The House by the Cemetery

by John Everson

  They walked silently across the grass to the old house at the end of the clearing. Jillie stepped up the two stairs of the porch and walked quickly across the deck to the door.

  “Do you think it’s actually unlocked?” Ted whispered.

  She put her hand on the doorknob. “Only one way to find out.”

  The knob turned.

  “Check this out,” she hissed, and pushed the wooden door inward.

  It opened with a slow creak.

  Jillie didn’t hesitate, but stepped inside.

  Ted followed her through the foyer, flashing the light ahead of them. She walked into the front room, and pointed to a spot not far from a dark hole in the floor.

  “Set up right here,” she said. “We should get started at the front of the house.”

  He nodded and pulled out a small tripod and camera from the backpack, along with another oblong shape. It glowed with thin blue LEDs when he pressed a button on the side.

  “Any focal point?” he asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” she said. “Maybe the hole in the floor? Maybe there’s activity transgressing the basement? I don’t know.”

  “Done,” he said, slapping a lock on the tripod base to hold it steady. “Now what?”

  Jillie plopped down on the floor with a wall behind her, and crossed her legs Indian style. “Now we wait.”

  “No. Now you go,” a gruff voice said from behind them.

  Jillie jumped to her feet. Ted, who had been in the process of easing himself to the floor, fell backward on his ass before scrambling clumsily to his feet. A short but solid-looking man in a blue button-up shirt and dark pants stood in the doorway.

  “What do you think you’re doing here?” he asked.

  Jillie recovered herself quickly.

  “We’re looking for EMF activity. Who are you?”

  “I’m the guy who’s supposed to keep people like you out,” the man said. He pointed at the guard badge he had pinned to his shirt. “You’re trespassing.”

  “We’re not doing any harm,” Jillie said. “We’re just trying to see if there is paranormal activity in this place since it’s been put under construction. That could cause a surge in—”

  “Get out now or I call the police,” he interrupted.

  “As you like,” she said. “But you’ll be sorry when people start dying in here.”

  “Actually, I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen,” he said.

  She snorted. “Good luck with that.” Then she motioned to Ted, who was already fumbling with the latches and trying to collapse and pick up all of their equipment.

  “Come on,” she said. “We’ll have to do this another time.”

  Chapter Ten

  Mist still hung in the air just above the long grass as Mike drove down the gravel path and into Bachelor’s Grove. It was an eerie blanket across the earth that looked like a special effect for a movie…but it was just the natural state of a cool August morning in the forest. When he pulled to a stop at the clearing in front of the house, Mike saw someone sitting in a canvas chair on the small deck. It looked as if he was sitting in front of a house in a cloud. The guy was sipping from a thermos and wearing a black pullover Blackhawks hat – an odd thing to see in August, but it had been dipping into the cooler temperatures overnight this past week.

  Seeing someone at the house momentarily startled him, but when Mike got out of the truck he nodded at the man on the deck. Because the man wasn’t a stranger. He was the night watchman, Gonz, who’d been there the past few mornings when he’d arrived. It was still disconcerting to see someone at the house, but it also made Mike feel better. He knew if Gonz was here, then nobody had turned up overnight to perform animal sacrifices in the basement…or God knew what else.

  “Quiet night?” Mike asked as he walked up the two stairs to the deck.

  Gonz shook his head. He was a short, thickset man with the darker complexion of a Mexican farmhand. Mike had worked with several guys like him on construction crews and maybe because of that, he’d quickly warmed to Gonz when the man had shown up on the site. He trusted him instantly.

  When the watchman shook his head, Mike’s chest clenched. Damned if this place didn’t have him on edge.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Gonz rolled his eyes and pushed himself up and out of the canvas chair.

  “I took care of it,” he said. His brown eyes met Mike’s, and the carpenter could see how tired the watchman was. But there was a hint of amusement in that tired gaze as well.

  “Couple of ghost hunters showed up and set up their cameras in the front room. Like they owned the place. I told them to take a hike.”

  The watchman shrugged and took another swig of his thermos. Coffee? Mike wondered. But the guy had been out here all night. Part of him wondered if it was a beer. That same part of him got excited when he thought of that possibility.

  “Did they give you any problem?” he asked.

  “Not once I threatened to call the police.”

  Mike nodded. “That can scare people off.”

  “That and a switchblade,” Gonz said.

  Mike raised an eyebrow. “Did you really pull a knife on them?”

  Gonz laughed and shook his head. “No, no…just sayin’.”

  Mike let out a sigh of relief. “Good, I wouldn’t want you to have to…though, you know, the closer we get to Halloween….”

  Gonz nodded. “I know. They told me all about this place. And how the crazies would be coming out in droves.”

  “Do they let you carry a gun?” Mike asked.

  The watchman nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t like to have to bring it out. People see that and everything just goes south, you know?”

  Mike nodded. “Sure. But good to know you’re protected.”

  Gonz grinned, showing a mouth full of yellowed teeth. “Don’t you worry about me,” he said. “I can take very good care of myself. And your house.”

