The Agony House

by Cherie Priest

  “Do you want to stop by and see your mom, first?”

  “She’s off today.”

  Denise felt stupid. “I forgot it was Saturday.”

  “Sometimes she works on Saturdays. A lot of students live in the dorms and stuff, and school runs year-round. They’ve gotta eat every day, right?”

  Okay, well. She didn’t feel quite so stupid. “I guess that’s true. Where does she work again?”

  “Bruff Commons, at the dining area there. That’s where I work too, when I’m off from the pizza place. I clear tables and empty trash, and sweep up. Here, we’re going around this way.” He pointed at a sidewalk, and led the way. “To the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library.” He said that last bit with a fancy flair that it seemed to require. “I’ve only been inside it a handful of times. I don’t have a library card or anything, because I’m not a student. My mom gets some perks for working here, though. She wants me to enroll when I graduate. If I can get in, and if I can get enough student loans, but I don’t know, man. It’s a lot of money, and my grades are good, but … it’s just, it’s like. It’s so much money. I keep my eyes open for art and photography scholarships and stuff, on the off chance anybody wants to help foot the bill—but so far, I haven’t had any luck.”

  “My mom wants me to come here too,” she confessed.

  “It’s a real good school.”

  She said, “I know, but like you said … it’s a lot of money. I was thinking I’d go back to Houston when I graduate. I got friends there. I know my way around. School’s cheaper too. I can probably still get in-state tuition.”

  “Sure, but you’re making friends here too, and I’m showing you around. Maybe this place will grow on you.”

  “You saying we’re friends?”

  “Yup. Me and Terry, we’re your friends. Dominique too. If you give her a minute. It’s not the whole city, but it’s a start.”

  She wasn’t so sure about Dom. “I don’t think your cousin actually likes me very much.”

  “She doesn’t like anyone much, but she thinks you’re okay. You should take it. It’s worth something, when she decides she’s on your team.”

  Around another corner, and the library came into view. It was three stories tall and made of concrete. It looked like it came right out of the 1980s. Inside, it smelled like every other library Denise had ever seen: like old books, strong air-conditioning, carpet cleaner, and a dash of mildew.

  “What are we looking for exactly?” Norman asked.

  “The special collections librarian.”

  He frowned. “Do they have one of those?”

  “Wikipedia says they do.”

  They asked at the big central desk and got sent to a different desk, on the third floor.

  The plaque on the special collections librarian’s desk said he was Casey Pines. His name may have sounded like a nursing home, but he was a slender, handsome black man who was probably in his thirties. He had cute little glasses and a shiny shaved head.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Pines?” Denise began.

  “Yes, can I help you?”

  She introduced herself and Norman, who waved awkwardly, and told Mr. Pines about Joe Vaughn and the comic manuscript in the attic. “I saw online that you have an archive of his papers.”

  Mr. Pines snapped to his feet with a broad smile of enthusiasm. “First, I must tell you not to take everything the Internet says at face value, because it’s my job to warn you—but on this occasion, it’s at least part right! Yes, yes, yes. Let me take you to the stacks, and I’ll show you what we’ve got.”

  They followed him into a very quiet section of the library with half a dozen shelves that went all the way to the ceiling, and a wall that was stocked with boxes that looked like they belonged in a law office. Each one had a faux wood grain printed on it, and a white label with catalog numbers and letters scrawled in black Sharpie.

  “This is the special collections?” she asked.

  Mr. Pines said, “Some of it. We have more important things on lockdown—this is mostly local history of a more recent, less valuable variety. Come in to this room here, if you would please, and I’ll bring you the box of Joe’s archives.”

  She peeked through the door. It looked like a perfectly normal conference room. “Are his papers valuable?”

  “All of our archives are valuable in some respect or another. Are Joe’s papers worth money? I’m not sure. But he’s dead, isn’t he?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Signatures of dead people can be worth money, and so can old comics.”

  “We don’t need to see the comics. We’re mostly interested in any articles about him, or letters, or that kind of thing,” Denise said.

