Haunted Houses

by Robert D. San Souci

  He dug a quarter out of his pocket, deciding to use his father’s method for decision making: Heads, shoot for La Casa; tails, the main road. He tossed the coin and intended to catch it and slap it down on the back of his hand, like his father did. But he missed it, and the coin hit the dusty road with a soft thunk.

  For a minute, Jose lost sight of it altogether. He crouched down, searching, then brushed the dirt away to see that heads was faceup. La Casa. Great-Grandmother’s house. Pocketing the coin, he set out in the westerly direction. He trudged along, losing track of time, only noticing that it was growing late when shadows deepened on the horizon. What looked like a flash of light caught his eye. Then it was gone. Then it was back. He guessed he was seeing a steady light source that was being obscured by some wind-stirred tree or shrub. Indeed, a breeze had been rising, seemingly encouraged by the sinking of the sun.

  He was sure it was a house. Maybe the geezer at the gas station was wrong and someone was living there—maybe relations of the old women who had lived with Martina and worked for her. And if there was power, there might be a phone. Or surely someone would have a cell phone, at the least.

  As he walked, Jose turned frequently to see if there were any cars coming down the road behind him. But the way remained empty in both directions. He trudged slowly on, unable to force his aching limbs to carry him forward any faster. At least the throb in his head didn’t seem worse. But the pain in his heart from his terrible losses grew with each step. Still he urged himself on, determined not to surrender to the desert and despair.

  Finally, he topped a low rise and saw the house. The adobe walls, painted soft pink, now looked almost orange in the fading sunlight. When he got a bit closer, he realized the light he was following was an old-fashioned kerosene lantern. He’d seen these when his family went camping. Was the power out in that house? Then he remembered, he had seen no power lines alongside the road—no telephone lines. That probably meant they used cell phones there (but how would they charge them without electricity?). Would they even have service in such an isolated spot? He decided they’d have to have a way to get into town. At the worst, they could take him back to Sunset View, where he could find real help.

  The double doors—massive, wooden—were painted bright green and carved with the shapes of local blossoms, each in its own tidy square panel. The door handles were brass, twin circles of Aztec-looking serpents. Seeing no doorbell or knocker, Jose rapped on the right panel; when there was no immediate response, he knocked again, louder.

  This time, the door opened inward with a faint creak of unoiled hinges. Jose came face-to-face with an old—ancient—woman, her leathery features a deep brown; creases half hid her probing black eyes. She held a candle with a hand cupped around it to protect the flame from the strengthening breeze. Her arms, bone thin, looked almost spiderish.

  “Si? Who are you? Why have you come?” she asked in Spanish.

  Jose could understand Spanish, but he didn’t speak it all that well. He asked, “Do you speak English?” When she nodded, he explained, “There was a car accident. I was hurt. Everyone else is dead.” He caught his breath when he said this last part, choking back a threatened fresh flood of tears.

  Her face showed nothing. She simply asked again, “Who are you?”

  “I am Jose Garcia. Martina Garcia was my great-grand mother.”

  Her watery eyes widened at his words.

  A voice, high and frail, called from the room beyond. He couldn’t make out what was said, only that it was clearly a question. The old woman turned to address the unseen person in rapid-fire Spanish, barely above a whisper. Jose couldn’t grasp what she was saying.

  Abruptly, she turned back to the boy. “Come inside,” she said, in English. “The senora wishes to see you.”

  Jose followed her through a short entrance hall. She moved with a stiffness that was probably arthritis but reminded the boy of a spider’s skittering movement. They passed under an archway on the right into a huge living room dominated by a massive fireplace decorated with brightly colored hand-painted tiles showing suns, moons, stars, trees, rivers, oceans, and so on. The wood for a big fire was laid in the fireplace but remained unlit. Heavy wrought-iron candlesticks on the mantel and candles in matching sconces around the walls cast flickering light over the two women seated in the room. One, taller, was sitting in a heavy lacquered wooden chair like a throne. La reina, thought Jose, remembering his Spanish for “the queen,” since the word seemed so fitting. Her gray hair was pulled back into a tight bun; her black dress and severe black shoes made the boy think of someone in mourning. She wore no jewelry. Her pale face looked heavily powdered, though a closer glance revealed it was only the fairness of her ancient skin.

