The Haunter Of The Threshold

by Edward Lee

  “Listen—” He sat upright, arthritic hands on knees, and stared directly at Hazel with his useless eyes. “Forget about it all, Hazel. Frank’ll likely see the light once he thinks about things, puts two and two together. All I’ll tell you”—he pointed a bony finger—“That stone, that horrid crystal, has...a power.”

  “Come on, Professor.”

  He seemed to calculate his next words. “It’s a good thing indeed that Henry disposed of it, but let me just speak my mind. If for some reason you, Frank, or Sonia find where Henry hid the stone, throw it into the lake, bury it, put it in the garbage–anything. And whatever you do...don’t look at it.”

  This was getting strange. What bothered Hazel most was the conviction with which Barlow made his comments. “Why, sir? It’s just a stone.”

  “It’s far more than that. It’s a seducer. ”

  Maybe I should just leave, she considered. I’m probably agitating him at this point. But still—

  She had looked at the crystal, hadn’t she? Not the stone itself, but the jpeg on Henry’s computer. And she’d seen things.

  No, I THOUGHT I saw things...

  “The metal box, too,” the old man continued. “Destroy it. Let’s just say you’d be doing me a favor.”

  “You’re really confusing me, sir. Don’t look at the stone?”

  He seemed animated now, tense in some unexplained resolve. “Precisely. If you look at it long enough...it will make you want to do things, Hazel. It came very close to making Henry Wilmarth do something abominable—”

  “What?” she almost yelled.

  “—and it did the same to me.” He laxed back in the chair, somehow looking even older now, more infirm. “Henry was stronger than me, I suppose. He was able to say no to it in time, before it got its hooks in him. I, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky.”

  All right, this is useless. The man’s getting carried away. He’s probably part-senile by now. Semi-precious gems don’t have POWER. You can’t say NO to a hunk of rock. “What do you mean by that, sir?”

  He pointed to his eyes. “I looked too long, my dear. And when I realized what the Shining Trapezohedron was trying to do to me, I resisted...For that resistance, I was punished.”

  Hazel’s eyes shifted as she looked at him.

  “The crystal is what made me blind.” He took a breath. “And remember what I said earlier? That the blind are able to hone other senses to a higher clarity via the loss of the vision?”

  “Yes.”

  He rubbed his face as if weary. “It’s not just smell, taste, and hearing, you know. It’s also certain intuitions. For instance when I asked you before if you had found the Shining Trapezohedron, you said you hadn’t.” A very silent pause. “You were lying, weren’t you?”

  Hazel froze. “Yes, sir, I was.”

  “And you found it where? ”

  “Henry put it in a tree bowl, then covered the bowl with tree-patch. I happened upon it by pure coincidence.”

  The old man seemed lost now, yet he also seemed desperate not to appear that way. “I suppose I may have sounded a bit over-dramatic, Hazel. But can’t you do this for me?” He made a parched chuckle. “Can’t you appease this nutty old man? Please. Put the stone back in the tree bowl, cover it up, and, for God’s sake— don’t tell Frank you know anything about it. Will you do that for me? Please?”

  “Yes, sir, I will,” she said. Big deal. It’s just a rock.

  “Thank you. And, please, tell Frank to call me when he gets back to Henry’s cabin, all right?”

  “Sure.”

  The man was winding down. I guess I fucked out any energy he might have, she thought. “I have to go now, Professor.”

  “Yes–I’m getting very tired and I’m afraid the nurse will be by shortly with my medications.”

  Hazel’s eyes narrowed. Blind, yes, and old, but he didn’t seem to be sick. “I hope you’re not ailing from anything serious, sir.”

  “No, no. Blood pressure, arthritis—the inevitable afflictions of old men.” He seemed even to struggle smiling. “But, please, stop by again anytime. It’s been a pleasure...being in your company. You’re a wonderful, generous person.”

  I guess that’s the urbane way of thanking a nymphomanic woman for fucking you. She got up. “I’ll come by again soon, I promise. Goodbye, sir.”

  He raised a palsied hand to wave.