  The librarian nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Denise and Norman took chairs at the table, side by side, and fidgeted while Mr. Pines disappeared and rummaged someplace in the special collections stacks. Or boxes, or file cabinets, or wherever they kept that kind of thing.

  She was a little disappointed when the librarian didn’t return with a box at all, but a manila folder.

  He placed it on the table in front of her. “Except for the comics … this is all we’ve got, I’m afraid. It’s not much to go on, but if I recall correctly, Joe Vaughn was a rather private man—and not much is known about him. I think he used to be a woodworker, or something?”

  “A carpenter, that’s what I read,” she told him.

  “It may or may not be true.” He shrugged. “Frankly, I’d be surprised if that was even his real name.”

  Norman cocked his head, looking more closely at an old copy of a Lucida Might comic that had tagged along with the material in the folder. “This is definitely the same artwork as the one you’ve got,” he said to Denise.

  Mr. Pines took a seat at the end of the table, and collected the pieces that Denise and Norman put aside. “I would leave you to this,” he explained, “but without a student ID … I’m not really supposed to bring you back here at all, you understand. Please forgive me if I hover.”

  “Sure, sure,” Norman replied without looking at him. He was engrossed in the folder’s contents. “What are we looking for, exactly?” he asked Denise.

  She sighed down at the folder. “I’m hoping I’ll know it when I see it. Wait, what’s this?” She pulled out a thin, brittle piece of paper the color of sand.

  You’ve been a hell of an agent, Marty, and you’ve always done right by me. I owe you, and I owe you big. We’ve had a great run, and yes —I have more Lucida Might in me … but not as much as I’d thought. It deserves a wrap-up, a send-off, a final chapter, doesn’t it? Well, I’ve written one, and I’ve drawn it up.

  I don’t think I can ever publish it. It’s a shame it’ll never see the light of day, but I feel better for having done it. You might call it a confession, of sorts. Everyone feels better after confessing, right?

  At any rate, I’ve written my manifesto. Maybe I’ll box it up, and stuff it in a safe deposit somewhere. Maybe I’ll burn it. (I probably won’t, but with my mental state these days, I can make no promises.) Maybe I’ll just hide it so no one can take it away from me. You-know-who would take it away, if I gave him half a chance. He enjoys playing the part, and the money that’s come with it all this time, but all good things must come to an end.

  Thank you, Marty. Forgive me, Marty. But my life has become a house of horrors, and my time in the business is over.

  Mr. Pines cocked his head. “I don’t get it.”

  “Check out that last line.” Denise flipped the page over. There was nothing on the back. “He says his life has become a house of horrors. That’s what my comic is called.”

  “Really? That’s amazing!” Mr. Pines looked genuinely tickled. “Well, if you ever think of donating it someplace, I do hope you’ll think of us!”

  “Absolutely!” she fibbed.

  Norman took the letter gently from her hands, and scanned it for himself. “He talks like he’s having trouble with somebody.”

  “Ye
ah, that’s the second time I’ve seen him make a reference to somebody he just calls ‘you-know-who.’ I wonder who it is? Wait, here’s another letter. Or part of the same one … ? No, I don’t think so.” She pulled out another page. The paper was a different color, and it began mid-sentence.

  what will happen. Things are coming to a head here, and Marty, I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid. I don’t know what he’ll do. He’s taken the news so badly.

  “This doesn’t feel right,” Denise protested. “None of it feels right.”

  “Where’s the rest of it?” asked Mr. Pines.

  But there wasn’t any rest of it. Just the single fragment. Apart from a few more comics, there wasn’t much else: an envelope addressed to Marty Robbins in New York City, an award notice from some comic industry group, and a royalty statement that made it sound like Joe Vaughn didn’t really earn much money at all.

  “Those are 1950s dollars,” the librarian noted. “It’s more money than it sounds like, and this is only for the newspaper syndication, if I understand the statement correctly. It doesn’t include the comic sales, or the cash from the TV show.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess that’s everything in here. It’s not a lot to go on, but thank you, Mr. Pines. I’ve learned a lot.”

