The Box Set of Hauntings and Horrors

by Jeff DeGordick

  "Hank... Hank, listen to me," his father's hushed voice said from around the corner. "You're going to get the jingles in a week." There was a pause. "A week, Hank. Seven days. You have my word." Another pause. "You know I'm good for it, Hank. Three jingles, three companies. In time for the holidays."

  Noel peeked around the table, his small hands grasping one of the table legs. Walter walked into view from around the corner, and Noel shot back into cover.

  "Don't screw me on this, Hank!" Walter said, agitation rising in his voice. "You know I'm the best in the business. That's why you came to me."

  Silence filled the air, and it played out for so long that Noah began to fantastically wonder if his father had vanished into thin air. He slowly leaned over and peeked around the table again, seeing his father with a clenched fist resting against the glass of the patio door, and his forehead doing the same.

  And then, really quiet, "Please... Please don't do this to me. I'm begging you. I... I got a son. We have to eat, Hank."

  Another pause, this one the longest yet.

  Walter's whole body suddenly rocked away from the glass like he'd been struck. The hand holding the phone shook. "Oh my God... Thank you, Hank! Thank you! I won't let you down. All three of them, one week, I promise." After another few moments, Walter hung up the phone. He let out a long, elated breath. But there was nervousness and desperation in it.

  And before Noel could pull himself back behind the table, Walter turned around and saw his son staring at him in his most desperate, disgusting moment.

  Rude Awakening

  "Noel, come here." Walter motioned to the couch next to the fireplace in the rec room and took a seat himself.

  Noel stood in the dining room and eyed his father warily.

  "Noel... please."

  He hesitated, then he walked to the couch and sat down next to his father.

  Walter sighed. "I know I'm springing all of this on you, but this was all kind of sudden to me, too. There was a bit of a problem with the bank, but... Well, you don't know about all that stuff..." Walter drew his fingers through his hair and adjusted his thin frame on the couch, turning sideways to face his son. "I'll be honest with you, kiddo. I'm running low on money. Do you know what that means?"

  Noel nodded.

  "If there's not that much money, there's not going to be enough food for us to eat, and we're going to get hungry. But I don't want that for us, so Daddy's working really hard right now to write some new jingles, but it's a stressful time."

  "Are we moving away forever?" Noel asked.

  A pained look touched Walter's face. "No, no, of course not. Just for a little while. Just until Daddy finishes his work and the money comes through."

  "How long will that take?" Noel asked softly.

  "I don't know," Walter replied. "But we've got to move away for a little bit until it does. It's a real nice place, though. It's an old cottage sitting next to a lake. There's a boat we can take across the water, and I can even take you swimming in the summer."

  "The summer?" Noel said in his high voice.

  Walter sighed. "Look, I know it's not ideal, but you have to work with me here, okay? The place isn't any smaller than what you're used to here. In fact, I think it might even be a little bit bigger! But I got a good deal on it, so we move today."

  "Today?!" Noel cried. "I don't wanna go today!"

  Walter scowled. "Don't be a brat! This is hard enough on its own. I don't need you adding to it. Here," he said, getting up and walking over to the dining room table. He snatched up a couple sheets of paper and returned to his son. "This is the place right here," he said, pointing to a big picture on one of the pages that was taken of the front of the cottage. The old structure was shabbier than he let on, but there didn't appear to be anything inherently wrong with it from the far-away shot of the photo.

  Noel stubbornly swatted the paper away. "I don't wanna go ever!" he said. He turned away from his father and faced the fireplace, hiking his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.

  "Noel..." Walter reached out and laid a hand on his son's arm, but Noel pulled it away. Walter sat for a long time and looked at him, frustration, anger, and love running through his head at the same time. He collected his thoughts and tried again. "Listen, champ... I know you're still upset over Mommy passing away. God knows you should be. It still hurts a year later, and it's still going to be hard more than a few from now. I know you blame me for the accident, but we've been through this a hundred times before: the roads were icy, we were both tired and stressed, and it was just one of those bad things that happen to people sometimes. I miss Mommy just as much as you do and I wish she could come back just as much as you do. But you're my number one responsibility. You mean more to me than anything else in the world, and I'll always do whatever I can to keep you safe and happy and fed, even if it's tough sometimes. And I know that Mommy would have—"

  Noel pushed himself off the couch and ran out of the room.

