Scuttling forward, I grasp his hand. My father knows the way through the walls of Moore Manor as well as I do. My sense of dread increases with every step. Benson is not afraid when he pushes the panel in the spare bedroom aside and pulls me in. Any one of the occupants of the manor could be in there, but Benson seems careless.
Afraid, I follow him into the hallway. My father gives my hand a sharp tug when I go too slow.
Ahead, are the stairs.
“I don't want to do this,” I insist. A black weight threatens to push all the air from my lungs. I don't want to do this. I want the obscurity and safety of the hidden walls. I want the oblivion of forgetfulness.
At the top of the stairs, my father lets go of my paint covered hand. Now his is blue, too. I realize we've dripped it all through the house.
The new owners will know.
My father faces me and he looks stern. “You have no right to tell me to stop seeing Zhena,” he says.
I've heard these words before. I know how this will end.
I cup my head in my hands, leaving blue prints on my dirty hair.
“Look at me, boy! I said you have no right to tell me I can't see Zhena!”
“Shh. Father. They will hear you,” I plead.
“This is not your house. My affairs are not your concern,” he bellows, carrying on a one sided argument.
An argument I've heard before.
I realize I've heard it hundreds of times, now.
Memories swarm in like bees from a disturbed hive. Fear makes goosebumps cover my grimy skin.
My father snatches the front of my falling-apart shirt and forces me upright. It hurts my back.
“You're still just a whelp at seventeen, not the man that you think,” he shouts, face a mask of outrage.
I can't answer. I won't answer. I know he will continue to look at me, see through me, and argue even though I am silent.
This time, I am not fighting back. Tonight, like many other nights, I am only a witness.
He staggers backward, right to the edge of the stairs. It looks like he is struggling with me although I am not pushing or pulling. My hands are at my sides, listless. Useless.
“Your mother doesn't need to know. Your mother will never know, is that understood, Ellis? --watch out for what?” The outrage suddenly turns to confusion and fear. He has taken a step into thin air and pitches backward when his balance fails him.
In this moment of utter lucidity, I remember the argument we once had. In 1887, right at the top of these stairs. I discovered my father and Zhena in the barn by accident and it led us here, father and son, arguing over the consequences.
Zhena never liked me at all. I was worried for mother.
I never meant to kill Benson Moore. My father's death was an accident.
He tumbles down the staircase and lands with a loud crack at the bottom. Neck at an odd angle, I know he's dead before I scramble down and check. I'm sick with grief. Even though I know what tonight is, that it's just another repeat, I can't help but say the same words I said one-hundred-and-twenty-three years ago.
“Dad, Dad! I didn't mean to!” I'm on repeat, too, until I hear noises upstairs. Rumblings of the owners. Worry, fear.
And they should be scared. Moore Manor is haunted.
When I look back, my father is gone. There is no body on the floor. But there is a trail of blue paint and I use my shirt to wipe it away.
It doesn't work.
They're going to find me.
I panic and scramble up the stairs, into the bedroom, and back into the hidden corridor. The dusty gloom can't soothe me like it usually does. I remember that tomorrow, in 1887, when my mother realizes her husband cheated on her and lied to her, she jumps to her death from the second story balcony. And Zhena, that hateful, life ruining witch, will curse me for killing the only man she ever loved.
She'll curse me and bind me forever to Moore Manor, bearing her mark, unable to escape my father's relentless haunting.
My father's death was an accident. I didn't push him down the stairs.
I didn't mean to push him down the stairs.
I didn't mean to kill the witch that cursed me.
I don't realize I'm crying until I feel a droplet on my foot. There is a ruckus going on inside the manor.
The owners are scared.
I'm scared, too.
I run and run and run, skittering like an animal on all fours, streaking through the passageway that has been my home for more than a century. I run until I find the blackest corner and I hide in it. Bony knees drawn up, I peer into the gloom, toes curled against the floor.
I am the smallest package I can make of myself.
