way of...lingering. Perhaps it's that lingering that we feel."
An icy chill swept over Kay as she heard his words, she shivered. The cellar loomed greatly in her fears, a dank, dreadful room that shunned her presence leaving her feel unwelcome and reviled. She always felt such a deep coldness there. The dark sense of foreboding was almost too much to bear and she seldom ventured into that room alone, in fact she avoided the basement altogether except when her husband was there to accompany her, even then she wasted little time before retreating back to the ground floor, a lamb fleeing wolves in a forest, or so it seemed.
"I rarely go down there without my husband," she admitted. "I'm sorry, did you want some cream or sugar for your coffee?" she asked.
"Cream if you have any," Harold answered.
"I have half and half, my husband likes his that way," she replied as she rose from her chair and went to the refrigerator, pausing as fear tugged lightly at her as if it tested her defenses, she shrugged it off before turning back to her guest.
"Could I look around a bit?" Meachem asked politely.
"Sure, let me give you a tour," Kay answered as she set the carton of half and half on the table. Meachem added a splash to his coffee watching it swirl about and set it down as he rose from the chair.
"You know this wasn't always a house," he cited.
"What do you mean?" Kay asked sheepishly.
"This used to be an office building," Harold replied. "That dining room was the office of the President of Kingston Wood Works. The factory stood where that huge empty lot is now," Harold said pointing to the east. "This was the reception area and down the hall were three other offices, bedrooms now. And I'm guessing what was the old conference room is most likely your living room. It was said that the owner had ties to organized crime and that from time to time his factories saws cut up more than just wood."
"Really, Kay said shuddering at the thought of what Harold had just described.
"That old cellar downstairs was actually a vault. It had a huge steel door and everything. I bought the place from the Kingston company when they left town years back. My wife and I remodeled everything into what you see now."
Kay led the way down the hall to the living room and Harold paused by the attic door and tugged the knob as if to ensure it was secure. Satisfied, he entered the living room and looked about. Here the lack of direct sunlight cast a permanent shadow across the room. It was joyless and somber if not even-depressing.
"I installed the picture window there myself. Oh I had help to be sure. Memories," he mused.
Kay turned at the creak of the hinges on the old attic door. It stood open now as if announcing an unseen guest.
"Just like that," Harold said with a smile as he turned.
Kay walked over slowly as if weighing each step. She paused just short of the open door gazing at the blackness beyond it, feeling that thick and foul terror hiding unseen in the shadows, and then quickly, like a cat playing with a mouse, she snapped forward, her hand wrapping around the tarnished brass knob. She closed the door, pulling back a few steps in haste, lest something unwanted advance upon her. Cold seemed to envelope her as though something had. She shivered as she tried to shake off its icy embrace.
"I'm sorry Harold, you were saying?" But Harold was no longer in front of her. She thought for a moment he'd disappeared, evaporating like a dream upon awakening, until she saw him from the corner of her eye. He now stood in the opposite corner of the room and gazed upon an old painting that hung upon the wall.
"It's a nice painting but it really doesn't seem to fit in here," Harold answered.
"My husband found it in the attic," Kay answered. "He likes it so we agreed to hang it there, for now."
Harold turned and walked to the center of the room. He looked up at the sudden sound of activity from the hall.
"That's my husband Troy. I'll go get him. Please, tell him what you've told me, please!" Kay pleaded. She left her visitor and entered the hallway to greet her husband.
The hall was empty. Odd, she thought. I know I heard him. Over by the door she saw Troy's boots laid neatly next to Harold Meachem's overshoes. Thinking he'd slipped into the kitchen she hurried forward to greet him.
"Troy!" She called out. "We have a visitor."
The kitchen stood empty, a deep silence filled the room broken only by the seconds ticking ever forward on the wall clock that hung above her, but she now saw that the cups had returned to the counter where they had disappeared from only minutes before. Troy's lunch box was on the counter and his coat was hanging on a hook by the door but the stillness in the house remained unbroken. The coffees, still untouched, sat waiting on the table and as she walked closer toward them the stillness was broken by the sudden slam of the basement door. She jumped and clutched her chest tightly with surprise, a thin squeal leapt from her lips, shrill and short. Kay turned. She stared at the door for a moment and hurried over to it. Quickly she opened the basement door expecting to find her husband, hoping to find him, to hug him and hold him and feel something warm and welcome. The lights were on downstairs but only the weighted silence greeted her, no―mocked her.
