Home Improvement: Undead Edition

by Harris, Charlaine

  “Eve, get up. Now. Get up, put on a robe.”

  Ruth’s tone, knife sharp, sliced through Eve’s lethargy. Eve struggled out of bed. Her mother helped her into her robe and slippers. She found a scarf and tied it around Eve’s matted hair, unwashed for days.

  “Perfect,” Ruth said with hollow cheer.

  With her hand under Eve’s elbow, she escorted a wobbly Eve into the breakfast nook. Her father was there, and Joe.

  The rabbi was old and stooped, with a long silky white beard and white hair covered by a black velvet yarmulke. His face had a thousand wrinkles.

  “Sit, sit.” In a deep, unwavering voice the rabbi ordered everyone else from the room.

  Eve sat opposite him and tried to place his accent. Yemenite? Definitely Sephardic. His eyes were the eyes of a young man, the dark brown of molten chocolate.

  “Your husband tells me you have been hearing voices,” the rabbi said. “When did they start?”

  Eve had expected skepticism or pity, but the rabbi sounded genuinely interested. “The first night we moved into the house, I heard scratching sounds. I think an animal made them. Then I started hearing the voices.”

  “What do the voices sound like?”

  Eve described the whooshing sound. “They tell me to leave. I’m not crazy,” she said with some defiance. “Did my husband tell you I’m crazy?”

  The rabbi shook his head. “Your husband loves you very much. He is worried about you.”

  Eve’s smile was thin. “He told you that, too?”

  The rabbi studied her. “You don’t believe your husband loves you?”

  Eve lowered her eyes under the intensity of his piercing gaze. “I don’t know what to believe.”

  The rabbi nodded. “These voices that you hear in your bedroom, Mrs. Stollman. Do you hear them anywhere else?”

  She shook her head.

  “You also have bad dreams, yes?”

  “Every night.”

  “Tell me about the dreams.”

  Eve started talking. The rabbi closed his eyes, and she thought, Great, the old man fell asleep, but the moment she stopped, he said, “Please, continue.”

  When she had finished, the rabbi was silent for a while. Then he said, “I can see why you are so troubled. But something else is bothering you.”

  “My husband didn’t tell you?” The sarcasm had slipped out. Eve flushed with embarrassment, but she wasn’t really sorry.

  The rabbi’s smile was a gentle reproof. “I would very much like to hear this from you.”

  So Eve told him about the cracks in the walls, the broken light switches, the scratches on the floors, the recurring strange markings in the shower.

  “Who do you think is doing this?” the rabbi asked.

  Did she dare? “My husband,” Eve whispered. “He wants to make me think I’m crazy. He wants—he wants the house. He doesn’t love me.” She hadn’t meant to cry, but tears streamed down her face.

  “And you know this from your dreams?”

  Eve felt silly.

  The rabbi said, “Your husband loves you deeply. This I know to be true.”

  “How? How can you know?”

  “I know.”

  “You do think I’m crazy,” Eve said. Maybe she was.

  The rabbi pushed himself up from the chair with a sudden movement that startled her. “Come.”

  Eve followed him to her bedroom. How odd, she thought, that the rabbi seemed to know the way, as though he’d been here before. He stopped in the doorway of the master bedroom, as her mother had.

  “They are very angry,” he said quietly. “I feel them.”

  Eve shivered. “Who?”

  Squaring his shoulders, the rabbi stepped into the room and stood motionless for several long minutes. He took his time examining the wall behind the beds, then the other walls and the floors. In the bathroom he looked first at the protruding nails. Stooping down, he peered at the markings on the bottom of the shower. He returned to the bedroom, Eve following.

  “Show me where you hear the voices,” the rabbi said.

  Eve walked to her bed and pointed to an area above the headboard. “There.”

  “Do you hear them now?”

  Was he testing her? She shook her head. “Can you—do you hear anything?”

  “Mrs. Stollman, they have no quarrel with me.”

  The rabbi sprinted out of the room and down the hallway as though he were fleeing. Eve, out of shape and out of breath, had difficulty keeping up. Her parents and Joe were seated at the dining room table. They stood as the rabbi and Eve passed through the room and looked at the rabbi expectantly. He motioned to them to remain where they were and continued to the breakfast room, Eve at his heels.

