from the treetops. She even spotted a butterfly.

  But with every second that passed, the anger built in her. A terrible sadness accompanied it, but she knew if she acknowledged it, she would break down into tears right then and there. This wasn't the first time Josh had done this to her; he waffled back and forth in the relationship, sometimes becoming cold and distant to her. Their three-year tenure included something of a break in one period of time for six months where he flat out broke up with her to be with Jenny Stevens instead. Katie always had a few choice words for her, but none that she ever uttered to anyone else. Eventually, Josh would always come back to her when he got lonely and would start to drift away again when he got bored.

  The door to the house opened. A woman with wet brown hair stood inside wearing a bathrobe. "Katie," she said, startled. "What are you doing here?"

  "Oh, Mrs. Reynolds... is Josh home?"

  "No, I'm sorry. I just stepped out of the shower and didn't hear you knocking. Josh is out with his father right now. Is everything okay?"

  "Yeah," she choked out, trying to hide the quiver in her lip. "I just wanted to talk to him."

  "Oh, well I'll get him to give you a call when I see him," she offered.

  "Thanks, Mrs. Reynolds." And she was already off the porch and bounding down the sidewalk before the tears rushed down her face. Josh's mom stood in the doorway and watched her go, concerned.

  Katie walked for a block, not going in any particular direction, before her phone buzzed in her pocket. With a trembling hand, she pulled it out.

  I just don't think things are working out between us, the text said. I feel like we've been drifting apart and to be honest ur too needy. I think it's best if we both see other people. Hope u understand.

  The only thing that kept Katie from smashing her phone on the sidewalk was the fact that she knew she had no money to buy another one.

  From Bad to Worse

  Katie walked on the edge of town back for her apartment. She had gone out of her way to get to her boyfriend's—or now ex-boyfriend's; she would never really be sure—house, and her feet were sore. Her purse weighed on her shoulder and she just wanted to crawl into bed and never come out.

  She ran over all the reasons in her head why her relationship had fallen apart. Josh had broken up with her, so obviously it was her fault. That was a thought she struggled with for a very long time. Needy, he had called her. That one stung the worst. He had been so direct without any apparent care for her at all. She supposed it was true, and she thought of all the times when she had made that neediness manifest in the relationship. Every time she had tried too hard, put forth that extra effort to love her boyfriend, to be there for him. Was that really so bad?

  She trudged along the sidewalk, hands in her pockets. A drop of rain fell on her nose and she looked up at the sky. Clouds bunched up together as far as she could see, something she hadn't even noticed as she was lost in her trance. The rain quickly picked up and suddenly it was a downpour.

  Katie was still at least a dozen blocks away from her apartment building and she would never get there on foot without showing up on her doorstep as a drenched rat. But she knew there was a bus stop ahead, just a block and a half away.

  She broke into a run and nearly got hit by a car as she crossed the street. Tears were still coming down her face from the breakup and she wasn't in a right frame of mind. She needed to get home before she hurt herself or anyone else.

  Three other people were huddled under the shelter of the bus stop when she got there. The summer air seemed to cool off considerably with the rain and Katie even began to shiver. The three strangers were comfortably spread out from each other and taking up most of the room in the small shelter, leaving Katie to squeeze just inside the doorway. Splashes of rain coated the front of her like a fine
mist and she crossed her arms over her chest, bitterly waiting for the bus.

  When it arrived, she hurried on and stopped next to the driver. Her eyes went wide. She stuffed her hands in her pockets but came up empty.

  "Sorry, just a minute," she said.

  She opened her purse and rooted through it, finding only a quarter inside. Her fingers danced along the bottom and came up with another dime, and she held the two coins up to the bus driver with a look of apology on her face.

  "This is all I have."

  The driver leveled a flat look at the coins. "The fare is two dollars," he said.

  "Would you hurry it up?" one of the strangers from the bus stop said behind her. "Come on, I'm getting wet out here!"

  "I'm sorry, I don't have anything else," Katie said, frantically digging in her purse.

  Everyone on the bus quickly became impatient and the driver jabbed his thumb back.

  "Thank you so much," she said and hurried down the aisle, rain dripping from her. Dozens of sets of dead and unfriendly eyes stared ahead, and Katie tried to find someone that was friendly enough to offer her up a seat. But no one did and she had to go to the back of the bus and sit next to an old woman that she strongly suspected was homeless.

  The bus rolled down the road and Katie closed her eyes, letting her head fall in her hands. Her throat was still tight and she wanted to burst into tears right then and there. She struggled to keep herself together. The air conditioning on the bus was going full blast and it made her wet body shake.

  The old woman sitting next to her began to cough, of course not in the other direction or covered by her hand, but directly on her.

  Katie squirmed onto the edge of the seat, sitting half on it and half floating in the aisle. The woman took the new vacuum of space as an invitation to grab the railing in front of her and hunch forward, getting all the phlegm out of her throat.