“Wow,” Wes said. “It’s so creepy.”
“It’s a good fit for Tobias,” Nick said.
Wes gave him a puzzled look. “I thought you said he was a perfectly nice guy.”
“He is,” Nick said.
“Then what—”
“I really don’t know,” Nick said. “He’s nice, really nice, as in totally pleasant and not in a freakish Anthony Perkins way. But he scares the shit out of pretty much everybody.”
“Why?”
Nick huffed and pulled Wes around to stand in front of him while he leaned against the side of the truck. “I told you I don’t know,” Nick said. “Maybe it’s because he’s really pale.” Nick didn’t really believe that. He didn’t know what it was though and trying to explain it was nearly pointless.
“Is he an albino?” Wes frowned. “No, that’s silly, right? Not the albino thing, they’re perfectly nice people. I mean the… well. If people do freak out just because he’s really pale then that’s an over the top reaction and very unkind.”
“You’d think he was an albino he’s so white, but no, he’s not,” Nick said. “He has dark hair and all.”
“Huh, well, that’s interesting,” Wes said. “Do you think he would let me tour the house?”
“Probably.” Actually, Nick did know; Tobias would let Wes wander through the house to his heart’s content. “If you can make it. I’ll ask his brother to ask him.”
“That would be great,” Wes said. “But until then… will you tell me about the house?”
“I thought you knew,” Nick said.
“There’s not as much information on it as you might think,” Wes said. “A lot of what is out there reads like it’s made up and the newspapers from around that time are all magically missing. That seems to happen a lot in Sparrow Falls.”
“We like to keep our skeletons buried in the backyard,” Nick said. He thought of the bunny, a quick mental picture of its mangled body, and shoved it away again. “Closets just aren’t deep enough for this town.”
“I like that,” Wes said. “Can I use that in my… thing?”
“You mean your not-book?” Nick asked.
“Yeah, my not-book,” Wes said. He leaned back against Nick more, settling in. “Tell me a story, Nick.”
Nick rested his chin on the top of Wes’s head and gazed across the lawn, gently lit with low wattage floodlights at intervals, to the hulking silhouette of Gallagher House. There were lights burning deep inside and the glow of multicolored Christmas tree lights spilled onto the lawn from a side window, painting the grass with rainbow splotches. Tobias and Dawn Marie were at home that evening or at least Tobias was.
Nick didn’t doubt that Tobias was aware of them lurking at the roadside, but Tobias wouldn’t care either. At least a couple times a year, people—usually tourist passersby—would climb the fence and actually sneak up to the house. Halloween was also a favorite among local teenagers to test their mettle—both against the horror of Gallagher House and Tobias’s creep-factor. Tobias usually greeted interlopers of all makes at the door. The trespassers always left shortly thereafter.
Nick’s first memory of the house back when he was young was that it seemed to swallow the sunlight around it. It had a slate roof and silvered cedar shingles on its upper turrets, the lower part of the house was heavy slabs of bluestone. Everything about it was dark and grey, the bluestone always left the house looking like it had just been rained on, as though it had its very own private storm cloud hovering over it. Nick’s dad had taken him to the house; the gates rusted and hanging open then like broken jaws. They’d sat in the driveway under the shadow of two towering pecan trees while he told Nick about Patrick Gallagher and his belles of the midnight ball.
Patrick had come to Louisiana from somewhere up north; no one seemed to know exactly where, though most agreed it was Canada. He’d married a local girl named Lauren and they’d had three beautiful daughters. As time went on, Patrick grew strange; he was secretive and snappish, he stopped taking visitors inside his home. He stopped allowing Lauren and the girls to go into town.
