The House of Bonmati

by Claudio Hernández

  Pedro was putting his trousers on and his big well-built legs slipped in. The goats were shouting now like the siren of a fire truck, and the sound was becoming stronger and stronger, whooping and sharp.

  Juan woke up suddenly too, and his eyes widened. He had a heavy heart. At first he thought Gallo Claudio was crowing, but soon he found out that they were the goats. He ran to his sister’s room in his underwear and asked her.

  “What is that, Pili?”

  “The goats are crying.”

  “I know that” He said with a smile on his lips.

  Pili shrugged out of the blue.

  “Well, let’s go and see what’s going on.” She said, thinking about all those silhouettes she had been seeing.

  The bleat kept rising, and some knocks could be heard. As if they were hitting their horns. Heave thuds could be heard.

  Three minutes later Pedro was releasing the metallic hitch of the stable’s door, which was made of wood and metallic fabric. The door opened easily without any squeaking, because it had no hinges, and the hens stepped aside, also hysterical.

  Juan was behind his father and Pili stayed at the hen’s door. Some hens rushed off like rats, flapping and dropping feathers. Their eyes were wide open, showing terror.

  When Pedro was getting closer to the goats’ wooden door, he could hear a heavy thud behind it. No doubt, one of the goats had rushed at it.

  “Wow! What a bump!” Juan exclaimed, right beside the door. Now the cries of the goats were blowing out their eardrums. They were completely out of control.

  Pedro lifted the wooden lock with his finger and immediately he pushed the door in. But it didn’t open. It was as if one of the goats was jammed up behind the door. Pedro pushed a little harder, but the door resisted. That was not a goat.

  Had he unlocked the door?

  He checked it out, and it was unlocked. But the door could not be opened and the yelling was increasing. Antonia was still cursing from the double room.

  “Can’t you open the door, dad?”

  “No, son, I can’t.”

  “They are in there.” Pili said suddenly, pale-faced. “I’m scared of them too, like the animals.”

  Pedro and Juan turned to look at her in disbelief.

  “Who is in there?” Her father asked with trembling lips, something which was unbecoming for him.

  “It’s them. Those things I saw here.”

  Juan remembered what had happened in the attic.

  “What things? Do you mean apart from us? Do you mean the rats?” Juan asked passionately with shining eyes.

  Pili shook her head.

  But at that moment there was a deafening bump that shook the door and raised little clouds of dust between the boards of the door. Pedro pushed again and this time the door opened. And what all of them saw was inexplicable.

  The goat was running and jumping on the rocky floor, as that room had been built on a part of the mountain. It was as if the animal was pursuing something, as if it was fighting against other goat, but the rest of them were bleating on a corner.

  Pedro’s bland eyes tried to look for an explanation. Juan let his imagination run away instead. The goat was probably chasing a tiny mouse. That’s why they could not see anything, and the reason for the state of the poor animals. Meanwhile the disoriented hens kept fleeing from the barn.

  “Quiet, Duska. Everything is ok.” Pedro said as he came toward it.

  “Dad! You are going to get gored!” Juan exclaimed while staying under the door jamb.

  Pedro had called the black goat Duska. The other ones were white, stained with colors. They had names for all the animals. Fucking man, even his wife had a petname. He called her “Chuchi” and her sister “Pililla”.

  He came closer to the goat, calling it by its name. The animal was on top of a rock, staring at the opposite wall. Pedro approached it and he caressed its head. He felt it was trembling. Duska did not attack him, but it rose up onto its hind legs and it took a leap towards the wall with its head bowed, pushing its head against it, with an almost human scream. It made a little hole in the wall. Now Duska was staring the wall out. And it lashed something out again. Pili saw that Duska was attacking something. She knew why the goats were crying like kids, why they were so terrified, and their eyes wide open.

  It was a woman with an aged white shroud that hid her gaseous body. She had dark eyes, as if her eyes sockets were empty. She looked like a spider on the wall, and Duska was looking at her. Her long fingers, greyish like smoke, moved like the legs of a tarantula.

  Pili pointed towards her, towards that woman, but neither his father nor his brother saw her. She was outside and the hens were still running out. Now the barn was almost empty.

  Duska leaned forward again and hit that woman hard. She broke like a smoke cloud in the wind, to recompose again immediately in other side of the room. The other goats run out of the room, scared and bawling, leaving dusty clouds after them that got mixed with that presence.

  Duska, however, stayed there and kept on hitting that thing. But neither Pedro nor Juan saw it, only Pili had the power to see it.

  It was only her.

  Up until now

  18

  Juan explained the happenings with certain sense of adventure, which forced him to exaggerate a little bit. But everything was true, except that he did not talk about that woman crouched on the wall as he had not seen her and his sister had not told him. However, one thing was clear. His dear little sister had said: It was them.

  But who were them?

  Juan couldn’t stop thinking about it, but leaving aside what had happened in the attic and the noises that could be heard around every night, it never occurred to him that there were wandering souls there, whispering night and day.

