The Blacker House

by Nicole Mulloy

  “How did I get down here?” she asked, blue eyes wide.

  Kate told Lucy about her frightening experience, about waking up in the dirt room and feeling something crawling over her body. Lucy listened with rapt attention, eyes growing bigger by the moment.

  Suddenly, a horrible thought stopped Kate cold. “What if they come for Marie? Or Seth? We have to stay right here and make sure nobody else goes down there.”

  Lucy’s lower lip trembled. “What is going on, Kate? What is wrong with this house? Why did it want us in the basement?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, Seth knows a lot more about what’s going on in the house than you do. Why you? Why not Seth?” Kate rubbed her temples with her fingertips, as if trying to get the blood circulating in her brain. “I don’t understand.”

  “What were they going to do to us, Kate? Down there?”

  Kate shook her head and said nothing, not wanting even to imagine. “We’ll start the digging...” she paused, catching herself.

  “What digging?” Lucy asked.

  “Nothing. Trust me, you’re safer if you don’t know.”

  “Kate,” Lucy said, meeting her older sister’s gaze directly, “are we safe?”

  “I don’t know.” Both girls were silent for a moment.

  “Let’s tell Mom and Dad. They’ll know what to do,” Lucy said.

  Kate shook her head. “They won’t believe us. No, Seth and I can handle it.”

  “Please come with us to Indiana tomorrow,” Lucy asked.

  “I can’t,” Kate replied. “Listen, Seth and I are going to take care of it. Trust us.” She grabbed Lucy’s hand in her cold one. Kate and Lucy sat in the uncomfortable kitchen chairs and waited for something more to happen. The rest of the night passed without incident and Kate slept on and off, her head lying on the hard table. Just as the sun started to light up the dark sky, Kate went upstairs to take a hot shower. It would be another long day.

  24.

  It was Halloween and school was a complete waste. Teachers weren’t in the mood to teach. Students weren’t in the mood to learn. Some kids wore costumes and some teachers wore them too, which lent itself to complete silliness. Basically, every class ended up as a noisy study hall. Patrick and Kate had a lot of chances to talk and plan together. Despite the looming task ahead of them, Kate looked forward to the excitement that the night would bring. She was glad Patrick would be there to share it.

  When Kate got home from school, Mom was frantic. Vacations, for the Gilberts, always started with several hours of chaotic packing, during which Mom was intolerable. She had left work early today so she could have more frantic, intolerable time with her family.

  “Grab those Cokes from the fridge, Kate,” Mom said as soon as Kate walked in the door. Kate threw down her backpack and got to work. After making ham sandwiches and finding the cooler out in the garage, Kate was recruited to porter duty. She carried out suitcases to the van while her sisters found their shoes, combed their hair and collected books for the three-hour car ride.

  After a few last minute errands, Dad, Mom and the two girls finally pulled out of the driveway, and waving excited good-byes, departed for Indiana. Kate thought she caught a moment’s glance from Lucy, a small, scared look. Then they were gone.

  Kate plopped down on the sofa and turned on the television. She needed to clear her head a little bit. A little TV would do nicely. Ace came in and curled up at her feet. A moment later, Matt came into the room.

  “So, why are you really staying home this weekend?” Matt asked her with a sly grin.

  “I’m going to hang out with my friends,” Kate said, feeling transparent. “That, and I can’t stand Aunt Maggie.”

  “I hear you,” he said and grabbed the remote control out of her hand. Kate let him have it, relieved that he didn’t question her further. Enough people knew about the basement excavation. She didn’t feel like explaining it to anybody else.

  “When are you leaving to go to the twins’ house?” Kate asked.

  “Any minute now.” He sat on the arm of the couch, chewing a nail. They heard a car’s honk from the back alley.

  “Don’t keep the ladies waiting, Matt.” Kate grabbed the remote back and pushed him off his perch.

  “Yeah, yeah.” He grabbed his duffel bag. “No parties, Kate. If I find out that you had a party, and I wasn’t invited, I’ll be seriously ticked off.”

  “Get out of here,” she laughed. “Have a fun weekend.”

  “You too!” He ran out the door.

  Kate went to the stove and starting fixing herself a cup of tea. As her water heated, she realized something. Kate was alone in the big house. It was so quiet, yet she felt activity around her. The air seemed to move and stir. She felt as if she was being watched.

  Kate looked around the room, her breath quickening. When is Seth coming home from his classes? She tried to act nonchalantly. She went to the cupboard and got a cup, threw in a tea bag and a touch of sugar. That done, she still had to wait for the water to boil. It was taking an enormous amount of time.

  “Ace, come here, boy,” she called. The old dog ambled in from the family room, looking sleepy. She knelt down and ruffled his ears.

  “Good boy,” she said, just glad to have another being in the room with her. Ace appreciated the loving gesture. He rolled onto his back, waiting for her to scratch his stomach. But just as he did, Kate heard a noise.

