Outside, the menacing nose of one of the sheriff’s Chargers pulled into view.
“Son of a bitch,” Vernon cursed. The damn law had it out for him his whole life. Always hauling his mother off on those bullshit prostitution charges, charges usually dropped after a visit to the cruiser’s back seat. Busting him for pot while the school jocks did hard expensive stuff. Even after he had inherited Galaxy Farm, they wouldn’t leave him alone, hounding him about taxes and interest he knew he didn’t owe. Hell, the tax assessor was cousin to Sheriff Mears. They exiled him to this acre of land and this ratty trailer. What more could they want?
The front door rattled in its frame as the sheriff pounded on it three times. “Vernon Pugh? It’s Sheriff Mears. Open up.”
Shit on fire, the sheriff himself, Vernon thought. He swung the front door open with a creak. Several flies took the chance to escape this circle of hell and buzzed past to freedom. Mears screwed up his face at the rank smell that rolled out of the trailer. Vernon smiled with his yellowed teeth.
“C’mon in, Sheriff.”
“No, you just come out here,” the sheriff answered. “That’ll be fine.” Vernon stepped to the doorway and leaned against the jamb. A few locks of stringy hair fell across one eye.
The sheriff gave a quick glance at Vern’s twisted hands then up to his face, like everyone did. Vern found another reason to hate the man.
“You been down to the farm last night, Vernon?” the sheriff asked.
That new son of a bitch called the cops, Vernon thought.
“Just looking for some personal property I left there,” Vernon said. “Had to leave in such a rush.”
“Nothing down there belongs to you, Vernon,” the sheriff said. Vernon knew that was true. He’d moved in with nothing at age twelve and the lawyers made sure that was exactly what he left with at eviction.
“I don’t want to have to come up here again,” the sheriff said. “It’s a gift you got this house and land and you need to stay in it.”
The idea of keeping a fraction of the land he rightfully owned brought Vernon back to a boil.
“I already warned you once,” the sheriff continued, “after you pulled that bloody rabbit shit on Dale Mabry. I could have run you in for that.”
“I told you that wasn’t me,” Vern snapped.
“Now listen up,” Sheriff Mears said, his frustration uncontrolled. “I don’t want to hear any of your damn ghost stories. I’m telling you to stick to your property and stay away from the Lockes down there. You understand?”
“I hear you, Sheriff,” Vernon said in an unconvincing monotone. The unsettling yellowed smile reappeared.
The sheriff looked like he had more to say but he turned and retreated to his cruiser. Vernon stood in the doorway and watched the car back down his driveway. He looked down at the estate stolen from him. He’d get it back. Uncle Mabron’s spirit wouldn’t have it any other way.
Chapter Eleven
Laura burst in through the front door of her house, smile radiant as a sunrise.
“Doug! Doug!” she cried.
“Right here, babe,” Doug said, walking in from the nursery. He had a pile of orange No Trespassing signs in his hand.
“You, sir,” Laura announced, “are looking at the newest teacher at Moultrie Elementary.”
Doug nearly dropped the signs. “You got hired?”
“Well, not right now,” Laura said. She looked at her shoes in false sadness, and then broke into a smile. “I don’t start until tomorrow!”
Doug gave Laura a bear hug. “You blew them away, didn’t you?”
“I showed the principal my portfolio and it knocked him dead,” she said. “I am a long-term substitute for a third grade teacher with a broken leg.” She squeezed Doug’s arm in excitement. “Third grade! My favorite. Can you believe it?”
Doug could believe it. It was their first full day and this whole move smelled like roses at every turn.
“I’ve got so much to do,” Laura said. “All my teaching supplies are packed in boxes somewhere. I have to review the lesson plans the teacher left and start freshening them up. I’ve got to figure out what to wear…”
Laura’s sentences ran into each other like a stampede of buffalo. Doug knew he’d be trampled if he tried to redirect that energy. But there was no need to. Having Laura back embracing the work she loved made him happy.
“Go make it happen,” Doug said, but Laura was already entering the old nursery, lost in future plans.