Their disappearance from the public was gradual: Lauren stopped coming into town with the maid to buy groceries and sent only the maid and their driver. She stopped visiting friends that she wasn’t very close to first, then one-by-one stopped seeing her closest friends. Her mother, Melissa, was the last to see her and she tried to get someone to go up to the house and demand entry. She had tried it herself, but to no avail. She said Lauren had behaved strangely, had told her, I’m so scared, Mama. But when Melissa tried to get her to stay with her, Lauren had refused because Patrick had a trick up his sleeve: he wouldn’t let her take the girls with her on the occasions she was allowed out of the house. It was a guarantee that she would come back, a ransom to hang over her head.
Their daughters missed a day or two of school here and there, then a week, then an entire month. Eventually, they didn’t come back at all. Some people said at first that the girls must have been sent to some fine boarding school somewhere. They discarded the idea when their instructors piped up about all of their absences leading up to their disappearances. People thought it was odd then, downright off, but no one actually did anything because they couldn’t. In the 1930s people could take their children out of school at any time for any reason and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
For a rich man like Patrick Gallagher to do it was strange though; he had all the help he could ever need. He wasn’t some poor farmer who had to take his sons out of school so they could help till the fields or his daughters so they could be married off and leave the family with fewer mouths to feed. Rich men like Patrick Gallagher usually liked their children educated, even the girls.
Friends, neighbors and the childrens’ teachers all attempted to call on the family, but no one answered their calls and the great black iron gates remained closed. Within a year, the servants were all let go and sent away. They told tales of Patrick Gallagher’s paranoia, how he was certain there were spies around every corner trying to steal his wife and daughters from him. He talked to himself all hours of the day and night, pacing the halls and ranting, frightening Lauren and the children. Some of the servants left on their own, unwilling to deal with Mr. Gallagher’s scary eccentricity any longer. They said he used to be such a nice man, but that was all over.
Years passed and as with time and distance, people began to forget them in their own way. Everyone except Lauren’s heartbroken mother who begged and begged the police for help, but the sheriff at the time would not listen to an old woman. He was a well-known woman-hater and had no use for what he termed the hysterics of some old bat. A deputy did ride out to the house a couple of times, but like everyone before him, he had no luck getting in or even getting a response. By that time, even the windows had been boarded up.
By the mid-1950s, the house was in a shambles and the state took it at last. It was too fine a home to tear down and it was solidly built; what disrepair it had suffered over the years could be easily fixed by some young couple looking for a stately home to start a modern American family in. It was the atomic age, Hitler had been defeated; suburbs and fast food restaurants had been invented. There was only one direction to go—forward.
The house sold quickly, a young couple from Lafayette bought it and went right to work on the restorations. At night though they heard strange sounds and soon began to notice things missing or moved in the house. They thought they heard whispering coming from the walls, following them from room to room. It became so bad that the young woman finally broke down in hysterics and had to leave for a while to stay with her mother.
Her first night back, they woke up to a violent shaking of their bed to find a grizzled old man in their room. He had his hands on the foot board, rattling it violently. When the young husband demanded to know what in the Devil he was doing in their home, the old man screeched in rage. He said they didn’t belong there. He said it was his house. The old man attacked the
husband, still screaming about how it was his house. He shrieked for them to get out. He said they couldn’t have what was his.
He said they were upsetting his wife and children.
The young husband managed to subdue the old man and the wife ran to dial the police. While they waited, the young husband asked the fuming, snarling old man his name. He said his name was Patrick Gallagher. He began demanding they get out of his house again, kept screaming about how they were frightening his wife and children with their racket and fornication. He said they could not have them.
When the authorities arrived, they took the man who claimed to be Patrick Gallagher into custody. He wouldn’t speak to anyone and demanded to be let go when he wasn’t demanding they arrest the people who had broken into his house and terrified his family so badly. When the police told him they had found no one else in the house other than him, the old man had smiled and said that was because his family was hidden. He said it was to keep them safe from the monsters and the spies, from the police that would try to drag them away.