  Hazel left, thinking, Does he really believe all that? Don’t look at the stone because it has POWER, it’ll get its HOOKS in you? She closed the door and turned only to see whom she’d previously dismissed as a janitor pushing his cart right up to Professor Barlow’s.

  “How nice,” he said. He was looking right at her breasts, where her nipples still stuck out noticeably against the fabric of her tight shirt.

  “Pardon me?”

  “How nice to see Professor Barlow with a visitor,” the man went on. He was fortyish, bulky, drab. He opened a drawer on the cart and withdrew a small paper cup. “His son comes around once in a blue moon but that’s about it.”

  Hazel noticed now that what he pushed was not a cleaning cart but a med cart. Multiple drawers were loaded with pill bottles.

  “So you’re the nurse for the residents?” she asked.

  “Just the pharmacist.”

  “I wasn’t aware that Professor Barlow had a blood pressure problem–”

  The man was in the process of stealing another glance at Hazel’s distended nipples, but her question snagged him. “He doesn’t have high blood pressure. What gave you that idea?”

  “He just told me.”

  “Oh,” he said stretching the word. “I can understand that, I guess. He doesn’t want you to know. His blood pressure’s picture perfect. Wish mine was.”

  Hazel was getting aggravated. “So what is wrong with him?”

  He shook the little cup of pills. “Let me put it this way. These pills? They’re anti-psychotics.”

  “Anti—”

  “Professor Barlow is completely, utterly, one-hundred-percent insane.”

  I wonder if Frank’s back yet? she asked herself when she got back to the cabin. Something felt weird when she got out of the car and looked at the wooden building. The entire drive back had sapped her brain; between Thurnston Barlow’s bizarre remarks and Frank’s suddenly erratic behavior–not to mention Sonia’s mood swings, and the various other tidbits of either mystery or claptrap, Hazel had trouble thinking straight.

  And now this...

  The cabin looked empty, but why would she receive that impression? I’ve had the car all day, so there’s nowhere Sonia could go. She tried to shirk off the disquieting impressions as she headed up the front walk with a take-out Chinese order and the bag containing the Shining Trapezohedron (she’d also bought a can of gem polish at a drug store near the restaurant) but then peered at something white just off the driveway. A paper ball? she wondered.

  It was even more disquieting picking it up, for it lay only feet from the notorious out-house. Every time she saw the archaic structure, she shivered at the recollection of the “daymare” she’d had. Find the stone...and you’ll be rewarded, the slush-voiced, upside-down-faced rapist had told her. Frank said the same thing in the dream I had last night... Hazel’s stomach tensed as the dream-bits hovered over her.

  The object was indeed a sheet of paper rolled up into a ball, as if someone had dropped it there. The ball crinkled as she unrolled it. “Now what the hell is this? ” she muttered.

  Tight handwriting filled both sides. Hazel’s gaze seemed to warp as she examined it: a list of names, addresses, phone numbers, and Social Security numbers. Each entry was numbered, and the first on the list were—

  1) Hannah Bowen, 610 LaFanu Wood Rd., Bosset’s Way, NH

  03266 - 161-14-6557 - Ph: 646-262-0051

  2) Emma Freeborn, 368 Bierce Spur, Bosset’s Way, NH, 03246 -

  464-18-9571 - Ph: 646-202-4978

  3) Nabby Gardner, 4285 Machen Creek Dr., Bosset’s Way, NH, 03246
- 410-42-2649 - Ph: 646-301-2476

  The list went all the way to 33. Hazel noticed several familiar names, such as Ida Saltonstall, more than likely the barmaid at the tavern; and Nathaniel Peaslee, whom she met there as well. Richard Pickman, the dour artist and shop-owner, was on the list, too, and so were Walter Brown and Clayton Martin, the men whom she’d solicited for rape. . .

  More weirdness. Why would there be a handwritten list of thirty-three local residents on a piece of paper in the yard? Something Henry had written? but, no, she’d seen enough of his characteristic penmanship to know he hadn’t been the scribe.

  Frank, the name dropped in her head like a bell-toll.

