“I’m taking valium because I’m scared,” Linda said. “I’m taking it so that I can get a decent night’s sleep. I’m afraid of what’s inside you, Sam. Don’t you get it? I’m scared.”
“You’re afraid of me?”
“Yes!”
The TV clicked off, and for a fleeting moment the whole world was utterly silent. Then the house groaned loudly, as old houses sometimes do. Sean flew into the kitchen, his eyes bulging with fright. Linda and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“What was that, Daddy?”
“Just the house settling,” I said. “These old houses do it all the time.”
The terror in Sean’s eyes would not go away, however. “The TV spoke to me,” he said.
“What?” Linda’s face crumpled.
I said, “Don’t be ridiculous, Sean.”
“I’m not.”
“Well, what did it say?”
‘Mustn’t tell what’s in the well. Mustn’t tell what’s in the well. Mustn’t tell what’s in the well.’ It kept saying it over and over again and then it shut off all by itself. I saw smoke.”
All the color blanched from my face. I felt it happen. Linda stood rigid, unable to react.
“You must have misunderstood, son. The only thing I heard was old Oscar the Grouch blabbing away. You must have thought he was talking to you.”
“No, Daddy, it did say it, honest. ‘Mustn’t tell what’s in the well. Mustn’t tell what’s in the well. Mustn’t tell what’s in the well. Sean began hyper-cruising again, sounding like a stuck record.
“Sit down and eat your breakfast, now!” I told him, losing my patience. Sean plunked himself down at his place at the table and burst into tears.
“Jesus!” Linda said and went to comfort him.
I walked into the living room and sure enough, smoke was belching from the back of the television set. I grabbed hold of the heated electrical cord and pulled. Sparks flew as the plug popped from the wall socket. At least the smoking began to subside. And then, just as plain as day, I heard Carlisle’s voice say, “Don’t forget our little secret, Sam. Mustn’t tell what’s in the well.” For a moment, I could not breathe. Panic gripped me like sickness and I thought I would scream. Instead I said, “You leave my son out of this, you old bastard.”
“Too late, Sam. You know he’s in it all the way.”
I walked trance-like back into the kitchen and there behind Linda stood a group of undulating human-shaped figures so black they could have been cookie-cut from the darkness of the night. All had glittering eyes filled with so much menace I actually feared for Linda’s safety. “Look out!” I screamed and the shadow people vanished into vapor.
Sean suddenly stopped bawling. He put his hand over his mouth and giggled.
Linda said, “See what I mean, Cabot. This place is creepy. And you’re getting creepier by the minute. What am I going to do with you?” She glared narrowly at me.
I blinked and stared dumbly, unable to speak, suddenly unsure of anything at all.
*
After the breakfast dishes had been cleaned up was when we decided to explore the attic for the first time. The mask had been packed away in an old trunk that was tucked up under the eaves, along with a bunch of other useless junk. When Linda pulled it out and put it to her face, such a feeling of horror and dismay rose in me that for one small moment I thought I might go mad. You see, I recognized it; it was the face I’d seen in the well, my own reflection mutating into something horrific.
For a long time I just stood there hearing the rain lashing against the house with each gust of wind, the attic moaning as the wind whistled through the rafters.
Mustn’t tell what’s in the well.
I sensed some kind of twisted truth in that mask, although at the time I could not fathom just what that truth was.
It was a fluorescent-green thing, an unidentifiable creature somewhere between human and beast with large grinning teeth and eyes the color of urine, so grotesque it was almost comical. The mask appeared quite old, probably papier-mâché, some left over whimsy from a long forgotten masquerade party, or a theater costume mask from some bygone stage production. How on earth it got into that old trunk in the attic of our house I’ll probably never know.
“That’s neat,” said Sean, reaching up toward his mother’s face for the mask. “Can I have it?”
“I don’t see any reason why not,” Linda said.
