He went across the hall and opened the next door onto a room that looked as if someone had set it on fire several days before. Its wallpaper was blackened and curled and peeled off in most places, and the room smelled of barbeque. There was no window, but it was lit with several small floor lamps. At the center of the room was what looked like a metal trash can. Kazi stepped in. He coughed a little because the air had a bit of smokiness to it. When he reached the trash can, he looked inside.
Just burnt stuff.
Probably trash.
Next to the trash can, he saw a small knapsack. It looked like the kind any kid in his school might have. But something inside it was moving. Something wriggled.
Or at least, he thought it did.
He looked more closely, but it stopped moving.
Maybe it never moved at all. Maybe you just imagined it. Maybe it’s just some knapsack some kid had, and someone is going to burn it in this trash can.
He left this room and thought of Mr. Spider’s wife. She had to be somewhere in here. Either up here, or downstairs. Or upstairs? How many rooms did this house have? It seemed endless, but he was fairly sure there were three stories and he was on the second.
In the hall, that wheezing, groaning sound as if someone had fluid in their lungs. Or perhaps the person snored—his mother sometimes snored like that, so much that it seemed to Kazi that it rattled her bedroom door.
The noise echoed down the hallway.
It’s the house. The house is breathing.
No, that’s crazy. Crazy as the crazy bitch, kid.
5
Kazi looked in on a few more rooms, and although he saw things that seemed not quite right, he couldn’t figure out why he felt it. In one room, four tricycles were in the center, and a mountain bike leaned against the wall near the window. In another room, there a large rubber ball. It reminded him a little of the kind they used in dodge ball at school, but he didn’t go into this room to look at the ball. One of the rooms was like a perfect bedroom of the richest person he could imagine. The bed was curtained and canopied, and there was an antique table and beautiful chairs beside it. A vanity table with an old-fashioned mirror above a wash basin. There was even a fireplace, though the fire was out. Yet something made him not want to step into the room, and so he remained in the hallway.
Several of the rooms were locked. Some of them had large keyholes and he could look in, but they seemed empty. Some had keyholes plugged up with something. At one of these, he thought he heard scratching at the door. He tried the doorknob, but it wouldn’t budge. Something was scratching at the base of the door, and the scratching became more frantic as Kazi stood there. Because his curiosity was overwhelming, he got down on his stomach and tried to look under the crack between the door and the floor, but all he saw was the shadow of something. He thought he heard whimpering, too, like a dog.
Someone’s dog is trapped in that room.
Or is it a dog? Is it someone crazy trapped inside there? Trying to scratch his way out?
Kazi had begun to forget that there even was an outside world at all. He found the rooms fascinating and scary, but he had to try to look in each one. He thought of Mr. Spider’s wife, and how she might need help. But he didn’t feel in that much of a rush to find her anymore. He just wanted to know what was in the rooms of the house. His mind pored over what he had seen, even as he went to the next room.
He reached for the knob, but it was so hot he pulled his hand back fast. He touched the wood of the door. It felt like a stove that was getting warmer.
He looked at the door.
It’s a burning room. Inside that room, it’s a furnace.
He glanced down the hallway to the staircase and the big mirror at the end of the hall. For a fraction of a second, he had thought he saw some movement. Or a shadow.
He moved on to the next room, which was in complete darkness. Even when he put his arm in the room with the candle, the flame went out. He took one step in the room, and if it were not from the light of the hall, he would have thought he was standing on the edge of a cut-out floor, and all around him was a huge pit of blind night.
6
Out in the hall again, the wheezing sound had stopped, replaced by someone shouting from some distant place. Was it Mr. Spider, outside wondering what was taking him so long? But it didn’t quite sound like him. It sounded like someone shouting something happily, as if he had good news to spread. Kazi passed a few of the doors, trying to find the source of the sound. As he approached one of the rooms near the end of the hall, he realized it was the sound of a television set.
