The Haunted

by Bentley Little

  “I don’t see you ever going in there.”

  “There’s no reason to.”

  “You know, my dad even had a nightmare about our basement.”

  He threw up his hands. “Oh! Well! If your dad had a dream, then it must be true!”

  “There’s something in this house, Julian.”

  “No, there isn’t.”

  “You’ve felt it, too, and you’re just pretending that you haven’t.” She glared at him, and there was a loaded pause between them. She saw understanding dawn in his expression. He knew what she was about to say. “What if it’s—”

  “Don’t say it!” he ordered. “Don’t even think it!”

  “We’re both thinking it!”

  “No!” Julian spun around and strode away, not looking back, heading down the hall, through the kitchen and out the back door, letting the screen slam shut behind him.

  Claire stood in place, breathing heavily. That was unfair, she knew. It was the first time she’d done something like that, the first time she’d used Miles in that way, and instantly she regretted it. She didn’t even know what had prompted her to go there. They’d had bigger fights before, over much more serious things, and she’d never felt compelled to drag that part of their past into it. This was merely a disagreement about weird incidents in their house. Why the hell had she brought up Miles?

  She knew why, but she didn’t want to admit it, even to herself.

  Walking into the kitchen, Claire saw that Julian had made coffee, and she poured herself some. Her gaze was drawn to the closed door that led to the basement, but she moved next to the sink and peered out the window. She expected to see Julian pacing around the backyard, but there was no sign of him, and she wondered whether he had gone into the garage or the alley.

  She wasn’t the type of person who ate when she was upset—quite the opposite—but she knew she should have some food in her stomach, so she made herself some toast. She kept thinking Julian would return while she was eating, but he didn’t, and he still hadn’t come back into the house by the time she’d dressed. He wasn’t usually one to pout—that was her province—and his absence worried her, but she knew that if she went off looking for him and found him, it would set off a new round of arguments.

  Returning to the kitchen, she glanced out the window again.

  No sign of him.

  In her peripheral vision, she could see the basement door, and though she was still frightened, still spooked, she was determined not to be intimidated. Gathering her courage, she strode purposefully over, grasped the handle and turned it, opening the door. Before her, the steps descended into darkness, and though she could not help thinking of that—

  grinning

  —man she’d dreamed about, she reached for the switch, turned on the light and started down.

  There was no man, of course, only the sealed cartons and sacks of junk that they’d brought down here to store. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to see, but looking around at the boxed overflow of their lives, the sense of foreboding she’d felt dissipated. Julian was right. There was nothing mysterious here. Only a small square room with a cement floor and walls that …

  Frowning, Claire leaned forward.

  Directly in front of her, above an overstuffed Hefty bag filled with James’s old Hot Wheels sets, was a darkened section of wall stained with patches of mold. Not unexpected in a damp cellar, but …

  There was a face in the mold.

  The same face she’d seen in the toilet. And on the shower curtain.

  Claire stared at it. She knew how crazy this would sound if she told anyone—but it was true. And though the features in the toilet and on the shower curtain had been so rudimentary as to seemingly preclude specificity, this was the same face.

  And it was smiling at her.

  To her right, atop a junky card table that Julian for some inexplicable reason had insisted on keeping, were several old tools that someone had been sorting through and left out: pliers, a hammer, a screwdriver. In one smooth move, Claire picked up the screwdriver and strode forward, between the boxes, until she stood directly in front of the face.

  It grinned.

  Reaching over the bag of Hot Wheels, she used the screwdriver to scrape the face, feeling a rush of satisfaction as the features devolved under her hand. With her first swipe, she scratched off half of one eye, then part of the mouth, then a portion of the other eye, then another part of the mouth, until the mold no longer looked like a face. But she didn’t stop, and though she was pressing so hard on the screwdriver that her hand hurt, she continued scraping, bits of mold falling onto her hand, white scratches on the wall contrasting sharply with the dull gray of the surrounding cement.

  Finally, Claire stepped back. She was sweating from both the exertion and the still, humid air of the basement, but she felt good as she looked at the spot where the face had been. She felt as though she’d accomplished something.

  Walking back up the stairs, she found Julian in the kitchen, standing by the sink. He’d been looking through the window at the backyard, but he turned to face her as she closed the basement door. For a moment, both of them stared at each other, neither speaking. Claire saw from the look of devastation on his face how much she had hurt him, and she was about to apologize, but it was he who spoke first.

  “I lied,” he admitted. “I do feel it. I have felt it.”

  The words, completely unexpected yet gratefully welcome, acted like a ray of sunshine slicing through darkness. She felt as if a great burden had been lifted from her. She wasn’t alone; she wasn’t crazy. He knew what she was talking about. He understood.

  But the pain in his face was almost too much to bear, and she was filled with remorse and self-loathing as she ran over and threw her arms around him. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed, hugging him tightly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too,” he assured her, and there was a noticeable catch in his voice.

  She wasn’t sure their apologies were in any way commensurate, but she wasn’t about to hurt him again by bringing up anything to do with Miles. Maybe his unbending reticence and their unspoken agreement never to broach the subject weren’t psychologically healthy, but it worked for them, and the guilt she felt for crossing that line far outweighed any argumentative points she might have scored.