  “Sonia, I’m back!” she called out when she barged into the cabin, “and I didn’t forget the Chinese...” She stood still, waiting for a reply. A quick glance showed her the den was unoccupied. “Sonia?” Hazel stowed the take-out in the refrigerator, already knowing full well Sonia wasn’t in the cabin. Frank must’ve finally come back, and they’re out for a walk, she hoped, yet her gut told her something altogether different. She hurried to the den, searched for a sample of Frank’s handwriting, but could only find Henry’s. For the hell of it, she turned on Henry Wilmarth’s computer—even knowing it had crashed for good—then sat down with a rag and began to clean the tar-patched crystal with the pungent cleaner she’d just bought. Works like a charm... She was surprised by how efficiently the solvent dissolved the tacky black muck. Within minutes, the scarlet crystal glimmered.

  Wow... She held it up. The black striations woven within the stone’s ruby-red seemed to move. Next, she took down the metal box and compared it side by side to the Trapezohedron. The glyph-like engravings on the box corresponded identically to many of the angles of the stone’s shimmering facets. Whatever you do...DON’T look at it, Professor Barlow’s warning resounded in her head. He wanted her to dispose of the crystal and destroy the box.

  Hazel stared into the stone...and saw nothing.

  Foolishness.

  She felt tempted to gaze more deeply into it now, but to her surprise, Henry’s computer suddenly booted up. She put the box and the Shining Trapezohedron back into the bag, then turned her attention to the computer, immediately accessing the massive index of Henry’s notes. She clicked a random file toward the bottom—

  Strange...

  She was looking at a list of cities. BIG cities, she realized as her eyes scanned the list.

  PRIMARY

  1) Tokyo/Yokohama - 32.1 mil

  2) New York Metro - 17.8 mil

  3) Sao Paulo - 17.7 mil

  And the list continued down–a long list. Hazel knew at once that the list comprised the most heavily populated cities on earth. The last three were—

  31) Bangkok - 6.5 mil

  32) Johannesburg - 6 mil

  33) Chennai - 5.9 mil

  —and then it ended. Hazel peered, confused. Thirty-three local residents on one list, and thirty-three major metropolises on another list. Why was the number thirty-three suddenly popping up everywhere? More of the nightmare, she reckoned, and then her stare lengthened. Didn’t Frank say in the nightmare something about sequences of thirty-three?

  All this mess was making her head spin. The very next file was a list of the same names on the list she’d found outside, though not alphabetical this time—

  1) Nahum Gardner - Tokyo

  2) Clayton Martin - New York

  3) Ida Saltonstall - Sao Paulo

  —and right on down, listing every name on the handwritten list.

  Thirty-three names, thirty-three cities...

  But what on earth could any of this mean? Hazel clicked on another random file and found a queue of jpegs. But the file-name was ST. PETERSBURG

  Oh my God, she thought when she opened the first one.

  What was it? A great mass of shapes filled the sky, fronted by a city-scape just before dawn. The shapes were a merge of colors: brown, black, gray. Hazel wanted to believe they were storm clouds but if they were they were unlike any clouds she’d ever beheld. They seemed part-solid, part gaseous, and though she knew it was her imagination, she could swear she detected immense malformed appendages sprouting from the mass. Henry took this just before the storm hit last May, she realized.

  The next jpeg caused her to jolt. The ill-colored mass now seemed to be lowering on a city block, consuming high-rise condos and spiring office buildings...

  And the next: All the stone blocks of a skyscraper had been caught in a freeze-frame, blowing out as if bombed and leaving only a steel skeleton.

  The next one: Buildings concussing along a boulevard, while cars, mailboxes, debris, and people were blown down the street.

  A final file showed a pile of human bodies massed against a wall: limbs contorted, faces frozen in an appalling death. Many of their arms and legs looked like the flesh had been corroded off, leaving curled bones that were somehow yellowed and rubbery...

  Hazel closed the file down at once, her stomach clenching. Holy shit, that’s horrible... The news had blamed the tragedy on multiple-vortex tornados—a rare fluke of nature—but, but—

  Hazel knew what a tornado looked like. None had been visible in the jpegs.

  She grew sicker and sicker as her mind played over every question. To clear her head, she went to the kitchen for a soda, then returned and found herself staring at a smaller desk along the back wall, where Sonia had set up her own laptop.

  How could I have missed that!

