The Siren and the Specter

by Jonathan Janz

  Horseshit.

  He lugged the grid scope and tripod into the master suite and put the scope on its charger. Then, feeling good for the first time that day, he undressed and took a shower. The water seethed over him, washing away the oil from his pores and the fear-sweat of the night before. It hadn’t occurred to him until now that he’d been avoiding the house. There was no denying he’d seen something last night, but now, standing in the brightly lit bathroom in the middle of the day, the vision seemed gauzy, easier to dismiss.

  David finished, toweled off, dressed, and headed to the screened-in porch, where The Last Haunting awaited him. After a moment’s deliberation, he went to the kitchen and brewed some coffee. It was a quarter of three, and ordinarily he wouldn’t have brewed a pot so late, but he’d hardly slept at all last night, and he needed to be sharp.

  Steaming blue coffee mug in hand, he returned to the screened-in porch and resumed his position. A post-storm breeze wafted pleasantly over him, the sun glare on the water mild. He bypassed Hartenstein’s sleazy introduction and found the first excerpt from John Weir’s journal. That was one of the most profound travesties of Hartenstein’s smear job, David reflected: the glaring omission of several sections of Weir’s journal. It was apparent to him that Hartenstein had selected only the most suggestive chapters to further his narrative: namely, that one of the most famous skeptics in history had succumbed to the spirits he’d set out to disprove.

  David took a swig of steaming coffee, began to read. Within moments, the venomous bile of Hartenstein’s writing faded, and the warm, engaging tone of John Weir took its place:

  Although I’ve made a career of “raising the blinds” on disreputable hoaxsters, I do admit to being impressed by the sense of antiquity and history imparted by the Alexander House. My first night in the home was uneventful, and though this confession reveals a whimsical streak in my nature, I must here record some small disappointment at this lack of activity.

  One of the unjust assumptions frequently written about me, oft-repeated by both the mavens of the supernatural and those offended by my disbelief, is that I approach my work with a scowl and a heartless compulsion to steal joy from others. These individuals view me as a callous destroyer of hope. This assumption wounds me. As I’ve written elsewhere, I am deeply sympathetic to the needs of the grief-stricken. Haven’t I, as a man of advancing years, experienced loss and been bitten by the pitiless sword of despair? Many are the days that I long for the soft comfort of my deceased mother’s hand, the edifying advice of my hard-working father, the delicious cooking of my long-departed grandma, or the cheering word from my doggedly optimistic grandfather. Even more frequent are the nights when I imagine my wife’s lovely face on the pillow next to mine; I reach for her, but of course she is no longer there. What I wouldn’t give to cure the influenza that took her a decade ago! What I wouldn’t give to remove the abnormality that caused our marriage to remain childless.

  Of course I know suffering. Of course I wish I could go back and remove those elements that brought pain and heartbreak to my life and the lives of those I so dearly loved and love still.

  But I cannot. Nor can I in good conscience succor my emotional wounds with fairy tales.

  But I digress.

  Most dwellings are as ephemeral as their inhabitants. Most homes are as characterless as a harvested cornfield, with its mud and discarded stalks.

  But not the Alexander House. Though not as capacious as most purported haunted structures, this dwelling purveys the notion that much has happened here, that its beams and floorboards have witnessed much and are determined to forestall the property’s defamation.

  Ah, listen to me. Already imbuing the home with animate characteristics!

  Indeed one can imagine these walls as sentient beings. Is it such a great leap then to associate the house with its original owner, the notorious Judson Alexander, brother of Senator Theodore Alexander, member of the first United States Congress?

  Undeniably insane, Judson was the bane of his father, a wealthy landowner and a businessman of much esteem. Ever power-hungry, the elder Alexander spent much of his life grooming his younger son for a life in politics and taking extravagant measures to contain his elder son’s increasingly volatile and disturbing behavior.

  David sipped his coffee and settled into his chair. He’d read John Weir’s published works many times, but reading this excerpt from Hartenstein’s book caused him to rue the elusiveness of the original diary from which it had been culled. For many years the diary had remained with a law firm in Williamsburg, but attempts by David and other Weir enthusiasts – not to mention generations of ghost hunters – to purchase the diary had been spurned without ceremony. Then, inexplicably, the diary had sold to an unnamed individual, and at that point vanished. Why someone would dole out an exorbitant sum and then hoard the diary was beyond comprehension. Yet that was precisely what seemed to have happened.

  Shaking his head, David read on.

  As is commonly known, Judson Alexander was never a governor of anything, including and especially the State of Virginia, whose first two governors – Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson – are among the most respected leaders in our nation’s history.

  By contrast, Judson Alexander is only remembered for the horrors he perpetrated, acts so reprehensible that they would have ended Theodore Alexander’s political career had they come to light during his lifetime.

  Here I must make another confession. Though the roof and timbers that comprise the Alexander House are as blameless as any other inanimate object, I find myself remembering the atrocities that occurred here whenever I walk the central hallway or tarry in the gloomy dining room.

  Most of all, I find myself recoiling from the western bedroom.