  It was just one of those noises that old houses make, a grunt of shifting weight, a rattling of old water pipes, a mouse in the walls, perhaps. In a house full of people, these noises went unnoticed, but alone, they were terrifying. She felt the hair on her body standing up. She tried to sing a song to calm her nerves, but her voice was wavering and unsure. It only made her more nervous.

  “That’s it,” she said. After turning off the stove, she jotted a note for Seth, grabbed Mom’s car keys and went out the back door. She let Ace into the backyard, not wanting him to be alone in the big house either, and locked the door.

  Starting up her mother’s car, she drove downtown. She made a call and got two cups of coffee to go. Moments later, she pulled into Patrick’s driveway. He came out of the garage wearing a black tee-shirt and jeans, rather tight-fitting jeans at that. Wow, he looks great! Her stomach fluttered as she noticed his hair was loose, hanging in long curls around his face and shoulders.

  She handed him a cup of coffee as she got out of the car. “Hey, you said I could call you anytime, right?” she said with a smile. “Can I hang out here for a while, until Seth gets home at least?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I was just getting some things together before my parents get home from work.” He motioned toward the garage. “You know, a pick and some different kinds of shovels.”

  “There are different kinds of shovels?” Kate asked distractedly. “Hey, listen,” she said without waiting for a response. “I need to talk to you about something. Can we go in the house? It’s cold today.”

  “Sure,” he said, turning toward the front door.

  The front door opened into a large formal living room. Patrick walked through this room to the back of the house, where the kitchen and family room were combined into one long room. The entire back wall was nothing but windows which looked out into a small, but tidy garden. In the family room, a large wood-burning stove put out a great amount of heat. Kate immediately moved toward it, her cold hands extended to its warmth.

  Patrick sat on the sofa and opened his coffee. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

  She turned around and faced him. The heat of the fireplace felt even better on her back. “I’ve got two things to tell you, things I didn’t want to say at school today. What do you want first? The good news or the bad?”

  “Bad,” he said without hesitation. Kate told him about waking up in the basement in the dirt room. She told him about seeing Lucy walking blind into the basement as well. He sat dumbfounded as she recounted the experience. “So, I haven’t gotten any sleep ag
ain.”

  “Unbelievable. They wanted you in the basement. And Lucy? Why?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Were they just trying to scare me or did they want to hurt me?” She thought about the cold prickly feeling, how it crept over her body. She shuddered and took a drink of coffee, burning her tongue.

  “What’s the good news?” Patrick asked.

  “I broke up with Jacob last night,” she said, a smile bursting over her face as she said the words.

  “Really?” Patrick also had a small smile on his face, ready to break out into a large one.

  “Really.”

  “How did he take it?”

  “Oh, you know. He admitted to a ‘fling’ with another girl, but he didn’t want to break up. I told him that we’d always be friends, but that it was over. Then, he hung up on me.” This made Kate instantly sad, although she knew breaking up was the right thing to do.

  Patrick said nothing for a few minutes. He blew on his coffee and took small sips. Finally, he smiled and asked, “So, when do you want to take me out on our date?”

  “As soon as possible,” she said and laughed. She walked over and sat down on the sofa next to him. He leaned over and kissed her, a soft kiss like the one in the courthouse, but more passionate, more driving.

  With one hand, Patrick took Kate’s coffee cup and placed it on the table. With the other hand, he clasped Kate’s back as he pushed against her. He moved over her, kissing her lightly. Kate felt his long hair tickling her face and neck.

  Just as things were getting interesting, they heard the front door open and footsteps approached. Patrick practically jumped off Kate and smoothed his hair. He grabbed his coffee and reclined in a relaxed position next to her on the couch. Kate sat up and tried to do the same.

  A pretty, smallish girl with curly brown hair entered the room. “Hey, dork!” she said to Patrick upon entering the room, then stopped and stared at Kate. “What are you doing here?” the girl asked Kate with wide eyes and a huge smile.

  “I’m a friend of Patrick’s. My name is Kate.”

  The girl giggled. “Oh, I know who you are. We’ve all heard about you!”

  Kate looked at Patrick. His boyish face blazed.

  “I’m Jessica,” she said, waving hello.

  “Nice to meet you,” Kate said, waving back. Kate then leaned over to Patrick and punched him lightly on the shoulder. “You didn’t tell me you had a sister!”

  “I don’t,” he said, glaring at Jessica.

  “Well, I’ll leave you two alone,” Jessica said with a smirk that was invented and used solely by junior high-schoolers. She turned and thumped up the stairs.

  Although they should have been discussing the dirty business of basement excavation, Kate and Patrick instead chatted about school, friends, movies and music.

  They both liked learning, but hated school. Both agreed that Lisa’s parents should ease up on her, because everyone knows what happens to girls like Lisa when they finally get out of their parents’ house: they go wild. They agreed that the Beatles were the all-time, greatest band ever. While discussing this, Patrick went to a stack of old cds, pulled out “The White Album” and put it in the cd player. They laughed and kissed and Kate relished the electricity of the fresh relationship. Everything felt so new and rosy. After a while, she noticed that her face hurt from smiling so much. She completely forgot that soon, she would be in that dark, cold basement, digging for a body.

