Invitation

by Frank Peretti

  Now he seemed he would move by me, so I stepped aside. He passed by, his pasty eyes probing me, and it had to have been Van Epps’ prior description that made me feel he was looking into me, knew me, knew my sins.

  The specter’s back was to me now. I fumbled for my cell phone to snap a photo. Even as I composed the picture, he stopped and looked back. Click. A photo I might fear from that day on.

  What? The man gave his head a little jerk as if to say, Come this way.

  I followed him at a distance even as I swiped and tapped my phone to raise Andi’s number. When she answered, I found myself whispering. “Come quickly, all of you.”

  Oh, the frustration!

  “Come where?” she said. “Where are you?”

  Somewhere in Port Avalon, blast it! “I don’t know the street name. I’m near the big white house with the black mutt.”

  “Well, where’s that?”

  I came to a street sign. “Mossyrock.” The man kept walking around a corner, up a hill. “Make that 48th.”

  “Forty-eight!” she exclaimed.

  I hated how she could make me curse, especially to her. “Do not start, Andi! Just get down here!”

  She indicated that Van Epps knew where I was. I tapped Off and holstered the phone.

  The specter rounded a wooded corner and went out of sight. I ran to catch sight of him again.

  There he was, relentlessly walking, squishing, dripping.

  And just beyond him, at the end of the street where, I’m sure, nothing but woods had been, was a house. Two-story Victorian, dull purple, richly detailed, turreted, with a covered porch and sleepy front windows.

  CHAPTER

  6

  The House

  The “posthumous manifestation” of whoever this was seemed in no hurry. Rather, he stepped and squished up the seven steps to the front porch of the House, turned, looked at me, then waited until the others arrived.

  Andi and Brenda spilled out of Van Epps’ car. “Who is it?” “What is it?” Then they stood next to me and gawked.

  “Looks like an old fisherman,” Andi observed.

  Brenda chose to respond by invoking the sanctity of excrement.

  I was relieved that they saw it too.

  Van Epps remained in his car, hiding, it seemed, behind the steering wheel even as the apparition stared at him with much the same expression as Clyde Morris had in that photo. A pattern there, but now I could relate.

  The specter scanned us as if taking attendance. The front door opened by itself. He went inside, and the door closed with a creak and a clunk.

  Only then did Van Epps scramble from his car with a video camera and tripod. “See? I told you! There it is, right in front of you!”

  “Looks real enough,” said Andi. “Different landmarks, though. No knotty tree or fire hydrant. Not this time.”

  Emotions were running high, mine included. I dared not be fooled. I studied the House, cautious to sort reality from illusion, scanning the lines of the walls, gables, roof. The windows drew my gaze, and I found myself looking the House in the eyes, if such a thing were possible. Van Epps’ observation was not unfounded, though subjective, as mine was at that moment: I couldn’t shake the impression that the House was staring me down, just like the old fisherman. I couldn’t ask the ladies what they might be feeling lest I suggest the idea to them. I tried moving from side to side. Still, the gaze of the windows followed me. I know all about you, said the House. I know all about you.

  By now, word had filtered through the town. People showed up in little clusters, keeping their distance, gawking, taking pictures with their cell phones.

  It was Gustav, someone said. Gustav Svensson. They tossed the name around, repeated it, passed it from one to another.

  I listened. I counted and recorded faces, trying not to stare too long at a man and woman stationed behind the others. I may have seen them before, but impressions were questionable at the moment.

  Brenda and Andi were looking to me for the next move. I looked at Van Epps. He was behind a tree with the camera.

  “Shall we have a closer look?” I asked.

  “Yes, by all means,” he answered. “Go ahead. I’ll keep recording.”

  “Recording what?”

  “It might move again! It might—we need a record.”

  I looked at the ladies. “Shall we?”

  Brenda, clearly unsettled, swore again. I couldn’t have said it better.

  It was getting dark, which seemed to be a cue for the crowd. They began to back away, then disperse in ones and twos.