“No!” I screamed. Calm yourself, Cabot. It’s only a mask. There’s no reason to go getting your family all upset over this. But I wasn’t feeling the way I was thinking. It took an incredible amount of effort to get myself under control. Linda was looking at me as if I’d lost my mind. And I might have. “Put it back in the trunk,” I said as calmly as I could, not knowing whether it had been good enough to fool Linda. The mask grinned at me from Linda’s hand. I felt hot and flushed and my mouth was dry and coppery tasting. “God knows how many rats have made nests in there,” I said, speaking of the trunk. In reality I would have said anything to make her put that mask back in the trunk. My fear of it was off the charts. I did not want it near my wife and child. I wanted it back in the trunk, and I wanted it there as quickly as possible.
“Rats?” Linda said.
“Yeah, rats,” I repeated, continuing on with the lie. “Rats live in those kinds of places. And they carry disease.
“Stop it, Sam.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“Oh dear,” she said looking disdainfully at the mask in her hand.
Outside a gust of wind rocked the house, causing the old timbers in the attic to creak and cackle eerily.
Sean stepped closer to me and clung to my leg. “What was that, Daddy?” he asked as the gust died to a low, steady hum.
“Just the wind,” I managed through lips that felt like they’d been shot full of Novocain. I was still looking at the mask in Linda’s hand; its green-veined forehead, its sickly yellow eyes, its idiot grin. “Wind plays funny tricks around the eaves of old houses,” I said. “Sometimes it sounds like voices. Like old ladies cackling.”
Sean giggled a little nervously. “Yeah, old ladies cackling,” he repeated.
Linda dropped the mask back into the trunk, brushed her hands together with something like revulsion, and moved away to examine an old box filled with dusty knickknacks. Apparently, my explanation had been good enough to get her to relinquish the mask to its hiding place. Obviously, she hadn’t been alarmed by my panic, or if she had been she didn’t let on.
I ducked under the slant of the roof where rusty nails protruded. I quickly dropped the lid of the trunk and turned the latch, feeling better almost immediately, but still uneasy. I caught myself wishing for a key so that I might lock the mask away forever.
The wind was louder now, roaring through the roof-vents. The attic creaked, waxing and waning, making noises similar to those of a wooden ship in heavy seas. Outside, rain pelted down.
Sean’s blue eyes looked afraid. “I wanta go downstairs, Daddy.”
“Okay, champ. Linda, let’s go!”
“I’d like to look around a bit more.” she said a little testily. “If you don’t mind.”
“Be my guest,” I said. “Sean and I are heading down.”
Linda’s eyes drew down on me. “Another time?” she said. I nodded.
Chapter 15
Time passed strangely from then on. I don’t think I really forgot about the mask, although it never consciously entered my mind again. It was in there, though, neatly tucked away in my psyche, like dust bunnies beneath parlor furniture.
I began to write again. Linda and I chose one of the more spacious downstairs rooms—a room which had once been the parlor—and converted it into a study. It was perfect. An old bay window gave way to a view of the expansive back yard and the trees beyond. I set my desk and word processor up so as to take full advantage of the panoramic view.
The novel proceeded nicely. I had never felt so prolific. L
inda continued to fine-tune our environment with antiques and used furniture acquired at local fairs and flea markets which she would painstakingly strip and refinish. She decorated rooms with bright bouquets of late summer shrubs and flowers. Despite all our problems we both made an effort to keep things together, going about our daily lives as if nothing was wrong.
Painting contractors replaced broken clapboards and primed the exterior of the house in preparation for the inevitable winds of winter, and when they had finally picked up and left, we were alone for the first time since acquiring the place, save Carlisle’s regular but diminishing appearances and the occasional visit from John and Meg.
Indian summer came that year in all of her usual and glorious splendor, and then she left us suddenly. Too suddenly, like a broken promise, her scarlets and ochers turning to rust, drifting languidly on the heels of a chilled October wind.
From my study window I watched Carlisle—oftentimes with Sean at his side—rake leaves into huge piles and set them ablaze, sending gray smoke wafting up into an even grayer sky, a sky that held the promise of winter.
*
One mid-morning near the end of the month, a man appeared at our door. Actually he was no more than a kid, tall and thin with a thick head of wavy brown hair; his dark eyes were intelligent and inquiring behind thick horned-rimmed glasses. “I’m with the State Health Department,” he said, offering his hand. “Linwood Devlin’s the name, clean water’s my game.” He smiled at his own lame joke and said, “You Mr. Cabot?”