A couple of days later, the young wife was organizing the master bedroom closet. She was still upset and afraid after what had happened. When she began removing clothes from the bar in the large walk-in closet, she noticed something odd. Part of one wall seemed to have shifted, like the wood behind the plaster had come loose from the nails holding it and was pushing outward. She ran her finger along the seam and felt cool air. Curious, she began to worry at the crack in the wall until finally it opened up to reveal a narrow doorway that led to a dark passageway.
She called her husband at work and then the police. They came at once and when the cops began to search the passageway, they soon found it was more than one passage; the house was full of them—the spaces between the walls were wide and there were even little antechambers. Some of them contained small stores of food; all vegetables from the garden they had found on the grounds during a cursory search just to see if there actually was a woman and children somewhere on the property. The new owners of the home had been embarrassed to admit they hadn’t known it was there; they’d barely explored the sprawling grounds of the house.
In one of the antechambers they found the woman and children. They were mummified corpses dressed in their Sunday best. The three children lay on pallets along one wall, stretched out head-to-toe. The woman was on a larger pallet on the other side, an old framed photograph clasped in her bony fingers. The other side of the pallet was empty though it was no leap to guess who had been sharing that crude bed with her.
A note was found in yet another cache, that one of keepsakes and valuables. It had been written by Lauren Gallagher on January 1, 1939. In it she begged God for forgiveness for what she was going to do, she asked that someone please tell her mother she loved her. She said she was writing a letter in the hope that one day they would be found and put to rest. She had killed her three lovely daughters and then herself because it was the only way she knew to escape the madman her husband had become.
Poor Lauren Gallagher had never escaped her deranged husband: Patrick Gallagher had refused to let her go even after death. So the years had passed and Patrick had disappeared into obscurity, just as he liked it. Until one day, the ever-changing world rediscovered him and dragged him back into the sick light of day. He spent his few remaining years in a mental hospital, kept locked away in a padded room. He never stopped demanding to be let go so he could see to his family.
“They’re buried on the property,” Nick said as he finished his tale. “I’ve seen the graves. It’s only Lauren and her daughters, not the old man.”
“What were their names?” Wes asked. He shivered and pressed close to Nick.
“Their daughters?”
“Mhmm.”
“Diana, Selene and Cynthia,” Nick said.
“I’ve really got to see that house,” Wes said. “Are the passageways still there?”
“As far as I know they are,” Nick said. “I don’t know how they could have been filled in if they were as wide as they say they were. I guess they could’ve sealed up the openings and hell, maybe they did now that I think about it.”
“That’s kinda sucky,” Wes said. “The passageways are the best part. Well. Maybe a crazy guy living in the walls of his own house for however long is the best part. Wait though—why did he go crazy to begin with?”
“I have no idea,” Nick said. “No one ever said, not that I heard anyway.”
“But why—”
“Do you two assholes want to come up to the house for some coffee? Maybe a snack?”
The voice from the other side of the road scared the hell out of both of them. Nick’s fingers clamped tight around the crowbar in his hand and Wes loosed a short, startled yell.
“Hey, Dawn Marie,” Nick said when it registered who it was. Soft, husky laughter drifted across the road to them and Nick let out a breath. “Sorry for the loitering.”
“Oh, hey, it’s no problem,” she said. “We got people out here doing this all the time. It only really pisses me off when they start taking pictures. Camera flashes at night look a hell of a lot like the oncoming alien apocalypse.”
“Maybe we should go,” Wes said. “I’m sorry, Miss, really. I just wanted to see the house.”
“It’s okay,” Nick said.
“She sounds mad,” Wes said.
“I always sound like this,” Dawn Marie said. “I’m fucking classy that way.”
“Oh,” Wes said. “Um…”
Nick stepped from behind him and reached back to tug him along as he crossed the road to where Dawn Marie stood behind the black iron gate. Her face had barely been visible from the dim light thrown by the upside down sconces and up close it wasn’t much better. He could make out her mane of pale auburn hair that spread out around her head and shoulders like a fluffy, unkempt cloud. Her face was mostly lost in shadows, but there was the gleam of light shining in her dark eyes and the white of her teeth when she grinned. She was wearing a long robe that Nick thought had smiley faces all over it. Or maybe it was cupcakes. He couldn’t really tell.