  A glow appeared in an upstairs window and there were gasps from those remaining—and from Andi.

  “Hey,” said Brenda. “Somebody’s home.”

  “Yeah,” said Andi, “the dead guy.”

  “Ghosts don’t need lights.”

  Van Epps called from behind the tree. “We need data. You should go inside and check around. I’ll keep the camera going in case something happens.”

  Reading Van Epps’ voice and body, I agreed. “Yes. I think you should stay out here.”

  The walkway was real, as were the front steps, as was the porch. Brenda thumped on a porch post and gave a little shrug. Andi was counting things: the lap siding, the light fixtures, the—

  “Hey,” she said, “there’s no house number!”

  She could even get excited about the lack of numbers.

  Since the House was real enough, I thought I should try a real knock on the door. No answer. I knocked two more times, but still no answer. I tried the door. Locked. Brenda had to try the door for herself. Still locked.

  The daylight was fading to a steely gray. I led the way around the House while we could still see the details: concrete foundation embedded in the ground; small yard with grass a bit shaggy; planting beds, but flowers withering this time of year; moss growing on the roof; some paint peeling.

  We continued to circle, breathing easier. For a phantasm, the House was so normal as to be disappointing—

  Until we caught a glimpse of something or someone moving around the corner toward the front of the House, and Andi, her nerves wound tight, screamed. I found a windfallen branch on the lawn and picked it up for a weapon—which had to look silly, more like I wanted to build a campfire than assail an enemy. Nevertheless, the ladies followed close behind as I, their masculine protector, wielded my tree branch. We inched our way around the front corner. . . .

  “Well, howdy!”

  We wilted with relief.

  “Whatcha guys doin’? Buildin’ a fire?”

  I dropped the branch. It would have been nice if Tank, our gentle giant, were an illusion, but of course that was not to be. He was carrying a duffel bag over his shoulder, a traveler just arrived. Brenda and Andi embraced him, their high-pitched greetings as pleasant to me as worn brakes: “How’d you get here?”

  So this was their new masculine protector, I supposed.

  “Hitched a ride. A techie was coming right by here on his way to Port Townsend.”

  “So how’d it go?” Andi asked.

  Tank was gushing with the news. “Gonna be a dawg! Full scholarship, baby!”

  Ah yes. His football scholarship to the University of Washington. A wonderful, happy subject to take up time and distract all of us from the enigma now demanding our attention.

  Brenda frowned. “I don’t know much about college football, Cowboy, but how is it that you’re eligible to play in the middle of a season?”

  Tank shook his head good-naturedly. “They just tell me to play football, and I do.”

  “So why are you here?” I cut in. “Don’t tell me. You had a vision, or God spoke from a cloud, or . . .”

  Tank’s eyes went mystical. “I . . . received a message!”

  Of course. I rolled my eyes.

  “Andi called me.” He stood there grinning at his own cleverness. The three shared a laugh—at my expense.

  I directed an icy employer’s look at Andi, who justified herself.
“Calling him was logical, objective, totally pragmatic! Case in point right here.”

  She looked at Tank and nodded toward the front door. “It’s locked.”

  “So?” he asked. After his neurotransmitters connected, he wagged his head. “Eh, I dunno. That’s somebody’s house, you know?”

  Van Epps called from behind the tree, “Just open the door!”

  Tank looked for where the voice had come from. “What’s he doin’ back there?”

  “He thinks the place is haunted,” Brenda whispered.

  Tank’s face went blank. “Really?”

  “Perhaps you might justify your presence here,” I prodded.

  Tank acquiesced and went up the front steps with the rest of us in tow. I was about to advise the ladies to give the big fellow some room for safety’s sake—

  He simply turned the knob and the door creaked open. He gave us a puzzled look. I looked at Brenda and she shrugged back.

  “Hello?” Tank called.

  Of course, he hadn’t been here earlier. He hadn’t seen the apparition or heard all the background. He walked right in as if his mother lived there. Still nursing our trepidations, we followed.

