House Haunted

by Al Sarrantonio

  Something touched Ricky's shoulder and stayed there this time.

  “Ricky,” a voice whispered, “don't you want to listen?”

  Ricky screamed, pushing futilely at the shutter, banging it with his fists, before giving up and suddenly turning around to face his attacker.

  The dining room was empty.

  But someone's finger was still pressing into his shoulder. “Ricky,” someone whispered in his ear.

  He cried out and turned, ramming both fists ineffectively at the shutter. Outside, rain fell just out of reach. Thunder growled.

  “Jesus, Jesus,” he pleaded, pushing with all his might as the shutter began to close.

  He could not hold it back. It shut, and the hook slipped back into its eye.

  The finger on his shoulder became a heavy, bruising grip. “Come, Ricky.”

  The hand on his shoulder pushed him to the back of the house. He stood before the whitewashed door that led to the cellar. The wooden latch flipped up and over, and the door creaked open. Ricky was propelled toward the stairway, forced down one step at a time.

  The light at the bottom snapped on, its pull chain swinging wildly. The light was brighter than Ricky remembered it.

  The cellar was chilly, musty smelling. Along one wall, library shelves stored house records; rows of visitor registers and account books jutted out into the room. Behind them was an area bordered by stacked boxes and furniture in storage or in need of repair.

  The hand on Ricky's shoulder pushed him toward the storage area.

  The overhead bulb blinked on, flooding the area like a spotlight.

  Ricky screamed, covering his face with his hands.

  In the neat square area lay the mutilated bodies of everyone he loved. Charlie and Reesa were face down in one corner, hands tied behind their backs. The skull of each had been crushed like a robin's egg. Reesa's face was closest, her head on its side, her eyes staring into nothingness. Spook sat with his back against an unused chest of drawers, his eyes wide open, his severed head not quite aligned with his blood-washed neck on which it rested. Mr. and Mrs. Harvey sat on chairs directly under the light; they had been bound together back to back, their blue-strangled faces staring sightlessly around the world at one another, tongues licking out for air that wasn't theirs. Worst of all was his mother. She was on top of a dining table, laid out neatly like a waked corpse, with three screwdrivers set into her body in a line down her chest; her hand was frozen around the sunken handle of one, vainly trying to remove it. Her mouth was an open cry, eyes pleading unseeing with the ceiling.

  “No, God, no!”

  Ricky fell to his knees, burying his head in his arms. The hand on his shoulder bowed him to the floor, and he lay there, weeping.

  Suddenly, the grip on his shoulder was gone.

  Ricky looked up, and the storage area was empty, save for an open box of discarded magazines supporting the leaning handle of a sweep broom.

  Ricky slowly got to his feet. He was shivering, unable to drive what he had seen from his mind.

  From near the stairs, the voice that had whispered came to him. It didn't whisper now. There was nothing subtle about it.

  “Go to New York, Ricky,” the voice said. It was a woman's voice. “If you don't, I'll bring you down here again, and what you see will be real. Do you believe me?”

  “Yes.” He shivered as if he were naked in the snow.

  “Maybe you'll even dance on Broadway. Would you like that, Ricky?”

  Ricky did not answer. Tears pressed at the corners of his eyes. His mouth worked a silent prayer.

  From upstairs, he heard his voice singing “Redemption Song.” He heard the muffled taps of his feet, dancing a routine he had created in the style of Ben Vereen.

  “Leave, Ricky.” The voice sounded amused. Upstairs, the singing and dancing ceased.

  All was quiet.

  Ricky took the stairs two at a time. Through the back door it seemed the day was bright again, but when he pulled it open, he saw that the sky was black overcast. There was a deft cut of lightning, followed by the deep booming sound of thunder, its mate. The drops of rain were large and insistent, cold against the skin.

  He ran to his bike, ramming it into life, and fled. As he passed the front of Chambers House he saw that the green shutter in the dining room window was thrown wide open.

  He sobbed, his crying mixing with cloud-tears of rain.