  The rabbi sat at the table. Eve did the same.

  “Mrs. Stollman, did you close up any windows in your bedroom? Any doors?”

  “No. Rabbi Ben-Amichai—”

  “The people who lived in this house before you—your husband told me about the tragedy. Two deaths, Hashem yerachem.” God have mercy. “Did they seal a door? A window?”

  “I don’t know,” Eve said, stifling her impatience. “Rabbi Ben-Amichai, when we were in my bedroom, you said you felt them. Who is ‘they’?”

  “Shedim,” the rabbi said, his voice low. “Some feel that even to say the word is not advisable.”

  Demons. Eve flinched.

  “They are made of air, fire, and water. The sages tell us that in three ways shedim are like angels. They have wings. They fly from one end of the earth to the other. They hear what will happen in the future.” The rabbi paused. “In three ways they are like humans. They eat and drink like humans, they reproduce like humans, they die like humans. They are here right now.”

  Eve felt a prickling up and down her spine. She looked around.

  “Trust me, they are here, Mrs. Stollman,” the rabbi said quietly. “The Talmudic scholar Rav Huna stated that every one of us has one thousand shedim on his left hand and ten thousand on his right.”

  Eve squirmed.

  “Sometimes we can sense them. Have you ever felt crowded even though no one is sitting next to you?” The rabbi leaned toward Eve. “These shedim are what you feel pressing on you every night, breathing on you.” He eyed her with sympathy and a touch of sadness. “You do not believe me.”

  “It’s . . .” Eve shook her head.

  “Sprinkle ashes on the floor around your bed, Mrs. Stollman. In the morning you will see their footprints, resembling those of a chicken.”

  Eve flashed to the markings on the mortar. Not possible, she thought. Still, she felt a frisson of fear and revulsion.

  “If you are determined to see them, take finely ground ashes of the afterbirth of a black cat and put them in your eye. You will see them.” The rabbi raised a finger. “I must warn you, this is dangerous. Rav Huna saw shedim and came to harm. Luckily the scholars prayed for him and he recovered.” The rabbi fixed her with his deep brown eyes. “Now it is you who are thinking, ‘This old man is crazy,’ yes?” A smile tugged at his lips.

  Eve blushed and looked away. “The markings in the shower could be from a bird.” Or Joe.

  The rabbi didn’t respond.

  “Suppose you’re right,” Eve said, facing the rabbi. “Why would these shedim be tormenting me?”

  “You or someone else has interfered with them. I believe that there was a window or door on the wall where you hear the voices. You say you did not seal off a window—”

  “I didn’t.”

  The rabbi nodded. “You do not know if the people who lived here before you sealed off a window or door.”

  “They did make changes,” Eve said, remembering what the neighbor had told her. “I don’t know what kind. Why does that matter?”

  “Shedim have established pathways, Mrs. Stollman. When you interrupt those pathways, they are resentful. They take vengeance. These shedim resided in your house long before you moved in. To them, you are intruders, trespassers.”
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br />   Eve wanted to say, That’s ridiculous. But how could she insult this bearded holy man sitting in her home? “Rabbi, why doesn’t my husband hear the voices? Why isn’t he having similar nightmares?”

  The rabbi shook his head. “That I cannot answer. Your dreams trouble you more than the voices, am I right?”

  “Yes.”

  “They have robbed you not only of sleep, but of peace of mind, of trust in your husband. They have convinced you he means you harm.”

  Eve felt as though her heart would crack. “Yes.”

  “Why do you assume these dreams are true?”

  “I have the same dream, over and over. Why would that be unless my unconscious is telling me something, warning me? You said shedim can tell the future, Rabbi. Do they share that knowledge with humans through dreams?”

  The rabbi nodded. “They do.”

  Well then, Eve thought.

  “But shedim love to confound humans, to mix truth with lies,” the rabbi said. “Remember, they are not here to protect you. Quite the opposite. At the very least, find the location of the window or door that was sealed off. Make a small hole through the wall so that the shedim can resume their movement unobstructed.”

  “And that will stop the voices? The nightmares?”

  The rabbi sighed. “This is a house of misery and bad fortune, Mrs. Stollman. Two people have died unnatural deaths. I’m afraid the shedim will never leave you in peace.”