  CHAPTER

  7

  Explorations

  We couldn’t find a light switch anywhere, and the daylight coming through the windows was quickly fading. Andi got out her cell phone and used the flashlight feature to produce a sharp beam she could play about.

  So what were we expecting? A decaying netherworld draped in cobwebs? A flurry of frightened bats and ghostly glows against the walls? Trapdoors, secret passages, mysterious wailings in the dark? As our eyes adjusted to the dim light and Andi helped with her cell phone, we found ourselves in a residence clean and furnished as if the housekeepers had just left and the owners were due home any minute. We could admire the entryway with its hall tree and grandfather clock; the ascending staircase with finely turned balusters and railing; the living room, furnished in Victorian style, and beyond that, the formal dining room with high-backed upholstered chairs, eight place settings, and jeweled chandelier. The place was benign, dignified, even welcoming.

  So what the deuce caused this trembling in my hands, this animal sense of being cornered? Power of suggestion? The eerie sight of our ghostly guide? Perhaps the darkness and the unknown.

  I handed Andi my cell phone. She activated the flashlight while I watched and found out how to do it—learning new technology from her was becoming a routine with me. Brenda and Tank got the same idea, and soon we were moving about like techno-fireflies, pinpoints of light casting stark shadows. I held my phone in both hands to steady the shaking, angry at the dread I couldn’t quash.

  A door clicked and swung open in the hallway. I heard a toilet flush. “Toilet works,” Andi reported.

  Well. Something normal. I was grateful.

  The next door she checked refused to open, apparently locked, but I stopped her from asking Tank to try it. Maybe it was the House’s effect on me, but I felt such a barrier should be honored. We were being invasive as it was.

  The floor of the entryway was slippery. I lowered my light to find a trail of drippings and wet boot prints leading toward the stairs. Perhaps only to remain the cold and objective investigator, I reached down, wetted my fingertip in the drippings, and put the sample to my tongue.

  Seawater.

  Brenda called from the kitchen. We gathered there like bees to a hive, lights hovering, snooping.

  On the kitchen table were a jar of jam, one of peanut butter, a loaf of bread, and an uneaten quarter of a sandwich left on a plate.

  Tank’s voice made us all jump. “Hello? Anybody here? Hey, we’re your friends, we won’t hurt you.”

  Something bumped somewhere in the House. I looked in each face and got a shrug, a wag—It wasn’t me.

  Brenda shook her dreadlocked head and laughed—at herself and us. “Somebody’s living here and we are gonna get busted.”

  “But it wasn’t here before!” said Andi.

  “You sure about that?”

  I interposed, “May we at least resolve the question of the old fisherman? We all saw him, did we not?”

  “Did we not?” said Tank. “Yeah, I didn’t.”

  “We do have his boot prints and water dripped on the floor—seawater, by the way—leading up the stairs.”

  Oh, the pall of doom that fell over Brenda’s and Andi’s faces! As for Tank, for some reason he just wasn’t getting it.

  It was my idea, so I led. Tank followed me. The ladies followed, but several steps behind. We agreed not to sneak, but to walk benignly up those stairs, calling hello as we went. Our lights went where our eyes went, meaning everywhere, and frantically.

  There was no light switch at the top of the stairs, and the hallway was an unlit tunnel save for our cell phones. The boot tracks, now dark, wet imprints in the carpet, led to a doorway. I knocked. I called. There was no answer. I tried the door and it opened.

  There was only a dark bedroom on the other side. There was no light switch, and we found soon enough there was no occupant.

  “But isn’t this where the light was on?” Brenda wondered.

  Andi searched the ceiling with her light. There was no lighting fixture, no lamp in the room. “Well . . . it was a light, but that doesn’t mean it was an electric light. . . .”

  “Don’t, don’t do that.”

  Shining my cell phone and feeling with my hand, I carefully traced the boot prints to a wet spot in the center of the room. There, they ended.

