The House

by Bentley Little

  He hadn't consciously avoided thinking about it-- at least he didn't think he had--but he realized now that that was probably exactly what had happened.

  He had not been back to Oakdale since moving forty years ago.

  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath. If he'd been so grounded and logical and rational, if he hadn't believed in ghosts, why had he never gone back?

  Why had he been afraid to go back?

  Those were not questions he could answer.

  He got out of bed, walked over to the window.

  Carole was there.

  She was not in his dream now. She was outside, on the grass, next to the tree, her ghost skin absorbing rather than reflecting moonlight.

  "Return," she whispered, her words echoing in his head far louder than they had any right to do. "Return."

  Frightened, he shivered, turned away.

  The next day was Saturday, and he decided to walk across town to Hal Hicks's place. Hal had taught biology and algebra at the high school for thirty years and had retired a few years back when Ralph Stringer came in as principal. He was a good man and Norton's best friend, and if there was anyone he could tell this craziness to it was Hal.

  The farther Norton got from the house, the sillier the notion seemed, however, and before he was halfway there he had pretty well decided not to mention anything about Carole's ghost. Around him, men were mowing their lawns, women were weeding flower beds, kids were riding up and down the sidewalk on bikes, trikes , and skates. Ahead, on Main, young couples and middle-aged women were shopping in the downtown business district.

  Here, in the real world, around other people, he started to believe again that it was all in his head, a figment of his imagination. There was no such thing as ghosts.

  But Hermie had seen it.

  He pushed that thought from his mind.

  Hal was outside, in his yard, watering his fruit trees.

  "Summer's over," Norton said, walking up.

  "They still need their water." Hal grinned. "Don't mess with me on biology."

  Norton held up his hands in surrender.

  "How you holding up?" Hal asked seriously.

  He shrugged. Here at his friend's all of a sudden, the events of the past few days no longer seemed quite so silly. He thought once again about telling Hal what was going on.

  "Tough time sleeping?"

  "Of course," Norton told him.

  "You look tired." He put down the hose, walked over to the faucet, turned it off. "Come on in, I'll put on a pot of coffee."

  Norton followed his friend into the house. As always, there were piles of newspapers on the couch, leftover dishes on the dining-room table. Books were scattered everywhere.

  He wondered if his house would look like this in a few years, as the female influence faded.

  Probably.

  They walked into the kitchen. Norton sat down at the table in the breakfast nook while Hal dumped the old grounds out of the Mr. Coffee machine and put in a new filter.

  Norton just came out and said it: "Do you believe in ghosts?"

  He surprised even himself by bringing it up, but he did not backtrack, and he watched Hal's hands as his friend measured out the coffee, not wanting to see the expression on his face.

  Hal poured a potful of water into the machine, switched it on, and walked over to the table, wiping his hands on his pants. He sat down, stared at his friend levelly. "Have you felt Carole's presence?"

  Norton nodded. He wanted to retract what he'd said, wanted to pretend this was all a joke, wanted to get off this subject, but he couldn't. "Yes."

  Hal sighed. "You know, after Mariette died, I thought I felt her presence around the house, too. I didn't tell anyone, didn't talk about it to anybody, but I knew she was here. I felt it. I didn't see her or anything, but it was always as if I'd just missed her. I'd walk into the living room, and it'd be like she'd just walked into the kitchen the second before. Or I'd go into the bedroom, and I knew she'd just gone into the bathroom. I can't explain it, but you know how you can tell when a house is occupied, how it feels as if someone's there even though they're in another part of the house and you can't see them? That's what it was like. I never saw her, but I knew she was there."

  "Why didn't you say anything?"

  "Would you have believed me?"

  Norton didn't answer.

  "I figured everyone'd think I was crazy, want to put me in a home or something. Old widowed man thinking he's being haunted by his wife's ghost?" He shook his head.

  Norton was silent for a moment. He cleared his throat.

  "I haven't just felt her, I've seen her."

  Hal raised his eyebrows.

  "This isn't just a 'presence.' It's a full-body apparition, a naked apparition, and it appears all over the house, at different times of day, in different places and positions."

  "Naked, huh?" Hal chuckled. "Maybe you just need to get yourself a littlepoon ."

  Norton frowned at him.

  "I'm sorry," Hal said quickly. "I'm sorry. I know it was insensitive and inappropriate. I didn't mean to offend --"

  Norton waved him away. "You know me better than that, Hal."

  "What is it, then?"

  He hesitated. "She asked me to do something. Told me to do something."

  "You've seen her and heard her?"

  Norton nodded.

  "What'd she say?"

  "Well, it was just one word--'Return'--but I understood that she wanted me to go back to Oakdale, to my parents' old house."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know."

  "You believe this? You think it's real?"

  He hesitated only a second. "Yes."

  Hal thought for a moment. "Maybe you'd better go."

  Norton was already shaking his head. "I can't go back there."

  "Why?"

  "I just can't."

  "When was the last time--"

  "I haven't seen it since I left."

  "How long ago was that?"

