I jolted violently. The memory of the night they’d died and the terrible dreams I’d been experiencing since coming to this house had somehow fused together. I no longer knew which parts were real, which were nightmares.
Ever since that day, I’d been totally incapable of demonstrating any kind of closeness. No wonder Linda and I had grown apart. It could all end and I’d be in that place again.
It has ended. You just haven’t accepted it yet.
You’ve got to let go, Sam.
The grief multiplied suddenly, taking me to some unthinkable place, some terrible knowledge.
Since coming to this house I’d been on a downward spiral, this was irrefutable; bent on a mission of self-destruction, but more than that, drawn by a force beyond my control, I was actually contemplating my family’s destruction. But was it beyond my control? Could Linda be right? Maybe I was sick, mentally or emotionally sick in the way people who are institutionalized are sick. So many questions. Jesus, so many blank spots.
*
Carlisle didn’t come on that day and it was sort of a relief, it gave me time to think about things in a way I hadn’t in a long while, and it felt good. In the basement, I tried my best to avoid the Hulk’s grisly seductions.
Chapter 22
Carlisle showed up the following day, late in the afternoon, riding that red and chrome fat-wheeled 1950s bicycle up the drive toward the house. I watched through the living room window. He was bundled up in an old gray parka, a scarf around his neck and a wool cap on his head. I wondered how he did it; a man his age, riding all that distance this late in the year with an icy wind ushering in the promise of snow. There was something mysterious and almost supernatural about him. The thought had crossed my mind many times during the summer that things just weren’t right with Carlisle. The things I’d heard, the things I’d seen. The things he’d said to me. His only interest seemed to be this old house. Then an intriguing thought struck me. His interest wasn’t actually the house. He rarely came inside, only when we’d insisted, for lunch or a cold drink which he rarely touched. He would comment only generally and with little interest, it seemed, as to our progress in restoring the place. No, his only real interest here was and always had been the heating system. The two were connected in some twisted and terrible way.
I was putting on my coat, intending to go outside and have a little heart-to-heart with the old man when the phone rang.
“Linda,” I called. “I’m going outside to speak with Carlisle. Would you please get the phone?” It rang again. “Linda?” She must have been in another part of the house. Sean had come home from school again feeling out of sorts and she’d put him down for a nap.
You’ve got to let go, Sam.
The thought nearly paralyzed me.
Perhaps she was napping with him. I picked up the phone and John said, “You got a minute, Sam?”
“I just put my coat on. I was headed outside to speak with Carlisle.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Carlisle? Really? What about?”
“You remember back early in the summer how me and Carlisle got to be sort of friendly?”
“Yeah.”
“You remember how after a while that friendship soured? How I began to distrust him?”
“Sure, I remember that too. What’s this about, John?”
“Well, he told me he lived down by the town pier.”
“Yeah, that’s what he told us, too.”
“Well, he lied.”
“How do you know that?” I walked over to the window, pulled the curtain aside and looked out. Carlisle was no longer in view. He must have already gone into the basement.
I waited in anticipation, unable to stop the shiver that trickled down my back. I continued to stare out the kitchen window at the front yard. The shadows of the barren trees that lined the yard angled across the down-sloping lawn like pointed teeth. Deeper in the woods the shadows seemed denser, almost as if they had an existence of their own, separate from the forest around them.
“Well, he never would give me an address,” John went on, “so I had Meg drive me down to the pier and I checked around and nobody down there knows anything about him.”
“There must be some mistake,” I said. “Linda gave him a ride home once . . . last . . . summer.” My voice faltered. As I was mouthing the words I knew something wasn’t quite right. My memory of that incident and the terrible dreams I’d had that day didn’t add up. I could not honestly remember Linda ever speaking of that day, or Carlisle, or where she’d taken him, after she’d gotten home. Why hadn’t I asked her where Carlisle lived?
I stumbled away from the window and fell into a chair. The trembling in my body had worsened. My brow was covered in a cold, slick sheen of sweat. “What do you mean, nobody knows anything about him?”
“Sam . . . Listen. When I mention him, folks just get these blank looks on their faces, like they’re confused or something. Some say they haven’t laid eyes on him in years. Others have only vague memories of him. Most never heard of him. Several people I talked to told me he’s been dead for at least half a century.”
“Dead?” I said choking out a hoarse laugh. “That’s impossible.”
“I know,” John replied. “That’s what I said. Sam, the truth is, he never lived down by the pier.”
“Well, where does he live then?” I could hear my voice rising in panic.
“I don’t really have an answer for that, Sam, but I can tell you what I think.”
“Yes, John, why don’t you tell me what you think?”
“I think he lives there at the house.”
“Carlisle? This house?” My voice was filled with incredulity. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“That’s his legal address, Sam. The one he’s used since 1944, since he went off and joined the Merchant Marine. That’s his family home, you know. He grew up there.”
“Yes, I know, but Jesus Christ, he doesn’t live here now.”