  David paused, the mug an inch from his lips. The long bedroom, he thought.

  He brought the mug to his lips, tilted it, and grimaced at the acidic taste of the coffee. With an odd mingling of eagerness and dread, he continued the passage:

  Though accounts suggest that Judson Alexander perpetrated unspeakable acts throughout the home, the peninsula, even in the neighboring communities, it is in the western bedroom that his malevolent energy seems to have reached its apex.

  Look at me! As I pen this, my heart races and my brow grows slick with perspiration. Such is the effect these tales have on my fancy. You see? I am not the hard-hearted cynic my detractors would make of me. I too have imagination.

  And never has my imagination been so stirred by a house.

  Yet before I chronicle Judson Alexander’s repellent exploits, I must provide a backdrop for those horrors.

  I admit here to being captivated by advances in the field of psychology. The work of Sigmund Freud is even now irradiating the human condition in a manner that demystifies our behavior and corroborates my long-held suspicion that saints and monsters are molded rather than born. It has taken us until now, the final century of the second millennium, to recognize the wrongheadedness of the Greeks, whose fatalism and obstinate adherence to superstition waged war on logic.

  Alas, I’ve run off the rails! Please forgive an old man his occasional diatribe.

  I believe there are traceable factors that contribute to human behavior. Irrational and pernicious prejudices are not embedded in our natures; a newborn does not enter the world, for instance, hating another infant for the color of his skin. Rather, that hatred is cultivated in the child by hateful parents or unfortunate circumstances. I am not exonerating the racist, mind you – merely chronicling his conditioning.

  Judson Alexander, on the other hand, was a different beast entirely.

  Yes, I called him a beast. It is a word I don’t use lightly.

  Little is known of Judson’s early life precisely because his father, Zacharias, possessed so much wealth and influence. Nearly all records of Judson’s childhood, if they ever existed, were suppressed throug
h threats, intimidation, and, I fear, murder.

  In this regard, I do suppose whatever impurities dwelt within Judson were nurtured by his father, a single-minded tyrant who ruined anyone who opposed his schemes. In the years subsequent to Zacharias Alexander’s death, myriad accounts were published of his ruthlessness in business dealings.

  Yet these accounts paled in comparison to his manner of dealing with what he, in letters to his Senator son years later, called ‘the Judson problem.’

  Despite his icy core, there did reside in Zacharias a tenderness for his two sons. Granted, the lion’s share of that paternal warmth was reserved for Theodore, his youngest. Yet he did love Judson, or at least care enough about him to go to Byzantine lengths to ensure his protection.

  This, however, is where I find myself unable to levy any further sympathy toward the Alexander patriarch. Indeed, Zacharias’s sins are, in their own way, as execrable as his eldest son’s.

  The first anecdote one is able to find of Judson Alexander stems from his sixth year and involves one of his father’s slaves, an unfortunate individual whose identity time has erased.

  The unnamed slave was one of a party charged with clearing a field for tobacco planting. Through merciless business practices and an insatiable desire for power, Zacharias had amassed a small army of workers, indentured and otherwise, to help him extend the borders of his empire, and he never scrupled about driving these workers beyond the boundaries of humane treatment.

  On the date in question, Judson had requested to ride along with one of his father’s most trusted supervisors, a Mr. Jennings, from whose letter (published posthumously) this account is taken.

  Mr. Jennings and the young Judson had been lounging in the shade of a nearby tree when the accident happened. The party of ten workers had been engaged in exhuming a sizable boulder from the untilled field when the slave had become trapped under the rock, his right arm pinned beneath the crushing weight. Much discomfited, the workers had clamored for Mr. Jennings to come to the slave’s aid.

  Jennings rushed to the sun-scorched field, discovered the nature of the accident, and through much toil and effort, he and his men were able to lever the boulder high enough to drag the slave from under it.

  The damage, however, had been done. The slave’s arm had been crushed beyond repair and he had entered a state of shock. Ever mindful of his employer’s pitiless disposition, Jennings then made a fateful decision. He demanded that the other workers return to their task of clearing the rocky field, left young Judson to attend the unconscious slave, and thundered off on his horse to fetch a doctor.

  What happened next was not witnessed firsthand, but it can be surmised.

  When he arrived with the local doctor, Mr. Jennings noticed something was amiss straightaway. None of the workers was engaged in the field as he had instructed. While the majority of the workers were ambling about in a state of what Mr. Jennings described as ‘drunken shock,’ two of the slaves were attempting to wrangle a third slave, who was raving at young Judson.

  As he strode nearer, Jennings noted that the injured slave’s body was motionless. Just as motionless was young Judson Alexander, who gazed expressionlessly down at the slave as if the man were a rock or a stump.

  The injured man was dead. While he was unconscious, his nose and mouth had been stuffed with dirt.

  The culprit could only have been young Judson. Although the child was only six, Mr. Jennings alluded in his letter to previous infractions authored by the boy. Destruction of cherished family heirlooms. Insolence toward adults and violence toward other children. The torture and slaying of small animals.

  Yes, though I’m loath to say it, Judson Alexander makes me believe in innate evil.

