Ghouljaw and Other Stories

by Clint Smith

  Corbin held his breath and took a tug at the door. It didn’t budge. Scowling, planting his feet apart, Corbin began prying at the door, trying to slide it open. This variety of panic coursing through him was a new thing, and part of him wanted to admonish this insanity, this unsound hallucination—What the hell are you doing?

  Corbin tried again and merely felt a strange, caulish yawn, as though the door were covered with some kind of unseen membrane. The baby’s cries had turned into a rapid-fire series of yelps, as if it were running out of air and could only submit sharply pitched pleas.

  Corbin heaved against the door and examined it with a furious assessment. The cries continued. He clenched his teeth, recoiled a fist, and delivered a vicious, knuckle-studded punch into the door. Nothing. As he wheeled back and twisted away from the sliding door, his eyes searched the shadowed hallway. Desperate, Corbin scrambled from the corridor and staggered into the living room, dimly lit by diffuse orange light from the high-arc sodium vapor streetlamps, his chest rising and falling, his gaze tracing the furniture and objects in the room. He froze, his attention settling on something smooth-curved and glinting on the bookcase on the far wall. Corbin rushed across the room and snatched the heavy marble bookend from the shelf.

  The scale of the cries were diminishing when Corbin returned to the corridor, as though the baby itself were fading away; but the unmistakable register of urgency—of fright in the face of finality—remained. Corbin took a deep, teeth-bared breath, drew the marble bookend over his shoulder, and drove it into the door. The plywood crunched with a slim, dark scar. Corbin growled and hammered down again, throwing his upper body into the movement and following through—this time the crescent trajectory of the swing resulted in a ragged, splinter-rimmed hole in the wood. The baby’s cries pealed out of that access and echoed into the hallway. Corbin dropped the bookend and began tearing the hole, ripping away jagged chunks of plywood with an intensity that mirror-matched the urgency of the child’s cries.

  As he continued tearing, Corbin could now see that there was absolute blackness inside the closet—pure blackness, unpolluted by illumination. The depth of that darkness startled him. He curled all his fingers around the splinter-fringed frame and began to pull, his face straining as a large panel creaked, splintered, and finally broke free in a wide plank. Corbin tossed the wood aside and lunged toward the door, gripping the outer edge of the hole and peering inside. No longer astonished by what he might find, he drew his face closer—distant, twinkling, mercury-flicker light; he could feel cold whirl somewhere deeper within; but his attention was still on the baby. The hole was large enough for both his shoulders to fit through, so Corbin plunged his head and upper body in, his face and forearms bitten by frigid air and his movements inhibited as if underwater. It occurred to him that the proximity of the—he thought of Barb: region . . . boundary—was eclipsing proximity and he began to search frantically, his arms swirling against the black, fluid resistance within.

  His fingers brushed against flesh. With a desperate lurch, Corbin wrapped his hands around the limb of a chilled-skin thing and began extracting his upper body from the hole. He placed his bare foot on the door and kicked, recoiling from the almost elastic connection, falling back and sinking to the floor. And in his hands Corbin cradled a pale form. The crying had ceased. From his modest bank of knowledge Corbin recognized, judging by its weight and proportions, that it was maybe nine months old. A baby girl. She had a dark-swirled pad of hair on her small head, and her prominent, inky eyes were fixed on Corbin, gazing at him, blinking from time to time, breathing soft and steady now.

  Corbin’s heart was ticking with adrenaline quickness, and his first reaction was to exhale a sound that was part awe and part disbelieving laugh. There was the brief howl of cold air paired with the fleeting whiff of ozone, and then the narrow corridor was quiet. Corbin glanced over at the hall closet; within the hole he could barely make out the limp columns of hanging sleeves, and a beat-up, dust-covered vacuum was propped in the corner.

  Though still cold, the baby was making contented, whimpering noises; its eyes—alert and as dark as the space from which it had emerged—searched Corbin’s face and seemed to return the reverence in his own expression. Corbin rose slowly, carefully, supporting the baby’s head with impulsive instinct.

