by Stuart Jaffe
“That’s what we’re trying to do. You look a little agitated. Something happen?”
With his middle finger, Wayne pointed back at his house with his arm extended so tight, the muscles vibrated. “That Libby woman came back and she’s inside there right now interviewing my Shawnee.”
“That’s to be expected.”
“Shawnee’s already been interviewed. How many more times does Libby have to ask the same questions? This isn’t a police interrogation for crying out loud. You people are supposed to be here to help us.”
“I know it’s tough. But you understand why that happens? With the police, I mean. Do you understand why they ask the same thing over and over?”
“Because they’re trying to trip you up. Catch you in a lie. But we’re not lying.”
Max made sure to speak slow and calm. Anything to temper Wayne’s frazzled mind. “That’s true when they interrogate a suspect. But sometimes they’re asking questions of a witness, of somebody who saw a crime happen. And when they do that, if given the chance, they’ll ask the same questions over and over because when you experience something intense, it can take several times before you really can recall everything. Libby’s in there hoping to get some new piece of information that Shawnee had previously not remembered. That’s all.”
“Well, maybe. But I’m telling you, for all the talking you people do, nothing’s getting better around this place.”
“I know. I wish we could clear this all up much faster.”
Wayne’s chin quaked. “It’s not fair. All we’re trying to do is have a good life down here. We didn’t ask for any of this.”
Max wondered how long Wayne could hold onto his denial, how long he could pretend the threats to his family had reasonable explanations. Up until this point, Max saw in Wayne’s eyes and the way the man spoke that he had not fully accepted his new reality. Part of him must have dismissed it as his wife’s imagination. He probably figured he would play along, hire the paranormal investigators, and chalk it all up to some weird experience they could laugh about years later. But now reality crashed upon his head.
Max remembered when he first met Drummond. It had been a terrifying moment in his life. At the time, he had nobody to confide in. Until he learned of Sandra’s gifts, he thought himself alone. If nothing else, he could be there for Wayne.
“Look, why don’t you join me. I’m going to walk through the house again.”
“What good will that do?”
“I’m hoping to find anything I missed before. Nothing to worry about. You come with me, and then you can see the things I see. Maybe you’ll even find something important. You’ll be helping to fight this thing.”
Like a defeated foe, Wayne bowed his head. “Yeah, okay. But what’re you looking for?”
“Anything to connect this house with a dead person. While Libby’s in there trying to get more details from your wife as to the exact experience she’s been going through, I’m here to look into the history of this place. Find out more about it. Find out what specific event happened in the past that is causing this problem today.”
“How do you know it has anything to do with the past?”
“I’ve never heard of haunting that didn’t involve a dead person. And dead people, by definition, come from the past.”
Wayne snorted out a short laugh. “I suppose so.”
Max led the way through the living room and into Ghost Watching Central aka the kitchen. Libby and Shawnee sat at the equipment cluttered table. Libby clacked away at a laptop as Shawnee answered her questions. They both tossed inquisitive looks at Max and Wayne.
“Don’t mind us,” Max said. “Just passing through.”
With Wayne following, he brought them downstairs to the basement. His previous tour through the house had glossed over this spot, but with all that had happened, Max thought it deserved a more thorough investigation.
Under the sparse brown lighting, Max meandered up and down the wood-shelved aisles. The mold and dust had increased since the previous visit, and a new odor had been added. Five rusting cans with dried paint dribbled down the sides — white, aqua, brown, black, and mustard. One can lacked a top, and a quick peek at the separated oil and pigment showed Max what had produced the strong odor.
From the bottom of the stairs, Wayne said, “Do you really think whatever you’re looking for is down here?”
“Would be a good bet. A bunch of this stuff came with the house, right?”
“Everything but the washer and dryer. We brought those in.”
Max halted. “None of this is yours?”
“I don’t think so.”