  She regarded Jose with an expression that was neither hostile nor friendly, merely interested. To her left, in a far smaller and simpler chair—so small that it could hardly contain her bulk—was a second woman dressed in black, her hair coiled in a braid on her head. Her wrinkled hands rested on the old, leather-bound book she held in her lap. Was she reading aloud when I interrupted them? Jose wondered. He was aware of the doorkeeper standing at the threshold of the room, watching.

  In the uncertain light, the faces of the women seemed to melt and reconfigure. There was something vaguely familiar and yet disturbingly strange about the queenly one. Jose began to regret coming.

  “Tell me your name, niño,” the woman said, “and why you have come to our lonely house.”

  As quickly as he could, Jose answered her questions, pausing from time to time to let waves of sadness wash over him. The regal one murmured something to the heavyset woman, who left, then returned with a handkerchief she silently offered to Jose. He nodded his thanks, took it, and wiped his eyes. Silently, she closed the double doors of the room.

  Already suspecting the answer, he asked, “Do you have a telephone?”

  “I am afraid we do not. We are cut off from the world in here.” At this, she gave a grin that chilled Jose. The other two women chuckled softly.

  “I need to let someone know where I am,” the boy insisted, growing a bit angry.

  “Oh, they know what has become of you,” the woman said, the ghost of a smile still remaining in place in spite of her restless features. Suddenly, she wasn’t smiling anymore. Her voice sounded gentler. “Don’t you recognize me, little one? Though it was many years ago when we met.”

  Jose shook his head in confusion.

  She passed her hand, with its swollen knuckles, across her face. The confusing face dance stopped; her features settled into place.

  Jose knew that face—not from his baptism, but from pictures the family had and that he had seen in the coffee-table book.

  Martina Garcia, his bisabuela, great-grandmother.

  He whispered her name, but the sound lodged in his throat. He couldn’t be sure he’d said the words aloud.

  He must have, though, because she nodded, then said, “I have been sent to take you with me.”

  “Who sent you? Where are you taking me?”

  “All in good time.” She stood up. “Give me your hand,” she said, extending hers. “Carmella. Ana. We will leave now.”

  The two other women, one still holding the candle, one the book, stood beside their mistress, whose hand was extended toward Jose. “Come, come, niño, we have a great distance to cross.”

  But the boy was backing away. “You’re dead. You’re a ghost,” he said.

  She sighed and gestured impatiently for him to come to her.

  “There are no such things as ghosts,” he said, remembering his mother’s comforting words when he had awakened, sweating and screaming, from a dream of being pursued through a forest by nightmarish figures.

  Suddenly, he knew what was happening. These old women were brujas, witches, which he knew existed, as surely as ghosts did not. He had listened eagerly to the stories told by the woman in the hotel gift shop, when she had found him looking through a book he had pulled off the shel
f: Brujas of the West.

  “Oh, yes,” she had assured him. “Witches are very real. This land is witch-haunted. One must always beware: They can take many shapes.”

  “Brujas!” he cried. The women looked astonished. He thought it was because he had guessed their secret. He pointed at the leader—“And you took the shape of my great-grandmother to confuse me!” He had the sudden, frightening impression of three spiders, gliding herky-jerky down the strands of a spiderweb toward a snared fly.

  Then he was running away, slamming through the heavy doors, ignoring their cries of “Espere! Wait!”

  He fled from the room, across the entranceway, then yanked open the outer door.

  Night had fallen. The air was chill. The kerosene lantern, the beacon that pulled him into the witches’ power, had been extinguished. There was only moonlight and starlight turning the road into a silver-and-shadows expanse.

