Leave the Living

by Hart, Joe

  “Hello?” He spoke without realizing he’d meant to, and another flutter of fear trailed through him raising gooseflesh on the back of his neck and arms in anticipation of an answer. The house was still, and even the wind seemed to be holding its breath.

  A knot in the fire popped like a gunshot, and he staggered forward, his bowels threatening to abandon their duties completely. He turned in place, searching for more phantom movement around him, waiting to see the shadows become something different than the shapes they mirrored. But there was nothing, only the fire speaking in its crackling tongue.

  Mick walked to the safe, his eyes flicking up the steps as he neared them, a retreat still very alluring, but instead he continued on to where the squat, iron box sat. It had been in the same place ever since he could recall. As a child, he’d pretended to be a bank robber trying to crack the safe’s code, holding up an imaginary stethoscope to its steel skin in an attempt to hear the language of its inner workings. His father had chuckled as he turned the dial back and forth, not knowing the intricacies of its release but the ignorance doing nothing to dampen his enthusiasm.

  Now he stood before it as a man, though his inner child screamed within him to run away. He possessed the correct numbers since his father had emailed them to him over a year ago. Just in case something happens, had been his only explanation. Mick took a last step and waited before its bulk. He watched the dial like a mouse crouching in front of a coiled snake, unsure if the reptile was aware of its presence. He reached out, his fingers stretching not toward the knob but for the shining handle. Its touch was cold, reminding him of the morgue drawer in his dream, and he almost let go in revulsion. Instead, he pushed down on the lever.

  It turned with ease, a low clunking coming from inside the door as the lock released.

  Mick let his air whistle out from between clenched teeth. In the theater of his mind, he saw the door flying open and some dark horror climbing out from inside, released from its prison by his own hand, eager and hungry. But nothing pushed at the door, and after a moment of silence, he pulled the safe open.

  The faint light crept inside the space, like a tomb being opened after a century, and revealed a blank envelope atop several sheets of paper. The rest of the considerable space was empty. Mick pulled the documents out, turning them over once before standing. He returned to the chair and shuffled through the pages under the corner lamp, his eyes flitting to the safe’s unmoving door several times.

  The first document was the property deed, fully paid for with a copy of ownership. The second was a packet detailing his father’s life insurance information, which he set aside without inspecting. The last was his father’s will, but he only read a portion of it before closing the folder. He didn’t have the stomach for seeing how all the possessions would be divvied up, especially in Gary’s case. His uncle didn’t deserve anything after wasting ten thousand dollars of his father’s money. Before he could become any more enraged, Mick opened the unsealed envelope, drew the single handwritten page out into the light, and began to read.

  Dear Mick,

  If you’re reading this, then something’s happened to me. I know how melodramatic that sounds, silly really, like something out of a spy movie, but nevertheless, I’m sure it’s true. Hopefully this finds you after many years and I’m now gone of old age, passed away peacefully in my sleep after a long day of fishing. If that’s the case, you’ll be getting up there too in years (hopefully you can age as gracefully as your old man, ha ha). As I’m writing this, all my affairs are in order. You’ll find them either in the safe or somewhere in that massacre I call an office. Rest assured, things are taken care of. I hope Aaron is doing well and that we got to spend many summer days together. I plan on traveling down your way a little more often from this point on. It bothers me we don’t see one another as much anymore, and I plan on amending that. I have nothing holding me here that can’t be put on hold for a few weeks at a time, except Gary wanting to go fishing, which, between you and me, is more of an excuse to drink instead of fish, but that’s neither here nor there.

  A man is his choices, son; I think I told you that once. But as time goes by, I’ve come to realize that it’s more than that. A man makes choices, but truly what he becomes are his actions. What we do defines us, and I’m sorry to say that I’ve fallen down in many ways in that aspect. I always tried to be a father for you, and I strove to be a good one, but not sure if I ever truly made it. Your mother always said I was the best man she ever knew, but a person never really knows someone else, not really.