  “SHEDIM? ASHES OF black cats?” Joe said after the rabbi had blessed Eve and Joe and left with her parents. “Sounds like Macbeth, or Halloween. I don’t really believe in this stuff, babe. Do you?”

  “Not really,” Eve said, wishing she did.

  Her parents had been less skeptical. Her father had looked somber and her mother had said, “Oh my God,” several times and shuddered.

  Watching Joe tap his fingers on the wall above her headboard in expanding circles, Eve thought, wouldn’t it be something if the rabbi were right—frightening, yes, but at the same time wonderful?

  “Sounds solid to me, Eve,” Joe said.

  “Oh.”

  “I can call the broker tomorrow and ask him to find out if the Goodriches sealed off a window. Or I can have Ken open the wall.”

  “You can ask our neighbor, Sandy,” Eve said. “She might know.”

  “She may not be home,” Joe said. He saw the look on Eve’s face. “Okay. I’ll go check.”

  Standing in front of the breakfast nook window, Eve juggled hope and despair for what seemed like an eternity until she saw Joe coming back up the walkway.

  “What did Sandy say?” Eve asked, knowing the answer from Joe’s shaken expression.

  Shedim.

  “They sealed off a bedroom window,” Joe said, his voice subdued and so quiet she had to lean in to hear him. “Sandy wanted to know why I was asking. I said we were wondering, because the wall sounded hollow.”

  “Good thinking,” Eve said. They were around her, around Joe, everywhere. Thousands, the rabbi had said.

  Joe pulled Eve into his arms. “I am so, so sorry I doubted you, babe. I feel terrible that I accused you of sleepwalking and doing all that stuff.”

  “You couldn’t know.”

  He pulled away and stared at her. “This is surreal, isn’t it? Scary as hell.”

  “It is.” Eve’s heart soared.

  RABBI BEN-AMICHAI HAD advised selling the house, but Eve and Joe saw no harm in trying a less drastic measure. They would ask Ken to bore a hole through the bedroom wall. If that didn’t appease the shedim, they would sell, probably at a loss, but they would have no choice.

  Joe said, only half joking, “We’d have to ask the rabbi if we’re obligated to tell the broker about the shedim.”

  In the morning Joe would drive Eve to her parents’ home, where she would stay until Ken made the hole and the rabbi determined that the house was safe for Eve.

  “I can take you now,” Joe said. “I don’t want you to suffer through one more night of voices and nightmares.”

  Eve said, “Tomorrow is fine, Joe. Now that I know what’s going on, I’m not scared.”

  Joe bought dinner from Cambridge Farms: sushi, Eve’s favorite saffron rice with cranberries, grilled steak. Eve, feeling better than she had in weeks, was ravenous. Later Joe murmured, “You and me forever, babe,” and she fell asleep in his arms.

  Eve dreamed. She was in a long narrow room filled with Hebrew texts and men wrapped in prayer shawls. A shul. She saw a white-haired man with a long white beard sitting on a bench at a table piled with open texts. He was so familiar, who—

  Rabbi Ben-Amichai.

  A man approached the rabbi, his back to Eve. He shook the rabbi’s hand and sat across from him. The two talked. Eve heard the man say, “. . . at my wits’ end, Rabbi . . . need your help.” The rabbi raised his hands, palms up. The man leaned forward and continued. Eve couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she sensed the urgency in the hunch of his shoulders, saw the rabbi’s responding sigh. The rabbi said, “I cannot promise, but I will try.” The men shook hands again across the table. Then the man turned and Eve knew before she saw his face that it was Joe. She watched as Joe, crossing the room, greeted her father and brought him to the rabbi’s table.

  The image shifted to the cemetery. Eve saw her parents and Joe’s, crying at her gravesite. She saw Joe and the brown-haired woman stealing glances, their hands touching. “. . . everyone knows she was crazy, Joe, don’t blame yourself.” Rabbi Ben-Amichai was standing to the side, his white head raised toward the sky, his faced etched with grief, tears streaming from his dark brown eyes as he beat his chest with a clenched fist.

  Then the voices, the rabbi’s among them: Leave, leave, leave. Not a whisper, no, a cry.