  Sonia’s laptop sat opened, its flowery screensaver roving, and taped to the keyboard was a quickly scrawled note.

  HAZEL: FRANK CALLED JUST AFTER YOU LEFT, SAID HE WASN’T COMING BACK TILL TOMORROW. CALL ME THE MINUTE YOU GET IN. LOVE, SONIA

  Oh, no, no, no—please. Tell me she didn’t— She snapped open her cellphone and dialed.

  “Hazel! Thank God,” Sonia answered, sounding winded.

  “What happened?”

  “The asshole made up more excuses about not coming back to the cabin,” Sonia seemed to temper her words. “So I just have to know. I don’t think he’s ever been to this goddamn Gray Cottage, if it even exists at all.”

  “It does, at least according to Frank’s father. I saw a picture of it.”

  “All right, fine, but that’s why I did this. If Frank’s not there, then I know he’s been lying to me all along—”

  Hazel’s lips tightened. “Sonia, please tell me you’re not climbing up to the top of Whipple’s Peak.”

  “I had no choice!” her friend squealed. “He’s been lying to me for days and I have to know why!”

  “Sonia! You’re eight months pregnant! The exertion could make you have a miscarriage!”

  “I’m being careful, I’m taking it slow—”

  “Bullshit! Come down right now!”

  A pause, heavy breathing. “I can’t, Hazel. I think I’m almost there. It’s cooler all of a sudden, and there’s a lot of mist...I’m going to sit down a minute and catch my breath...”

  Hazel couldn’t have been more infuriated. “You’re overreacting again! I can’t believe you’d do something this crazy!”

  A winded laugh. “Crazy, huh? You want to hear something crazy? Frank was in Henry’s cabin last night while we were both asleep.”

  Hazel’s stalled. She remembered her dream: I dreamt of Frank...in the cabin. Last night.

  Impossible.

  “Look at my laptop,” Sonia instructed. “I left it on deliberately so you could see.”

  Hazel jiggled the mouse to find Sonia’s computer already logged online. But the screen name at the top wasn’t Sonia’s, it was Frank’s, and right now she was looking at the website for the U.S. State Department. “Sonia, what’s this all about? The State Department?”

  “I was going stir-crazy with paranoia, Hazel. So I went onto Frank’s account–he doesn’t know I have his password.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Why do you think? I wanted to see if he was getting emails from another wo
man.”

  “And?”

  “He wasn’t but...look. Look at the URL trail.”

  Hazel frowned, fulfilling the request. Several dozen URL’s shot down the screen, all from the State Department’s website. Hazel looked closer, then, and saw the page that had been repeatedly accessed was:

  “Online applications for United States passports?”

  Sonia was catching her breath now. “Yep. That’s what Frank was doing when he snuck in last night. I have no idea why he’d be requesting passport applications for dozens of local residents. Look at them.”

  Hazel scrolled down to the first URL, found the application and saw whose name and info had been typed in.

  “Hanna Bowen,” she said aloud. Then she clicked the second access: “Emma Freeborn.” And the third: “Nabby Gardner.”

  “They’re all locals, Hazel. It’s crazy. I counted the total number and it was thirty-three. For God’s sake, why would Frank do that?”

  Hazel’s stomach was already twisting. Those first three names were the first three on the handwritten list and the corresponding city-list. “Give me a second.” She checked the rest and inexplicably found, in alphabetical order, thirty-three Bosset’s Way residents. The names on the paper and the names on the online applications were identical.

  “Are you there?” Sonia asked.

  “Yeah. Listen, Sonia, there’s a whole bunch of weird things happening all at once. I found out more about the crystal, and I found out more from Frank’s father...”

  “Thurnston? What did he say?”

  She continued to stare at the handwritten list as she talked. “It’s too complicated to explain on the phone. But I’ve got some ideas.”

  She could hear Sonia walking again—her break over. “Just stay where you’re at. You’re jeopardizing yourself and the baby by hiking all the way up Whipple’s Peak. Just sit down, take a nap, and I’ll be right up. I’m slim and in good shape, I’ll bet I could be up there in a few hours.”

  “I wish you would come up, Hazel,” Sonia said, her tone growing thin.