  "Noel!" Walter called after him.

  Noel ran to the front of the house and rounded the stairs up to the second floor. He turned into his bedroom and slammed the door shut behind him. He dove into bed and pulled the covers over his head, trying to block out the entire world. Silence fell all around him, and for a while it seemed like he'd accomplished just that.

  But then the doorbell rang and he heard his father cross the house to the front door. The door opened and muffled greetings were exchanged, then to Noel's horror and curiosity, a multitude of footsteps came up the stairs and stopped outside his bedroom door.

  The door opened and Noel twisted his head around to look.

  Two strangers, a man and a woman, walked into his bedroom. Walter came in behind them. They looked surprised when they saw Noel's head poking out from under the covers.

  "Uh... did we come at a bad time?" the man asked.

  "No," Walter said. "Don't mind my son, he's just sleeping in late this morning." He moved over to the bed and started to usher Noel out of it. "Come on, son, we've got to get up."

  "What's going on?" Noel asked, in equal parts to his father and the strangers.

  The man and the woman glanced at each other, confused, then their gazes went from Walter to Noel.

  "Um... we're here to buy the bed," the man said. He looked over at Walter. "Didn't you say you're selling all your furniture?"

  Moving In

  The station wagon was so filled with boxes that even Noel's small body was pressed against the passenger door. He could barely see his father over top of a stack of two boxes next to him, though he mostly kept his gaze out the window, watching as the familiar sights faded into the frightening and unknown. The car crawled across the snowy countryside for a long time. A thin snowfall had blanketed the area, but now the skies were clear and blue. Under any other circumstance, it would have been a nice winter drive, but Noel felt a growing sense of dread; he had a strong sense that something bad was waiting for them.

  They rode in silence for a long time, the nearly bald tires of the car gliding over and sometimes slipping on thin sheets of ice in the road. Walter glanced over at his son and cleared his throat, then he thought better of it and returned his eyes to the road. It took another few minutes before he decided to open his mouth.

  "I promise it's not going to be as bad as you think," Walter said, glancing over the boxes at the top half of Noel's face. "What do you say, champ? I'll get a tree for us and even put up the lights, just like we used to do with Mommy."

  Noel turned his head to the side window, watching a picketed line of snow-frosted evergreens zip by. He said nothing.

  "I know it's not the same, but I'm going to make it feel like Christmas," Walter continued. "I love you, kiddo." He looked over at him, but only saw the back of his head. He returned his gaze to the road. His hands tightly gripped the top of the steering wheel and warm tears dripped out of his eyes.

  After coming through a series of sharp bends in the road, the forest on either
side of them opened up into a large property with the cottage sitting ahead. A brief glimpse of the lake behind it could be seen, but then the car pulled up to the front of the cottage and it loomed over them like something Noel had seen in a nightmare once.

  A red Volkswagen sat parked in front of the cottage, and when the man inside saw them approach, he opened the door and got out, a clipboard in hand.

  Walter rolled the station wagon to a stop and threw it in Park. He got out of the car and greeted the real estate agent while Noel remained inside, his arms stubbornly folded over his chest.

  "Mr. Jingle," the agent said, extending his hand. "Welcome to Winterlake."

  Walter reached out and shook it. "Like I said, just Walt."

  "Of course. Well, she's as good as yours," the other man said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder at the cottage. "All you have to do is sign here and the keys are yours."

  Walter took the clipboard from him and signed on the dotted line, then he reached for the keys that the man dangled.

  But the real estate agent held them firmly in his grasp.

  "What?" Walter asked.