“I think he does, Sam.”
“John, make sense.”
“I did some further digging. I went to the town office and checked and the place is still listed in his name.”
“That can’t be,” I said. “We signed papers. Money was exchanged. I have a mortgage.”
“Are you absolutely sure about that, Sam?”
“Of course I’m sure! We had a lawyer draw up the papers.”
“What Layer?”
“A lawyer in town. You remember, don’t you, John?”
“Sam, I remember you and Linda telling us that you were going to have a lawyer draw up the papers. Last time I talked to my daughter she said that it hadn’t been done yet. She said that you kept making excuses.”
“That’s not true, John.”
“Isn’t it, Sam?”
“Goddammit, John, if the house is still in Carlisle’s name and he’s been dead fifty years, then who’s paying the damned taxes?”
“I asked at the town office and they said the money comes from an escrow account. They tap it once a year and don’t ask questions.”
“What the hell’s going on, John?”
“You tell me.”
“How should I know?”
“Listen, Sam, there’s something else.” I noticed that John’s voice had gotten a little hoarse.
“What, John? Jesus Christ, what is it?”
“First, I want you to promise me you’ll get the hell out of that evil house before it’s too late. Me and Meg still care very much about you, you know.”
“You mean get out now?”
“Yes, now.”
“Whatever for, John? Tell me! And what do you mean, you and Meg still care very much about me?”
“Listen carefully, Sam. I got on the Internet and did some checking. I punched in the name Francis J. Carlisle and found out that an ancestor of his with the same name came over from England with William Farnham, the original owner, in the early eighteenth century.
He was Farnham’s builder and handyman.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that before, from a neighbor.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“I didn’t think it was important.”
“Listen to me, Sam. Another man with the name Francis J. Carlisle died in a fire at Farnham house in 1850. That’s what the records show. That would have been about a hundred and fifty years after Farnham and the original Carlisle came here.”
“Maybe it was the original Carlisle’s grandson or great-grandson.”
“I don’t think so, Sam.”
“What are you saying, John?” Are you telling me that the original Carlisle never actually died? That he’s gone through life occasionally faking his own death so as not to draw suspicion? Are you telling me that he’s somehow still alive and he’s the Carlisle we know?”
“I can’t answer that, Sam. I only know what I found on the internet. I checked further and looked up some old service records from the Second World War. Most of those old records are in the public domain now. Again I punched in the name Francis J. Carlisle and a man by that name with your address came up. The ship he was on, the Santa Rosa, it was an old cargo ship taken over by the Navy to be used for re-supplying Navy warships on duty in the North Atlantic. Well, the Santa Rosa was torpedoed by a German sub and it went down with all hands listed as lost. Carlisle was listed as missing in action.”
I was gasping for breath now. Sean’s dream of Carlisle being dead came back to me with breathtaking reality and I wanted to scream. “But Carlisle is alive,” I told John, wanting very much to put a rational face on the situation. “He’s flesh and blood. I’ve shaken his hand. I’ve had drinks with him. So have you. He’s alive, isn’t he, John?”
“Sam, whatever that thing is that calls itself Carlisle isn’t a man.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I was on the verge of screaming now.
“Sam, me and Meg are really worried about you. We’re in the car. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“But, why?”
“We’re getting you out of that place. This has gone on too long.”
“Jesus, John, what has gone on too long?”
Sam, you’ve got to let go.
“Your denial, Sam.”
“Denial?”
“They’re gone, Sam. You’ve got to accept that. And I think Carlisle might have had something to do with it.”
“Gone?” I said. “Who’s gone?” There was silence on the line and now the despair was dragging on me like a tide, imploding from within, pulling me down like bad gravity.
“Sam, you’ve got to stop living your life like they’re still there.”
“Linda and Sean? Is that who you’re talking about? Because they’re here, John, you bet your ass they are! Sean’s upstairs taking a nap and Linda’s doing laundry or something.”
“Sam . . . you’re being irrational.”
“Irrational?” I screamed, knowing in my heart of hearts that I was kidding myself. Hell, I was being more than irrational, I was planning on giving my wife and child up as burnt offerings so an old man who refused to die, an old man—hell, a monster—who’d lived a hundred lifetimes, could live another lifetime or two. What the hell was I thinking? I bolted from my chair and ran back to the window. It was nearly dark now and the skeletal trees beyond the driveway now looked like tombstones in some lost and forlorn graveyard. I could see that snow was falling in thick squalls. Carlisle’s bike still rested against the shed, only now it no longer looked all shiny and new; now it was rusted and ruined, the tires were flat and in places, large pieces of rubber were actually missing, rotted away like cancerous tumors. Brown weeds grew up against its rusted frame like dead flowers on the face of some macabre cemetery marker. My heart lurched and nearly stopped. I threw the phone down, hearing John screaming for me to pick it up. I ran to the stairs and called up for Linda and Sean. When there was no answer, I took the stairs two at a time and bolted down the hallway slamming open doors as I went. They were not in our room; they were not in Sean’s room, nor were they in any other of the upstairs rooms. Dear God, where were they? But I knew. Jesus Christ and all that is sane, I knew. As I dashed back down the stairs I heard Linda screaming on the other end of the phone, very loud and very clear. “. . . someone in the road . . . get out of the way! Oh, dear God, Sam! What are you doing here? Can’t control . . .” I heard the insane shrieking of tires on pavement, Linda’s stifled scream, a horrendous crash and then silence.
