House of Fear

by Joe R. Lansdale

  He watched her stride from the bar, a combination of depression and desperation opening up within him like a pit.

  He hit the bottle over the course of the next week.

  In the days before the play was due to open, he tried to phone her every hour. Each time he was diverted to her answerphone and he left ranting, incoherent messages pleading with her to think again, to abandon the project. He said that if she cared nothing for her own life, then at least consider his own peace of mind. And he begged her to contact him.

  He heard nothing from Caroline, and he renewed his barrage of calls. He rang the theatre, demanding to be put through to her, and when his request was refused he asked to speak to the director or producer. Evidently reception had been primed and, ever so politely, he was informed that the people he wished to speak to were either absent or busy with rehearsals.

  Then, the day before the opening night, he did get through to Caroline on her mobile.

  “Caroline! Thank Christ!”

  “Charles, this is most incon –”

  “Don’t hang up, I beg you! Listen, we must meet.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Then we must talk. Please, listen to me! The last time we met... I didn’t tell you everything. I didn’t tell you what happened between me and Emmeline, what she said before, before she...”

  “Charles, none of that matters, now. Don’t you see, all that is in the past.”

  “No, you don’t understand. You see, before she went out and –”

  “Charles, I really must go now.”

  He cried, “At least think of me, Caroline! Think of my sanity!”

  She paused, then said, “That’s exactly what I am doing, Charles. I am thinking of you, your sanity. Can’t you see that?”

  And before he could think of a reply, she cut the connection.

  He hurled the receiver across the hallway, then hurried to his study and poured himself a whisky.

  On the night of the opening he sat at his desk and stared out across the moonlit lawn to the dark shape of the willow. He had spent the day drinking in preparation for the call that would tell him that Caroline was dead. He was reconciled to the fact, knew that there could be no other outcome. And then, when Caroline was dead and he had no reason to go on living? He smiled to himself. There was a rope in the garage... His end would be entirely fitting.

  He saw movement on the lawn, a fleet figure in the moonlight. He stood, swaying, and knocked over the chair. Staggering, he propelled himself to the French windows, managed to fumble them open and stepped into the warm night.

  He saw movement beyond the fringe of the willow tree and crossed the lawn towards it.

  He stood and stared, and saw his wife at the age of twenty, before the years and mental illness had ravaged her body and soul. She peeked out at him from behind the fronds, playfully.

  “You!” he said.

  He closed his eyes and relived the very last occasion on which he had seen her alive. She was drunk, tormented by the demons of her depression. She was also naked, and perilously thin, as she gestured at him with a gin bottle clutched in her fist.

  You’ll regret it, Charles! Oh, you’ll regret it if you stage the damned play!

  He had told her that it was his art, as her paintings were her art; she had no compunction about portraying him in less than complimentary fashion, had she?

  That’s different! My paintings won’t be seen by thousands! They won’t know it’s you... Your portrayal of me is cruel.

  He’d told her thatit was an honest portrait of the person she might become... But had he been lying even to himself?

  You’ll regret it, Charles. Stage the play and you’ll live to regret it! I’ll haunt it, do you hear! My soul will not rest...

  He’d told her she was ranting. Come inside, he’d coaxed; come inside and get warm before the fire. We’ll have coffee. I’ll hold you...

  But she had ran off, laughing, and he had turned and made his slow way back to the house.

  Now he opened his eyes, and it was a second or two before he realised what he had heard.

  The phone was ringing in the house.

  He turned, stumbling, and ran towards the open French windows. The summons became shrill as he barged into the hall and approached the phone.

  He stopped, and a cold fear gripped him. He knew what he was about to hear, as he reached out and picked up the receiver.

  He heard a crackle, then silence. A voice, so faint, sounded as if from a million miles away.

  “What?” he said. “Who is this!”

  The line went dead.

  He paced the hall, weeping, back and forth, back and forth; he saw Caroline in his mind’s eye, her beauty superimposed upon Emmeline’s emaciated, mocking face.

  He looked at his watch. It was after eleven now. When would the play have ended? More than an hour ago, surely?

  The phone sounded behind him like a detonation, shocking him. He grabbed it. “Yes, who is it?”

  “Charles! Edward here.”

  He almost cried out in despair. “What the hell do you want?”

  “Charles, are you okay? You been hitting the old – ?”

  “I’m fine,” he snapped. “What do you want?”

  “Just had a call from the US. That film company I told you about – they’ve made a meaty offer for the rights of the Tide series –”

  He laughed out loud at the sheer banality of the communication, and slammed down the receiver.

  He resumed his pacing. He wanted nothing more than to be put out of his misery. He knew with a terrible inevitability what the next hour or so would bring, and he wanted it to be over and done with.

  He willed the phone to ring with the news, then wondered why he was waiting. Why not pre-empt the inevitable? He knew where the rope was stored, and the main bough of the willow would take his weight... Do it now, he urged himself, get it over with.

  He hurried down the hall and through the front door. He crossed to the garage beside the house, his way lit by the full moon. He scraped open the garage door, laughing now with relief that the end was so near.