  "When I went into the army. When I was eighteen."

  "I take it you don't have fond memories of the place."

  "I'm not going back."

  Hal nodded.

  They were silent for a moment.

  "You get more spiritual as you get older," Hal said.

  "I don't know if it's because you get scared since you're closer to death, or because you're actually wiser than you used to be, but you start thinking about spiritual things, wondering why we're here, what the point of it all is, whether there's anything else. If I were you, I'd probably go. I'd probably do what the ghost said.

  There's a reason for it, something we don't understand, and I think I'd have to trust that."

  Norton said nothing.

  "We've felt these presences or seen these ghosts because we're supposed to. We're not too far from them ourselves, it's almost our time, and who's to say whether this isn't the way it works. Maybe everybody sees ghosts before they go, only they're like me, they're afraid to mention it, afraid to tell anyone."

  Norton remained silent.

  "This might be a warning. About your death. About your afterlife. I don't know if you can afford to ignore it."

  "I can't go back," Norton repeated.

  "Why?"

  "Because of what happened."

  "In Oakdale?"

  Norton looked at him. "In the house," he said.

  "What did happen?" Hal asked quietly.

  "I don't know," Norton admitted, and a wave of cold passed through him. "I can't remember. But it was bad."

  He shivered, rubbed his arms. "I know it was bad."

  As usual, he was the last person at school save the custodians.

  He'd stayed late in the past quite frequently, but it had become a daily routine during the time of Carole's ghost. Now that her spirit was gone, he remained out of habit.

  Well, habit and the fact that he wasn't entirely sure she was gone for good.

  The ghost had disappeared after that las
t appearance by the tree, after telling him to return home to Oakdale.

  It was as if she had done what she had come here to do, had completed her mission and moved on.

  Strangely enough, the house seemed even creepier now that she had left. It had been unnerving to see Carole's nude form suddenly appear in a room, stressful to know that she could show up anywhere in the house at any time, without warning. But it had been an extension of her real presence, and though they hadn't always gotten along, it was somehow comforting and reassuring to know that Carole was still in the house.

  Now, though, the house seemed . . . what?

  He didn't know, couldn't explain it.

  On the one hand, it was empty, completely devoid of any activity other than his own. On the other hand, that seemed to be just a temporary state of affairs. He had the feeling that Carole's ghost could return at any moment.

  And that she might bring others.

  It was impossible to put into words, this feeling, and it might be simply the mental ravings of a doddering trauma-shocked old man, but he was more afraid of being in the house now than he had been when Carole's ghost was popping up left and right. It was stressful and it made him nervous, and its ripples were infringing on all other aspects of his life. It was even beginning to affect his teaching.

  He'd considered selling the place, staying at a boardinghouse or a cheap hotel until he could find a new home or an apartment to rent, but he knew that that would not put an end to it.

  There was also Oakdale hanging over his head.

  Return.

  He'd been thinking a lot about home, about Oakdale lately, but though he had the distinct sense that something horrible had happened there, something that had so alienated him it had kept him away all these years, the only memories he could conjure up were good the ants --and whatever bad memories he had were buried under the layer of years. While he was sure he could uncover those core truths eventually, he was not at all sure he wanted to do so. He'd lived most of his life away from Oakdale, without thinking about it, and he saw no problem with doing the same for whatever years were left to him.

  But could he afford to? Whatever was at stake here, it had to be pretty damn important if a ghost had been sent out to harass him.

  Sent out by whom?

  That was the real question. Although he'd gone to church on and off throughout his life, Norton basically considered himself an agnostic. Well, maybe not exactly an agnostic. A deist, perhaps, like Thomas Jefferson, an adherent to the clockmaker theory. He believed that God had created everything, had set it in motion, but was now on to other projects and other planets, trusting his creation to run in the way he'd intended and not deigning to bother in the affairs of men.

  But the appearance of Carole's ghost had thrown him, and for the first time in his life he considered that maybe the fundamentalists were right. Maybe there was a traditional heaven and a traditional hell, and maybe God did take a personal interest in the minutiae of men. Maybe He was an old man with a long white beard who spent all His time monitoring what happened on earth.

  Maybe God was trying to communicate with him.

  Return.

  That was the thought to which he kept coming back, and he had to admit that it frightened him. Hal was right; even if it was not God specifically who was urging him to return to Oakdale, it was some sort of higher power, something able to summon supernatural forces.

  And who was he to go argue with that? Who was he to go against the wishes of such a being? For all he knew, the fate of the world was at stake and his hesitation and procrastination might doom the human race for eternity.

  What would have happened if Noah had shirked his duty? What if Moses hadn't been in the mood to lead his people out of Egypt?

  Egocentric thinking, he knew. Megalomaniacal even.

  He wasn't in that kind of position. The world wouldn't end because he refused to go back to Oakdale.

  But could he afford to take that chance?

  Hal had offered to go back with him, and as simple a gesture as it was, Norton found himself touched by it.

  He knew how scared his friend was for him, and he was grateful for the support. It was almost enough to tempt him into going.