  A troubled countenance came over the agent's face and he took another look at the cottage. "No, nothing," he said. "It's just... it's been a long time since anyone's lived here, and the... well, I've told you the history before."

  "Yeah, you did." Walter tugged on the keys, but the real estate agent wouldn't let go. "Are you going to sell me this place or not?" he asked, annoyed.

  "Just be careful," the man said, then he relinquished the keys.

  "Beggars can't be choosers," Walter muttered bitterly.

  They shook hands once more and then the man opened the door to his Volkswagen. As Walter turned around and headed back for the station wagon, the man said, "Wait."

  Walter turned. "What is it?"

  The real estate agent pulled a card out of his pocket and gave it to him. "If you ever get into trouble out here, please give me a call."

  Walter eyed the card carefully. "Will do," he said. The real estate agent smiled and got into his Volkswagen. Walter waved him off, and when the red car was heading directly away from the cottage, he crumpled the card and tossed it into the snow.

  As he walked back to the station wagon, he glanced down the road and saw the moving truck make the last bend around the trees. A smile crossed his face and he turned to the cottage, hands on hips, and admired their new residence for the indefinite future. Then the smile faded almost immediately as a cold chill crawled up his spine.

  Noel sat in the station wagon, shivering. He tried not to let his father see him move around much, as if his fidgeting would betray his show of defiance. But he glanced around and used mirrors to see the moving truck pull up and the movers unload what little furniture Walter had brought with them.

  Walter unlocked the front door to the cottage with his new set of keys and carefully directed the movers as they brought the grand piano down the loading ramp and maneuvered it across the slippery terrain.

  "Careful, boys!" he said. It was the most prized possession he owned at the moment, and it was their ticket out of there if everything went to plan.

  "Where do you want it?" one of the four movers said behind a reddened face and veins bulging out of his neck.

  "In the game room," Walter replied. "Follow me."

  The movers carefully maneuvered the piano through the door, and then a fifth and final mover came in behind them, holding the legs they'd unattached to get it in the house.

  Noel's shivering became violent, even under his thick coat. He thought it was just the cold at first, but like his father, he got an icy shiver crawling up each bone in his spine as he stared at the cottage. It was two stories tall, and everything about the house seemed wrong. Every window was just a window, of course, yet there was something sinister in its appearance, like something was watching him. A small, cracked window in the attic was the worst one of them all, feeling like the all-seeing eye at the top of the pyramid. Noel squinted his eyes, thinking he saw some strange defects in the façade of the house, but he couldn't make them out from this distance. Aside from the strange feeling the building imparted, though, it just looked like an old cottage built of faded and splintered wood.

  The car was parked on a gravel driveway, though it was hard to tell through the thin layer of snow blanketing the property. The whole area in front of the cottage was driveway or road as far as Noel was concerned, and the large clearing in the woods extended around the sides and back of the house. He could see the faintest sliver of shimmering water past the left side of the dingy abode, and he got an equally icy chill thinking about the lake.

  His eyes scanned the line of snowy trees skirting around the left side of the lake at the perimeter of the property. They curved up a hill as they rounded the lake, and Noel's eyes stopped on something standing between two tall evergreens.

  It was a little girl wrapped in a bright pink winter coat. She had a black hat and maroon gloves on. She was startled when she caught Noel's gaze, and she shrunk back a little toward the woods. But still she stood there watching him.

  Noel squinted his eyes and leaned forward in his seat, trying to get a good look through the windshield.

  Something banged on the window next to him.

  Noel jumped and spun his head around.

  "Are you going to get out of there sometime today?" Walter's muffled voice asked from outside the door. "Come on, get out of the car and come inside. It's not so bad, I promise."

  Noel looked back at the woods and saw the girl staring at the two of them. She was timidly leaning around a tree, like she was ready to snap back and disappear into the woods at the drop of a hat. Noel glanced back at his dad, then at the boxes around him, then he reached for the door.

  The bright, early afternoon light fell on him and warmed his cheeks as he stood in the snow.