  He found the old cardboard box in the corner of the garage and pulled out the looped rope, thick and rough in his grip. It was even tied into an accommodating noose, so he need not spend time trying to form the knot.

  He turned and moved to the entrance of the garage, the rope heavy in his arms.

  When he heard the sound of the car in the drive, popping gravel, he knew that rather than phone him, someone at the theatre – the producer or director, perhaps – had come to see him personally with the dire tidings.

  He stopped by the door and stared out.

  A black car, appropriately enough, faced him across the gravel. Moonlight glinted on the windscreen, concealing whoever was in the driving seat.

  He steeled himself for the news, and he knew how he would react. He would tell whoever it was that he had begged her not to go ahead with the play, that he had told her she would die. Shunning responsibility, yet again...

  He took a step towards the car, then stopped.

  The door cracked open and the driver stepped out.

  He dropped the coiled rope.

  She faced him, smiling. “I told you,” she murmured. She looked at the small gold watch on her slim wrist and said, “Almost three hours, Charles, and I’m still alive. And,” she went on, “that was the first time and the very last that I’ll play the part. An understudy can take over, now.”

  “Caroline,” he said.

  He wanted to take her to the willow tree and show her where, almost forty years ago, Emmeline had hanged herself, and he would try to explain the guilt he had carried with him down all the years.

  He would sell his wife’s early, exuberant self-portraits, he decided, and the later, haunted paintings he would ceremonially burn... and in so doing exorcise Emmeline’s ghost from the house, for ever.

  Caroline came towards him. “You’re free, Charles,” she said. �
�You’re free, at last.”

  He crossed the driveway to meet her in the moonlight.

  TRICK OF THE LIGHT

  Tim Lebbon

  When you think about it, it does seem strange that there aren’t more haunted house stories and tales of the supernatural that feature ageing as a theme. After all, ghosts symbolise lives lived and the certainty of death; a revenant is a reminder of what happens to us all. Tim Lebbon’s story, then, is unusual in its sensitive handling of this subject, and the denouement of ‘Trick of the Light’ is as moving as it is frightening.

  It was the longest drive she had ever made on her own, and she so wanted the house to feel like home. But when she turned up the short driveway from the narrow country road, and the place revealed itself behind a riot of trees and bushes, Penny stopped the car and looked down into her lap.

  “Oh, Peter,” she said.

  That’s okay, Peter says. I’m here with you. You’re a brave little rose, and you’ll always be safe with me.

  Penny’s hands were clasping together. She forced them apart and reached for the ignition, silencing the car’s grumble. It, like her, had never come so far.

  She looked up slowly at the house, trembling with a subdued fear of elsewhere that had been with her forever, but also a little excited too. This was her taking control. Her heart hurried, her stomach felt low and heavy, and she thought perhaps she might never be able to move her legs again. The mass of the house drew her with a strange gravity. For Peter’s memory, and the short time she had left, she so wanted to understand.

  She had bought it because of its uniqueness. While it had a traditional-enough lower two levels – tall bay windows, stone walls, an inset oak front door, sandstone quoins – a tower rose a further two stories, ending in a small circular room with a conical roof and dark windows. The estate agent had told her that an old boss of the coal mines had used the tower to oversee work in the valleys. The mines were long gone and the valleys changed beyond recognition, but Penny quite liked the grounding of this story. It gave the building a solid history, and that was good. Mystery had always troubled her.

  Beyond photographs, this was her first time seeing the house. Her first time being here, in her new home. She knew that Peter would have been impressed.

  “I think you’ll like it here,” she said, and as she reached for the door handle, a movement caught her eye. She leaned forward and looked up at the tower’s upper windows. Squinting against sunlight glaring from the windscreen, holding up one hand, she saw the smudge of a face pressed against the glass.

  “Oh!” Penny gasped. She leaned left and right, trying to change her angle of sight through the windscreen, but the face remained. It was pale and blurred by dust. Too far away to discern expression or features, she had the impression that the mouth was open.

  Shouting, perhaps.

  Penny shoved the car door open and stood, shoes crunching on the gravel driveway, fully expecting the face to have vanished as she emerged from the vehicle’s warm protection. But it was still there.

  “Ah, Mrs Summers,” a voice said. A tall, thin man emerged from the front porch, and though she had not met him, she recognised her solicitor’s smooth manner and gentle voice. “Is there...?” He rushed to her, his concern almost comical.

  Dust, she thought. The shape was much less solid now.

  “Hello, Mr Gough.” She only glanced at him as she held out her hand, and he shook her hand whilst looking up at the tower.

  “A problem?” he asked. “Broken windows? A bird’s nest in the aerial?”

  “No,” Penny said. I did not see a face at the window. “No problem. Just a trick of the light.”

  Mr Gough’s affected concern vanished instantly, and his smile and smoothness returned. “It is a beautiful sunny day, isn’t it?”

  Penny did not reply. She approached her new home, and already she could hear the phone inside ringing.

  Peter moves his food around the plate. Pork chops, boiled potatoes, carrots, cauliflower. He’s eaten some of the meat, and picks at where shreds are trapped between his teeth.