“Yes,” I said, standing there on the stoop wondering what a man from the health department could want with me. And then suddenly it struck me. “Clean water,” I said. “Now I get it. You’re here about the well out back, aren’t you?”
“That’s right,” Devlin said. “We’d like a clean sample. There seems to be a lot of strange organic stuff in it.”
“I expected you in the summer,” I replied. “I’d almost forgotten about it.”
“Been busy,” he explained. “You know how these bureaucracies work.”
I nodded. “What’s so strange about there being organic material in the well?” I asked. “This is Planet Earth. There’s organic matter everywhere.”
“Not like this,” he said. “Listen, I’m not supposed to alarm you.”
“Alarm me?” I said, now quite alarmed. “This is my home. I have a right to know what’s down there.”
The young man was silent for a long moment, staring at me. It was impossible to read his expression. His Adams apple bobbed a couple of times with a forced swallow, and then he said, “Listen, sir, we’re really not sure. That’s why I’m here. It’s possible that when you took that first sample you contaminated it somehow.”
“Contaminated it? With what?”
“The jar you used might not have been sterilized.”
“It was clean,” I said, but he was right, I hadn’t bothered to sterilize it. Just the same, I wondered what sort of strange organic matter could survive inside of a clean Mason jar. I remembered the smell of the stuff that came out of that well and knew it wasn’t something inside the jar.
“Listen, Mr. Cabot. It would be useless for me to try and explain what’s in that well when we don’t even know yet. It would be better if you’d just let me take the samples. I’m sure the State will let you know as soon as they have something conclusive.”
I nodded. “Come in.” Linda and Meg were shopping in town; no telling how long they’d be, and Sean was in school. I’d been in my study since seven that morning writing, but to tell you the truth, I was glad for the diversion. I went in and turned off my computer and asked the young man if he’d like something to drink.
“No, thanks,” he replied, looking at his watch. “I’m on a pressed schedule and really must get down to business. Lot of bad wells this year.”
I put on a jacket and took Devlin out back to show him the well. I stood back away from the thing, still having a bad taste in my mouth about what had happened earlier in the summer.
He carried a small black suitcase with him, laid it on the ground and proceeded to open it. He extracted a coiled length of thin yellow nylon rope and a small sealed stainless-steel vial with a baled handle. He tied the rope to the handle and set the container on the brown grass. Next he extracted a hammer, two small lidded boxes and two pointed metal tubes about a foot long each. He drove the tubes into the earth at ten and twenty foot intervals from the well, extracted them carefully from the ground and deposited the soil samples into the boxes. Then he took a grease pencil and marked the samples. Afterward, he went over to the well, lifted one side of the oak platform and slid the cover aside. I watched him carefully peer down and I involuntarily flinched. But the young man stepped back, expressionless. I felt a wave of relief. Obviously he hadn’t seen anything unusual. He gathered up the coiled length of rope and the vial, unscrewed the cover and broke the hermetic seal. Next, he lowered the vial slowly into the depths. I heard the small splash of water at the bottom and then he began to pull it back. The rope suddenly fetched up on something.
“Careful,” I said, feeling my heartbeat quicken.
He tugged lightly on the rope and grunted in agitation, bending over the edge, trying to get a better look at what had caused the snag. I remembered the slight tug I’d felt on my rope when I’d tried to reel it in earlier that summer and the quick moment of panic I’d felt. This kid wasn’t feeling any panic, though, I could tell. He was used to this sort of thing. He’d probably done it in a thousand different wells and had been snagged up half of those times.
“What’s the problem?” I asked trying to sound calm, but I wasn’t calm. My heart rate had picked up and now I could feel sweat beads breaking out on my brow despite the cool October air.
“Snagged,” he replied. “Don’t want to lose the container. He leaned further out over the rim and hitched the line toward the other side like a trout fisherman gingerly trying to release his line from the bottom without scaring the fish. I was just about to warn him to be careful when there was a sudden and violent downward-tug on the line. Devlin nearly lost his balance. He turned to me as if to say, what the fuck, but the words that might have been, never got spoken.