  "Come on, kiddo," his dad said as he led him toward the cottage.

  Noel trudged slowly toward the house, and he craned his neck up at its looming form. As he neared, the defects he'd vaguely seen before came clearly into view. The whole front of the house was peppered with small round holes in the wood. Noel walked up to a window on the left and saw a similar round hole in it, with a couple of long cracks stretching from it through the rest of the pane. He took off his mitten and ran his finger through it.

  "What are you doing?" Walter asked. "Don't touch that."

  "Are these... bullet holes?" Noel asked. "Like on TV?"

  Walter was quick to come over and drag him away from them. "No, uh... maybe just some old termite holes."

  "What's that?" Noel asked.

  "Never mind, just come inside."

  Noel stopped before the doorway and saw a wide wooden sign above it.

  Winterlake

  He stared at it, but Walter dragged him through the door. Walter closed the door behind them, then he crouched down and put a hand on his son's shoulder. "I need to get back to the movers. You just hang around inside for a while, okay?"

  "Fine," Noel said.

  Walter held an uneasy look on his face, but he turned and disappeared down an open hallway toward the other end of the cottage.

  Noel stood in the entrance and looked around, taking the entire place in. As soon as he'd been pulled through the doorway, he was hit with a very strong an immediate change in energy. He didn't understand it, but it felt very negative and oppressive, almost like something was squeezing his lungs and making it hard to breathe.

  The wind outside picked up and the cottage creaked and shifted against it. It sounded like the whole house was alive and groaning in pain.

  Dust floated and sparkled in rays of sunlight coming through dirty windows. Noel peered to his right and saw a staircase heading up to a landing, then turning ninety-degrees up to the second floor. A dusty old chandelier hung above him, and a stuffed stag's head was mounted on the wall over a doorway by the stairs. An open kitchen sat to his left that blended right into the entrance, and a long
hallway stretched in front of him, passing the kitchen and then the dining room and leading into what looked like a living room at the far end.

  He could hear shuffling footsteps and faint voices somewhere at the other side of the house, but Noel shivered again and felt all alone. Somehow, it was colder in here than it was out in the snow, but he knew that this cold he felt was on the inside.

  Noel walked into the kitchen and stretched up on his toes to look out the window over the countertop. He spotted the length of woods and searched for the girl standing between the trees, but she was gone.

  Attic

  The house was dark. Daylight came in through the windows, sure, but it was like the light was diffused by an unseen energy lingering around in the cottage. The wind whistled through the bullet hole in the window Noel stared out of, and it reminded him of the whistle of an approaching train.

  He lowered himself flat on his feet and turned around. There was a certain dread in his movement, like laying his eyes on the rest of the interior again would confirm his imprisonment in it. The same plunging feeling he'd felt when he walked through the front door tugged at his innards. He was isolated and scared, and he quickly moved toward the back of the cottage, toward the faint but bustling voices.

  A few closed doors sat in the wall on his right as he passed the open kitchen and dining room on his left. Stepping into the living room at the end of the cottage, he saw a back door leading to a porch overlooking the lake. Through the grimy glass insert, the winter lake sparkled past a huge snowy field. The glistening silver body was enormous to him, and his heart lurched like being gripped by vertigo on a tall building. He felt the ground slip away beneath him and the lake lunge forward to swallow him up. Noel steadied himself and turned his attention away from the overwhelming spectacle.

  The living room was just as dreary as the parts of the house he'd already seen. Like before, the light came in through the windows, but it was still unusually dim. There was a fireplace to the right of the door, a huge thing built of large slabs of stone. The thick mantle was topped with dusty trinkets and decorations, including an old photograph of someone Noel didn't recognize. A long couch upholstered in brown leather sat on the other end of a coffee table from the fireplace, with a matching armchair and a mismatched loveseat of soft, stained green fabric pushed to the side of the large room. The movers hadn't taken much furniture from their old house, and now Noel understood why. It appeared as if whoever owned this place previously had just up and left, abandoning all of their possessions.