  They remained in each other’s arms, not moving, not speaking, until the phone rang several moments later and she broke the embrace to answer it. Megan was calling, and she wanted to know whether she could stay at Zoe’s for the rest of the day. “They invited me to go with them to the water park,” she said. “I’ll be back in time for dinner,” she added quickly. “I promise.”

  “Okay,” Claire told her. “Are you going to stop by and get your swimsuit?”

  “I already packed it. I have it with me—” Megan abruptly stopped speaking, as if her mother had interrupted her, though Claire hadn’t said a word.

  “Did you know about this ahead of time? Were you planning this all along?”

  “I’m sorry. I should have told you. But I really want to go. I promise I’ll be careful. Please, Mom? Please?”

  Claire couldn’t help smiling. “All right,” she said. “But no secrets next time, okay? You tell us everything that’s going on.”

  “I will, Mom. I will. Thanks!”

  Claire hung up the phone to face a quizzical Julian. “She wants to go with Zoe’s family to the water park. I said she could.”

  He nodded his agreement, and they hugged once more. She gave him a quick kiss. “Everything good?” she asked.

  He smiled wearily. “Yeah.”

  Robbie’s father dropped off James an hour or so later, while she was weeding the flower beds out front, and as Claire watched her son get out of the car, thank Robbie’s dad for letting him stay over and then walk toward her up the driveway, she realized how big he was getting. He looked more like Julian now than he did her, though that hadn’t always been the case. It made her feel sad.

&
nbsp; She stood at his approach. “Let’s go out for lunch today,” she suggested.

  “Where?” James asked.

  She smiled at him. “Your choice.”

  Twelve

  Since it was Julian who suggested they should invite the neighbors to their housewarming party, it was his responsibility to ask them. The Allreds and the Harrisons, two older couples from across the street, agreed to come, as did two younger couples from down the block, although the only family with children, the Armados, bowed out due to a scheduling conflict.

  As usual, the neighbors to either side of them weren’t home.

  Or weren’t answering their doors.

  Julian suspected the latter. Cars were parked in both driveways, but drapes were drawn and front doors were shut. He knocked, he rang, he waited, but no one came out. He had no idea why the neighbors might be trying to avoid him, and he even hinted around about it to Cole Hubbard, the single man who lived in the small house on the other side of the Ribieros. Cole said that the Ribieros, at least, were probably scared. “Ever since that homeless guy died, they’ve been a little freaked-out, I think.”

  Julian frowned. “What homeless guy?”

  “You don’t know?” Cole seemed surprised. “I thought real estate agents had to reveal that kind of stuff.”

  Julian was starting to feel uneasy. “What kind of stuff?”

  “Deaths, murders, suicides.” Cole sipped from the Starbucks cup he was holding. “He died in your basement. It was all over the newspaper. I’m surprised you didn’t read about it.”

  Our basement? Julian thought of Claire. “When was this?”

  “It was a few years ago now. Before the previous owners.”

  “So the house was empty and this guy just—”

  “No,” Cole said. “That’s the weird part. It wasn’t empty. The couple was home. Robert and Shelley Gentry. They’re the ones who were living there then. Nice people. They were in bed, asleep, when the homeless guy broke into their house—I keep calling him ‘the homeless guy’ because I don’t think anyone ever found out who he was. The door was unlocked. … He broke a window. … I can’t remember exactly how he got in. But the Gentrys didn’t wake up, and he just went down into the basement and … died.”

  “He killed himself?”

  “Not exactly. He just … died. He took off all his clothes, sat down in the corner, and when they found him in the morning, he was dead. There were no marks on the body; he didn’t hang himself; I don’t think they even found any drugs in his system. It was as if he knew he was going to die that night and for some reason wanted to die in your basement. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it. It was kind of a big deal.”

  Julian thought maybe he had read something about it in the paper, but there were so many deaths reported these days, so much crime and tabloid news not only nationally but locally, that everything kind of blurred together and he didn’t really pay as close attention as he used to.

  He wondered which corner of the basement the man had died in. The one where he’d stacked the boxes of the kids’ old children’s books?

  He needed to keep this from Claire. At least for the time being. She was already stressed out and thought the house was haunted. If she found out that someone had died in their basement, she’d want to sell the house immediately.

  “Anyway,” Cole continued, “Robert and Shelley moved soon after that, and those other people bought the place. I’m not even sure anyone in the neighborhood ever met them. They really kept to themselves. I don’t even know their names. But I gather they had some kind of run-in with the Ribieros, who were already freaked-out by the homeless guy. Bob and Elise have never talked about it, but … something happened.”

  “I got a weird vibe the one time I talked to them. The Ribieros, I mean. They were nice and all, but …”

  Cole nodded. “They’re nice. I get along with them. But I don’t think you’re wrong. They definitely seem weirded out by your house, and that’s probably carried over to their attitude toward you. I mean, they’ve never said anything to me about any of this—in case you haven’t noticed, we all kind of keep to ourselves around here—but reading between the lines, I think they probably have a problem not just with your house but with anyone who lives there. They’re a little superstitious, I think. Or more than a little superstitious.”