A man on television was shouting: “It’s the time of miracles! There are wars and rumors of war! And we need to rejoice in this! For we know of what comes next. We know the signs and the miracles at hand. That Babylon, that great harlot, will ride the beast, and the plagues will come down upon us! But are we afraid? No! We raise up a joyous song to the Almighty! For though the lost souls will be cast into the flames of perdition and torment, the righteous shall be taken up into the arms of the angels!”
Kazi knew these shows. They were sometimes on Sunday mornings when he got up early to have his Frosted Flakes, and he’d sit in his jammies and listen to the preachers on TV because they seemed as if they meant just what they said.
He followed the voice to a partially open door, and pushed it further in.
It was a small, narrow room. The television, at the far wall, faced Kazi and looked like no TV he’d ever seen—it was smaller and the picture was rounded and distorted, and had no color to it. The man on the TV looked like he was from some old movie, and the camera went to a closeup on his face as he shouted: “Faith is the only thing that will save you! Do not rely on the works of men, but on the abiding infinite glory that has always been and will always be. There will be those who live in shadows in these days, and they shall build churches of damnation and will call themselves Sons of God, but they are Princes of Lies and Lords of Flies and Priests of Hell!”
Facing the television was a tall round-back chair. Next to it, a small round wooden table. On the table were prescription bottles and an ashtray. To the right of the chair, what looked to Kazi like a large green metal tube, but the voice in his head said, Dumbshit, it’s an oxygen tank.
The wheezing sound began again, and then a brief blast as if someone had just farted very loudly.
The noises came from the chair.
Rising above the chair, a thin trail of smoke.
Someone sat in the chair, watching the television, smoking a cigarette.
As he stepped into the room, he noticed the ashes piled on the floor beneath the table, as if the person in the chair kept missing the ashtray through several cigarettes.
It’s her, he thought. She’s very sick. She doesn’t know her husband’s locked out. She may need help.
He took another few steps closer to the chair. To his right, he saw a folded wheelchair, and near its wheels, several hypodermic needles.
“Do you need some help?” he asked. Another step brought him nearly behind the chair. The wheezing grew louder, but the smoke had stopped floating up toward the ceiling.
He boldly went around the oxygen tank, and was all prepared to see an old or very crippled woman, but the chair was empty. A few cigarette butts were the only thing on its cushion. The plastic line from the oxygen tank lay stuffed behind the cushion itself.
On the TV the man said, “Miracles are everywhere! Anything can happen now, if you believe. You must have faith or you will burn eternally!”
7
Do you have faith? The voice in Kazi’s head buzzed around somewhere just beneath his scalp. Do you, little Kazimir? Faith can move mountains. Faith can alter reality. Faith is like having me inside you all the time. Your imaginary friend. That’s who. Yes, me. You think you’ve seen some weird shit, kid, let me tell you, there’s more where that came from. You haven’t even found the room of knives or the room with the wacky art. And it’s truly wacky—some of thi
s shit has boogers on it where the crayons and fingerpaints didn’t get the green-yellow color right. You want to see more, don’t you?
Kazi turned off the television, and chose to ignore the voice.
Then he flicked the TV back on, but changed the channels in a way he’d never had to at home—on a dial that had only six channels listed (2, 4, 5, 7, 9, and something called UHF/VHF). When he turned to one of the channels, he saw a girl with blond hair raise an axe over a girl with dark hair; when he turned to another one, he saw some kids he knew from school chewing on a boy whose face he couldn’t quite see; he turned to another channel, and this time, he saw the outside of Harrow. Mr. Spider stood staring up at the house; on the fifth channel, he saw the first room he’d entered. There in the corner, the candles, and the dead possum and crows and rats and mice. The camera moved through the room, into the hallway, and then he saw a shot of the entire hall again, with the big mirror at the end.
When he turned to the last channel—the one marked UHF/VHF—he looked at the narrow room he was in, only this time from the doorway. He saw the chair and the oxygen tank on the TV set, and the prescription bottles on the small round table and the ashtray, as well as the ashes on the floor beneath the table.