“Jesus, watch out!” I said stepping forward, but the warning came too late. In the midst of it, the line pulled taut once again, this time with violence that astonished me, but instead of letting go of the rope as he should have, it seemed the young man’s grip actually tightened on it. Devlin was yanked forward off balance. The rope sang through his hands at flesh-singeing speed. He screamed in pain and finally let go of the rope altogether, too late, however, for that second and most violent tug had caused him to lose his balance completely. His arms began rotating furiously forward as he tried to regain his balance. I was in motion and tried to reach him, but I wasn’t fast enough. Devlin took a step forward; it was the only way he could regain his balance, and in so doing, one leg walked off into space. The upper part of his body keeled forward and his head struck the rim of the well with a sound like a ripe melon striking pavement. The sharp blow pitched him violently backwards where he tumbled completely upside-down and sailed headfirst into the depths, disappearing from view in an instant. I heard a long, low grunt that was, I suppose, an injured, terrified version of a scream. Then there was a sudden, muffled thud and a small splash of water. Then, silence. I somehow managed the last few steps to the rim and stood there in total shock, looking down, not having the wits to even form a coherent thought. When my brain did finally kick in, my thoughts were all jumbled and full of panic. My stomach heaved and my gorge rose. I swallowed it back, dropping down onto my hands and knees and peering into the depths. I could not find my breath. Tears obstructed my vision as they began to flow. I wiped them away with the sleeve of my shirt.
“Devlin?” I called. “Are you okay?”
Of course he’s not okay, this admonishing little voice told me. He just fell head first into a fucking twenty-five foot deep well.
&
nbsp; I saw nothing at first, just blackness, like a hole drilled into hell. Then I saw the young man’s legs sticking up out of that murky pool, splayed, impossibly still. He’s dead, I thought. Jesus Christ, he’s as dead as a fucking carp. Oh, God please, don’t let it be. Something suddenly moved down there, like a trout rising to a fly, and a small flower of hope blossomed inside of me. “Are you all right?” I yelled again and my voice sounded muffled and distant and a little insane in my own ears. But then I could clearly see that it was not the young man doing the moving. Something else was writhing in those depths. Not a trout. No way. It was something big—something terrible, something I did not want to see but was powerless to pull my eyes away from—circling the submerged part of the young man’s torso like a shark circling prey. Then, in a sudden and fierce lunge, it attacked. Water and muck boiled from the well in a violent cascade that nearly reached me as I kneeled, staring fixedly down in horror.
There were no trout in that well. No indeed. There were no sharks in that well. Those kinds of life forms could not exist in such a terrible and toxic place. But there was most assuredly something alive in that well, something that relished the taste of human flesh. In those short few seconds I saw it, in all its gruesomeness. It was long and thick, and black beyond comprehension, slimy and sinuous, like a boa constrictor with Satan’s face. It was the mask, that implacable, yet sinister face with teeth like the louvered bands of the Hulk.
“Oh, Jesus, no” I cried in revulsion, crawling back away from that horrible sight, and the terrible eating noises it was making. I don’t actually remember my legs coming between me and the ground, but somehow they were there, shambling my quaking body back across the field toward the sanctity of the house and what was left of my sanity.
Chapter 16
Linda arrived home to a yard full of emergency vehicles. I sat in the kitchen in shock. The cops had been questioning me for nearly two hours. Linwood Devlin’s body had been lifted out of the well nearly an hour before. His upper torso was nearly unrecognizable. His face was missing. The skull had cracked open like an egg and Devlin’s brain had leaked out. I was told that they were still fishing for it in those murky depths (but learned later that they’d given up without finding it). The police wanted to believe that Devlin’s violent plunge into the well had caused the disfiguration. So did I, but I knew better. I had been witness to something extraordinary, something supernatural, something . . . I don’t know, maybe something evil beyond articulation. I wasn’t about to tell the cops that, though. Even if I’d wanted to—which I didn’t—I couldn’t have. It would never have been allowed. Something not even close to a conscious thought process, something on a level that was probably ten stories beneath visceral warned me to stay away from such notions.
The Haunting of Sam Cabot (A Supernatural Thriller) Page 9