The division of household responsibilities had been decided long before the move. Doug, working at home on his own schedule, would be the house husband as soon as Laura found work. Nevertheless, dinner prep that night was a collaborative, though far from colossal effort. Doug opened a bag of salad. Laura pushed the buttons on the microwave. Each had too much to do to spend time cooking.
“You’ve outdone yourself on the salad,” Laura said between mouthfuls at the table.
“After hand-picking the lettuce, my back was pretty sore,” Doug said. “But I knew you’d appreciate it. And your lasagna? Molto buono!”
“An old family recipe,” Laura said. “Passed down from…” she squinted at the open container on the kitchen counter, “…Grandma Michelina. Cultured the cheese myself, but anything for you, love.”
“We have had a great start here,” Doug said. He raised a glass of water. “To the second phase of married life.”
Laura raised her glass and they both took a drink. Laura’s face twisted up.
“This stuff has got to go.”
“What do you mean?” Doug said.
“This water is rank. Can’t you smell it?
Doug sniffed the glass and shrugged.
“Please!” Laura said. “The sulfur! I can’t believe you don’t smell it. It nearly gagged me in the shower this morning.”
“Really?” Doug thought their well water was the nectar of the gods.
“Oh, yes. And it is hard as a rock,” Laura said. She dipped two fingers in her glass and rubbed them together. “It’s slick as glycerin. I just don’t feel clean.”
Doug hadn’t noticed any of these supposed shortcomings.
“If you say so,” he said. “I’m not sure what to do about it.”
“Home treatment systems,” she said. “I saw the place in town that sells them. I’m guessing we’re not the only ones tapped into this unholy aquifer.”
Doug gave his glass of water another inspection as if suddenly he’d detect its hidden flaws. “I don’t know. If you really think…”
“Great,” Laura cut in. “I’ll take care of it on the way home tomorrow. This water needs to stop stinking before I wash my first load of clothes. The kids will snicker one long ‘rotten egg’ joke if I smell like sulfur.”
Laura dropped her empty plates in the sink and then hugged Doug from behind his chair. She kissed his cheek. “Got work to do for tomorrow. Did I mention I got a teaching position?”
“No, but it was on Fox News,” Doug said. “They broke in with a special bulletin.”
Laura gave his ear a playful, disciplinary yank and she left for her study. Doug wasn’t going to complain. He was happy she was eager to work. But he also wanted some time to himself. His fingertips itched to start crafting the written word.
The turret room was ready. While dishes, towels and other necessities were still entombed in boxes in the living room, he’d spent this afternoon unpacking what he needed for writing. His laptop and printer were set up on his desk and his reference library filled the bookshelves. The shelf closest to the desk held books he’d long forgotten. A dictionary of synonyms, Style and Substance, his favorite writing text from college and all of Strunk and White’s works. At graduation he saw these old friends guiding him through a literary career. They’d gotten lost in the maze of writing about graft and hookers. But now they were rediscovered and ready to help Doug fulfill his destiny. Better late than never.
Doug took a seat at the desk and flipped open h
is laptop. He called up the pristine white space of a blank Microsoft Word document. The cursor blinked at him like the staging lights at a drag race. He took a deep breath and stared at the keyboard.
Nothing. No inspiration. No hook. The cursor mocked him from the empty expanse. Doug had been sure his muse was in this room. He’d felt it. This place was going to be the threshold to his success. Where did it go?
He snapped the laptop shut and pulled a legal pad from a desk drawer. He picked up a pen, one of the fine-point rollers he loved the feel of. This was what he needed. The old-school approach. Ink on paper. Just like college, when he’d write on anything available when inspiration hit. He once outlined a great short story on toilet paper in the john.
Still, no ideas surfaced. He though about conflicts, he trotted out themes. He started filling the page with a stream of consciousness collection of ideas; characters, places, periods of history. Two pages in to he knew it was all crap. He tore the page from the pad, crumpled it into a ball and swatted it across the room.
What happened to all the ideas he used to have? Before he started shoveling mud for the Dispatch, he had so many ideas each day he used to carry a note pad to scribble them down on the fly. Had that part of his brain solidified into a block of Jell-O?