  You have a gift, Mick, a true gift of seeing extraordinary things where others don’t. I just hope that you can see past my actions to the man who I tried to be. Never forget who you are, son, not for anyone. I love you and Aaron more than anything else in the world. Whatever you learn of me after this, please remember that.

  I hope you recall all the old pirate stories we read together, Treasure Island, The Gold Bug, and so on. They were very special to me. I hope they were special to you too.

  Love, Dad.

  Mick read the letter a second time and then a third, his eyes slowing as they came to the last three paragraphs. He set the note down and stared at it, unwilling to pick it up again. There was a sinkhole in the center of his stomach fueled by his father’s words that swirled and sunk lower and lower. A person never really knows someone else, not really. That admonition wasn’t a simple rhetorical truth; it meant something. The pit in his gut dropped lower as thoughts cascaded through his mind. What had he meant by this? His father had always been open and caring, good-natured, and compassionate, all the things that Mick had strove to become. The man had been an emulation of morality.

  And now this.

  He glanced at the letter again. It had folded up into a U in an attempt to reform to its previous shape. The urge to burn it, to open the door of the stove and cast it inside, became overpowering. He could forget it, forget the words, the strange incidences, and just leave. Get in the Tahoe and drive away and hire a service from Warren to come and sort through the particulars. He could do it.

  Mick reached out to the letter and then drew his hand back. There was no way he would ever be able to forget the feeling that lived in him now, the creeping demon named Doubt that showed its face at the very worst of times and always had a way of making a situation deteriorate further. A sea of doubt could sink any ship, even one made by his father’s gentle hands.

  Instead of tossing the letter into the fire, he refolded it and fit it inside its envelope. He set it on top of the other papers and rose from the chair. The cobwebs of sleep still clung to him, and he wobbled with fatigue as he climbed the stairs. He needed some solid sleep, not an hour nap curled in a chair. Things would seem different after a night’s rest, and some obvious answer to every question would surface in the light of a new day.

  He stopped at the top of the stairs and peered outside. The snowfall had weakened, perhaps catching its breath before taking another run at the frozen landscape. Where the accumulation tapered off, the wind had picked up its slack, gusting and cutting around the sides of the building while it sung a lonesome tune in the cracks with its single vocal cord. Darkness was almost full, and only the western tree line glowed faintly with the sun’s last clutches at the day. He moved throughout the house, shutting off the various lights and making sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. His earlier plans of staying the night here had been banished with the safe’s clicking dial, though now, as he was readying to leave, the memory seemed even more dreamlike, surreal, and utterly impossible. Safes didn’t open themselves. His father had probably left it open by accident, and the clicking may have been a dream hangover, a phantom noise and image following him into the waking world. The thought eased his anxiety, and he flipped the last light off, darkening the house completely.

  Locking the door behind him, he stepped into the storm’s embrace. The wind cut through his jacket and bit his face as he waded through the gathered snow on the porch. The
harsh breeze had sculpted the powder into a smooth frosting that covered everything. His earlier tracks were long gone, wiped clean by the insistent weather. He hurried through the drifts and reached the SUV, its wide boxy form reassuring in its promise to take him away from the worries his mind continued to prod at like a tongue seeking out the slot of a missing tooth. He climbed inside and slammed the door shut, cutting off the wind’s icy fingers, and sat for a moment in the dark. The house was sinking into shadow, its definition failing with the falling night. He tried to make out the upstairs window, the one that had looked like it held a face when he’d first arrived, but it was lost to him. Probably better since there was no telling what his mind would do with the assistance of darkness. Mick adjusted himself in the seat and reached to the ignition to start the vehicle.

  The keys were gone.