  Almost.

  But the bottom line was that he was afraid. Afraid of what might happen, afraid of what he might learn, afraid of what he might remember. If it was God calling him in on this, He'd have to either inject some courage into these old bones or give him another sign of some kind and let him know how important this was and why.

  Otherwise, he was staying home.

  Norton sighed. Deep down, though, he didn't really believe it was God trying to recruit him. It was interesting to think about, and it was the argument he tried to use on himself, but if God was really trying to get in touch with him, He would have made it a more pleasant experience. He would have used an angel or a bright white light, not the nude ghost of Norton's dead wife.

  And the message would not have been so ambiguous. It would have been more direct.

  If anything, this was a recruitment call not from God but from . . . the other guy.

  The devil.

  Satan.

  There was a knock on the door and Joe Reynolds, the lead custodian, poked his head in the room. "You almost through in here, Mr. Johnson? I need to clean the floors."

  Norton tossed a stack of papers and the teacher's edition of the twelfth-grade government textbook into his briefcase. "Just leaving, Joe. Don't mean to hold you up."

  "Don't apologize, Mr. Johnson. I think the kids of this town would be a hell of a lot better off if all our teachers were as conscientious as you."

  Norton smiled at him. "I think you're right."

  He walked home the same way he'd walked to work this morning, through the field and over to Fifth Street, but there seemed something different this afternoon and he could not quite put his finger on what it was.

  It was chilly once again, and there were red and yellow leaves on the sidewalks and the streets. The sun was not down, but it was low, and the neighborhoods through which he passed were shrouded in shadow. He put down his briefcase, buttoned up his coat against the cold. Fall was here, not officially but in spirit, and that cheered him up. No matter what else was going on, no matter how horrible his life became, there were still things to look forward to, still things to enjoy.

  There was a lot to be said for simple pleasures.

  At the next intersection, he turned right, onto Clover.

  Before him, there was a trail of burnt toast on the sidewalk, and he stopped in his tracks, staring at the line of blackened squares stretching out before him.

  It came back to him. Not thoughts but feelings. Not images but ambiance.

  A cool breeze brushed his cheek.

  The burnt toast trail led down the block for as far as he could see, and though he was aware that it could have been placed there by some child as part of a game, he knew that was not the case. It would have taken hours to burn so many pieces of toast, even in the largest toaster, and there was no real point to it. That was too much effort, too much thought, too much work for such a bizarre and meaningless effect.

  This was what it had been like in Oakdale, he realized.

  These were the sorts of things that had happened at home. It had been a world of sudden strangeness, of incongruous juxtapositions, a world in which the irrational was an everyday occurrence.

  He stared at the sidewalk in front of him.

  No child had done this.

  The trail had been meant for him.

  It was a sign.

  Return.

  The breeze was still blowing, but the coldness he felt had nothing to do with the weather. It came from within, and while he could not remember specifics of his life in Oakdale, he had a clearer sense of the overall picture, and he was even more frightened of it than he had been before.

  Something was trying to communicate with him, and despite the trepidation he felt, he walked forward, d
own the sidewalk, following the toast.

  The trail led to an empty house in the center of Sterling Avenue, two blocks away. Across the street, a mother standing on her front porch called her bundled daughters in for dinner while their friends continued to play hopscotch on the sidewalk. Several neighbors on both sides of the tree-lined drive waved and called out to each other as they walked their dogs.

  No one seemed to notice the unwavering line of burnt bread, and he gathered his courage, took a deep breath, and followed it up the walk and into the open house.

  Inside, the rooms were devoid of furniture. The toast trail ended at the porch steps, but there were piles of what looked like strawberry jam in the entry way, the front room, the hall, and the kitchen. Those were all the rooms he could see from the doorway, and he assumed the pattern continued through the bedroom and bathrooms.

  He stepped slowly over the threshold, looking around.

  There was no movement, no sign of people or ghosts or beings of any sort, but the atmosphere was charged with tension and he had the feeling that he could be jumped at any time. The smart thing to do would be to turn back, leave, retreat, but he had to know why he'd been led here and he pressed on.

  The girl was waiting for him in the empty back bedroom.

  She could not have been more than ten or eleven, and she was wearing a dirty white shift that hung loosely on her thin frame and threatened with every movement to slip off her shoulders. Her filthy hair hung over her forehead in a way that seemed sensuous; not a parody of the posturing of an older girl, but a casually unforced naturalness that was sexy despite her age.

  She was standing in front of a window, with the light from the house next door behind her, and he was aware that he could see her legs, backlit through the thin material of the shift, and his eyes were drawn to the meeting place of her thighs.

  What the hell was wrong with him? This girl was young enough to be his granddaughter.

  Granddaughter?

  Great-granddaughter.

  The girl smiled at him, and there was something so evil in that smile, something so unnatural and corrupt, that he turned without thinking and ran. It was an instinctive animal reaction. He was absolutely terrified, utterly panic-stricken, and he sped out of the room, down the hall, running faster than he ever had in his life.