  Mr. Jennings, upon informing Zacharias of Judson’s unspeakable act, was threatened with termination. In his letter, Mr. Jennings insinuated that the termination might not be limited to his employment.

  The slave who dared berate Judson was summarily scourged, and all present that day were instructed to keep the murder a secret, a secret that was apparently honored until Mr. Jennings’s niece garnered a handsome sum to have her uncle’s letters published.

  As will be demonstrated, this was only the beginning of Judson Alexander’s infamous career of depravity.

  David closed the book with a pop, rose, and stretched. The sleeplessness was catching up with him, the caffeine insufficient fuel to keep him awake.

  He pondered heading up the lane to Ralph’s, but as he strode back to the master suite, an object on the right edge of his bed, barely visible in the swaddled blankets, made up his mind for him: Minty, Ivy’s stuffed animal.

  David realized what was bothering him.

  The kids. Were they okay?

  Of course they’re okay, his rational side declared. They’ve spent their whole lives in that house of horrors; why would they be in trouble now?

  Because they stayed the night with me? Because Honey and Michael might not take kindly to an outsider knowing their business?

  David went to the landline phone and, after speaking with an operator, finally got in touch with Sheriff Harkless.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Harkless suggested they meet at The Crawdad, a site that appealed to David on a number of levels. For one, he was eager to discover in person the place Ralph had described; for another, he was hungry, had no appetite for the items in his refrigerator, and had even less desire for fast food. If he could score a Tombstone pizza or a similar delicacy at The Crawdad, he’d be content.

  David arrived before Harkless and introduced himself to an attractive young black woman at the front counter.

  “Alicia Templeton,” she said, offering her hand and showing him teeth that were straight and white. He put her at twenty-two, perhaps a college student working a summer job.

  “The Alexander House, huh?” she responded when he told her where he was staying. “You’re either brave or stupid.”

  He maintained his smile, but only with an effort. “A place that old, there’re bound to be some creaky stairs.”

  She straightened one of the displays. “Means you don’t want to see anything. I get it.”

  “Now wait—”

  “Hey, it’s okay,” she said. “You don’t need to act tough in front of me. My dad’s the caretaker, and he doesn’t like it one bit.”

  “I forgot there was a caretaker.”

  She gave him a look. “Who do you think mows the lawn? The Bell Witch?”

  And standing there at the register, the memory nailed him flush in the face: Anna mentioning the Bell Witch one winter’s night, David reacting scornfully because anything supernatural reminded him of his mom and her insistence on unseen forces intervening in their lives.

  But what if it’s real? Anna had asked.

  Glaring, David had answered, What if I get scratched by a werewolf tonight and start howling at the moon?

  That, Anna said, an eyebrow arched, would never happen because it would require you to change.

  It shouldn’t have rankled him, but it did. Looking back, he realized that his occasional spats with Anna about the supernatural – she was a fanatic about the stuff – was where the notion of becoming a debunker was born. He’d detested religion and the occult since childhood; Anna’s enthusiasm for ghosts and goblins merely gave purpose to his contempt.

  “You still alive?” he heard Alicia Templeton ask.

  He jolted, remembering himself. He tried a laugh, but it sounded forced. “You into that stuff? The occult?”

  She bent, retrieved a handful of BiC lighters, and began refilling a display. “I’ve eaten it up since I was a kid.”

  “You wouldn’t have come across any of my books, have you? David Caine?”

  “You told me your name already. And no, I haven’t read your work.”

  His cheeks burned. He glanced about the store
. “You guys have Dots?”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “The candy?”

  “It’s my weakness.”

  “I can order you some.”

  “Don’t bother. You’ve got enough here to tide me over.”

  He watched her movements as she refilled the lighter display. She mixed up the colors but had a pattern. Red, blue, green, yellow; red, blue, green, yellow.

  The bell over the door rang. He turned and beheld a plump black woman, likely in her late forties, coming through the door. Her hair was drawn back in a bun, little makeup with the exception of indigo eye shadow. She wore a light brown police shirt, dark brown slacks, and a silver badge.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Mr. Caine,” the woman said. “You already knew I was a woman. Finding out I’m also black can’t be that much of a shock.”

  He sensed Alicia grinning in his periphery. “I don’t get surprised often,” he said.

  Harkless moved past him. “’Nother way of saying you didn’t think I’d be black. A clerk at a humble gas and grocery, sure. But not the sheriff of a big ol’ county.”

  “Hold on,” Alicia said. “I’m one semester away from my Master’s.”

  “I barely managed my Bachelor’s,” Sheriff Harkless answered. “I was boy-crazy back then.”

  Alicia gave David a glance. “Well, I’m not boy-crazy.”

  “Thank heavens for that,” Harkless said, taking a seat at one of three circular tables in the far corner of the small store. “Your dad would never forgive me if he found out I’d let you run off with some young stud.”

  Alicia uttered a breathless laugh. “Like you have any say.”

  “It’s my job, dear.” Harkless looked at David. “You need a formal invitation?”

  David went over and took the chair opposite Sheriff Harkless.