What if it had? What if he was out of inspiration? It would be one long lifetime sitting here every day staring at blank reams of paper. He’d bet it all on his belief that he could generate a blockbuster novel. If his creative well was dry…
He dropped the pad and pen on the desk. He went to the bookcase and picked a random volume. Great Expectations. He plopped back down at his desk. He remembered how this book had entranced him in junior high, made him want to read more than his English teacher had assigned. The more he read, the more he thought he could write. He’d see if the story of Pip would spark that fire again. He opened to page one.
My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.
Chapter Twelve
Downstairs, Laura sat on the floor, her legs folded to her side. Boxes of half-packed school supplies lined the walls. A sheaf of lesson plans sat in front of her, two different open text books bracketed each side. She wielded a blue felt-tip marker like a surgeon, lining through whole sections of the lesson plans, annotating others. She sang along softly with Sting as he crooned from the clock radio on the dresser. The local FM station sounded as if it stopped buying music sometime in the ’80s.
As Laura crossed out a particularly redundant class exercise, she felt a presence in the room. She turned, expecting to see Doug in the doorway with that you-are-so-cute-when-you’re-a-teacher look on his face. But the door was closed, just as she left it. The temperature in the room dropped suddenly as if an air conditioner kicked on. Bewildered, she turned back to her stack of lesson plans.
The stack was upside down. The two textbooks were closed.
Goose bumps rippled up her bare legs. Her faithful Student Sixth Sense sounded an alarm. She scrambled backward in a panicked crabwalk until she crushed a moving box against the wall. Her pulse thudded a salsa beat in her head. She grasped in vain for a plausible explanation.
The song on the radio faded to static, followed by snippets of words and music, as if someone were thumbing the tuning dial. But the red tuning needle didn’t move an inch. Then, like the whisper of rustling leaves, came a sound unmistakable to a seasoned teacher; the twittering laughter of two little girls. The laughter’s volume oscillated as if the girls were flying back and forth between her and some distant place.
Laura leapt to her feet and flung the door open. She screamed, “Doug!” and lunged toward the stairs. On the second floor, she could see Doug at his desk through the turret room doorway, book open in his lap, no reaction to her cry. Halfway up the steps, the turret room door slammed shut with the crack of a thunderbolt. She jumped the last three steps to the top. Laura pounded on the door and yanked at the frozen handle.
“Doug!”
Doug opened the door, bemused. “What do you need?”
“In my room,” she panted. “Just now. Something’s in there.”
She grabbed Doug’s hand and pulled him down the stairs. At the doorway, she stopped dead in her tracks. The textbooks were open, the lesson plans in a neat pile, blue pen on top. Billy Joel sang a capella on the radio, static free.
“It didn’t look like this,” she said. “I felt something, or someone, in the room. I thought it was you, but… Then all the lesson plans flipped around and the textbooks closed. The radio went bonkers. There were voices and I ran.”
Doug took a scrutinizing walk around the room. “You’re sure about that?”
Fire flashed in Laura’s eyes. Doug winced at the stupidity of his statement.
“No,” she said. “I saw it happen I a Wes Craven flick and just wanted to share. Of course I’m sure.”
“Okay,” Doug said. “There must be an explanation. This house is almost a hundred years old. It’s going to be drafty and make some strange noises. I’ve got the windows open in my room. The breeze could have swept in here by you and ruffled some things around.”
Laura rolled her eyes. “Through a closed door? No way. And the radio?”
“This house has wiring from the 1930s,” Doug said. “The inspectors told me it was safe but replacing it would be a great idea. They told me it was all poorly shielded and we’d have RF leakage that would play hell with radio and TV reception on occasion. That little radio would be prone to it. It doesn’t even have an antenna.”
Laura wanted a rational answer. The radio explanation was reasonable. Wind could blow under the big gap at the base of the door. It also could have blown Doug’s door shut as she ran down the hall. It would be a forced fit, but that reasoning could explain it, except…
“No way,” she said. “I heard voices.”