  He bounced down the driveway and into the road, nearly skidding into a pink Hamilton-bound bus as he made his too-quick turn. The rain and thunder made a sound, but it was not loud enough to block out what he heard behind him: his own voice singing, and a laughing voice that said, “Boo.”

  5. THE ASSISTANT

  For the first time, Gary hit traffic on the way down. He was mildly annoyed, because the Taconic State Parkway was usually one of the least traveled and most pleasant roads in New York. But today, at the start of a chilly, overcast end-of-summer weekend, which no one but the diehards would be spending at their upstate retreats—and they'd be going the other way, anyway—he'd hit a slow-moving crawl and now, suddenly, a complete backup.

  He put up with it, jamming a Miles Davis tape into the deck of the old Datsun. Twenty minutes later his patience was rewarded and annoyance abated when he passed the remains of an accident by the turnoff for the Saw Mill River Parkway. It looked like some idiot in a Volkswagen had tried to make the turnoff from the left lane. He'd been punished by having the right side of his bug torn off by a white Cadillac. The Caddy must have been moving; it looked relatively unharmed, but the Volkswagen had been totaled. From the appearance of the windshield on the passenger side and the red-speckled glass swept onto the shoulder of the highway, they'd needed an ambulance, if not a meat wagon.

  Gary glanced idly into the interior of the bug as he rubbernecked by, but whatever had been left in there had already been hauled away.

  From then on, as he got onto the Saw Mill Parkway, the traffic was light.

  It had been a good trip, as these trips went. He'd been able to get Bridget's business out of the way, still leaving plenty of time to get home and take care of his own.

  He smiled, gripping the wheel hard. Business. Like old Harold and his chess.

  The Invincible Man.

  He gripped the wheel harder. His entire body had become tense, his smile set. Why not test it now? Maybe he would tear the wheel right off its shaft, send the old Datsun into a concrete overpass. Maybe he'd wait until he got off the Major Deegan Expressway, send the car over the Third Avenue Bridge. If the impact didn't get him, the water would, since he couldn't swim.

  But what if she was lying?

  He nearly broke the wheel in confused anger, his eyes filling with blind rage. He was passing a huge diesel rig; he could run the Datsun sideways, jamming it under the bed; the dragging crush of the wheels would—

  She wouldn't lie to me.

  He loosened his grip on the steering wheel. His smile loosened, too. There was no reason to total the car. Why would she have told him all these things if she didn't mean them? A trade, she'd called it. He did a few things for her, was a kind of assistant; she gave him . . . invincibility. A fair trade. And he knew she could do things that weren't . . . normal. She'd proved that to him.

  What if she's using you?

  He was gripping the wheel again. Deliberately, with an act of will, he calmed himself. He was getting upset over nothing. It had been a good trip, a good day; it would be a good night . . .

  What if—

  In the confines of the Datsun, he shouted, “Stop it!” He banged his fist down hard on the dashboard, feeling the cheap padding give with the blow until metal somewhere underneath met and resisted his hand.

  Stop . . .

  He felt better. He stretched his hand out on the seat next to him, letting the pain spread from his fist to his arm, concentrating on it, tasting it.

  In a few minutes, he was himself again.

  He turned his attention back to the
road. He was already on the FDR Drive. Even with the delay on the Taconic, he had made good time. His spirits rose. He reversed the neglected Miles Davis tape.

  In five minutes he had reached his exit, passed a couple of stoplights, made two quick turns, and was into his underground garage. The car bounced and squeaked at the bottom of the short ramp, and he thought, Have to get new shocks.

  He was in a good mood by the time he locked the garage door behind him, made a quick trip to the corner deli to buy the three papers (“Hello, Bob”; “Hello, Gary,” a meaningless conversation that hadn't changed in twelve years), and entered the elevator. Mrs. Fogelman was in it. She'd lived in the building since Gary was four years old and had known his mother. “Hello, Gary,” she began, trying to rush into conversation, looking for gossip. He waved his hand at her noncommittally and pushed the up button.

  The elevator was slow; the gate creaked and momentarily stuck when he pulled it open. As the car finally arrived he looked at his watch. Six o'clock. Plenty of time.