  12

  He fumbled for a moment, sure he’d simply missed where they hung, but his fingers slid along the steering column and finally found the key slot, empty and cold. He leaned over, visually confirming what his touch had already told him. Unwilling to wait for the panic rising within him to flood his mind, he opened the door and climbed back out, hunching down close to the driver’s foot space. He ran his hands across the moist carpet, waiting for the jangle of the keys to announce their presence. There was nothing. He searched again, looking everywhere he could think of, in the console, on the opposite seat, on the dash, the entire time ignoring the specific memory of leaving them hanging from the ignition. The wind rocked the Tahoe on its springs, and the light faded further until an amethyst hue coated the sky and bled into black toward the east.

  Mick sat unmoving in the driver’s seat. He’d already searched his coat pockets, but he did it again, just so his hands had something to do. They must be inside the house. He’d brought them in only thinking that he’d left them in the car and set them down somewhere. Or you dropped them in the drifts. The thought of the keys being buried beneath the blowing snow came and went as he pushed it away along with the fresh panic it brought. Or something doesn’t want you to leave.

  “They’re inside,” he said to the interior of the SUV, cutting off the voice in his mind before climbing out again.

  The warmth of the house was a welcome embrace, and a cyclone of snow flurries entered with him, pirouetting once before falling to the rug as he shut the door. The keys weren’t in the entryway, and when he scanned the kitchen counters, the bright yellow tag attached to the ring was nowhere in sight. He made his way through the house, pausing to rifle papers in the office before descending to the basement. The fire talked quietly behind its grate as he walked around the set of chairs twice, pulling their cushions out before lying down to peer beneath them. Mick stood and turned to the safe. Its door still hung wide open, revealing its empty space. No keys here, Mick, no sir. You lost ’em good, probably dropped ’em through the ice when you were on the lake having your little anxiety attack. He sighed, moving across the basement and up the stairs. What could he do now? There was no way to leave, so he would have to call someone to come get him. Before realizing it, he began to reach into his jeans pocket to draw out his cell, stopping as he remembered he’d left it at the hotel.

  “You’re fucking losing it,” he muttered, turning in place before walking to the ancient corded phone hanging from the kitchen wall. “You lost your cell, the keys, your wife, your dad. Good job, asshole. Wonderful work here.”

  The attempt to buoy his mood by the self-deprecating humor fell flat, and he shook his head as he picked up the phone’s receiver. Bringing it to his ear, he froze.

  Nothing but static blasted out of the earpiece.

  It hissed and sizzled, an electronic blizzard matching the one outdoors. He tapped the button within the cradle, but the static didn’t break. It roared on, a thousand voices cheering or screaming at once. What were the chances of the phone lines being down? Fairly good, he supposed, with the storm raging outside. He cursed and hit the phone again, harder this time, making the entire casing rattle against the wall.

  “Unbelievable,” he said, triggering the button again, but there was no effect.

  He started to pull the receiver away from his ear when the static changed.

  A hollow groan built in volume as if someone were on the other end of the line, making their way closer and closer to the phone. It grew until the white noise accompanying it surged louder, amplifying the moan into a monotone Gregorian chant. Mick’s breath caught in his chest as he pressed the earpiece closer to his head, his ear beginning to ache, all the while an instinctual urging within him cried out to hang the phone up, to get away from it. The groan altered again, becoming a sharpened hiss of static that almost hurt to listen to. Sssssssssssss.

  His heart punched against his breastbone, his head beginning to feel light like it might float away as the noise in his ear grew to a piercing shriek.

  Sssssssssssssee.

  Mick dropped the phone, his hand releasing it of its own accord. He stepped backward, bumping into the kitchen table. A slender vase tipped over in its center and cracked in half, spilling water as well as a single drooping cut of pine bow. He only remotely registered that Cambri had given the vase to his father at a Christmas years ago. The phone bounced on the end of its cord, bumping hard against the wall like a doomed bungee jumper. Slowly it came to rest and quit swinging. The wind increased in volume before tapering off, regrouping for another attack on the house. Mick walked forward, reaching out with a trembling hand as if attempting to grasp something alive and full of venom. He snagged the receiver and brought it up to his ear, sure he would hear the same terrible voice speaking through, or with, the static again.