  Joe had fooled the rabbi. He had almost fooled Eve. “I don’t believe in this shedim stuff, do you, babe? We’ll make the hole through the wall, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll sell.”

  All to get her out of the house.

  Eve woke with a start and blinked her eyes open. Her heart was beating so rapidly she was sure Joe heard. She gazed at Joe, lying on his back, asleep.

  Lover or traitor?

  And how would she die? Would she take her own life, driven mad by the voices and dreams and despair? Or would Joe lose patience? Would he poison her? Drug her? Smother her with a pillow as he leaned in for a final kiss?

  Shedim lied.

  Shedim lied, Eve reminded herself. The rabbi had said so. Shedim lied. Shedim lied.

  Were they urging her to leave, showing her a future they hoped she would avoid? Or were they laughing at her with malicious glee, trying to shatter her newfound faith in Joe?

  How could Eve know what was truth and what was fabrication?

  Lover or traitor?

  Careful not to wake Joe, Eve slid off the bed. She tiptoed down the hall to the kitchen. She eased open a drawer.

  She would never leave, never, unless she was taken out feet first, and then she wouldn’t go alone, oh no.

  She loved Joe so much. She really did.

  Eve lay on her back, the knife tucked under her thigh, sharp against her skin.

  Blood on the Wall

  HEATHER GRAHAM

  There it was—that stench of stale blood again.

  DeFeo Montville stood and stared at the desecration of his family’s handsome temple tomb, set almost dead center in the peace and beauty of the cemetery—this “city of the dead” where some of the finest names to ever grace Louisiana found their rest. Even in a cemetery where the dead rested in style, the Montville vault was a thing of sheer grandeur. The façade was pillared and porticoed, a gloriously winged and weeping angel sat atop the vaulted roof, and a cast-iron gate opened to the small altar area that separated the rows of the family’s individual tombs.

  Naturally, the gate was kept locked.

  But that didn’t stop hooligans from their graffiti and vandalism.

  He inhaled. Pig’s blood, he thought. And he knew how
it had come to be there, or he was almost certain that he knew. Austin Cramer.

  Cramer was the self-proclaimed god of a so-called voodoo-vampire cult, though what the man didn’t seem to know about the contemporary American practice of voodoo would surely fill enough volumes to cross the ocean. He was a dropout, but a dropout who had a way with women, motorcycles, and oration. He rode a Harley and wore black at all times; maintained a head full of sleek, pitch-black hair; and had the look. He wanted the world to think of him as a New Age Aleister Crowley—in his mansion in the Garden District, he had collected a harem of Cramerworshipping girls and, of course, a following of young men who wanted to be just like Cramer, or to have young women worshipping them—as they did Cramer. As far as DeFeo knew, the jerk and his friends were just into girls, unlike the real Crowley, who would sleep with just about anyone—or anything.

  He called himself the Father of the Brotherhood, and he preached a lifestyle that wasn’t exactly Satanism, but something like it. Cramer had borrowed from Crowley and, DeFeo was fairly certain, from the religious view of demonology during the days of the witch burnings.

  And, of course, because DeFeo’s ancestor, Antoine Montville, had been suspected of Satanism during his day (a complete lie!), Cramer—a man he could just tell had been a nerdy-brat-turned-cult-master—liked to bring his acolytes to the cemetery, perform a sacrifice ritual, and cast blood over the tomb. They snuck in and carried out their ridiculous rites when he was working, which meant he was going to have to be working a case in the area if there was any hope of catching the little bastard and his crew. He had long ago gotten his license and hung up his shingle as a private investigator; it kept him friendly with the police. He liked the fellows in this district, but he knew, too, that they were busy with gangs, robberies, and other cases of violent crime. They’d do their best, but they couldn’t just hang around the cemetery watching for a vandal.

  DeFeo shook his head, turned to the bucket of water and soap he’d brought, and started cleaning. Eventually, workers would have come in to do the chore; he wouldn’t wait for “eventually.” He finished cleaning the tomb and decided to head down to Frenchmen Street, hope a real jazz band was playing somewhere, and try to drink some of his aggravation down. There were some interesting things going on in the city, but for now, he’d take a night off, look forward to some enjoyment, and calm his simmering inner rage against a petty—idiot.