  “Okay,” said Brenda. “Now how about we get out of here?”

  I wanted to agree, but Van Epps would be waiting behind his tree wanting data and trusting me to be the unaffected gatherer. “We haven’t learned anything.”

  Andi tapped off her light. “Save your batteries.”

  Our phones winked out, and despite my efforts, I felt the dark closing in on me and fear twisting my viscera like a seizure. Blast it! I could turn my phone light back on, but they would ask why; I could explain, but that would plant a suggestion that would skew our observations. It could also make me look like a coward.

  “So what now?” Andi asked. Her voice was weak. Perhaps she was feeling the same visceral reaction.

  I loathed the answer even as I spoke it. “If we leave for the night, the House may relocate. There are no lights and our phones can only provide so much. We need to go through this place in the light of day.” I felt I was delivering a line from an old horror movie: “We’ll have to spend the night.”

  CHAPTER

  8

  During the Night

  If I’d been given to flights of imagination, I would have imagined the House expecting our visit. Though it was early October, the House was pleasantly warm; though there were no lights, there was running water and the toilets worked; the bedrooms were fully furnished, the beds made up with fresh linens.

  “We are gonna get busted,” Brenda moaned.

  We laid out a plan, beginning with two escape routes should anything strange occur. There were four upstairs bedrooms; each of us would take a room and stand watch for a two-hour slot during the night while the rest slept—assuming any of us could sleep. We would remain clothed in case we had to make a sudden exit. If anything strange should occur, we were all within shouting distance.

  “Any questions?” I asked. There were none.

  I advised Van Epps of our plan. While I remained to monitor the camera, he drove home and returned with a chair, an extra coat, and a thermos of coffee. I left him at his station and returned to the House, the front door admitting me without resistance.

  We all said good-night.

  If I may personify, the House had a plan as well. We never saw the morning from inside those confining rooms or that dark hallway. The House saw to it.

  My two hours came first. Needless to say, I wasn’t sleepy. I found a seafaring novel on the nightstand and sat in a comfortable chair to sample it by the light of my cell phone. Less
than one chapter in, I found Andi was right regarding cell phones as flashlights—the typical phone cannot last long as a typical flashlight. After one final look around the room, I tapped out the light to save the phone’s battery.

  As I feared, the darkness closed in on me again. My insides tightened like a dishrag being wrung out. I felt like bait awaiting a predator.

  Blast this House! Blast this fear, this consuming, irrational phobia! What was the dark but the absence of light, and nothing more? What lurked in that darkness other than a bed, a nightstand, a picture on the wall? Nothing!

  I tapped my phone—my hands were shaking so badly it took several tries. At last, the tiny light came on, proving, of course, there was nothing there but a bedroom with its furnishings. I tapped the light off.

  Immediately, I knew, I just knew that darkness was a living, malevolent thing.

  Then the phobia brought delusion. The House could have spoken audibly, the impression was so real. I know all about you, said the House. I know all about you.

  Shades of my church experience: the ever-present thumb of God upon the back of me, the insect! I fought to regain mastery. No, I thought, and then I muttered, “No, there is nothing here. This is a figment of my imagination.”

  Oh? the House seemed to answer.

  “You are a lifeless structure of stone and wood,” I said, mostly to convince myself. “You have no mind, no plan, and you don’t know me!”

  I know all about you. I know all about you.

  I would not engage this lifeless thing in moral arguments; I would not justify myself to a pernicious phobia! I tapped my cell phone for precious light and locked my eyes on the painting over the bed: sailboats heeling on white-crested waves. Just look at the sailboats, I told myself. Happy. Alive. Tangible. Something real. A tether to sanity.

  The light began to dim to a yellow glow, weaker, weaker. I strained to see the painting—

  Before my eyes, like black mold growing in time lapse, tiny specks percolated through the wall, widened into patches that widened into areas, surrounded then covered the picture, thickening, ever thickening—toward me.