  He turned around and folded up his chair with one quick snap. “And now I hand it over to you,” he said. “Go get some work done.”

  Gonz grinned and slapped Mike’s shoulder as he walked past and down the steps. “Maybe I’ll see you tonight,” he said. “If you survive the daylight.”

  “No worry about that,” Mike said. “You keep surviving the night and we’ll both be all right.”

  But the watchman was already loading his chair into the back of his old rust-ridden red Toyota pickup truck and didn’t give any indication that he heard.

  Mike got to work and in a few minutes the clearing was filled with the whir of a circular saw. His first mission was to stack up a large reserve of boards…and once he was done with that, spend hours pounding them into position.

  The day went quickly, and for once, without any instances of stumbling upon coffins or dead and bled animals. Katie was absent too, and Mike found himself missing her. When he packed up his tools at the end of the afternoon, he took his time, hoping she would turn up. But when five-thirty had come and gone, he had to admit to himself that she wasn’t coming. He tried to find the silver lining; at least he’d get home for once before dark.

  Chapter Eleven

  Another day had disappeared like a summer breeze. Once again, Gonz Torrenz was back on the job as dusk fell. Considering he slept through the daylight hours, his life sometimes felt like one long string of silent nights. He pulled down the gravel path and parked the car just a few yards from the front door of the old house. The carpenter seemed to have already left for the day; the clearing was empty.

  Gonz had worked a lot of oddball locations as a night watchman. But guarding a broken-down haunted house behind a cemetery in the middle of a forest preserve had to be the strangest. Who would want to get into this crap heap? Who even knew it was here? From the road, you couldn’t see the old ceme
tery stones, let alone the old house.

  He shrugged and took a chug from his thermos. Didn’t matter in the end. It paid the bills. He just had to try to stay awake. It may have looked like a cush job, but he’d learned the hard way not to take those for granted. Every now and then the agency would send someone around to check on their watchmen, and you did not want to be sucking Zs when that guy came walking up to your vehicle.

  Gonz knew. He’d been written up once for just that thing. On one easy night watch job, he’d leaned back in the truck after downing some cookies and a couple cups of coffee, and suddenly the low buzz of Zeppelin on the local classic rock station had been lulling rather than energizing. The next thing he knew, there was something tapping at his window. And then…he’d been written up. If it happened again, he might have to look for real work. And Gonz didn’t have the education or resume to nab himself a desk job somewhere. He’d have to go back to using his hands and his back to clear a check. He’d worked for a bricklayer once; he didn’t ever intend to go back.

  No, he liked watchman work a lot more than busting his back. He needed to stay awake tonight. He had his phone set to go off every half hour, to make sure he got out of the truck and walked around – and walked around inside the house. It was an annoying ritual for the first couple hours…but he’d found on watch gigs at remote locations like this, it became necessary by two a.m.

  So, Gonz was completely alert at twelve-thirty when his watch announced that it was time to head into the house. He’d changed it up so that he sat for an hour or so in the house, and then listened to the radio for an hour or so in the truck. Or sat on the back of the truck bed. The change of venue helped keep him alert (along with the coffee and phone alarms).

  He stepped outside the cab and stretched. It was a warm night, with just the faintest of breezes to tickle the nose. The moon was low in the sky still, but it gave the clearing in front of the house an almost magical glow.

  Gonz walked past the tombstones of the cemetery and stepped onto the new front porch of the house. He took a deep breath of the night air, before unlocking the door. The air inside was not nearly as fresh or pure. He wrinkled his nose and turned on a flashlight to illuminate the dark foyer. The light of the moon did not reach far through the dirty windows, and Gonz didn’t want to trip over anything. He walked down the hall to the kitchen. Now and then, a floorboard creaked as he passed.

  “Who’s there?” he called, as he saw a white shadow pass in the hall.

  The watchman stood still and just listened. You couldn’t move in this house without making some noise. If he really had seen someone, there would be audible evidence that they were here. There were no rugs or draperies to deaden the sound. No matter where someone was in the house, you’d hear them.

  Gonz held his breath and listened.

  Something in the depths of the house creaked.

  “God damn it,” he mumbled under his breath. Someone had managed to get into the place while he was sitting right outside watching it. So now it was up to him to shoo them away.

  He walked down the hallway and shone the spot into two of the bedrooms on the first floor. They were empty, stripped of any furnishings. There was no place for an intruder to hide. He moved on.

  “I know you’re here,” he called. “Nobody’s allowed in this place. Come out now and I won’t get the police involved.”

  He stood still and listened then, hoping for some telltale movement indicating the person was going to leave quietly. Instead, there was a creak over his head. And another. Slow and repetitive and steady.

  Like footsteps.

  Gonz walked over to the attic stairs. He’d been up there once, on the day he’d started, just to get the full layout of the place in his head. He didn’t have any desire to go back. It was creepy up there, full of dusty boxes and spiderwebs.

  He put his foot on the first step and shone the light upward. It caught the rough beam of the attic ceiling. He called again. There still was no answer, but something above creaked.