Max stomped up the aisle flailing his arms at various objects. “How could none of this be yours? I get the paint or the rusting screws, but you’re saying none of it. Not that birdhouse or maybe those warped LPs. None of that stuff belongs to you?”
“No. None of it.”
“Only the washer and dryer? What about that stack of clothes on the floor next the dryer?”
Wayne edged away from the stairs, his face paling with each step. “How did that get here?”
Max followed Wayne’s gaze. On top of the clothes pile, a blanket had been partially spread out. The hair on Max’s arms stood up. He didn’t like the shape the blanket formed — too much like a child underneath. He didn’t like the bits of red yarn poking out the back — too much like a doll’s hair.
“Do you know what’s under that blanket?”
Wayne moved his head from side to side.
Max approached the pile.
Please don’t be a clown. Please don’t be a clown.
He never had a fear of clowns, but he had seen enough horror movies to know how terrifying a possessed child’s toy could be. And none could be more twisted and psychotic looking than the forced happiness on a clown’s face.
“That’s not right,” Wayne said. “That shouldn’t be here.”
“What’s under the blanket?”
But Wayne’s jaw moved without any sound.
Max reached out but froze before touching the blanket. If it turned out to be a clown doll, he could handle it. He wouldn’t like it, but he could handle it. He’d be waking with night terrors for the next several years, but he would manage. If the thing moved, however, if its eyes looked up at him, or its twisted smile grew, Max would be scrambling for the stairs, screaming nonsense.
He wished Drummond were here. Drummond would know right away what lay under the blanket.
But Drummond’s smart enough not to be here. Man, I’m such an idiot.
Wayne would be of no help. Max couldn’t ask for Shawnee’s help, either. Even if she wasn’t pregnant, clearly whatever caused all this trouble had put its focus upon her. That left Libby. No way would Max ask for her help. Her smug satisfaction outweighed his fears. Like pulling off an old bandage, he thrust his hand out and yanked off the blanket.
A pillow.
Just a throw pillow with red fringe.
Hearing both relief and anger in his own voice, Max said, “Damn, that got the better of me.”
Wayne had silently come right behind Max and dropped to his knees. The man’s hands groped for the blanket.
Pressing the blanket against his nose, Wayne engulfed the scent. “It still smells the same.”
“This? This blanket is the big deal?”
Wayne raised his head as tears trailed down his cheeks. “This belonged to my sister.”
“Your sister?”
“Charlotte.”
Based on Wayne’s reaction, Max held little doubt that Charlotte had left the world of the living. “What happened?”
As Wayne continued to stare up at Max, his fingers pilled the edge of the blanket. “I was eight when my mother got pregnant. She and Dad had always planned on it being just me. But she seemed really happy. She’d call me in every night and let me put my ear to her belly so I could listen to the baby grow. And once she found out she was having a little girl, they named her Charlotte and
they bought this blanket.
“Every night, I’d go in there and I’d listen and I’d feel her stomach growing. Once the baby started to kick and I could see those strange motions on my mom’s skin as the baby’s hands and feet pushed out, that was when they brought out the blanket. My mom would wrap it around her stomach at night and she’d tell me it would be like the baby held the blanket. Soon, she promised, the blanket would smell like the baby. When it was time for me to go to bed, she would hand me the blanket and I’d spend my nights with that thing on my pillow, smelling the baby that would soon by my sister.
“I think my mom did all that to help me accept this new life. It wasn’t like I was three years old and gaining a sibling that’d I would grow up with. I was eight. An eight year difference is huge, and I was used to being an only child. I think she really feared I’d have a lot of trouble. But she was wrong.
“I loved the idea of having a sister. I loved the idea of being a big brother and protecting her. The way my mom let me participate in the growth of this baby only strengthened my resolve. I remember one night thinking Lord, help the sucker who tries to get in my sister’s pants when she’s a teen. I’ll knock his block off.
“I think it would have been wonderful. But then, my dad started to change. He’d been a good guy all my life up until then. Real father-of-the-year kind of material. But with Charlotte on the way, things changed. Now, I can look back and see that he thought that Charlotte wasn’t his. I don’t know why, but that’s what he thought. And it soured him.