  He locked his door behind him, took off his jacket and laid it carefully over the back of the couch. He put the three newspapers on the corner of the coffee table. He reached beneath the couch and slid out a flat square scrapbook, the old-fashioned kind with black pages for snapshots mounted with gummed corners.

  The first three pages were covered with newspaper clippings. He opened to the fourth page, revealing a black-and-white photograph of his mother and himself and a man he didn't recognize. The man had an arm around his shoulder. Gary was standing in front of a low brick wall. He was about six years old. Above where he stood, on top of the wall, was a huge plaster Humpty Dumpty with its arms and legs flailing, trying to regain its balance, a look of extreme alarm on its face. A sign, partly hidden by his mother's smiling face, read: “Couldn't put . . . again.”

  Gary removed the picture, tossed it aside. He pulled up the four gummed corners and discarded them.

  He turned the page. Another snapshot showed a similar scene, with him and his mother, but a different man. He didn't recall this one, either. The man had a broad-brimmed hat tilted back on his head. Gary was about seven, now. He was mounted on a saddled horse, his mother's hand holding the reins. The man's arm was around her waist, pulling her close.

  Gary lifted the picture out and slid the gummed corners off. He went on until he reached a page that held a huge picture, eight by ten, set in sideways to fit. It was of his second-grade class at the Lexington School. It was the only class picture his mother had ever bought. He sat in the row farthest from the camera, in the end seat. He could barely be seen, his crew-cut blond head partially hidden behind a girl with a red thick kinky mop that stood out from her head. Only half his face was visible, showing a lopsided smile. He looked as though he were half asleep. The teacher had even said that to him once or twice, that he acted as though he were half-asleep. His mother had said that, too.

  “Bitch,” he said, yanking the picture from the page and removing the comers with his fingernails.

  He gathered all the photographs together with the school shot and put them under the couch, brushing the gummed corners after them.

  He pulled the three newspapers on the coffee table up close, going through them page by page.

  It had taken them a week, but they had finally found Harold. The Daily News had a story about him on page four. There was a photograph, blurred, of the sheet-covered body on the kitchen floor, and another of his chess museum. In the kitchen shot, a cop in plain clothes stood next to the body; two uniformed cops were pulling the sheet up around Harold's head.

  The caption said the plain-clothes detective's name was Falconi.

  Falconi was in the story, too, claiming he had no real leads but that he was certain they'd solve the crime. “We'll get the S.O.B .,” he was quoted as saying.

  Feeling vaguely disappointed at the Daily News coverage, Gary clipped the article and used a glue stick to paste it into the photo album.

  He searched through the Times, which had the same story with fewer, fancier, words. There was a clearer picture of Falconi—he was short and looked stout but his tie was straight.

  The Post had the headline he had hoped for. “GAMES KILLER,” it read. He pasted the story, a lurid copy of the other versions, underneath the headline, carelessly ripping one section at the bottom. He didn't get angry at himself. It was the headline, in two-inch tall type, he wanted to stand out.

  He glanced at the school clock in the hallway and did get mad at himself. It was seven-fifteen. He had nearly let himself run late.

  He added his clothes to the pile in the hallway and showered. Then he shaved, pausing to wipe the steam from the mirror carefully before each stroke.

  He dressed slowly, in blue oxford-cloth shirt, gray crewneck sweater, tan chinos. His cordovan loafers were shined, his hair brushed neatly to the side. He cleaned his glasses and set them carefully on his face.

  He took his gym bag from the closet, packed an extra pair of chinos, belt, navy blue turtleneck. By the time he was finished it was nearly seven forty-five. He went back to the mirror in the bathroom to make sure he looked the way he wanted, then left the apartment.

