by Greg Herren
Outside, the chain saw revved up. Next spring, they wanted to put a garden on the other side of the driveway, and David planned to take down some of the maples and spruces to make room. The thought of more firewood actually warmed Jason up for a moment, and he drifted off.
He dreamed of a fly buzzing by his ear before he woke up. The fire had died down to embers, and the living room was dim in the slanting late-afternoon sunlight. He sat up and reached for his mug, which had gone cold. He could still hear the fly—which, he realized, wasn’t a fly. It was David’s chain saw, and it had been running a long time.
He set the mug down and got to his feet. His first instinct was to go outside and see what was wrong. Because something was wrong, he was sure of it. Even more than that, though, he didn’t want to leave the house. As long as he stayed inside, everything might be fine.
The chill at his back goaded him forward, though. It taunted him into the foyer, rustled the curtains over the sidelight as he fumbled with his boots, and snatched the door out of his grasp and banged it open.
Felled, the tree seemed larger than it had when it was upright. It lay across the driveway, and the yellow-leafed crown extended all the way into the main yard.
The tree’s massive trunk also lay across David. From the front porch, Jason could see David’s feet and lower legs, the right one twisted at an odd angle toward the other part of David that Jason could see: his right arm, hand gripping the still-running chain saw.
We should have hired someone to do that, Jason thought in the instant before he screamed David’s name and bolted across the yard. He jammed his hand in his pocket for his phone—pulled it out, fumbled, dropped it, picked it up again. He had to call 911, though he could tell even without seeing David’s face there was no hope.
He stared at the screen—No Service, it said, and he screamed again, this time a wordless noise of anguish and frustration. He ran down the driveway toward the road, where he knew he could get cell phone reception. He could have used the landline, but the memory of that cold breeze in the house propelled him down the drive.
Jason made the call and raced back up the driveway as quickly as he could—skidding to a sudden halt. He could have sworn he saw a man standing in the entryway, far enough back to be mostly concealed in shadow. When he stopped and looked, really looked, all he saw was darkness.
He wasn’t sure how long he stood there staring before the steady burr of the chain saw cut through his fog. He turned away from the house and took a few halting steps toward David.
Jason knelt by the chain saw and carefully slipped it out of David’s grip, which was still surprisingly strong even in death. Once he shut off the saw, the quiet slammed into him. It was that hour of golden light typical of perfect fall afternoons, the sun filtering through the trees in yellow, orange, and red, the breeze more refreshing than chilling.
It hardly seemed like the sort of day when someone would die.
From where he sat on the ground, Jason couldn’t see David’s face. Did he look surprised? Were his eyes still open? Was his expression contorted in his final moment of pain? Maybe his eyes were closed and his expression serene. Jason didn’t want to know. He picked up David’s hand, the skin already cool, and stared at the sunlight through the trees. He did not look toward the front door.
*
Returning to the house after the funeral was strange. Jason spent two weeks with David’s parents. His own parents had come all the way from Missouri. The endless parade of relatives and mourners left him little time to think about the house. Buffered by the abundance of love and caring, he wondered if he’d just imagined the baleful aspect of that place in the woods.
He hadn’t. The familiar, oppressive gloom settled on him like a sigh as soon as the front door closed. Jason dropped his bag on the floor and stared down the hall. The stairs rose on his left, the second floor sunny and bright. All the leaves had fallen from the trees while he was gone, and the late-afternoon sun, stark and cold, streamed in the windows. The mail was piled on the hall table along with a note from Jane. Mark had cut up the tree and hauled it away.
Good. Jason didn’t want it in the house, even if only to burn it.
He went into the living room. The curtains swayed gently in a draft, though he supposed that could have been from opening the front door.
He doubted it, though.
*
It took the old man’s ghost—and Jason was sure it was him—a while to work up his energy. Jason spent the afternoon putting away his clothes and cleaning out the things that had gone bad in the fridge. He didn’t feel like making dinner, but he did open a bottle of wine while he began boxing up David’s clothes.
Somehow, he managed to do it without bursting into tears, the first day in two weeks that he’d remained dry-eyed. He set aside a few things David’s parents had asked for, as well as some watches, pieces of jewelry, and purely sentimental items—pictures, a couple of books, an old stuffed teddy bear—he thought David’s sister Katie might like. He took all the photos with David in them off the walls, cleared picture frames from shelves, and put them away. He couldn’t bear to look at them, not now. At his bedside Jason kept the first picture of David he’d taken—at the beach, his hair still wet, face and chest bronzed and gorgeous. Jason put it face-down in the nightstand drawer.
David’s fingerprints on the house still surrounded him, though, and Jason wanted to believe he could feel David’s presence, but in truth all he felt was chilled, and it dawned on him the house had grown colder since he started on his task. When he finished taping the last box shut, it was dark outside, the wine bottle was empty, and he was too tired to bother with dinner.
Sleep came fast, a small mercy that kept Jason from dwelling on David’s absence from the other side of the bed. Not that his dreams afforded him any refuge. David dominated them, though later Jason only remembered snippets, frames from a movie: David turning to tell him something, David swimming toward him in a glass-sided pool, David running toward him through a forest of falling trees, their impacts making the ground shudder, and one final massive tree directly behind David tumbling straight toward him.