An hour later, a hapless rat comes too close. Snatching it off the floor, I tear into the fur with my too-long teeth, growling, feral, gagging on the blood that spurts over my tongue. I chew and chew and chew.
The next day, I have another. I am lucid enough to wonder if forgetting is part of the curse. Until October 31st comes around and my father shows up to relive his death and I am made to remember all over again.
The day after that, I wonder why I am just sitting there, hiding in a corner. Flickers of something unpleasant try to surface and I push them down. Push the thoughts away. It's easier to do when I have meals to hunt.
And somewhere, I know, I have dropped peanut butter that I need to find. I'm pleased to discover that the owners are moving out, giving me free run of my house once more.
A week later, cackling with glee over a remnant of cold chicken left in the 'fridge', I pause in the passageway and stare at the scratched words in the wall. My reminder.
I am Ellis Moore.
“I am Ellis Moore,” I whisper.
Yes.
I am. Ellis Moore.
Chameleon
Thaddeus Grey stared at the coffee pot and resisted the sudden urge to pitch it across the kitchen. He snapped the on-off button up and down. Up, down.
No red light. No light at all.
Bracing his hands against the edge of the counter, he hung his head and counted to ten. He was pretty sure his ex-wife had somehow rigged it to break right after she walked out of his life just to remind him how much he would miss her. Coffee in the mornings, after all, had been their special ritual.
He opened the cupboard overhead and looked for an alternative. Screw the coffee, and screw Desiree. He would start a new ritual. Rifling through several brands of exotic tea, he plucked a colorful packet from a small basket that appealed to him for the wrapping more than the name: Chameleon.
Unusual flavors of tea, purchased from some local mamba queen, had been her vice, not his. Which made no difference to him when the coffee pot was broken and he wanted something hot. Thumbing the scaly, green pouch, he grunted and closed the cupboard.
Ten minutes later, the small bag bobbed in steamy water while he changed into a black jogging suit and a pristine pair of running shoes.
New day, new ritual, new life.
Back in the kitchen, he eyed the incandescent sheen atop the greenish-brown colored brew and tossed the spent teabag away. Maybe scale of Chameleon was some kind of aphrodisiac and he'd get lucky with some cute blonde who was endlessly attracted to his tawny, Ivy League good looks. If she could get past the hook in his nose, the slightly crooked set of his eyes and the natural curl in his hair that turned into boyish corkscrews if he let it get too long. Annoying.
At thirty-four, he was all man and hardly out of his prime. There was time to start over. Time to find the right woman and have the family he'd always wanted. Ignoring the inner exhaustion at the mere thought of going through the process again, he sipped the tea and threw out all the old mail piling up on the table.
Draining the exotic brew to the dregs, he walked the mug to the sink and snorted. She'd probably paid five bucks for that one packet and he couldn't tell a bit of difference. Rinsing the sheen out, he turned it upside down in the drainer and stretched his arms on the way to the door.
Grab
bing his keys and his wallet, he stepped out onto the sunny porch and used a key to engage all the locks. Securing the loose items in the pockets of his running suit, he took a deep breath and jogged down the stairs to the sidewalk.
“Hey, Thaddeus! How's it going, man?” his elderly neighbor called.
“Hatch, nice to see you. Beautiful day, isn't it?”
“Nothin' like fall in New York City,” Hatch said, grinning a gap toothed smile.
Thaddeus laughed, raised a hand and set a slow pace away from his town home. Pedestrians were already out in droves, clogging the street corners at the intersections. He avoided the worst of it and passed out smiles to anyone who glanced his way.
New day, new ritual, new life.
Starting over.
The brisk bite in the air and the rasping tongues of dead leaves rolling across the concrete heralded the onset of a new season, which Thaddeus thought fitting. He turned right at the second corner and left at the light, waiting for the green before jogging to the other side. A half block down, he slowed his pace when he came abreast of an old basketball court situated between two buildings. What stalled him was the easy camaraderie he detected between the mixed ethnic group shooting hoops. Too often he saw just the opposite. Today blacks and whites and two boys of asian descent competed against each other with only one apparent focus; to have fun.