  His mother was having a drink while he was telling her. She was drinking from a long tall glass. It was like fire caressing her throat, with a tinge of sex. But she was used to drink and she did not even breathe after each sip of whisky and coke. She was starting feeling warm, but she would stop before getting drunk.

  “You are mad. All of you are. Your father is the worst of all, always speaking about the Apocalypse and all those stupid evangelists who are only interested in him because they can come and eat here every bloody weekend.” Antonia explained and saw her tall glass was empty.

  19

  Two days later it was Juan’s turn to see it with his own eyes. Then he could understand his sister’s words, what she was trying to explain from the very first day. From then on, he could talk about it with her, about the House of Bonmati.

  20

  It was a Friday night on the last week of August. Juan went up the stairway, feeling his heart beat pulsing in his temples and gripped by an inexplicable fear every time he looked towards the darkness at the end of the stairs. He could not turn the light on because the switch was upstairs, instead of downstairs. He lived his first experience with those who inhabited the house and the woods.

  He walked into his room, turned the light on and went back to the stairs to turn the light off. He went back to his bedroom among the shadows, feeling that incomprehensible fear he used to feel every night. He even avoided looking at the locked door in front of his room.

  A door squeaked and finally he saw a beam of light under another door. Pili was already in her bedroom, which was also in front of one of the forbidden rooms. But this room had no lock and nobody had told him not to open it. Juan thought it would be a good idea to have a look inside, after one month living there.

  What was scaring him at the moment was to think about closing the little wooden window at his bedroom. He was used to go through it on daylight and reach one of the roofs of the House, and then he would access the main roof, where the television aerial was. And of course he would go from there to the path that leads to the humid wood, where the affluent was. He used to call it the little river.

  But that night the window well was too dark for his taste. He had always seen the shadows
or the trees forms even in the darkest nights, but tonight he could not do it. Tonight there was a pungent odor in the air.

  He did not take his clothes off, not yet. He simply was driven by his feet to the wooden green window.

  He had a serious looking face, and his eyes were looking into the darkness of the window well. He could feel a cold draft coming in through it. It was, maybe, too cold, it was unnatural. It was summer. But nonetheless he was sweating. Salty drops were running down through his cheeks up to his lips. He could feel the salty taste, which reminded him of the way his mother cooked their meals. She never used salt at all.

  His heart started beating faster. He thought he had heard a cry, a noise, and a gasp. He didn’t know what it was. He could hear a rat squeaking in the distance. The hens, just under that window, were silent. Sweat turned into a cold feeling, and then his hands and face started feeling numb with a slight tingling sensation. He started breathing fast.

  He did not know why. He was scared and he was heading to the window well, maybe against his will.

  He was afraid of coming face to face with a yellow-eyed boy with long fangs, as he had seen on a film. He didn’t remember the title of the film, but he wasn’t thinking about it, he was thinking about that boy floating in the air through the mist, with yellow eyes and long fangs protruding from his mouth. And then he had said: Come my friend.

  In spite of everything, his feet drove him to the window and once again, that boy occupied his thoughts as a vivid picture. Yes, he had always been impressed by that film, but, could it happen in real life? He started sweating again. He was scared of darkness, of those trees into the blackness.

  He heard his parents’ room closing with a heavy thud and then the spring mattress, maybe when his father had sat down to take his shoes off.

  But now he was caught in a dilemma. He didn’t know if he should let the window open or closed. He didn’t have time to think. The best thing would be to close it with a heavy thud. Those old ghosts from all the terror films he had seen were still parading before his eyes. His heart rate increased a little more because he had realized he had no control over his body. Now the tingling had gone down to his feet. Something with cold hands was pushing him from behind.

  Suddenly he saw it.

  The thick darkness turned into mist. He saw a sort of greyish mass in the middle of nowhere that was taking shape, an elongated and oval shape. Then it appeared to him that three darker holes were developing in that grey shape that now was turning white. And he could see something that seemed to be empty eye sockets and a mouth, with a thin line in it that was opening as he was getting closer.

  Then he saw the branches of the trees, and they seemed to be moving like claws scratching the air, tearing the night. Two long extremities emerged from that figure with the shape of a head. At the end of them he thought he had seen two hands that eventually turned into two claws like meat hooks. That was when his heart started pounding like a jackhammer. He felt the pain in his temples and closed his eyes. But something cold and hard forced open his eyelids. And that misshapen face opened its mouth, dark and round. There was a foul smell over the air. His body felt numb and he started seeing black spots around him. He was fainting. He was terrified, but something kept pushing him and now his feet were slipping, he was not walking any more. That thing extended his claws and it opened his mouth dreadfully. Juan started shouting as loud as he could. And he shouted and shouted on top of his lungs until everything went black.

  Complete darkness.

  21

  Door slamming was heard, as if there were nuts hitting a rubber floor. And several light bulbs were turned on in the darkness at the same time, a weak yellowish light shining in the rooms.

  Pili was the first one to go to the door. But something stopped her. It was fear what had made her stop, not a pair of cold hands. She heard a sort of gasp and some taps behind the locked door. Her eyes widened by the minute. And her heart started beating stronger. As it had done when she had heard her brother’s long cry of anguish.