“It all grew out of little things — picking on the noise I made on my plate while eating or forgetting to take out the garbage or not helping my mom pick up a box. Anything. Any little thing he could snap at me about, he did. And if he wasn’t snapping at me, he was getting on my mom’s case.
“I remember several nights listening to Charlotte grow while Mom made excuses for Dad. She’d tell me that he was anxious about the baby, stressed out about work, about finding the money to pay for this new addition — that sort of thing.
“I believed it at first. At least, I think I did. But then the bruises started showing up. On her face and her arms. At that point, I suspected the truth, but I was too young to really know what was going on. Until that morning ... I wanted to watch Saturday morning cartoons with a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice. I remember carrying it to the television. The bowl balanced in one hand, the glass in the other, but I filled the bowl too high with milk. I lost my balance. I tried to save the bowl but that meant letting go of the glass. Everything dropped and shattered.
“My father thundered downstairs. He saw the mess and he lost it. He hit me so hard, I had a swollen lip, a black eye, and bruises along my side. That’s when I knew what he had become.”
Max withheld his comments. Wayne did not appear aware of his surroundings anyway. He probably would not have heard a word Max said.
“My mom had been a large woman to begin with, and the baby only ballooned her up more. Somewhere around the sixth or seventh month, Dad started in about her weight. Threatening her, telling her she had to lose it all once the baby came or she’d be hearing it from him. I could see the fear in her eyes when she tried to hide it from me.
“But every night, when she’d call me in and it was just the two of us — oh, the love we shared for Charlotte. Holding this blanket against Mom’s belly and talking about all the cute things babies do and getting more excited by the day.
“Then one night, he came home — angry, maybe a bit drunk. The fight started before the front door closed — yelling, screaming. I was upstairs. I knew the sounds. I knew what it meant. But something felt different, sounded harsher, crueler.”
Wayne’s hard stare filled with tears that formed a constant river down his face, dripping off his chin and onto the blanket.
“I was eight. I didn’t know what to do. I ran into their bedroom and I grabbed Charlotte’s blanket and I ran back to my room and hid in the closet. I sat under that blanket all night long. I heard them yelling through the walls. I could hear the punches, too. All night long. And all I could do was sit there and cry, surrounded by the smell of this blanket.”
Wayne grew quiet. He sniffled and rubbed at his eyes. At length, in a soft whisper as if talking to a baby, he added, “Next morning, it was over. No more Charlotte.”
Once more, he lifted the blanket to his face and inhaled. But with abrupt force, he threw the blanket down. “What the hell is this? This isn’t Charlotte’s.”
Max saw that the blanket was no blanket at all. Rather, a large oily rag lay lumped on the basement floor. He closed his eyes. Damn. He hated these kinds of tricks.
Nudging Wayne with his knee, Max said, “Come on. Let’s go upstairs. Get out of this place.”
Even as Wayne kept his eyes locked on the rag, he nodded and struggled to his feet. Max clasped Wayne’s elbow, assisting him up the stairs. Libby and Shawnee had left the kitchen, and for that, Max was thankful. He didn’t want to explain to either of them why Wayne looked so distraught.
He planned to take Wayne outside for fresh air, but Wayne backed up at the front door. “Let’s go upstairs. You need to see the rest of the house, don’t you?”
“I can do that later,” Max said, using Wayne’s elbow to direct him toward the front door.
“No. This thing has to stop. My wife can’t wait for you all to feel better — or me, for that matter. Let’s go upstairs and find whatever you need.”
As Wayne ascended the staircase, Max considered calling him back. Outside, they would have a chance to recompose. Max had dealt with enough of magic and the otherworldly to know when the situation had turned for the worse. The thing haunting this house lacked all subtlety and had attacked too many times to be thought of as anything less than hostile.