  “Fuck’s sake,” he mutters.

  “Peter, please don’t talk like that,” Penny says. Sometimes she thinks outright anger would be better, but Peter rarely loses his temper.

  “It’s just...” He trails off, and she knows what he has to say.

  “It doesn’t appeal to me,” she says. “The heat, for one. Flies, midgies, the diseases they carry. The toilets out there, and you know me and my stomach. And the sun is so strong. I burn just thinking about going out in the sun.” It makes her sad, this gulf of ambition between them. It has always been present, but where there were once bridges of love and mutual respect, they have petrified as they both aged.

  “Fuck’s sake,” he says again.

  Peter gets up and leaves the room. She hears him storming upstairs, opening and closing cupboards, and when he comes down again he is wearing his hiking boots, trousers, and a fleece.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Somewhere else,” he says. The gentle way he closes the front door is worse than a slam.

  “I worry about you,” Belinda said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Mum, you don’t sound fine.”

  “It was a long drive, that’s all, dear. And you know me, I haven’t driven that long in...” Ever, Penny thought. I’m further from home than I’ve ever been. She felt suddenly sick, and sat gently on the second stair.

  Take a rest, Peter says, tough voice soothing. Take the weight off.

  A shadow filled the doorway and Mr Gough paused, as if waiting for her permission. She waved without looking, and the shadow entered her house.

  “So. The house?” Belinda asked.

  “Beautiful. He’ll love it.” There was an awkward silence.

  “Russ and I will bring Flynn down for a visit next weekend. See if you’re settled all right, look around. Russ says to make a list of any jobs that need doing.”

  “I still won’t have it that he’s dead,” Penny said. “You know that.”

  “Mum, it’s been over seven years. He’s been declared –”

  “I don’t care what some strangers declare about my husband. I’d know if he was dead, and I say he isn’t. He’s... gone somewhere else, that’s all.”

  “What, for a long walk?”

  “Bindy.”

  “Sorry, Mum. But don’t talk as if you and Dad had some kind of special bond. We both know that isn’t really true.”

  “It’ll be lovely to see Flynn,” Penny said. “The garden’s big enough to kick his football around. And can you ask Russ to bring some stuff for cleaning windows?”

  “I will, Mum.” Belinda’s voice was heavy with concern and frustration, but Penny was here now. She had made the break. Left her own home, bought somewhere unusual, twelve miles from the nearest town and without bringing her TV with her. The furniture was coming the following day, but she had been careful to bring particular things herself – walking boots, a coat, a map. She loved the symbolism in that.

  “It’s not much, dear,” Penny said. “I know that. It’s not Cancun, or China, or an Antarctic cruise, or the Northern Lights, or any of those things he always wanted to do with me. But it’s something. It’s a small step on a longer journey. He’d be very surprised at me and... proud, I think.” She glanced up at Mr Gough, listening and trying to appear distracted. And then she looked around the large hallway, three doors leading off into new rooms, timber floor scuffed, ceiling lined with old beams. “He’ll love it here.”

  “Okay, Mum. Just... call me if you need anything. Will you do that?”

  “Of course. Give my love to Russ and little Flynn.”

  “Love you, Mum. Really.”

  Belinda hung up first, and Penny could tell that her daughter was starting to cry. She hated hearing that. Which was why she had yet to tell Bindy that she was dying.

  “Would you like a tour?” Mr Gough said.

  Penny shook
her head. “Just the keys, please.”

  “But you really should look at the tower, it’s a remarkable feature, makes the house –”

  “Really, I’m fine. Very tired.” Penny stood, wincing at the pain in her hips from the long drive. Her bones ached from the other thing.

  “Okay, then,” the solicitor said. Smile painted on, now. He handed her a bunch of keys, then a smaller set. “Spares.” He glanced around. “Lovely old place. You’re very lucky, Mrs Summers.”

  As he turned to leave, a sense of such profound terror and isolation struck Penny that she slumped back against the stair bannister, grabbing hold as the house swam around her. She tried to call out, but her mouth was too dry. Help me! she thought, feeling a great weight of foreboding bearing down upon her. Up there, there’s something above, a terrible thing that is pressing down on me now I’m inside. Dusty windows, a trick of the light, but I can hear it up there, I can almost smell it, and I wish I was back in my garden with the roses and rhododendrons.

  Then the feeling started to filter away, and she knew that this was an important moment. She could give in to the terror and run. Or she could remain in her new, temporary home.

  There, there, Peter says, his rough working-man’s fingers stroking her cheek with infinite care and softness. Come on, my little rose. Don’t be afraid. You never have to be afraid when you’re with me. He has not spoken to her like this since they were in their twenties, madly in love and obsessed only with each other. I’ll never let you be hurt.

  “Thank you, Mr Gough,” she whispered. The departing solicitor waved a hand without turning around, indicating that he must have heard. As he climbed into his Jeep, he glanced back at the house just once.

  Not at Penny. At the tower. His constant smile had vanished.

  She gave herself a tour of the house and wondered what she had done.