  He paused a moment to look back. The three women were standing on the porch now, watching, making no effort to follow him.

  Before they could create some awful magic to snare him forever, Jose ran for his life, pounding down the road. From time to time, he looked behind him for signs of pursuit—even looked at the starry sky for dark shapes fluttering across the face of the moon in the form of bats or broom riders. But he saw nothing.

  A stitch in his side made him stop to catch his breath and give his body a rest. But he allowed himself only the briefest pause, then he pushed on, not as rapidly, but managing to keep moving.

  Jose raced on until he felt like he was running his feet off. The world was a blur around him, smeared by tears and distorted by the night. When he stopped for a moment, he found—astonishingly!—he had run so far he had reached the place where his family had died. Now the glass and metal bits glittered in the moonlight. Helplessly, he shouted, “Papa! Mama! Isobel!”

  Silence. He called again but again there was no answer. Somewhere a coyote howled at the blazing moon.

  Then he saw twin lights approaching. At first he panicked, thinking it signaled witchy pursuit. But he got hold of himself and realized these were headlights coming from the direction of the main road. He began running toward the lights, frantically waving his arms. Then he heard the reassuring sound of an engine. He stood by the side of the road, still waving.

  A minute later, a battered old pickup truck came to a halt in a cloud of dust and a squeal of brakes.

  He ran up, shouting, “Thanks for stopping.”

  From the open window of the cab, he could hear a woman’s voice complaining, “Why’d you stop here? Nearly made me hit the dashboard.”

  “I thought I saw something in the road,” a man’s deep voice answered. He sounded puzzled.

  “Well, there’s sure as heck nothing out there,” the woman said. “Now, get a move on. I want to see them ruins at night.” Her voice suddenly became warm. “I hear the old place is romantic in the moonlight.”

  “Yeah, whatever you say,” said the man. He was looking at Jose with a curious expression. He might as well have been looking right through the boy.

  “I really do need help,” Jose said, but he knew his voice was flat and empty and too soft to be heard. A moment later, he stood back as the driver restarted his engine, gunned it, and tore off down the road.

  Jose watched the fast-disappearing red spots of the pickup’s taillights.

  “Niño,” a voice whispered to him.

  Turning, he saw three shadowy figures on the opposite side of the road—the tallest standing closest to him.

  “Bisabuela,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  She nodded. This time he saw that her smile was warm, and when she held out her hand, he took it unhesitatingly. He had no desire to remain any longer. Somewhere, very near, his body lay hidden by the brush, where he had staggered, hovered for a time between life and death, then come to his final rest.

  “Papa? My mother and sister?” Jose asked.

  “Each of us walks our own road into eternity. But others serve as guides.”

  “Will I see them again?”

  “Perhaps,” Martina said. “Perhaps.”

  A moment later, the road and surrounding desert were empty, save for a single coyote trotting across the stretch of gravel to vanish into the brush.

  Doghouse

  The kids who knew eleven-year-old Blake Hudson thought that he was so smart, he bordered on weird. Still, the boy was never a showoff or a put-down, so they accepted him—though they were leery of someone who aced tests, who always had a correct answer for a teacher, and who read so much that his younger brother, five-year-old Jamie, feared his brother would “burn his brain up.”

  Blake also had an ability to see, hear, or sense things others couldn’t. He could find lost things—from pens to pets—just by imagining where they’d gone. No one would play a card game with him because he always seemed to know ahead of time what cards others were holding; and when his best friend, John Brunsfeld, was hit by a car while riding his bike, Blake knew about it before anyone else, even before John’s parents. Although Blake told the Brunsfelds that John would recover fully, they waited for the doctors to confirm this before they were reassured.

  Gillian Dunlap informed Jamie, “Blake is an esperer.” When Jamie asked “What’s an esperer?” she replied, “He’s got esp: He can see what isn’t there. People with strange powers have esp. That’s why they’re called esperers.”