Jason sat upright, not sure what had woken him up, only that something had roused him out of sleep. An echoing filled his ears, though he couldn’t remember the sound that had produced it.
He heard it again. And again. It sounded like someone was slamming every door in the house. Jason fumbled for the nightstand drawer, his hands in the darkness finding the gun. He flipped off the safety and pressed his back against the headboard, the gun aimed at the bedroom door.
He waited. Adrenaline overpowered his sleepiness, and his hands didn’t shake as much as he’d thought they would. The slamming doors grew more distant—they were downstairs now—until eventually they ran out of doors to slam.
He sat up all night staring at the bedroom door.
When it was finally light the next morning, he went out. Every door on the second floor was shut. He knew when he went downstairs, he’d find the same.
*
You’re next, faggot.
Jane called on him at least twice a week, sometimes every other day. Sometimes Mark came with her and busied himself with whatever needed doing—raking leaves, winterizing the lawnmower, stocking the woodpile.
“You look thinner,” Jane said. It was not a compliment. “When was the last time you took a shower?”
Jason pondered and shrugged. “What day is it?”
She sent him upstairs to clean up, even going so far as to follow him and lay out clean clothes. He closed the bathroom door and turned on the shower, and stood under the spray until he remembered what he was supposed to be doing.
Showered and dressed, hair still damp, he went downstairs, the breeze following until his foot hit the last step and he headed for the kitchen. Glancing in the living room along the way, he noticed the blankets and pillows he’d scattered across the sofa were now folded and in a neat pile on the ottoman.
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��Why have you been sleeping on the couch?” Jane asked. She was at the stove sautéing something, and a pot of water boiled on the back burner.
“Leave him be if he wants to sleep downstairs,” Mark said. He sat at the kitchen table and cradled a mug of coffee. Jane scowled at her husband but said nothing. She turned back to the stove.
Jason didn’t tell them that he was sleeping on the sofa, not because he couldn’t bear to be in the bed he used to share with David—though that was certainly true—but because the chilling breeze that lingered over his shoulders, ruffled curtains, and slammed doors had whipped into a full-blown gale two nights before, strong enough to sweep books and candles off dressers and nightstands and topple the peace lily in the corner of the bedroom. Jason had raced downstairs and taken refuge in the kitchen, curled up on the floor and clutching the biggest knife from the butcher block. After that, he’d made his bed in the living room and couldn’t bring himself to go upstairs until Jane practically pushed him into the shower.
Jason sat at the table and poured himself a cup of coffee. Mark gestured toward the back door. “Supposed to be a big storm coming up the coast, so I’ve got your woodpile in pretty good shape.”
“You don’t have a whole lot in the refrigerator, honey,” Jane said, not turning away from the stove. Jason wondered what she was making; he could smell garlic and onions. “I have to go to the store later. You want us to pick up a few things for you?”
“Thanks, that’d be nice,” he said. That meant they’d be back later in the afternoon, and it seemed important that they should return soon.
In spite of everything that had gone on before, he hadn’t been afraid of the house until now. David’s accident could have been just that—an accident—and not related to the spectre intent on bedeviling just him, but he wasn’t sure he believed that anymore. And the odd whispers he thought were just voices in his head…maybe they weren’t.
Jane placed a bowl of spaghetti with meatballs in front of him and another at Mark’s place. She returned with a basket of garlic bread and her own bowl, and sat down.
“Eat,” she said.
Jason was about to point out that spaghetti was an odd choice for breakfast until he glanced at the clock. It was one thirty in the afternoon. He didn’t have any meat or pasta in the house; Jane must have brought all the ingredients with her.
“Thanks for making lunch,” he said. He wasn’t hungry, but he ate it anyway. “Did, um…did anyone ask you to check in on me?”
A glance passed between Jane and her husband. Mark paused with his fork above a meatball before looking down and spearing it. “Guess the jig’s up,” he said.
“We would have come by anyway, but your sister-in-law said at the funeral she was worried about you coming back up here all by yourself.”
“I’m fine.” He didn’t sound convincing even to himself.
Mark leaned in. “Bullshit, son,” he said, his tone low and gentle, the way he might have talked to a spooked horse.
Jason let his head drop over his bowl. He’d been so preoccupied by the ever-present chill pursuing him throughout the house, he hadn’t given much thought to David. He let out a sigh.
The chill entered his body then with such force that Jason dropped his fork. His hands trembled as he brought them to his chest, where it felt like a blizzard raged.
Jane looked on the verge of tears when she reached for Jason, then gasped and almost snatched her hand away.
“Mark, he’s ice cold. Go start a fire.” She took Jason’s hand in both of hers and began rubbing vigorously. He clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. “Are you coming down with something, hon?”
I’m coming down with a ghost was what he wanted to say, but he didn’t trust his teeth to keep from clacking together if he opened his mouth. Instead, he just shook his head. Once Mark had a fire raging, Jason and Jane moved to the sofa and Jane threw a blanket over his shoulders.