And he saw himself there, the back of him, as he watched the TV set, and the camera was moving into the room toward him slowly.
Don’t turn around, Kazi, the voice said. You don’t want to see what’s coming for you.
Kazi trembled a little, his fingers grazing the knob of the TV as he watched the camera that was taping him move low along the floor. It stopped near the small table, and something that was not quite fingers yet not quite claws touched each of the prescription bottles lightly, as if checking to see whether any pills remained in them.
Then the camera moved around the back of the high-backed chair.
Kazi felt frozen in place and yet entranced as he watched the television and saw the camera that must be behind him, move toward him.
Whoever was in the room with him stood so close that she could touch him.
Why she?
Why not he? Or it?
Some crazy bitch is coming for you, Kazi. Get ready. Come on. You ready? She’s gonna getcha. She’s gonna reach out and take you in her crazy arms and rub your face into those tits of hers and then you’re gonna know what crazy tastes like. Don’t look now, wussy, because what’s on the other side of the TV looking at you is not entirely human.
Kazi watched the television screen.
Again the thin, clawlike fingers—as if it were a very old woman, so old that she’d have to be mummified—bone-thin, gnarled arthritic fingers touched the back of his neck.
It felt like a shock of warmth, and goose bumps rose along his neck and shoulders and arms and even in places he didn’t think goose bumps could find.
He could not stop watching the television.
Behind him, he heard a strange sucking sound, as if someone were trying to make a kiss in the air, or someone who had no teeth might be ... trying to say something, little shit. She’s mad I tells ya, mad. And getting madder by the minute.
Don’t look.
Don’t turn around.
You don’t want to see.
His own voice mixed with the other voice (but it sounded like him all along) and his mind became crossed wires, but he knew not to turn around. Yet he wanted to. He had to see what was behind him.
He had to see what was there.
If I turn around, it will be all right. If I turn around, whatever is there will be gone.
If I turn around. . .
You gotta have faith, kid.
Like the guy on TV told you.
You believe, Kazimir Vrabec? You believe in the house? If you believe in the house, maybe the house will believe in you.
A series of images flashed through his mind, so fast that it went by in the blink of an eye. He saw himself crawling through the open window, and then the window shutting behind him. He saw himself pulling down his pants, and pooping in the room that was full of human excrement. Then he peed on the wall. He saw himself taking a live cat in his hands and wringing its neck while it clawed at him, and then opening the freezer to throw the dead animal in with the rest. He saw himself on a stepladder, writing a long letter to someone named Luke, using crayons and chalk, scribbling fast and sure. He saw himself lying among the blankets in the wardrobe, peering out from the door as if expecting someone to come into the room. He saw himself in the chair, the thin plastic tube tucked up around his nose, a cigarette in his hand. And then, worst of all these brief flickering visions, he saw himself approach himself, standing there, watching the television.
These images flickered through his mind, and then faded as he kept hearing the strange sucking and smacking sound behind him.
He reached forward and turned off the television.
Against his own will, he forced himself to turn around to look at whatever stood behind him. At the edge of his vision, he saw something yellow, and then as he swiveled around.
Sitting in the high-backed chair was what looked like a shriveled piece of meat, wrapped in gauzelike bandages.
Kazi glanced about the room, thinking that someone else might be there. But there was no one.
He went over to the thing on the chair, and as he got a little closer, he saw its eyes and its ears and the desiccated muzzle. It was the head of some kind of dog—maybe even a wolf? Or a coyote? Some kind of dog with slightly pointed ears. The head had been wrapped up and mummified.
And it had just been put in the chair.
No one else was around.
He was tempted to turn around again and turn on the television. But if you do, what if something worse shows up? I mean, come on, kid, the mummified head of a dog ain’t so bad. It could be worse. It could be the whole dog, alive, ready to tear you apart.