“Hey man, you want in?” one of the boys asked.
Thaddeus realized he was talking to him.
“Me? I haven't played since college--”
“It's like riding a bike,” he said, and flicked the faded basketball through the air.
Thaddeus caught it with a grin. The energy between the boys encouraged him to charge into their game without reserve. He ducked and dodged and spun through bodies, skin prickling with an odd sensation, until he went up to let the ball roll off his fingertips into the drooping net.
The addictive sense of competition swept over him like a wave. He returned high fives to his teammates and jogged backwards, picking a man to cover.
Before he knew it, he was as sweaty and out of breath as they were, batting the ball away from reaching hands, running the court with sharp whistles and shouts. A lava-like heat curled through his body, unusual and unexpected even with the uptick in exercise. Intense sensations seemed to come out of nowhere; joy, exuberance, adrenaline, pride. Thaddeus caught these expressions on some of the boys on the court in fleeting, strange glimpses.
At the end of the game, he traded fist-clasps and chest bumps with every single player. Grinning, he thanked them for letting him join and reluctantly parted ways.
Immediately, the strong feelings passed. That eerie belonging was gone.
Instead of jogging, he walked. The height of the sun surprised him; more than half the morning on his only day off this week had flown by on the basketball court. It was an auspicious way to begin his new life.
Just as he started whistling, the door to a small boutique on his right slammed open and a man burst out. A purse dangled from his fingers, swaying wildly as he ran the other direction. Hit by a flash of teeth grinding adrenaline, hair standing up on the back of his neck, Thaddeus was about to break into a run as well when four other men barreled out of the shop. Two of them jostled Thaddeus in their effort to go after the thief.
“Stop!”one shouted.
A different kind of adrenaline hit Thaddeus and before he knew it, he took off running. On the heels of the other four men, arms pumping, he gave chase. The desire to catch the man with the purse felt like a hot lash along his senses. An unexplainable fury fueled him, driving him around a corner with the four strangers, only to see the thief vault a chain link fence between buildings like it was nothing. Thaddeus might have attempted to jump the fence and go after the man but the four men with him hit the fence with no intent to go over. Two of them weren't in the best shape.
“Shit. The police'll catch him on the next street over,” one of them said.
Another, breathing hard, glanced at Thaddeus. “Thanks for trying to help.”
The fury and buzzing adrenaline sank down to disappointment so strong that Thaddeus had a hard time moving between emotions. “Sure, hope you catch him.”
They all shook hands. Puzzled at his own reactions, Thaddeus left them in the niche and got back on the sidewalk.
What the hell had just happened? He considered himself a good citizen, willing to help another out in times of crises and trouble. What he wasn't used to, were these flash-bang feelings that seemed too potent and out of place.
He recalled the desire to run with the thief instead of after him for a fleeting moment in time.
The thought disturbed him greatly. Thaddeus Grey was no thief.
He glanced around at the faces passing him, waiting to be struck again by some strange rush. People milled everywhere; to and from work, to and from meetings, to and from clandestine rendezvous. He felt like the rest of them, a fish in a great big pond, going about his business.
No emotion overrode another to any great degree. Then he snorted at himself. Way to go, Thaddeus. Look for the esoteric to make the new day, the start of a new life, better.
The rumble of his stomach reminded him that he hadn't had anything to eat. A vendor up ahead selling foot longs seemed just the thing. Reaching for his wallet, he remembered he didn't have any cash. The vendors didn't take credit or debit cards, which meant he needed to hit his bank before he could even have lunch. There was a branch right around the corner, or else he might have hit up some sidewalk cafe instead.
Refusing to let the delay ruin his day, he threaded through pedestrian traffic and approached the ATM machine. He slid in his card—and it spit it right back out.
