by Gina Ranalli
She considered the possibility her cry of terror hadn’t been as loud as it had sounded to her own ears, in her state of paralytic fear.
Still in her lap, the computer chirped. She glanced down, the screen flashing so blindingly bright she brought a hand up to shield her eyes. A second later, she dropped the hand to see a scene playing out on the screen, a scene from a movie. A scene starring her brother Sean, who was naked in a bright patch of sunlight, surrounded by trees.
Sean was down on all fours, another naked man behind him, fucking him, pounding him hard enough to make him cry out in pain. The man pressed his face into Sean’s back, concealing his identity, one hand on Sean’s hip while the other held a fistful of his hair, yanking his head back with every thrust.
Dirty, covered in pine needles and patches of sticky sap, Sean opened his eyes and appeared to look directly at Karen, his eyes pleading.
In the blink of an eye, his entire agonized face filled up the screen, battered black in places, and he spoke, his voice amazingly calm, his teeth smeared red with blood, as he said, “Two men have the carcass.”
Karen choked down a cry as the camera pulled back again, showing the same scene, Sean being fucked, possibly raped by the unknown man. She grabbed the laptop by the screen, intending to throw it across the room the same way she’d thrown the glass and then another figure stepped into the scene, entering on the right, closer to the camera than her brother and his assailant.
A cloaked figure in a dark robe, hood raised, immediately bringing to mind the Grim Reaper. An instant later, as if reading Karen’s mind and playing to her thoughts, the head raised up, revealing a skeleton face, just bone, empty black sockets where eyes and nose had once been.
She felt something inside her mind snap and her mouth moved wordlessly as a single trickle of blood began to ooze its way down from the top of the screen, thick and slow and so unbelievably red. Unsure if it was part of the movie—if it was a movie—or actually coming out of her computer, she reached out, fingers shaking worse than any palsy victim’s ever had, but at the last instant she drew her hand away, not waiting to know for sure, certain that if her fingers came away red she would disappear so deep inside herself she would never again know reality and be forever locked away in the dark.
Hissing, she tossed the computer away, off her lap, off the bed. It crashed against the dresser and hit the floor with a heavy thud. She was dismayed to see it remained open, though the screen had gone dark. “Jesus,” she gasped. “Jesus. Fuck.” Breathing hard as hot tears spilled down her cheeks, she again willed herself not to scream, not to cry out in any way, though she had no idea how she was managing it. Insane, she thought. You really, truly are insane.
No, another stronger voice shouted from somewhere inside her head. Remember the photographs. Rory and Saul saw them too. It’s not you, it’s this…place. It’s cursed, haunted. But by what? By who? And why?
The answer was there, of course. Had been there all along. It was the Captain. Captain Frank Storm. That’s who she’d just seen, kneeling before the hope chest/coffin.
She waited until her heart had settled into as normal a rhythm as she thought she was going to get out of it, swung her legs off the bed, never taking her gaze from the computer on the floor.
The blood was gone, so it had been part of the show after all. Knowing there was no way in hell she’d be able to sleep tonight, she retrieved the glass from the floor, relieved it hadn’t broken, and poured herself another shot. The whiskey scorched her throat going down and almost came back up again. She coughed and sputtered, but managed to keep the burning fluid in her belly. She needed to get out of here, out of this room. She grabbed the bottle and left, hurrying downstairs, thankful the hall lights were still on. As she hit the bottom step, she heard an odd creaking sound that made her pause, ready to run back up if she had to.
The creaking came again, slow and lazy, as if something were rocking in a relaxed, leisurely way. But what? There was no rocking chair in the living room, which was what immediately sprang to mind. She stood stock-still, listening to the sound as it reached its listless crescendo before fading again, never growing very loud.
It was, she realized, as if the walls themselves were creaking under some unknown weight and the sound beneath the creaking—a very gentle splashing—gave it all away.
She was listening to the slow easy sound of waves splashing sleepily against the hull of a ship, the ship itself creaking under the pressure of the water sloshing against it. She sank down into a sitting position on the stair. The whiskey was threatening to come up again and her head had begun to pound like a new hangover.
“You hear that?”
She nearly jumped out of her skin, leaping to her feet and spinning around to see Saul at the top of the staircase. The sight of him both relieved and frightened her.
Wanting to proceed with caution, she asked, “Do I hear what?”
He smiled crookedly at her, a painful sight that went beyond all the ugly scratches covering his skin. “It was a dark and stormy night,” he said as he began to descend the stairs, one hand grazing the banister absently. “We were standing on the deck. The ship was sinking and the Captain said to me, ‘Tell me a story, my son.’ And so I began. ‘It was a dark and stormy night.’ We were standing on the deck. The ship was sinking and the Captain said to me, ‘Tell me a story, my son.’ And so I began. ‘It was a dark and stormy night—’”
“Stop it,” Karen snapped.
Saul stopped, that half smile still on his face but Karen could see his dark eyes were haunted. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, she had already backed across the living room, trying to keep her distance.