  “I’m always happy to help young researchers find their way around the shelves,” he said modestly. “Perhaps you two will come back as students, and I can give you the official tour!”

  Denise and Norman walked back to the bus stop and discussed their theories all the way home, but neither one of them knew what to make of any of it. By the time they were back at the stop in front of the school, they were both stumped and silent.

  They stepped out of the bus and the doors closed behind them.

  “Thanks for everything, Norman. I really appreciated it.”

  “It was fun. Right?”

  “It was fun.” She smiled tiredly. “Seriously, thanks for getting me out of the house. I’ll see you soon.”

  Later that night after supper, she sat on her bed, in her room with the water stains on the ceiling. The air-conditioning ran loud and cold, and she knew she ought to get up and turn it down, but she didn’t. Instead, she texted Trish the latest on the ghost situation, and Trish sounded one-hundred-percent down to hear about it. And have opinions about it.

  POLTERGEISTS did I spell that right

  Denise grinned. I think so? I don’t think Joe’s a poltergeist. Just a jerk.

  what’s the line between a pissed off ghost and a poltergeist tho

  Throwing things? Hurting people? Well, if that was the case, maybe she was wrong. Maybe Joe was a poltergeist after all.

  why is this guy such a jerk

  I do not know. But I’m trying to find out.

  Let me at im. I’ll defend you. Send him packing.

  She laughed. Don’t say that. What if you chase him off, and he follows me back to Texas next year? You want a poltergeist in the dorm room?

  Yes. WE can sell tickets. Write our memoirs and people willmake movies about us. We will be zillionaires with the help of your jerk ghost.

  She laughed again, and said, You’ve got a point.

  Ive still got a roommate too. Right?

  Denise stared down at her phone. Um, YEAH. What have I told you that would make you think different? I want out of here. Someplace where nobody died on the floor.

  Terry picked that moment to crash the party. His text alert popped up over Trish’s message: Any new ghost sightings to report? Or ghost smellings? Hearings?

  She switched over to his message real quick. My dude, I would tell you if there was anything spooky going on. You’re probably the FIRST person I would tell.

  Then Trish asked: Is there a gross stain?

  Back to Trish. No. She said it without even glancing out the door. If there’d ever been a stain, it was gone now. She’d checked a hundred times already. And no, I don’t want to stay in NOLA. I want to go home, and room with you and your rich-ass self. We will have a swank dorm room, right?

  Trish didn’t really need to live in the dorm, but her parents had some money and she had some demands. She had been promised a dorm room, so long as she had a parentally approved roommate. Denise—with her test scores and willingness to tutor—was parentally approved.

  Terry was back. First person? Rlly?

  Yes, she told him. First person, I swear. Feel all special and stuff.

  Trish returned to the conversation, fantasizing about their future dorm room. Itll be the swankest of all time, you no it. I still want to see this haunted house of yours. And this comic book. You won’t keep itall to urself would you?

  Terry was ecstatic. Denise could practically hear it through his next text. I do! Feel special! You shuld sleep with a recorder, or camera. Do you have a camera? How about your phone?

  She replied, Phone would probably go into standby if I just left the camera or recorder running. Wouldn’t it? She thought so. Evenif I left it plugged in.

  Then quickly, back to Trish: You are welcome here, of cours—but wait until we don’t have holes in all the floors. I have an AC unit in my bedroom, so you know it is POSH up in here.

  Trish liked this idea. Count me in!

  Terry had thoughts about batteries. Maybe we could find a motiondetecting camera on ebay. Wouldn’t use that much power.

  Yeah, she said. I’ll keep my eyes open when I’m finished rolling them. That stuff’s expensive.

  I dare to dream! she concluded.

  By then, it was getting late, and everyone was ready to call it a night. But not Denise. She was awake, and she had some battery life left, so she pulled up the Internet on her phone.