“Hey, Nick,” she said. “I thought that was you.” She turned to take a better look at Wes. “And hello to you, too, cutie.”
“My… um… well… that’s forward.” Wes brushed at his sweater. “Hello.”
“So, you brought your pal by to see the house, right? I figure every town needs a ‘crazy fucker living in the walls’ story, but Toby says if every town had one then ours wouldn’t be so unique. I guess I can see his point.”
“I was wondering, well, if you don’t mind…” Wes looked over at Nick who shrugged then gently nudged him with his elbow.
Dawn Marie glanced between the two of them and snorted more laughter. “You want a tour, is that it?” she asked.
“Can I?” Wes said. “I can pay.”
“No way,” Dawn Marie said. “Toby would freak out if I charged someone for the privilege of tripping the creep fantastic. Come by anytime between two and six in the evening, cute guy whose name Nick didn’t bother to tell me.”
“Wes. His name is Wes,” Nick said.
“Good to know you still have some manners,” Dawn Marie said. “Hi, Wes.”
“Hi,” Wes said. “I can do that. I mean, I’d love to do that. Is it all right if I take pictures? Are the passageways still there? Can I see the graves?”
“Whoa,” Dawn Marie said. “Slow down before you blow a load in your Dockers. Come by, we’ll do the walkthrough thing and you can find out all of that for yourself. And yeah, you can take pictures.”
“That is such great news, thank you.” Wes bounced lightly from foot to foot, almost wiggling he was so excited.
Dawn Marie bit her bottom lip, wiggled her fingers at them and stepped back. “Welcome,” she said. “Now if you fine gentlemen will excuse me, I need to be on my way. Tomorrow is a work day. Be good, Nick.”
Nick nodded at her and took Wes by the arm. He was leaning closer to the gates, hands wrapped a
round the cold iron bars as he looked up at the house soaring above the trees. He came along, feet scuffing against the gravel littered on the drive. Dawn Marie’s husky laughter floated back to them from the darkness, like she herself had become one of Gallagher House’s ghosts.
“That was amazing,” Wes said once they were back in the truck.
Wes was still fidgeting, a kid on Christmas morning; one who liked getting severed heads from Santa, not sweaters from Aunt Maude. Except with Wes the latter might not be true. Nick drove them back to the inn with the thought that Wes’s perfect Christmas might include both a knitted sweater with ugly holly wreathes on it and a severed head. Barring the severed head, maybe a guy with a chainsaw, some handcuffs and a safe word.
Back at the inn, Nick went up to Wes’s room with him.
“I went shopping yesterday,” Wes said.
“Oh?”
“Yes.” Wes went to the closet in his room and came back with two bags, one from the dollar store, the other from the hardware store. He tapped his bottom lip and then shook his head. “That can be for later,” he muttered as he walked by Nick to the closet again to put the hardware store bag away.
Wes came back with his smaller suitcase, one done in hounds tooth with wheels, and laid it on the table. He opened it and rummaged around under all the neatly folded underwear and socks. It was only then that Nick thought about how much luggage Wes had with him. He wasn’t a fussy dresser, he didn’t need a wardrobe change three times a day like some diva. He’d brought so many clothes with him because they were step one of the moving process he might not have even been aware of when he left Atlanta.
Nick heard a clink and lifted his head to pay closer attention to Wes. When he saw what he was holding in his hands, a question written plainly in his big brown eyes, Nick also thought he wouldn’t have left Atlanta without those if he hadn’t meant to stay. Handcuffs weren’t the kind of thing a person took on a short vacation unless they were taking it with someone else.
Shades of Night (Sparrow Falls Book 1) Page 14