  Julian glanced down the street. “What about the people on the other side of us?” he asked. “Do you know anything about them? We’ve tried to go over there a couple of times and introduce ourselves, but no one’s ever home.”

  “Oh, they’re home, all right,” Cole said. “But they’re very strange. Don’t even give them a second thought. They keep their yard up, their house looks nice, but they never come out and no one ever sees them. I’m not even sure when they mow their lawn or go to work, or anything about them, really. But at least they’re quiet and don’t bother anyone. I lived next to some hard partyers before—up at all hours of the night, stereo cranked full blast—and let me tell you, it was no picnic. Be grateful for the Boo Radleys of the world.”

  Julian liked Cole. He was glad that he’d invited Cole to the party, glad Cole was coming, glad they’d had a chance to talk. This was a friendship worth nurturing. Claire always said that men were much bigger gossips than women, even if they pretended to be above such pettiness, and Julian thought that was probably true. Cole obviously kept close tabs on everything going on in the neighborhood, and Julian was only too happy to be able to find out details about the neighbors from him.

  He smiled. No, men didn’t gossip. They shared intel.

  Walking home, he wondered about the people who had owned the house before them. He and Claire had never met the previous owners, had only seen their signatures on some of the countless forms they’d been required to sign upon purchasing the property, and though he’d thought nothing of it at the time, that now seemed odd. He recalled the way the house had looked on their first visit, the trash and debris on the floor, the discarded furniture. Claire was right. Something was going on there.

  And it had nothing to do with Miles.

  He wished Claire had not mentioned Miles. The whole horrible incident had been on his mind ever since, and in the background, behind everything he did or said or thought, like a low hum, was an unyielding sadness, an emotional blackness that threatened to bloom into depression should he pause to examine it.

  Last night he’d had the Dream again.

  But this wasn’t Miles; this was something else, and as he walked across the grass toward the front door, he forced those thoughts down and looked up at the house itself. Even knowing what he knew, there was nothing spooky about it. The front of the structure did not resemble a face; no spectral figure flitted through the darkness behind one of the windows. The building looked like what it was: the home of a normal, middle-class family.

  Thirsty, Julian walked through the living room, through the dining room, into the kitchen, where he got a Heineken out of the refrigerator. He glanced over at the basement door. Had a man really died down there? It seemed impossible to believe. While standing on a neighbor’s porch and talking about it, the idea had been incredible enough. But here, inside the house, intimately close to the location where it had occurred, the notion was truly horrifying. Though it had happened several years and two owners ago, the fact that someone had died within the walls of their home seemed like the grossest and most personal invasion of privacy.

  Julian walked over, opened the basement door, switched on the light and headed down the steps. On the wall before him, he saw white scratches where Claire had scraped off the moldy face. Otherwise, the cellar appeared unexceptional, a storage room, no more, no less.

  Which corner had the man died in? he wondered. The image was strange: a naked man, sitting in the corner, dead. He tried to picture it, but the jumble of boxes and bags made it nearly impossible.

  He stood in place for several minutes, trying to feel something, trying to sense something, and w
hen he didn’t, he walked back upstairs, turned the light off and closed the door.

  It was Sunday, and Claire and Megan had gone to Claire’s parents’ house for lunch, so he and James were on their own. Julian checked the clock. It was nearly noon; no wonder he was getting hungry.

  Where was James? he wondered. Before Julian had gone out to issue invitations, the boy had been in the living room, watching TV, although he’d said that he might go out to his “headquarters” after the show was over. Julian smiled. He and his friends had had a secret hideout when they were James’s age—a lean-to in a vacant lot, built with discarded materials from a nearby construction site—and he understood the allure. Some things never changed.

  He looked out the window above the sink, intending to see whether he could spot movement in the garage’s upstairs, but James was on the ground, on his knees, bent over a hole in the backyard. Was he eating dirt? It looked like it, but that didn’t make any sense. Frowning, Julian walked outside. At the sound of the screen door’s creaking hinges, his son looked up. There was a ring of dirt around his mouth.

  “What are you doing?” Julian demanded.

  “Nothing,” James said, getting to his feet. But there was a guilty expression on his face, and Julian could see confusion mixed in with the guilt, confusion and fear.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked, less harshly this time.

  “I don’t know, Dad,” James said, and started to cry. Julian could not remember the last time his son had just burst into tears like this. Although his initial reaction to the fact that the boy was apparently eating dirt had been one of anger, the anger shifted to concern.

  Julian walked over, looked into the hole, saw nothing unusual. He put his hands on James’s shoulders. “Why were you eating dirt?”

  “I don’t know.” James was still crying.

  “Well, don’t do it again.” He was aware that his admonition was lame and ineffectual, that he should be saying something else to his son, something more, but he was at a loss here and didn’t really know what to say or how to react. Eating dirt was something that usually came up when dealing with toddlers, not twelve-year-olds. It occurred to him that there might be a deeper problem here, but he prayed that wasn’t the case and that this would be the end of it.