  “The sun is going down. We should probably get going.” Patrick said. The smile that had been plastered on Kate’s face all afternoon suddenly dwindled away and then vanished.

  Kate agreed, although it was hard to leave Patrick’s cozy family room with the cheery fire burning and the Beatles playing on the stereo. Patrick grabbed his briefcase and loaded the shovels into Mom’s trunk while Kate called Seth. Patrick got into the passenger seat and Kate drove quietly to the Blacker House.

  *

  As they pulled into the driveway, the empty house towered over them forbiddingly. All three stories were dark. It seemed not only as though the house was unoccupied, but that it had always been that way, as though no life could ever exist inside its walls. The dazzling stained glass windows that had so charmed Kate upon her arrival in the house now looked gray and ugly. The purple flowers looked dead.

  They found Seth sitting on the back steps. “I turned off all the lights in front of the house,” he said.

  Kate looked at him quizzically.

  “To keep away the trick-or-treaters.”

  “Oh, right.” Kate had nearly forgotten it was Halloween. “Wouldn’t that be fun though, answering the doorbell covered in dirt and carrying a big shovel?” Patrick laughed heartily. Kate felt proud that she had made him laugh.

  They grabbed the equipment and the three unceremoniously trouped down into the basement. Although someone had cleaned up the broken glass, the light bulb in the stairwell was still out. So, they made their way down in semi-darkness and, walking close together, entered the laundry room. Seth had readied a hanging lantern to illuminate the dirt room and also handed a flashlight to Patrick. The basement seemed alive, nearly trembling.

  Kate recalled the message written in invisible paint on the walls. “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” she whispered as they stared at the dingy window that led to the dirt room. This was it.

  Patrick took a flashlight and shone its beam into the room. All seemed quiet. The brick walls were dusty, the ceiling beams housed any number of ancient spider webs and the dirt appeared undisturbed, except for Kate’s hand and knee prints from the night before. Kate looked at her frantic tracks and tasted raw fear in her mouth. Patrick squeezed her hand.

  Seth went in first. Putting his arms on the window sill, he pulled himself into the room. Patrick handed him the lantern, which Seth lit with a match. The lantern hissed into life, filling the room with light. Instantly, the room seemed less ominous. To Kate, a lantern always invited images of campfires, buzzing moths and bright conversation. It didn’t inspire her quite to that extent tonight, but it definitely kept her panic at bay.

  Kate crawled in next. Patrick handed in the shovels and flashlight, then crawled through himself. They stood bent over their shovels, their heads between the beams of the ceiling. Kate could feel ancient spider webs tickling at her ears. The lantern cast long, quivering shadows across the dirt.

  Seth cleared his throat, perhaps choking back fear as Kate had done minutes before. “I think, last night, they got to you and Lucy because you were asleep and you were alone. You were vulnerable and they took advantage of your condition, tried to manipulate you. I think as long as we stay together and stay alert, we’ll be okay.” Patrick and Kate nodded in agreement. Seth had determined that it would be best to start digging out the middle. “If there’s anything to find, chances are good it will be somewhere in the middle. Agreed?”

  “Let’s do it,” Kate said, firming her jaw.

  All three grabbed a shovel and awkwardly struck into the dirt. The surface of the ground was tough, dried with age, but once the outer crust was removed, the digging was fairly easy. In minutes, they dug a hole the size of a bathtub.

  Nobody spoke. The only sound was the scraping of shovel against dirt. When the hole was big enough, all three jumped in. The hole was still shallow, only deep enough to come up to their waists, but at least they could stand up erect now. Kate suddenly shuddered.

  “What’s the matter?” Patrick asked her, seeing her reaction.

  “I just had this horrible vision of the three of us in this hole and suddenly the dirt around us all came crashing in, suffocating us. Nobody knows where we are. Nobody would hear us scream.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “We’d die in this awful basement and nobody would ever find our bodies.”

  Seth thought about this for a second and then jumped out of the hole. “Good point. Let’s not do that anymore.”

  “Yeah,” Kate said. “Jump out, you guys, I’ll....” />
  “Wait a minute,” Patrick said suddenly. “Wait a minute.”

  “What’s up?” Seth asked.

  “What if that’s exactly what happened to Pansy? Maybe she wasn’t downtown when the town flooded, like everybody thought. Maybe, she was down here with her lover. Maybe it’s Pansy’s body that’s buried in this dirt,” Patrick said. “The floodwaters came rushing in, bringing all this dirt down here. She got trapped, somehow, and drowned, or suffocated in the mud.”

  Kate held a hand up to her mouth and shuddered. It made sense. “That’s so sad. She was just sixteen when she died.”

  “Our age,” Patrick said. Then, his face suddenly lit up and he turned to Kate. “Actually, that’s your age. She was your age, Kate. That’s it.”