  In the faint light of his bedroom, Corbin searched for something to wrap around the baby. He spotted the hooded Chicago Bears sweatshirt hanging over the back of a chair. He tossed the garment on the bed and gently settled the infant onto the cotton material, tucking the heavy fabric securely around her.

  The baby continued fidgeting contentedly at the air, its dark eyes searching the ceiling as though visually absorbing this strange place. Eventually, Corbin lay out across the bed alongside the infant, never taking his eyes off her. He listened to the sound of its breathing and lightly placed his hand over the infant’s chest, savoring the delicate yet enduring cadence of its tiny lungs. Soon, Corbin began blinking slowly, watching the baby before giving himself to the dark susurration of unconsciousness.

  Corbin shuddered awake. It was early morning—the dingy drapes filtered gray light, painting the walls inside his bedroom with bluish bleakness. Hastily propping himself on an elbow, he searched the bed. The hooded Bears sweatshirt was crumpled there. Empty. No trace of the baby. Still, Corbin swept his hands across the bed, searching the sheets, the floor, and beneath the bed. But he knew it was useless. He exhaled and sank onto the edge of bed. He rubbed his eyes, which felt scalded and swollen. If he’d been crying in his sleep he felt as though a reprisal would take little effort. He stifled the urge. After a time Corbin shivered and reached for the hooded sweatshirt, foolishly expecting some residual warmth there. Nothing. For no reason he could think of, Corbin wearily slipped the sweatshirt over his head, pausing when he caught a whiff of ozone. It was warm inside. He allowed himself a sad, thin smile before shuffling out of the bedroom and into the hallway. He sighed, appraising the splintered wood scattered on the floor and the obliterated state of closet door.

  Corbin broke his lease early but had saved enough money to cover the fee, along with enough cash (some of it left over from Barb’s generous compensation) to privately replace the sliding door panel in the hallway. Corbin enlisted a few acquaintances from the moving company to help him pack his things—not much—into a moving truck. As he labeled the boxes with a black magic marker, he thought of the old woman down the hall.

  On his last day he stopped by Barb Whitaker’s apartment. She opened the door almost immediately, as if she been anticipating his appearance and had been eyeing his approach through the peephole.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Good morning, Mr. Corbin.” She glanced past him. “I’ve noticed you’ve been very busy lately.”

  “Yeah. I’m headed out of town. Back home.”

  Barb frowned and opened her mouth to say something, but Corbin politely cut in. “Listen, I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”

  Barb’s face twitched with kind-natured suspicion. “Certainly.”

  From his pocket Corbin withdrew a pair of keys to his apartment. “I have to turn these in before I leave. The building manager told me to slip them in the drop box by his office.” He spun one of the keys and detached it from the ring. With a crooked smile he said, “I told him I’d misplaced one of them.” He extended the key toward Barb. “But I thought you could use this, maybe snoop around the apartment after I leave, see if there’s anything interesting or familiar in there.”

  The old woman’s conspiratorial smirk widened into a smile as she ambled forward and almost bashfully accepted the key. “Well,” she cleared her throat, “I don’t know what to say.”

  After a few seconds, Corbin exhaled. “Me either.” He smiled and extended his hand. “Maybe just goodbye is the only thing to say.”

  Barb nodded at that and gently clasped Corbin’s outstretched hand. “Well, goodbye.” They shook on that.

  Corbin let
go, turned to walk away but paused. “Oh, I almost forgot. You might want to take a peek in the hall closet.” He sustained a stare for a few silent seconds until he was sure the subtext had sunk in. Barb nodded, glanced at the key, and smiled. Corbin waved and said, “There’s an old vacuum in there.”

  As he descended the steps in the shadow-dim stairwell on his way to the lobby, Corbin was certain that no one would ever see Barb Whitaker again. And he was happy for her.