“Sorry,” he said. “I guess all this,” he gestured around the room and she knew he was referring to the ship sounds the house was now making, “is getting to me.”
“What’s going on?” she demanded.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.” He peered at her, as if noticing her body language for the first time. “Are you afraid of me?”
She suspected a trick question and had no idea which would be the right answer, so she said nothing.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me, Karen,” he said. “Look at me.” He held his arms out to her, turning them so she could see the fronts and backs. “Look what I did to myself. I’m just as much a victim here as you are.”
Watching him carefully, she said, “I’m not a victim.”
Dropping his arms to his sides once more, he said, “No?”
“No. Sean was a victim though and I will find out what happened to him.”
“This is all so strange, don’t you think?”
Again, she didn’t know what the preferred response would be and remained silent.
“I guess my grandmother was right all those years ago,” he continued, crossing the room to sit on the couch, taking care to give Karen a wide berth, almost as though he were just as afraid of her as she was of him. “She used to spout on about all that hooey. Angry spirits getting their revenge, lost souls wandering the earth, not even knowing they’re dead.” He sighed heavily, as though he’d never been so tired in all his life. “Do you think that’s what’s happening here? Angry spirits?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, impressed with how steady her voice sounded as the house creaked and groaned around them. “But obviously it all has something to do with the Captain who built this place.”
Saul smiled weakly again. “Yeah, I think you’re right about that. But what does it have to do with Sean? And even more importantly, what does it have to do with you?”
“I don’t know,” she said again. “What makes you think it has anything to do with me?”
“Because the house wasn’t like this until you got here. That’s what Rory was trying to say in his not-so-elegant way.”
Karen folded her arms over her chest.
When he realized she wasn’t going to reply, Saul asked, “You’ve been having hallucinations, haven’t yo
u?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you talking about what happened in the basement? Because that wasn’t a hallucination.”
“Yes, it was, Karen. You know it was. Rory and I went down there, remember? No caskets, no coffins, no candles. Just a bunch of junk.”
“Junk and fleas,” she corrected.
He pointed a brown finger at her. “Exactly. The fleas.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked impatiently.
“You hallucinated coffins, I hallucinated flea bites. Or something. I’m not totally sure what that itching attack was about, but I think it had something to do with the fleas.”
Karen was getting tired of standing and walked slowly to the lounger to sit down. “You’re saying you think the allergic reaction was just in your mind?”
“Yes. Like the coffins were in yours.”
She didn’t bother to argue with him about it anymore. “So, what’s your point?”
He leaned forward on the couch, his face suddenly animated. “You’ve had other hallucinations.”
Knowing he must have heard the commotion in her room just before she’d come downstairs, she did her best to keep her expression blank. “And how do you know that?”
“Because I’ve had others too.”
Skeptically, she asked, “What kind of hallucinations?”
Saul’s face darkened slightly, and Karen was unsure what that meant. Was he embarrassed?
Shifting on the sofa, he clasped his hands together, rested his elbows on his thighs. “First, let me ask you a question,” he said.
She waited while Saul seemed to grow even more uncomfortable. At last he said, “Forget the question. I’ll just tell you what I know.” After clearing his throat, he said, “You and I have made love every night since we got here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Blinking, Karen was certain she must have heard him incorrectly. Perhaps the alcohol was affecting her more than she’d assumed.
“Excuse me?”
Saul’s smile was sheepish as he shook a finger at her. “Now, see, I knew you were going to react this way.”
“I’m reacting this way because you’re full of shit.”
“No,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’m not. That’s my point. You and I go at it like fucking rabbits every night, but then the next day, I see you and you act like it never happened.”
“That’s because it didn’t happen,” she said, feeling angrier than she wanted to.
“To you it never happened,” he said. “It didn’t take me long to figure that out. No woman could be so casual and distant about it the morning after, if you know what I mean.”
She tried not to think about the egotism in that statement and said, “So, you’re saying the house made you think you were fucking me?”
Smiling again, he said, “Well, I thought it was a little more romantic than that but essentially, yes.”
She sat back in the lounger, unsure of how she should feel right now. Violated? Flattered? And then there was the very real possibility he was just making all this up, fucking with her for whatever twisted reason he may have. Maybe to get a confession out of her. Could he possibly think she was really behind all these odd events?
Of course, she thought. Just listen to the house right now. How could anyone be pulling this kind of hoax? Hidden speakers?
She supposed it was possible. Maybe he was the one perpetrating the hoax and accusing her to get the attention off himself?
Fuck! She was so confused. All around her, the house groaned like an old pirate ship sailing some vast black sea and here she was trying to figure out if she was being accused of something. Now that she was really thinking about it, she knew she had bigger things to worry about.
This was no hoax and if what Saul was saying was true, then she no longer had to worry about her sanity. Right?
Right?