  Out on the street he thought about Meg. She once told him that he dressed the way she remembered boys dressing in high school. She liked that. She said that when she was in high school everything was nice. That was before hair got long and everybody turned into slobs. She told him that he reminded her of high school, of the junior prom. She'd lived in the suburbs, then. She'd gone to the prom with a boy named Mike; he'd come on time and he'd given her nice flowers and he was polite and they had a nice time. The senior prom she didn't like to talk about; but once when Gary got there she'd been drinking a lot of her gin, and after a while she'd told him. She called him Mike, the name of the boy she went to her junior prom with. She said that this other boy, the one she went to the senior prom with, was named Bill. She had gotten her father to let Bill take his car for the night. She thought she was in love with him. They had a good time at the prom, though Bill drank a lot at the place they went afterward. And then, on the way home, he parked the car by the curb where there wasn't a streetlight nearby. His breath smelled like beer and bourbon. He leaned over and kissed her, and then put his hands on her where she didn't want him to. They'd had little, teasing fights about it before, and he'd always given in. But tonight he didn't. He touched her and then he pressed his hands on her, and before she knew it, he had slipped his hand into the top of her dress behind her bra and smoothly down over her breast, touching her nipple.

  Meg was very drunk with gin while she told Gary this. She called him Mike again. She sobbed, and then she told Gary that she tried to get Bill to stop, but he wouldn't. He pulled her dress away from her back, the dress she had agonized a week over, hoping it was just right, hoping he would like it. He pulled the dress forward, slipping it down over her arms, pinning them. He slipped his hand out of her bra and down her front into her panties (“Oh, God. Oh, Mike”), and he touched the hair down there. Then she screamed and ripped her dress, and screamed again. He moved back away from her, alarmed, and said, “Shhh, Meg, Shhh.” She screamed at him to drive her home, now, and finally he did. He moved the car slowly from streetlamp to streetlamp, so drunk he wasn't sure where he was. She was terrified he was going to hit another car parked at the curb, wrecking her father's car on what should have been the most beautiful night of her life. (“Oh, Mike.”) She was crying and trembling, trying to fasten her dress back up the back, screaming at Bill when he turned to help her, telling him to stay away, just drive. When they got to her house, Bill parked the car in the driveway, leaving it at an angle, partway on the grass. She told him to get out and ripped the keys from his hand, running into the house past her mother dozing in a chair in the living room, waiting for her.

  “Gary, oh, Mike,” she cried, putting her head on his shoulder briefly before sitting up and pouring more gin into her glass. She drank the gin and blew her nose, and told him tha
t she slammed the bathroom door and cried for forty-five minutes before she let her mother in. Her father vowed to go out, at three in the morning, and find Bill and beat him to a pulp. And even though she wanted her father to do that, she wouldn't let him.

  Idly, Gary wondered how drunk she would be tonight.

  At eight o'clock he rang the bell to her apartment. He could hear her coming to the door, and he stood in front of the peephole so she could see him. She opened the door. She wore a red plaid skirt and dark green sweater, with a gold pin over one breast. Her black hair was parted in the middle, -hanging over her shoulders. She wore her high-school ring on one hand.

  “Hello, Gary,” she said, her breath bearing the sweet-sharp odor of gin.

  Behind her, on the coffee table, he saw the cribbage deck and board, the pegs neatly in place to start. Next to it was a half-empty clear bottle and her glass. There was also a folded copy of the Post, the red banner above the tall block headline making it instantly recognizable.

  “You know,” she smiled, letting him in, taking his gym bag and leaving it by the door, “after reading tonight's paper, if we hadn't been playing so long I wouldn't let you in.” Her smile widened: a gin smile. “Especially your name being Gary Gaimes and all.”

  6. NORTH

  Laura Hutchins awoke to the sound of rattling cutlery. Her first thought was, My god, someone's in the apartment. Then, when her mind cleared: My God, the first night.

  She grabbed for the notebook and pencil on the night table next to the bed. She missed on the first attempt, unused to the location of the furniture, but found the book, her fingers closing around the pencil, on the second try. As quietly as possible, she pulled the chain on the small lamp on the bedside table, flipping open the notebook to an empty page.

  In the kitchen, the rattling noises continued.

  She glanced at the clock radio and began to write. Twelve-forty A.M., October . . . She couldn't remember the date. She counted up from Peter's birthday, which had been on the 21st. Four days. She wrote, October 25. Then she crossed out 25, remembering that it was past midnight.