Go ahead. Pick it up. It’s a gift from the house. To you. Look at the handiwork. It’s like ancient Egypt, kid. You don’t know about the ancients? They’d take beloved pets or sacred animals, and when the head of the household died, they’d just slaughter ‘em all because they believed they could take them to the afterlife with them. Didn’t know that, Kazi? Well, welcome to the world of “history is fun.” Stick with me, kid, and I’ll show you the sights. You know, for all you know, this is Anubis, God of the Underworld. And maybe he’s just gonna be your best friend from here on out.
Kazi knelt in front of the chair, and looked all around the dog head. It was grizzled and shriveled, with matted fur sticking out where the thin bandages had come loose. It almost looked like someone had used oatmeal to bind the gauze to the fur.
“You want to go for a walk?” Kazi asked the head. He asked it as if the dog had already told him it wanted to explore the house a little.
8
As Kazi explored the rooms of Harrow, the mummy head stuck beneath his arm, a Mason jar candle in his hand, Ronnie Pond had just avoided the slice of Bari Love’s hatchet.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
1
Ronnie Pond had been dodging and kicking Bari Love for nearly an hour, rolling around on the floor, until she finally got hold of Bari’s wrist and tightened her fingers around it until Bari dropped the hatchet. But the hatchet refused to simply drop—instead, it flew from Bari’s hand and whizzed over the romance bookshelves and narrowly missed hitting a bust of Shakespeare on the Classics counter not far from the cash register.
“What the fuck are you doing!” Ronnie cried out, nearly breathless, but able to bring her knee up between Bari’s legs and push hard there until she saw a grimace of pain on Bari’s blood-spattered face.
Bari snarled at her in reply and smashed her left fist into the side of Ronnie’s face.
Ronnie groaned in pain and fought the dizzying feeling that made her wonder if she would black out. She knew if she did, she’d be dead meat. She remembered her sister’s excellent advice about backhand in tennis, and reached over to a fallen hardcover—a Janet Evanovich nove
l—and brought it up, whapping Bari as hard as she could in the face with it.
“Fucking bitch!” Bari growled. She grabbed an omnibus edition of Dean Koontz novels off the shelf and brought it down against Ronnie’s skull. Ronnie nearly yipped in pain, but used the moment to knock Bari to the side; and then she rolled over on top of her.
She pinned her to the ground with her knees to Bari’s chest, then swiftly grabbed each of her wrists and held it down.
Bari’s face was practically between Ronnie’s knees as she tried to crawl under her to get out of the position.
Suddenly, Bari grinned and parted her lips. Her tongue darted out and touched the edge of Ronnie’s left thigh. Ronnie recoiled in disgust, and Bari shoved her in a split-second body slam. Ronnie fell backward against the bestseller racks, which gave and crashed to the carpeted floor.
Ronnie quickly glanced at the lower shelves—the only thing approaching a weapon was a thin metal bookend. She grabbed it and swung wildly at Bari, who had just leapt toward her again. She cut Bari clean across the nose and face, taking out her left eye.
Bari screamed in pain, and rolled to the floor, covering her left eye—or what dangled from the socket—as blood rushed down her cheeks.
Ronnie scrambled to her feet and ran to get the hatchet. Then she picked up the phone by the register, but it was dead.
Outside, several dogs with bloody paws leapt at the floor-to-ceiling glass windows and door.
She thought she heard a scream from the apartment above the bookstore.
She grabbed some of the twine that Nick and Dusty used to tie up books at times. Using the hatchet, she cut off lengths of the twine. Just enough for wrists and ankles. Then, the hatchet held high, Ronnie, confused and terrified but completely prepared to use it to defend her life, went to tie up Bari Love.
Bari’s face was nearly obliterated with the first gushes of blood. Bari lay there, curled up like a kitten, snoring lightly, little bubbles of blood popping at the gash just above her nostrils.
The Abandoned - A Horror Novel (Horror, Thriller, Supernatural) (The Harrow Haunting Series) Page 19