“What the--”
“Broke, buddy. Have to go inside. Good luck,” a man informed him who'd just come out of the bank. The stranger thumbed behind him at the smoked glass door and moved on.
Thaddeus snatched his card out of the machine, caught the door on the back swing, and stepped inside. Two windows out of eight were open for business and the line of people had to be at least twenty deep.
I just want a hot dog.
He got in line anyway. Patience was a virtue, so his mother had told him, and perhaps he needed to fit a little more into his new life. Standing behind an elderly lady whose hair looked more blue than gray, he eyed the tellers and the manager in that way impatient people do when they want them to open another window. His virtue lasted about as long as the growl of his stomach.
When the front door to the bank banged open, Thaddeus had a flashback to the incident at the shop. Like everyone else in line, he snapped a look that way. Three men slunk in like swat team members, half crouched, automatic weapons raised and aimed. Thaddeus only had time to process the shock that the bank was about to be robbed before the chatter of gunfire started.
As if they were performing a practiced drill, every single person in both lines hit the deck. Instantly, fear raced up his spine and sweat broke out over his brow. He took a mental survey to see if he was hit and recognized no stinging pain.
Thank god.
Cheek against the cool marble floor, he stared across it at the sight of running boots and a spray of blood that had come from some unfortunate victim.
The desire to stay down, to blend in, overpowered him.
Don't move, don't look, don't breathe. A sudden pang of sorrow numbed his mind, which cleared when an impossible urge to wet his pants followed.
What the hell was going on?
Is this what terror did to normal people? He'd never had the urge to piss himself. Ever.
He heard the robbers shouting at the clerks and the manager, but he refused to pick his head up and watch. A flare of protectiveness rioted through him just before he saw one of the customers rise to his knee, bring up a handgun, and fire.
Fear, protectiveness, sorrow. Each was like a claw, ripping at his insides. The sounds of someone calling for help penetrated the fog he was in, and he realized a m
oment later that the customer, who had to be an off duty cop, had shot all three men.
Police and ambulances were on the way.
“Buddy, you hurt? You shot?” someone asked him.
Thaddeus pushed himself up with his palms, then got shakily to his feet. Five other customers were dead on the floor, including the blue haired granny. He glanced at the wild-eyed, concerned man at his right.
“Yeah, I think so.”
The pandemonium he expected never materialized. There was no need to stampede out of the bank with all the robbers dead on the floor. Through a haze of shock, Thaddeus saw everything he felt reflected on the faces of the survivors around him. No one screamed; several were in tears, sobbing on the floor where they'd landed, and others began milling around in strange circles, like a bug that had been stomped on and refused to finally die.
He didn't realize his own cheeks were wet until he sniffed. Bringing a hand up, he smudged the dampness away from his skin and stared at his fingers in bemusement.
Thaddeus Grey never cried. Not even the day his Desiree left him.
Two hours later, after numbly giving his statement to the police, Thaddeus pocketed his hands and wandered back onto the sidewalk. The sun was two, almost three ticks over in the sky from where it had been when he went into the bank, making the shadows longer across the concrete.
Brooding, he puzzled over the incident, ignoring the obnoxious grumble of his stomach. The onslaught of empathy that battered him during the experience began to wane the further he traveled from the site, a fact he did not miss, or misunderstand. Coupled with the adrenaline in the basketball game and the chase into the dead end alley, Thaddeus Grey started to worry.
Was he losing his mind? In his effort to start new rituals, on the first day of his new life, was he over thinking his own natural reactions? Anyone would have felt the same fear the rest of the survivors did. Anyone would have been terrified, out to save their own ass, desperate to blend in so the shooters didn't turn the gun on them.
Right? Right.
But you've never been so scared you wanted to piss your own pants, Thaddeus, a little voice inside his head mocked him.
Cemetery Psalms (5 Ghost/Horror Short Stories) Page 5