  Pedro, despite his weight, arrived a few minutes later and pushed the door instinctively. Then he saw Juan. He was on the floor, his eyes closed, his hear askew. His hands were languid and he had them resting on the stone pavement, as that ancient house had stone floors.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Antonia grumbled, in her bra and panties, with her boobs hanging out like two big flans under her shirt.

  “Our son is on the floor.” Pedro said, bending over to pick up the boy.

  “Yuck! It will be one of those fits he always have” She said, quite pissed. “Put him on the bed, jerk. I’ll make him crack the whip with a slap.”

  “Mum, I heard something behind that door” Pili intervened pointing towards the door, but without entering his brother’s bedroom. Her mother had already crossed the doorway with her ridiculous panties that looked like shorts, so big that came over her tits.

  “Here is another nut!” She yelled. Her eyes were so full of fury that Pili shut down.

  “Chuchi, maybe our daughter is telling the truth...”

  “What did you just say?” His wife interrupted him. “You are the one who used to do black magic and now is joining ... evangelism?”

  Pedro ducked his head down. He had just left his son on the bed.

  Juan started to blink and he moved his head like nothing had happened, as if he had just woken up from a snap. Then his blurry vision confirmed that there were two faces in front of his face.

  Several seconds later he felt his temples pounding; he regained his sight and saw them there, his parents’ faces. They were watching him, his father was wide-eyed and his mother looking at him coldly.

  “I have seen it.” Juan said as if he was tired. He was barely able to speak.

  “What have you seen? Have you seen heaven? Have you seen a naked chick?” Antonia was able to use a really unhealthy prattle. There was never a shred of love, sincerity, smoothness in her words. All those things were fripperies for her. She was a woman of strong character and also quite promiscuous, a secret that Pili knew, and it probably had traumatized her as she had seen her kissing another man who was not daddy. But Antonia did not know that. And she used to give Pili a slap with an open hand whenever she felt like it, for no reason at all. She didn’t behave differently with Juan.

  “It is true” Juan said, now pointing to his sister, who was popping her head around the door with her dark and straight hair falling down her face. “What she was saying was true.”

  Suddenly bam! That was all that could be heard, and it bounced around the four walls up to the wooden beams, which absorbed the echo from above. It had been an open hand slap. Antonia’s hand started turning red, as much as Juan’s cheek, who didn’t complain.

  “Antonia!” Pedro ranted staring at her.

  “You, shut up!” She shouted.

  Pili raised her head at the same time as her brother put a hand on his cheek. Her eyes closed again.

  “You are always hitting the kids.” Pedro said deflating his muscles.

  “What about you? Don’t you hit them?”

  “I only do it when you make me do it, and just Juan.”

  “That’s because you are a henpecked.”

  Pedro didn’t say a word.

  “Mom, I have really seen....”

  “Don’t start again with that nonsense.” His mother said raising her hand again.

  Juan hid behind his little arm.

  “The room was freezing.” Juan started to say from behind his arm.

  “Freezing? I’m suffocating here!” Now his mother’s hands were rubbing her own neck, as if they were claws, as if she was about to scrape herself.

  “Not now, but it was really cold before, before I saw it...”

  “Don’t start again!” Antonia shouted. Her hand, which had been like a claw before, was now open again and extending to his son’s head. Her boobs were moving under the T-shirt. She did not wear a bra and that disgusted Juan. He d
id not like watching her mother’s tits moving like that, with their erect nipples.

  “Antonia, there are noises in this house every night...”

  “And you say so!” She pointed to him threateningly.

  “Evil works within this house.” Pedro explained from the other side of the bed.

  “You are evil.” She uttered with bloodshot eyes.

  There was no noise at the door now and Juan’s bedroom window was closed. It was locked.

  Juan pointed towards the door then, lying in bed, and wanted to say something, but his parents were already having an argument. And this wouldn’t be the last time they did so. That marriage had been broken for a long time. But they had not chosen well when they had decided to move to this house, as things would get worse by the hour.

  22

  Juan did not open the window for a few days after the incident in spite of the heat, not even in daylight. He did not remember closing it that night. He only remembered that grey human figure with its two empty eye sockets and its huge dark mouth.

  Five days later, Juan and Pili were playing on a sort of castle they had built with straw bales inside the room that faced the road, the same room that was behind the fireplace. The castle consisted of a mass of ten straw bales, one on top of the other, with an entrance and some tunnels and open spaces forming a labyrinth, where he and his sister used to play.

  They would have rather played in the woods, as they had done many other times before, but this new idea was more tempting at those moments when they should be straight with each other, and this would be the most appropriate place to be able to talk without being heard, among the straw bales. The forest talked and both knew what they had seen. And they knew it was the moment to speak about it.

  They started talking about it as if they were adults, inside the straw castle, with hardly space for two people, with a suffocating atmosphere and under the light of a flashlight.

  “I know that I have spent a lot of time alone in the woods lately, and I have not played with you much, Pili, that we are not as close as we were before. But I want to go on playing with you the old way again, although now we need to talk about this house.” Juan’s face turned serious. “You have been seeing them from the beginning, haven’t you?”