  Gonz shook his head and stepped slowly up the stairs. He debated going back to the car to get the gun he kept in his glovebox, but then shook his head. There was no reason for any intruder in this place to be armed. It had to be a kid, checking out the ‘haunted house’ after midnight. They were probably scared shitless right now that someone was on to them.

  When he reached the top of the steps, he was careful as he put his head above the floor and into the attic itself. He quickly shone the light 360 degrees, and then did it again, moving slower. The flash didn’t pick up anything but dusty boxes and bare walls.

  Gonz frowned and stepped the rest of the way up until he stood in the room. He shone the flashlight to the right, letting it linger on an old rope coiled atop a wooden crate.

  Something creaked again behind him, and then came a wooden snap, almost like a door closing. He turned quickly and moved toward the source of the sound. Or at least where it sounded like the noise had come from.

  The carpenter had framed out a wall in the corner near the window. It looked as if he planned to barricade off a small finger of the room, but hadn’t put up the plywood to wall it in yet. Gonz stepped through the frame and looked around, shining the flash into every corner. There was a screwdriver lying on the ground; the watchman bent down to retrieve it. As he did, he noticed the gap line in the floor. He followed it with his eyes until it turned in a 90-degree angle and cut across the floorboards. He saw the inset handle, and fingered at it until the handle lifted upward. Then he pulled. The floor door opened with the same kind of creak he’d just heard a moment before, and he grinned.

  So. You can run, but you can’t hide from the watchman, he thought.

  He lifted the door all the way back, and aimed the light downward. He could see the plank ladder, and dusty floor below. There were footstep tracks all over at the base. Someone had been down here a lot.

  He stepped down, and after just three steps, jumped easily to the bottom, anxious to catch whoever was down here by surprise…or if not by surprise, at least catch them before they expected him to make it down.

  He saw her as soon as his head ducked below the surface of the attic floor.

  She didn’t look surprised by his entrance.

  The woman stood just three feet away, in front of a small bed covered in a tan and green afghan. Was she a squatter? They had told him this place was empty, but that sometimes kids came and trashed it. But this bed was about the only piece of furniture he’d seen in the house. And it was in something of a hidden room. Maybe she’d managed to escape detection until now. She stood in front of him barefoot, in a stained blue t-shirt and ragged jeans. Her face appeared starkly pale in the light of the flash, her hair long and wispy and pale brown. It reminded him of the mane of a horse his mom used to ride, back when their family could afford to go to the stable and ride horses. She didn’t move or speak. Her eyes didn’t blink.

  She simply stared at him. It was a little creepy.

  “This is private property, ma’am,” he said. “You’ll have to leave.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “What’s your name?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”

  The dark of her eyes remained unblinking. She almost seemed a statue. But she was clearly human. He could see the slow rise of her chest.

  “Look, you don’t want to talk, that’s fine. But you can’t stay here.” He gestured at the ladder with the flashlight, pointing up.

  “If you would…?”

  Then she moved.

  Slowly.

  He tensed involuntarily, but she walked past him and in almost slow motion mounted the steps of the ladder. She never said a word. Her dirt-smeared feet were at the level of his face when he let out a breath. She was leaving without any trouble. Thank God.

  But then the door above snapped shut. Only, she was still on the ladder. She had simply p
ulled the trapdoor closed.

  Step by step, her feet descended, moving a little faster now.

  When she turned from the ladder to stare at him again, her eyes looked black as the void.

  “You have to leave,” he said.

  She shook her head, no.

  Then she jabbed out and slapped the flashlight from his hand. Caught by surprise, he dropped it, and the light rolled across the floor to rest, with the light trained on one wall.

  A weight hit him then, as the girl’s full body piled into his.

  Gonz fell backward, landing with his ass on the floor. She was upon him in a heartbeat, pinning him to the floor with her weight.

  That’s when he saw the other one stepping out of the dark shadows. She was pale and comely and grinning. But that grin did not hold any humor.

  Gonz opened his mouth to scream.

  But only the gravestones heard his cry for help.

  Chapter Twelve

  When Mike arrived the next day, he found Gonz’s old red pickup – with the bed door still hanging down – but no night watchman. Which was unusual. Although he had missed seeing him last night because he’d actually headed home on time, for the most part they had ‘handed off’ the house over the past few days, Gonz arriving to work just as Mike was getting ready to leave, and vice versa. Mike was ‘day shift’ and Gonz was ‘night shift’. That way the place was always under someone’s eye. And, not surprisingly, there had been no further evidence of ritual sacrifices discovered, which had helped Mike’s work go faster.

  Mike unloaded his own truck and trudged his box of tools up to the attic. He needed to finish roughing in the corner where the laundry chute was so nobody ended up falling down a hole during their walk through the haunted house. Then he was going to finish another wall that he’d framed to divide the space – it would serve as both structural support and allow the decorators another room to haunt.

  He’d left the circular saw upstairs and so, after taking his tools up, he stayed there and measured and trimmed a couple pieces of wood right away, nailing them quickly into place. Since there was already a pile of lumber there, he measured and marked a couple more and did the same. Quickly the upstairs spaces filled in.