“I’ll bring you your lunch, hon,” she said.
Jason stared into the fire and wished more than anything that he could feel warm again. He’d been cold ever since David died, even before that, but watching the flames twist and lick at each other, he couldn’t help but remember the warmth he had drawn from David, trails of heat that David had been able to trace with his fingertips across Jason’s skin.
Heat he breathed into Jason with a kiss.
He did feel warm then, remembering that. A band of heat draped across his shoulders and trailed down his chest, as if a pair of arms encircled him. Jason smiled at the memory of David doing just that, often when Jason stood cooking at the stove. Jason would lift a fork or spoonful of whatever he was making for David to try. David would have a taste, make approving noises (even if it wasn’t very good) and leave a kiss of the flavor on Jason’s cheek.
Jason burst into tears, the want for that feeling forcing its way out of him. He drew his legs up and hugged his knees into his chest, the sobs coming in gulps and hiccups. He hadn’t even cried this hard in the days around the funeral. It scared him. He squeezed his eyes shut to try to stem the tears, but still they came.
He felt arms encircle and hug him close, and he felt someone else sit on the sofa and hug him too. He opened his eyes, expecting to see Jane and Mark on either side of him, but there was just Jane, rocking him gently and stroking his hair. Mark stood by the fire, twisting his hat in his hands and staring at his feet.
“Son,” he said in that low, mournful rumble of a voice, “I really think you should get out of this house.”
*
Jason didn’t leave, though. He promised he’d call the Babbages if he needed anything, and Jane said she’d come by with the extra groceries. But then the wind picked up, steel-gray clouds shut out the sky, and the snow began falling. Before long the driveway and the yard were covered. Soon it was coming down so hard he couldn’t see beyond a few feet outside.
The warmth bled away gradually until he was once again shivering, even though he stood in front of the fireplace. By evening, the snow had piled up to the first step on the porch. Jane called to apologize for not dropping by with the groceries. They couldn’t make it up the hill to his house, even with four-wheel drive. They’d come tomorrow, she said.
The next day, it snowed relentlessly. The wind rattled the windows and pushed drifts up to the third porch step. Jason wasn’t sure how deep it really was. The tiny boxwood shrubs lining the stone path were barely visible humps beneath the snow.
He slept in the living room again, left the TV on so he wouldn’t hear whatever walked upstairs at night. He slept fitfully and tossed wood onto the fire when he woke periodically, opening more wine as he finished off each bottle. He knew he was drinking too much, but it was the only way he could shake off wakefulness. If he dreamed, he barely remembered it. He recalled nothing more than a whispering voice, the words indistinct, buzzing at his ear.
He left every first floor light burning through the night, but when he woke up, the foyer light above the stairs was out. When he walked into the entryway to check it out, the first thing he noticed was a sharp, gasp-inducing shock of cold, like he’d just stepped under an icy showerhead.
The second thing he noticed, when he turned toward the stairs, were his clothes scattered up and down the length of the staircase to the second floor—shirts, trousers, underwear, even ties and suit jackets were flung, twisted and in some cases shredded. The second floor itself was encased in inky blackness. How could it be so dark up there? Had he closed all the curtains yesterday?
Even so, there should have been some light.
He didn’t linger to consider this. The cold soon became too much, and he ran back to the living room and the comfort of the fire.
He kept away from the hallway and the foyer, limiting himself to the kitchen, living room, dining room, and half bathroom in the back. If he really needed to leave, he’d have to go out through the kitchen. He couldn’t imagine it was colder outside than it was in the foyer.
The pho
ne went dead first. By lunchtime, he still hadn’t heard from Jane Babbage. He picked up the phone to see how they were doing and just to hear a voice besides the ones on TV. The silence that greeted him was flat and stunning; he nearly dropped the phone. If he needed to call, he’d have to use his cell phone, which never worked in the dead zone of the house.
He looked out the window. No way was he going outside any time soon. The power went out sometime after Jason found the unopened pack of Marlboro Lights in the kitchen junk drawer. He hadn’t smoked in years, but he must have packed them when they moved. How old were they?
“Fuck it,” he said and opened them. He’d already finished off the last bottle of white that day, and he’d just cracked into the red. Back in the day, he always said drinking and a cigarette were why he had two hands. Falling back into the habit took no effort at all.
But then the TV screen went blank and the lights flickered—once, twice, and out. Silence hung heavy in the house, while outside the wind whistled past the windows and moaned in the distance.
At first, he couldn’t distinguish the whispering from the sound of the storm outside. Gradually, it became clearer, not enough to make out actual words, but impossible to ignore.
Don’t listen to it, he thought, kneeling to put another log on the fire. The whispering buzzed like a gnat, though, and he found it hard to resist looking toward the foyer, afraid of what he might see waiting there.
Jason headed for the kitchen and the mudroom where they kept their heavy coats, hats, and gloves. He’d need to head toward the road if he expected to get a cell phone signal. Bundled up, he checked his pocket one last time for his phone and opened the door.
The snow came up to his knees in some places, and what was still coming down stung his face as he plodded down the hill. When a bar of signal finally popped up, he called Katie.