  Corbin heads south, back home to Colfax, and uses what money he has left to make the first month’s rent on an apartment on the outskirts of town. At night, at ease in the solitude of his surprisingly comfortable apartment, Corbin uselessly contemplates his incompetence as a partner, but thinks he might have been—in some course-corrective scenario—a decent dad. At night, Corbin sometimes wears his hooded sweatshirt to bed. And when his fitful mind grows restless from dwelling on a regrettable succession of images, actions, and words, he pulls the thick cotton hood over his head so that the fabric envelops his face in shadow. And then Corbin feels himself sinking, shrinking, and accepts the sensation of unanchoring his conscience and suspending his perception as he gives himself over to the vast, breathtaking darkness within—an all-embracing blackness broken only by the mercury-glitter perturbation of spangle-swirled starlight. From the empty rhythm of seething silence comes the contented cadence of delicate respiration—the soft susurrations and echo exhalations of a peacefully sleeping baby.

  The Hatchet

  On the last of October

  When dusk is fallen

  Children join hands

  And circle round me

  Singing ghost songs

  And love to the harvest moon;

  I am a jack-o’-lantern

  With terrible teeth

  And the children know

  I am fooling.

  —Carl Sandburg, “Theme in Yellow”

  It was still dark, just before six in the morning, when Brian Cline steered into the driveway of the Hoffman House. A brisk wind drove dervishes of rust-colored leaves across the beams of his headlights, which partially illuminated the decaying face of the house. After all these years, and as opposed to the meticulously maintained homes in this neighborhood, it was still difficult to decipher whether anyone occupied the dwelling or not.

  Despite his bouts of vertigo when gazing at the place, he somehow knew he would not be alone in thinking this place empty, or at least devoid of any human habitants, for a staggering number of decades.

  He was certain this was more than just a fragile trick of the mind. If, for instance, he were to ask a mailman about the house, he imagined the man would acknowledge delivering bills and parcels; but when pressed for an address or details about the house, he’d become embarrassed and troubled that he could supply no such thing. Neighbors might swear they’d seen FOR SALE signs fluctuate in and out of the front yard, yet could never name a real estate company, nor would they be capable of providing a description or name of the families who’d lived there throughout the years. They’d frown and think for a few seconds before disregarding it with a mental shrug. It was as if the entire property resided in a faulty pocket of perception, and only solidified in the flat light of unsettled scrutiny.

  He’d been doing this a lot lately—these little self-dare staring contests with the house. Each time, he lost. Brian thought about calling his younger brother, Drew, but had no idea of what to say that didn’t sound desperate or unbalanced.

  For the past two decades, Brian had intermittently returned to this place—by car only, never on foot—and he rarely pulled into the driveway.

  The Hoffman House was one of the first houses built in this subdivision shortly after World War II. Brian’s grandparents—both long dead—had once lived in this neighborhood. So by and large, many houses looked similar, all affecting the one-story uniformity of the ’40s and ’50s. Except this one. This one was an architectural anomaly.

  Over the years, and unable to avoid dwelling on the house, Brian had done some research. It was something called a Dutch Colonial Revival, a barnish thing with a steeply pitched gambrel roof and a second floor containing several sharp-edged dormer windows. And as opposed to the ranch- and cape-style houses throughout the neighborhood, this was a two-story anomaly of brick and shingles, yet it somehow remained inconspicuous in its not-rightness.

  If asked what bothered him so much about the aesthetics of the property, Brian could certainly point out the untended yard, the broken troughs of gutters hanging askew. But when his mind lingered on these details, the memories would contort themselves, and on his next impulsive drive-by he’d see these things corrected, only to be replaced by a broken window or some other element of neglect.

  Brian thought: It does change; it gets bigger by increments, makes asymmetrical shifts from time to time. Its dimensions were the same, but there was something disturbing about them.

  Reflection had a way of distorting perception. Brain had read about this phenomenon before, about how dishonest human memories can be. Some scientists asserted that the simple act of recalling an event could actually change the shape of that memory in the brain. Details and narratives become altered. Essentially, the more a person thinks about the memory, the less accurate it becomes.