  When Jamie got home, he found Blake in his room, packing for their trip to visit their uncle. Blake looked at his brother and asked, “What’s up, J?”

  “What’s esp?” the younger boy asked.

  “Esp?” his brother made a face. “Never heard of it.”

  “Gillian says you’ve got so much esp, you’re an esperer. She says you’ve got some kind of special brain power.”

  “Oh, Gillian,” Blake said, wrinkling his nose. “She never gets anything right. “She’s talking about ESP—extrasensory perception. You never call it esp, and esperer is out there—even for Gillian. Anyhow, ESP just means a special mind power that a few people are supposed to have that lets them see what most people can’t, like junk that’s lost or the future or maybe even ghosts. Sometimes they help police by touching something from where a crime has been committed that lets them see in their minds who did it. ESP works in lots of different ways. I guess you’re either born with it or not.”

  “Were you born with it?”

  Blake shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think so.”

  “Like when you saw old lady Handley waving from her upstairs window two weeks after she died?”

  Blake said thoughtfully, “I shouldn’t talk about things like that. Mom and Dad say that I have an overactive imagination. And it makes the other kids think I’m weirder.” Uncomfortable, he changed the subject: “Hey! Are you packed? If not, better get going. Mom will be mad if you’re not ready when she gets home.”

  First thing in the morning, the boys would be off to spend time with Uncle Jack, their mother’s older brother. He lived in Stuartville, in northern California, about forty miles east of the coastal city of Eureka. Every year, he had invited the family to visit over spring break. This year, because of complicated schedules—their father’s business was installing new computer software and their mother was helping their grandmother Ackers settle into a new, assisted-living situation—the boys were flying north on their own to be met by Uncle Jack at the Eureka-Arcata airport.

  The two were looking forward to it. Uncle Jack was cool. He wrote scary stories for kids. He had endless tales to tell, tons of DVDs, and tapes of people giving accounts of frightening things that had happened to them. Their parents thought most of what Uncle Jack did or talked about was pretty interesting, too; but their mom sometimes made her brother shut off a DVD or cut short a story that she deemed “too disturbing for the boys”—ignoring the fact that the boys were loving every gory detail.

  And there were so many things in their uncle’s house to look at
that a lifetime wouldn’t be long enough. He had plastic models of the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Dracula, a wired-together human skeleton, Ouija boards and tarot decks, blueprints for the starships Enterprise and Galactica, and bookshelves filled with ghost stories, fictional and true. The library was Blake’s favorite thing.

  With all this available and only their uncle to decide what was appropriate to read, watch, or hear, the ten days promised thrilling, chilling bliss.

  Their flight from Los Angeles to Eureka was exciting on its own. Blake felt very grown-up and responsible shepherding Jamie through the San Francisco airport, where they changed from a full-size jet to the sixteen-seater prop plane that took them through the second half of their journey.

  Uncle Jack was waiting in the tiny, redwood-sided Eureka-Arcata terminal. Big and bearded and jolly-looking, he wore the patched red-flannel lumberjack shirt and an SF Giants baseball cap that the boys called his “uniform.”

  He gave Jamie a bear-hug, but shook Blake’s hand with his big paw—a quiet acknowledgment that Blake was fast approaching adulthood. Their uncle was always tuned in to things that most adults would never pick up on.

  He joked and chattered almost the whole time they drove to Stuartville through forests of pine and redwood. There was a lot of dampness in the air and a heavy cloud cover. But there were plenty of patches of warm sunlight, too.

  Their uncle’s good mood slipped only once: when they turned off the main road onto Ridge Road, which ended at the turnaround in front of his house. They passed a big, green, two-story wooden house belonging to the Allard family. It was on a corner lot, set back behind split-rail fences and an expanse of lawn. A double garage stood to one side, with a gravel road connecting to the main road. On the other side was a large dog house, also painted green, with green shingles on the roof and red trim around the door.