The rasping of water against wood grew louder and both she and Saul looked around. When the sound subsided a moment later, he said, “I need me grog.” He walked off, heading towards the kitchen and was already out of sight before Karen even got the joke. Once she did, she jumped up and went after him, finding him pulling a beer out of the fridge. “Want one?” he asked without turning around.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It wasn’t that long ago that I was thinking the Jack Daniels wasn’t agreeing with me.”
He chuckled, closing the refrigerator door with his hip while twisting the cap off the brown bottle. “A little seasick, were ya? Maybe you puked over the edge—” He stopped speaking abruptly, all the color draining from his face. “Oh my God.”
Karen frowned. “What?”
Saul practically threw the beer onto the counter top and hurried over to the back door. With his hand on the knob, he turned to look at her. “Why didn’t we think of this before?”
“What?” she repeated. And then she knew. Her jaw dropped. “Don’t open the door!” she cried, rushing over to him.
“We have to know,” he said.
She shook her head. “No, we don’t. And even if…if it’s true, it’ll just be another hallucination.”
“I have to know.”
Karen grabbed his arm. “Please don’t, Saul. I don’t think I could stand it. Not after everything else that’s happened tonight.”
“What else?” he asked, facing her full-on.
She hesitated. “I’ll tell you if you don’t open that door. Not yet.” She could see him debating as his eyes studied hers.
Finally, his hand came off the doorknob and he said, “I guess I am pretty thirsty for that beer and I have a feeling that if I look out there, I probably won’t be in the mood to do any drinking.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Maybe I’ll join you after all.”
They sat down at the table, each with a cold Miller Lite. Karen drank the first one fast, begging the powers that be to help dull her senses as fast as possible. She didn’t want to know what was outside, nor did she want to see Saul’s face when she told him about the old man upstairs and the mini-movie the laptop had showed her.
She told the story quickly, not looking up, pulling the soggy label off the beer with her thumbnail. By the time she was finished, the house seemed to have ceased its groaning and Saul evidently had forgotten his need to see what was beyond these walls.
He surprised her by saying, “We have to get out of here. Tomorrow. Hike back down to the truck and get the fuck out of here. Hell, I doubt I’ll ever come near this place again. Fallen Trees can kiss my ass goodbye forever.”
Karen killed the beer remaining in her bottle. “What about Rory?”
“We’ll have to get him to come with us.”
“Well, yeah, but where is he now?”
Saul shrugged. “Sleeping I guess.”
“He didn’t hear the house having its little identity crisis? Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”
“He takes Trazodone.” Saul sipped his beer. “Helps him sleep since…uh, since Sean vanished.”
Karen was quite familiar with Trazodone. She’d been prescribed it herself on more than one occasion. Continuing to play with the beer label, she said, “I have to be honest. I don’t know what the hell Sean saw in that guy.”
Saul offered her his crooked smile once more. “I’m pretty sure Rory didn’t know either. But I know they loved each other. I guess it was a case of opposites attract.”
“I guess the hell so. You want another beer?”
He turned in his seat, glanced at the back door almost longingly, then said, “Sure, why not.”
She got them each a new beer and sat down again. “There’s no way in hell I’m gonna be sleeping tonight.”
“I have a feeling it’ll be a while before I sleep at all, even after I’m out of here.”
They drank in silence for a few minutes and then Karen, probably with the help of the alcohol in her system, asked the question she’d been dying to ask ever since her arrival in Washington. “So…you and Rory. Are you g
uys… you know…”
“A couple?” he supplied for her. “No. He’s not my type.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “You have a type?”
“Not really,” he laughed. “I mean, other than being brilliant, attractive, hilarious and saintly, no, I don’t have a type.”
Karen smiled at him, raising her beer. “Sounds like we have the same type. Here’s to the flawless.”
“That’s something worth drinking to.” They clanked their bottles together and each took a long swallow, almost as if they were competing to see who could drink the most, the fastest. It feels like we’re just a couple of frat boys pounding a few brews on the eve of the big game, she thought, more than a little amused. And then another thought occurred to her and she couldn’t hide her grin.
“What?” Saul asked, spotting it immediately. “What’s so funny?”
“I, uh…was just thinking about your type.”
“And?”
“And…you thought…you and I…” She burst out laughing and was amazed at how good it felt. No, not just good. It felt great. When had she last laughed? Certainly not that long ago. Yesterday maybe? The day before? Then why the hell did it feel like decades? Centuries?
Saul was turning purple, he was blushing so furiously. “Yeah, well, the pickings are slim around here,” he joked.
“You have a crush on me,” she giggled.
“I do not! It was just…you know…sex.”
“Sure it was.”
“It was! You even said so.”
“The phrase that comes to mind right about now is so apropos that I can’t even utter it.”
“What phrase?”
“In your dreams!” she shouted happily. “Isn’t it ironic? Don’t ya think?”
Shaking his head, Saul replied with the expected line, “Yeah, I really do think.”
“Sounds like you two are really hitting it off.”
They both looked up, startled to see Rory standing in the doorway.
“Hey, man,” Saul said. “Sorry. Did we wake you?”