"Troy? Troy honey, are you down there? We have a visitor," she called out, her voice echoing hollow and alone in the stair well.
The stillness was maddening. She hesitated, mustering her courage, inching her way further into the cold, dank air below. The dusty wooden steps creaked with each vacillating step she took. As Kay looked about the basement the silence pressed against her like a great and dreadful thing. She gasped as a wriggling house centipede scurried near the wall, as fearful of the light as she might be of the dark, its numerous legs speeding it along. As she turned to go back up stairs Kay saw the cellar light now spilled from under the ponderous wooden door. The very cellar that Mr. Meachem told her had once been a vault. That dreaded room that prickled the hairs on her neck and made her feel so ill at ease. Had it been on all day, she questioned herself? Perhaps Troy had forgotten it as he hurried off to work? Filled with dread she walked reluctantly over to the weathered wooden door and reached for the cold, tarnished knob. Her hands trembled as she fought to control them. Steeling her will against her fear she gripped the cold metal and turned it quickly pushing it forth, intent on facing this irrational fear, to have Harold tell Troy that she wasn't crazy, that strange things really did happen here. It was then that she began to jerk violently as her stomach convulsed in spasm, attempting to empty itself of its contents but failing time and again.
There, in the middle of the cold, gray cellar floor lay her husband Troy in an oily, dark pool of blood. His back riddled in a mosaic of short crimson slashes the ragged edges of pale skin puckering around each wound. Had Harold Meachem done this? Had he forced her husband down the steps and done this, and if so, how so quickly? If so why had she not heard a scuffle or scream or footfalls on the stairs? Surely Troy would have fought off a man of Harold Meachem's size. Perhaps he'd brought an accomplice? Had they murdered her husband? Why? What could they possibly have to gain? Kay's mind reeled in disbelief.
There, at the edge of the blackish pool, she saw foot prints stamped from her husband's blood. Step by step she traced them back to where she now stood. It was then she became aware of the crusty stickiness upon her hands and looked down to see the blood soaked knife she still held. The deep maroon crust of blood that was drying quickly; almost black on the long wicked blade and on her hands, her clothes. Her lungs hitched in ragged breaths as she turned and stumbled up the stairs.
At the top she closed the door and pressed her back tightly against it as if to trap that darkness behind her. Kay's heart thundered within her chest, threatening to explode at any second. She saw that Harold Meachem's overshoes were no longer by the door, his coat and hat no longer on the coat hook. Beyond the oval of the stain glass of her front door she saw only the inky, dark night beyond. That's not possible, she thought, it's the mid
dle of the day. Her gaze turned to the kitchen clock upon the wall. Both hands now rested firmly on the twelve. Fighting for one decent breath Kay moved quickly down the hall and into the living room but found herself alone. He was here, she told herself. Not two minutes ago he stood looking at the painting. With great trepidation she made her way across the vacant stillness of the room and looked at the painting on the wall. The one that Troy brought down from the attic so long ago. The one she disliked so very much. The painting of this house as it looked long ago, entombed in a cold, gray blanket of snow, frozen in time. Her gaze shifted to the lower right hand corner. There, scrawled in thin black script, the artists signature.
"Harold Meachem 1967."
Behind her came the malignant creak of the old attic door as it groaned upon its ancient hinges. Hushed whispers beckoned her from the blackness above. Kay turned. It stood open once again. From the darkness beyond they called out to her. Harold's voice seemed among the murmurings that surrounded her. She answered them. Walking to the doorway she turned and paused looking at the dim yellow light the emanated from far above. Slowly, she ascended the stairs, one by one, until she reached the top. Turning to her right Kay saw the old hemp rope. It hung from the rafters in a
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