“What did they say?”
“They just laughed.”
“Like kids?” Doug asked.
“Exactly.”
“Babe,” Doug said. He took both hands in hers. “Don’t get all defensive when I say this, okay? Maybe your mind over interpreted some things. The wind rustles some papers. A mouse scurries through these old walls. You are pretty keyed up about school and your last day in a classroom you almost died. It might be completely natural for your imagination to put a little supernatural spin on everything, a little anxiety release.”
Laura clenched her jaw. That condescending brush off of an answer triggered memories of Doug’s avoidance after the miscarriage. A vehement denial leapt to Laura’s lips.
But she paused. Maybe he had a point. She remembered the flash of fear in the school hallway. She thought she’d conquered it, but maybe it made a little return appearance, one last curtain call. The trauma therapist warned her about this type of post-stress manifestation. It made more sense than spooks. What was wrong with her? She squeezed Doug’s hands.
“Maybe you are right,” she said. “I want you to be right.” She hugged him and gave him a passionate kiss on the lips. “Say, didn’t you hear me yell your name?”
“No,” Doug answered. “I was reading for inspiration. I must have been in a trance.”
“Well, go back and finish,” Laura said. “I’ll be done here soon and then I intend to rock your world for being such a hero. Be prepared.”
“Hey, if you think you can ply me with pre-fab lasagna and then take advantage of me, forget it,” Doug said. “I’m not that easy.”
“You are twice that easy,” Laura said. “I could get you in the sack with crackers and cheese whip.” She spun him around, sent him out the door and shut it.
Laura sat down in front of the lesson plans. She took a deep breath and wondered how much of that little experience really was in her head. A lot of it, she guessed. It would be better tomorrow. Once she got in front of a class, everything would be back to nor
mal. No more pseudo-spooks.
She picked up a lesson plan and then dropped it. She opened the door and slid a packing box in front of it. It probably was all in her head, but an open door still felt better.
Chapter Thirteen
Laura left for work early the next morning, barely able to sleep the night before. Once she was gone, Doug picked up a hammer and a handful of nails from the top of an unpacked brown box and left to perform the homeowner equivalent of marking his turf with his pee.
Fifteen acres was a lot more territory than he thought. He walked south first, toward the ridgeline Vernon Pugh disappeared into early that morning. If only one Keep Out sign got posted, he wanted it to be facing the trespasser as he crossed the property line. As Doug trudged across the field, he realized he had yet to walk his property line, something every rancher in every Western always did. He never even asked to when they moved in. Fifteen acres with who knows what in the nooks and crannies and he just bought it. What a dope. He plunged most of his net worth into an eighty-five-year-old-house sight unseen, basing his decisions on some gut feeling from a picture on the internet. What the hell had he been thinking?
At the edge of the trees, a fence delineated his property line. It was simple, just crooked posts set about twenty feet apart with three strands of barbed wire strung between them. The posts appeared to have once been stout tree branches, pressed into service to defend the homeland. Doug leaned over and nailed one of his big orange signs to the far side of one post. Crazy Vern couldn’t miss it.
The forest on the other side of the fence ran thick up the gentle hill. The sheriff said ole Vern put a trailer on his acre, but Doug couldn’t see it for sure. He thought that was just as well. He was happy having the trees, and the sheriff, as buffers between him and Vern.
He walked the fence line west, posting another sign where he estimated the halfway point on this side of his property line would be. There the fence ran through the woods, returning to the tree line a short distance later, cutting off a peninsula of trees on his side. The patch was about the size of the barn, which he realized he also hadn’t set foot in. Something low and rectangular protruded from the leaf litter in the thicket, almost a clearing in the center. Walking in, Doug kicked away some debris and uncovered the corner of a low stone wall, just a foot high, handmade from the same stones that made up the house and barn foundations. He stepped over the wall and its rectangular perimeter became clear. Doug walked across it and his foot hit something hard and heavy. He scraped away the leaves with his signs. The plastic made a mournful moan as it rubbed against the hard surface beneath. The dull, dead leaves parted to reveal a toppled white marble tombstone.
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