  As is the case with so many structures that existed in the mind of childhood’s memories, things had the tendency to look smaller, shrunken through the eyes of adulthood. Idly, he wondered how he might explain something like this to his fourth-grade social studies class. He could easily make the comparison of returning to a building that had long been severed from one’s mind—a school, a church, a distant relative’s house—but they were just children themselves. And besides, Brian had never left Sycamore Mill, and had grown along with most of the town’s changes.

  Something moved up in one of the dormer windows on the second floor. Brian bristled, looking, scouring the upper level of the house, wondering—for the thousandth time—if he was wrong, if people lived here, if he was trespassing. Brian put the car in reverse and was about to take his foot off the brake when he saw the fingers gripping the curtain.

  It wasn’t much, barely noticeable, but the longer Brian stared the clearer it became. Four gray fingers were parting a faded drape, exposing a thin slit of the house’s lightless interior.

  His heart surged. Brian thought of Drew. Brian thought of their mother.

  Brian pressed a button on the driver’s side door and rolled down the window. Squinting into the chill air, he spit into the driveway, afterwards wiping his lip and narrowing his eyes on the window.

  Slowly, suggesting no alarm or urgency, the hand slid down and disappeared. The dingy gray curtain swayed for a moment and was still.

  Brian took a deep breath and removed his foot from the brake, giving the house one last baleful glance as the headlights crossed over the structure’s façade. With the tree-shadows overlapping against the front of the dwelling, the effect was that of a veil covering the house. And through the veil, the house was staring back. Brian steered away, certain it was watching him leave.

  In 1987, Halloween fell on a Saturday night. With no school or getting up to catch the bus the next morning, this—like the Friday-night celebration the year before—promised to be a true holiday for children. But as a twelve-year-old, Brian Cline had a choice to make.

  For weeks his father had been hinting that Brian was getting too old to go trick-or-treating. When, at the dinner table, the subject of Halloween emerged, Brian’s father would remind his eldest son about his age: “Don’t you think you’re getting a little old to be getting dressed up in a costume? Drew’s only eight . . . he has a few more years until he grows out of it . . .”

  Brian often relied on his less-overbearing mother for help, and she would always make an effort to soften her husband’s heart. But lately, even to Brian’s pre-teen ears, Kathy Cline’s well-intentioned defenses resulted in a sort of Mary Poppins coddling. And with that doting came shades of shame. Still,
he wanted to go. He didn’t want to miss out on the candy, or maybe seeing one of the few friends from school. He didn’t want to miss out on all the fun. Brian understood he could either mollify his father or please himself. But it wasn’t until the night before Halloween that he’d had an idea. Their mother usually escorted them on their annual evening rounds, trailing along in the car or on foot. But if Brian volunteered to watch Drew, to babysit his younger brother, then he’d pacify his dad with the act of appearing as a responsible sibling.

  Because they lived out in the country, the Clines only received the occasional trick-or-treater, so it had been a tradition to trick-or-treat in their grandparents’ neighborhood—lots of houses, lots of candy.

  After brushing his teeth before bed, Brian found his father working at his lamp-lit desk in the downstairs den. “Dad?”

  Gordon Cline made a hm sound and glanced up from his papers. Brian was not surprised that his workaholic father was occupied with some business-related task on a Friday night.

  “Dad, I have a question.”

  “Sure.”

  “I still want to go trick-or-treating tomorrow night.”

  Gordon slid his glasses to his forehead and passed a hand over his face. “All right,” he exhaled, leaning back in his chair, his expression suggesting disappointment; but it was a familiar disappointment. Brian could cope with that.

  “But I was thinking that I could watch after Drew.”

  His father’s brow twitched. “What do you mean?”

  “You know . . .” Brian fiddled with a pen on the edge of the desk. “Mom usually takes us trick-or-treating, but I thought I could take Drew; that way mom wouldn’t have to.”