  She went back to Wikipedia and started clicking around through the sources cited at the bottom of Joe Vaughn’s entry. That’s when she learned that the Times-Picayune had an archive, and although it wasn’t online, someone had been kind enough to post a JPEG of the story about Vaughn’s death. This someone was an earnest nerd, somebody with a Tumblr that was dedicated to the real-life people behind pre-CCA comic books.

  “Truly, all information is contained within the Internet,” she murmured to herself. That’s what one of her old history teachers used to say. He said that the real trick was knowing how to find it.

  She scanned the photo, struggling a little because it wasn’t very big and the text was kind of fuzzy. But she got the gist easily enough. Joe Vaughn, local artist and author, had fallen down a flight of stairs and broken his neck. He was found in a house belonging to a lady named Vera Westbrook. Miss Westbrook had been missing for several days.

  “Vera Westbrook! Nice to finally have a name to go with the perfume and the footprints.” And nice to have a new lead. How had she not stumbled on this before? “Whatever happened to you, Vera?”

  As far as the Internet could tell, nobody knew.

  Vera Westbrook had disappeared off the face of the earth. The article with Vaughn’s death by misadventure was the next to last mention of her that ever appeared in print. Her final appearance came in a city auction a few months later, when her house and everything inside it was put up for sale.

  Vera Westbrook. It sounded like an old lady name. An old lady who wore roses and lilies to church every Sunday. An old lady with tiny pointed shoes, and a lilting voice that hummed a strange tune, just barely audible.

  “Did Joe know what happened to you, Vera?” she asked aloud. Vera didn’t answer, and neither did anyone else. “Did anybody?”

  The Internet couldn’t help her with that one, but Denise had an idea.

  She was developing a theory.

  Denise spent Sunday morning trying to text Terry, but he never did respond, and when she texted Norman, he replied that he was stuck at his grandmother’s for church and potluck, then vespers that evening—so he was no good to her, either. If she’d had her number, Dominique might have been game to chat. She knew about the ghosts now too.

  But she didn’t have her number, so it was just Denise and her
parents. They braced themselves for a day of vacuuming out the last of the fluffy gray goo, and probably water damage, and maybe bugs, by donning the longest gloves and the tallest boots they had—plus some paper face masks that Mike had picked up at Pete’s. Denise felt ridiculous, her hands and feet were sweating buckets, and she sounded like Darth Vader when she breathed, but she did feel sufficiently protected.

  “From everything but the ghosts,” she added, when Sally asked her opinion on the safety gear.

  “Screw the ghosts,” Sally replied. “This is our house now, and they can lump it.”

  Mike chuckled awkwardly. “Let’s not say such things quite so loud, eh? They might be listening.”

  “Good,” his wife declared.

  “Yeah. Like Mom said, this is our house now. Besides, I don’t care if Vera stays—she’s all right. It’s Joe we’ve got to worry about. He’s the jerk.”

  “Who’s Vera?” Sally asked. “Or is that what we’re calling the old lady ghost, for no particular reason?”

  “Vera Westbrook, that’s her name. Or that’s the name of the lady who owned this house, back when Joe died like a chump. I did a little more digging, and turned up her identity.”

  “Was she his girlfriend or something?” Mike wanted to know.

  “I haven’t a clue.” Denise picked up a trash bag and shook it open. “And nobody knows what happened to her, either. She vanished before Joe died.”

  Sally shook her head. “This whole thing gets weirder by the day.”

  Mike plugged in the Shop-Vac and made sure it was set to “suck” instead of “blow.” “As long as one of the ghosts isn’t trying to kill us, I’ll call it a win.”

  “But you’re fine if the other one is a homicidal maniac,” Denise said wryly.

  “I’m not fine with it, but I’m saying it could be worse. They could both be out to get us.”

  They spent the rest of the morning vacuuming and bagging trash, picking up the last of the ratty brown insulation that had come from the ceiling, and wiping the residue off every available surface. They’d gotten the worst of it earlier, but today was the fine detail work, and it was going to be never-ending as far as Denise could tell.