Attacking Wayne through his memories, assaulting Drummond and Sandra with a sonic blast, shaking the house to its core — all signs of a spirit suffering far beyond simple anger. This enraged thing needed fear and negativity surrounding it. Its actions showed it would do everything it could manage to foster those feelings.
The bottle — Max looked at his phone. Mother Hope might be in danger if that bottle was infused with something evil.
“You coming?” Wayne called from upstairs.
Mother Hope could handle herself. Max needed to watch out for Wayne. Besides, the only way he could help this family was to find something to connect this house to a significant death.
As he clumped up the stairs, he whispered, “Only way is through.”
When Max reached the top, Wayne called from a room. “I’m in here. Where all the action takes place.”
Max didn’t like the sound of Wayne’s voice. It had a smarmy quality that didn’t belong in the man’s mouth. Walking down the hall, Max peeked in the baby’s room, but it was empty. Further down, he reached the master bedroom. He found Wayne sitting on the corner of a king-sized bed.
Wayne looked surprisingly chipper, as if nothing had occurred in the basement. With his bright smile, he waved Max in and patted a spot on the bed next to him. “Have a seat, pal.”
“Hard to look around if I’m sitting.”
Wayne wagged his finger. “Oh, you’re a clever one.” He gave the bed a short bounce. “I’m telling you, if this bed could talk — oh boy, the stories it would tell. Just me and my wife, but man, that woman’s a tiger. I guess when she’s old, she’ll be a cougar.”
Max cracked an obligatory grin.
“What about your wife? Sandra? She’s a hottie. What’s she like in bed?”
Having been through the possession of his own wife, Max’s first thoughts led him along a similar path. Perhaps the attack in the basement had done more than rattle Wayne. Perhaps it had opened him up, made him vulnerable to whatever entity they faced in this house.
Except, Wayne did not behave anything like Sandra had during her possession. Obviously, his drastic change in behavior was odd, but it could have been a defensive reaction to his memo
ries. Overcompensating with bawdy joy in an effort to tamp down his dark thoughts. When he got a chance, Max would have to ask Sandra and Drummond to take a closer look at Wayne.
Throwing his arms about, Wayne said, “You going to look around or not?”
Max poked around the room and checked the closets. “I think I’m more interested in the baby’s room.”
Upon hearing the word baby, Wayne’s eyes clouded and his mouth dropped. In a monotone, he said, “Sure. Let’s go check the baby’s room.”
Max returned up the hall, not happy having Wayne behind him. Once inside the baby’s room, he did his best to blot out Wayne’s behavior. He had to focus on searching with care. On hands and knees, he inspected the baseboards, looking for anything he could consider a clue. When he checked the closet, he spied an access panel in the ceiling.
“You have an attic?”
Wayne shrugged. “I think it’s a crawl space. I don’t know. Never went up there.”
“Get me a chair or a step-stool or something.”
Wayne left, and Max watched the access panel for any movement. When Wayne returned with a chair, Max got up, popped the access panel, and hauled himself into the windowless attic. “Why can’t somebody ever haunt a bright, cheery room?” To Wayne, he added, “Is there a light switch down there for this?”
A moment later, a single bare bulb flicked on. Wayne’s hands gripped the sides of the entrance and he pulled himself up.
The attic rivaled the basement in clutter. Mounds of old newspapers and magazines rose from floor to angled ceiling like ancient chimneys. Several paintings had been stacked at one side. Max saw mirrors and drawers and other pieces of incomplete furniture. Three wooden boxes had been stacked to the right. Dust covered every object. Shadows covered more.
Wayne drew a smiley face in the dust. “Man, a person could drown in the stuff the previous owners left behind. They must’ve been real hoarders.”
Max got to work. Coughing as he sifted through one dusty bin after another, he found objects from various decades. Newspapers mostly had dates from the 1940s. Several books in one crate were copies of Dickens, 1930s editions. He even found a woman’s lace gloves. Based on the slim, childlike size, he knew it dated to the 1920s.