I stared mutely at the phone in my hand, my eyes wide with horror. Had I heard correctly? She’d seen me there at the site of the crash. But I couldn’t have been there. I was asleep on the couch having a terrible dream when the . . . accident . . . happened.
There’s blood on your feet. They’re all scraped and scratched.
No, this can’t be.
I grabbed the phone back up. “Linda?” I said, my voice choked with emotion. “Is that you, baby?”
“It’s me, Sam,” John said. “Get out of that house while you still can.”
“How many people died in that wreck, John? Goddammit, tell me now!”
“There were only two of them in the car, Sam. Linda and Sean.”
“But Carlisle went with them that day.”
“He might’ve gone with them, Sam. But when the cops got there it was just Linda and Sean.”
Chapter 23
For the longest time I could not breathe, frozen as I was in complete and utter horror. When my numb body finally allowed me the luxury of movement I dumped the phone out of my hand and began a systematic search of the downstairs rooms, but knew in my true heart where I would find Linda and Sean. I had never in my life dreaded any moment more than I did that one. I opened the cellar door and the blast hit me like a barrage of hot wind, yanking the door from my grasp and slamming it against the wall. I faced the hot wind and began my descent into hell. There was no need for me to carry a light; the basement was a hive of it, pulsing with every known color of the spectrum and probably some that did not belong in this universe.
At that moment I had no more control over my destiny than an insect does beneath a descending shoe. My hands held my head, a slight throbbing already beginning at the base of my spine and moving up into my brain until I thought it would explode, but this did not deter me. My mind said scream, but more profoundly my mind said do not falter, and in complete contrast to what my mind said, my entire being urged me to flee the sickness, flee all that lived within the confines of Farnham House, all that was true, all that had conspired to ruin three promising lives. Get away. Dear, God, get away while you still can. Then the music came; thin, ethereal, alien, but alive, and the resolve fled.
I was lost.
Turning right at the foot of the stairs I walked trance-like to the workbench. I searched behind it for the mask, but it was not there. I reached up and touched my face and realized for the first time that I’d been wearing it since the awful day Linda and Sean went away, only to return as ghosts. I understood this quite clearly now in that subterraneous place that felt deeper than the gaping hole in my heart.
I turned back around, and came face to face with dozens of shadow people, their glittering eyes shining like angry stars in an alien night sky. They’d been there from the beginning, of course, watching me, waiting, biding their time. I suspected who they were; the souls of those who had, in one way or another, crossed paths with the thing that called itself Francis Carlisle. They were his collection, his bidders, his puppets, his toys. He’d taken them and they’d gone willingly. They were a necessary part of his evolution, just like I was, just like Linda and Sean were. Without giving them another thought I pushed through their ranks, their diaphanous bodies parting like smoke in a brisk wind.
With slow deliberateness I moved toward the source of the frenetic light. The corpses of Linda and Sean lay placid on their backs near the Hulk’s fiery maw. They were partially decayed and horribly misshapen, covered in grave dirt.
A thing that might have been Francis Carlisle stood over them holding a machete.
“We’ve been waiting,” it said and smiled. I saw the creature’s true self then, appalling in its grotesquery, like it had come from someplace beyond this earth; perhaps beyond the dim recesses of time. The eyes were bright white and soulless orbs sunk deeply into bruise-colored sockets. The teeth in its head belonged more in the mouth of a shark. It had no hair; the elongated skull shown wet like it had just slid from the blackness of some cosmic womb; the ears were those of a bat. It wore no clothes; the body was thin, emaciated, the color of spoiled milk. No sex was evident, but I guessed that creatures such as this had no use for sex organs. “I see you understand the rules,” it said, gesturing toward the mask on my face.
I nodded, looking down at my dead loved ones, then back at their unmaker. “What are you?” I said.
“You haven’t guessed by now?”
“Just tell me.”
“I am nothing and everything. I am the negative and the positive, the darkness and the light. I am your biggest fear and your greatest hope. I am the air that you breathe, the food that you eat and the waste that you shit.”
“Why me?” I said. “Why my family?”
“Oh, dear boy. You wanted this as much as I did. You chose this.”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “You’re lying.”
“Oh but you did. Think back, Sammy-boy. Remember the details.”
I pointed at the Hulk’s fiery maw. “What does that have to do with this?”
“Everything.”
The Haunting of Sam Cabot (A Supernatural Thriller) Page 12