  The line was dead; no sound came from the earpiece.

  He hung it up and stepped away again, rubbing his palm against his thigh. Blinking, he turned and made his way to the kitchen sink, turning the light on directly above it. The old thermometer still hung outside the window, tilted inward so that its face could be read by anyone doing dishes. The red line of mercury hovered at five below, and almost to accentuate the point, the wind picked up once more, peppering the window with frozen crystals.

  He leaned away from the sink and turned to face the rest of the house. It was ten miles to the nearest residence, probably a three-hour walk through the wind and blowing snow. It was freezing and dangerous, foolish to even consider it. Mick’s eyes roamed around the room and came to rest on the phone again. Without pausing to flip off the lights, he walked to the entry and began to gather the clothes he would need. His father’s boots, jacket, gloves, hat. An extra sweatshirt would be smart, but that would mean going back up to the bedroom and—

  His thoughts were cut off by the creak of the stairs.

  He waited, his body thrumming as adrenaline flooded his system once again. The silence roared in his ears, and he knew that if he heard footsteps coming across the kitchen toward him, he would flee into the storm, adequate clothing or not. The quiet stretched out, punctuated only by the wind, and the teetering within him finally tipped one way fully.

  Mick set the jacket down and made his way back into the kitchen, stopping to peer around the corner. Everything was in its place. The vase still lay broken on its side; the phone hung from its cradle. As he walked toward the stairs, his eyes kept flicking to the basement and dining room, searching the shadowed corners for movement. At the base of the stairs, he paused, staring up their length before climbing them, each step an effort to make his legs propel him upward, his mutinous feet attempting to stop the progress. His hand grazed the wall and found the light switch there, the split second it took to turn it on stretching into millennia. The fixture lit up the loft, pouring light across the landing to its far end, and Mick stiffened, goose bumps rolling over his flesh in a prickling wave.

  His father’s bedroom door was open again.

  “Hello?” he said, his voice dying in the air.

  A shushing came from the bedroom followed by a short squeak like a mouse being crushed ben
eath a heavy boot. There was someone in the room. A sudden anger blossomed in his chest, driven by the knowledge that he was in his childhood home, his father’s dominion, being immobilized with fear of the unknown. The words came back to him again from the letter, and he shoved them aside as doubt, both from whatever waited in the room as well as who his father truly was, tried to unhinge his resolve. He stalked forward, each step draining the fear to replace it with rage.

  Mick shoved the bedroom door all the way open and flipped the light on.

  The bedroom was the same. Nothing had been moved. No chairs sat on the ceiling. And no words written in blood coated the walls.

  “If someone’s in here, come out, and I won’t beat the shit out of you,” he said, his voice stronger than he’d expected.

  He waited and then moved forward, ready to search the bathroom and under the bed, but halted when he saw the closet door was open again, wider than it had been on his first visit to the room. Jerking it all the way open, he stepped in and snapped the switch up, lighting the interior of the long closet. Unmoving racks of clothes hung from one side along with several stacks of jeans that sat amongst shoes and boots on the floor. The space held the odor of his father’s aftershave, more condensed and powerful, and he wondered if he’d ever be able to smell it again without being buried by the avalanche of sadness that accompanied it.

  Mick swept through the hanging clothes, pushing them aside to reveal the wall behind them. He traveled methodically sideways, pausing to part each article of clothing. Memories of times past when his father had worn different shirts assaulted him, but he continued until he reached the back wall, which was mostly bare save for a higher shelf above his head. Pushed to the very back was the edge of what appeared to be a mottled green steel box with two clasps that he had never seen before. Above it was an inset square of wood partition large enough for a man to crawl through that led to the attic. Leaning against the wall was a short stepladder, which he unfolded and climbed up.