The Haunted

by Michaelbrent Collings

  Cap gasped and clutched at his heart in mock suffering. “I can’t handle this rejection. Back to the boxes.”

  He pecked her on the cheek once more, and then was gone. The kitchen door clattered against its frame as he left. The sound was dry.

  It sounded like snapping bones.

  Enough of that kind of thinking, she scolded herself. She had to get the plates put away before –

  The thought died in her mind as she turned around to look at the table.

  Where were the plates? She had left them on the table. She was sure of it. She hadn’t moved them yet.

  Had she?

  2

  The First Day

  11: 56 am

  ***

  Cap heard the side door close behind him. The noise was strangely loud in the preternatural silence that had blanketed the area all morning. He liked to be alone in the clean air and the sense of wildness that covered this entire area like a blanket. For that reason he had originally been glad that he was doing the unpacking himself, without the aid of movers or friends, but now he experienced a feeling of loneliness so heavy it almost bowed him under its weight. He felt as though he were not merely alone in the woods, but alone in the world. He was struck by the sudden conviction that if he were to get in the truck and go to the town below he would find only corpses and skeletons there, pale reminders of life.

  He tried to shake off the feeling, but couldn’t. He looked at the door and weighed whether or not he should go back in and try to convince Sarah to leave off unpacking and engage in some more… vigorous… activities. That would be just the thing to get him out of this sudden and – for him – unusual funk.

  He decided against it. She’d said no, and the idea of trying to convince her otherwise didn’t seem like a good idea. Hell hath no fury like a pregnant woman pushed to do something she doesn’t want to, he thought.

  He turned, intending to head back to the truck for another load of boxes. Before he finished the movement, though, he caught a hint of motion out of the corner of his eye. He turned in the direction of the flash, wondering if he had seen whatever it was that Sarah had glimpsed from the kitchen. He could tell she’d been bothered by it, and thought that maybe if he came back with an answer, she just might change her mind about his invitation to take a break from moving.

  He saw nothing red, however. All was green and brown, the hues and tones of a lovely forest full of tall trees. He squinted, as though by doing so he could somehow enhance his vision beyond its normal capabilities, but still didn’t see anything but trees, grass, dirt.

  He turned back to the truck. The roll-up door at the rear of the vehicle was open, and though it was early yet, he thought he’d made good progress with the boxes. Indeed, he was almost surprised at how empty the truck was becoming. At first the sheer volume of the job to be done had intimidated him a bit, but it was going smoothly.

  He tramped up the metal ramp attached to the back of the truck and picked up a box. He had to go far enough into the back of the cargo that it was more shadows than light at this point, and he couldn’t quite make out the handwriting on the box, the marking that would tell him where in the house it went. It was heavy, though, and he grunted as he turned around, his footsteps sounding heavy and solid on the steel floor of the truck. Sweat ran into his eyes, and he blinked, trying to ignore the burning as salt seared his vision for a moment.

  Then he dropped the box as a shudder ran through the truck. It fell with a crash, and Cap had a moment to hope that whatever was inside wasn’t breakable before he forgot about the box.

  What the hell? he thought.

  Cap was completely befuddled for a moment, not sure what was happening. Then he realized that what felt like a tiny earthquake was just the vibrations of the truck’s engine coming to life.

  He hustled back to the ramp, the sun jabbing at his eyes as he emerged from the darkness that reigned inside the cargo space. “Honey?” he shouted. What was Sarah thinking? Did she have to move the truck for some reason? And if she did, why hadn’t she warned him first?

  There was no answer. She must not be able to hear him in the truck’s cab. He dropped down from the tailgate, hitting the hard-packed earth below with a thud. His knee twinged as he did it, and Cap realized with a start that he wasn’t as young as he had been once. Not old, certainly, but no longer the teen or even the young man he had been. He was a family man. Responsibilities and creaky knees were going to be his lot in life for the foreseeable future.

  He stepped around the driver’s side of the truck, and ran toward the cab. “Honey?” he shouted. “Honey, what are… you….”

  His voice petered out as he got to the front of the truck. The cab door was open.

  There was no one inside.

  He turned around and looked through the nearby window that allowed an easy view of the kitchen.

  Sarah was there. She was moving glasses off the table, taking a handful at a time and putting them into a cupboard beside their plates.

  What’s going on?

  He looked back into the open space of the truck cab, as though by looking he might discern how the thing had turned on. But there was nothing and nobody to give any indication of how or why the truck had come to life.

  He clambered half into the cab, and reached below the steering column, fumbling blindly for the key in the ignition. He turned it, and the truck rumbled to a halt with a cough that seemed to say it resented having such a thing done to it.

  Cap dropped the keys in his pocket and walked around the front of the vehicle, checking to see if anyone was hiding on the passenger side. The nearest town was hardly what you would call close by, but neither was it so far that a determined teen couldn’t drive up to play some pranks on the new homeowners.

  There was no one there. He looked under the truck, feeling a bit silly doing so, but he wanted to figure out what was going on. The truck’s sudden start had rattled him more than he liked to admit. He felt tense. Anxious.

  Hunted.

  There was no one under the truck, which was exactly what Cap had expected. He turned to look at the nearby woods. As before, the trees stood straight and tall, reaching with eager limbs to grasp at the sunlight. But there was no movement among the tree trunks, no glimpse of anyone nearby who might be playing some kind of game. Indeed, the forest seemed suddenly too quiet. As though life had somehow been stripped from it. The space at the base of the trees appeared darker than it should have, even given the thick canopy of greenery that filtered out much of the sunlight before it reached the forest floor.

  And then there was movement. The shadows. They reached with inky fingers, invading the clearing that stood like a moat between the house and the woods that surrounded it. The shadows writhed as though alive, black snakes that reached across the clearing, pooled across the meadow like dark mercury, ingesting light instead of reflecting it.

  Cap took a step back without thinking, then jerked as something touched his shoulder. He whipped around, his hands raising up automatically to protect himself from… whatever it was that was doing this, from whatever it was that had put him in its malicious sights.

  It was the side-view mirror that had hit his shoulder. Just a mirror, he had backed into it, that was all.

  He spun around, unwilling to let the woods remain at his back. As he turned his hands clenched into tight fists without his thinking about it, though a part of him knew that whatever was happening could not be resolved by fighting. Still, his body did it anyway, insisting on preparing to defend itself.

  And the woods were empty. The shadows, with their grasping tentacles, had withdrawn to their proper places. He could hear birds chirping nearby, and a light breeze ruffled his hair.

  All was as it should be. The shadows clung to the bases of the trees, where they belonged. The clearing was bright, bereft of the shadow-snakes that had been writhing through it only a fraction of a second before.

  He stared at the forest for a moment, unsure whether to believe w
hat he was seeing now, or what he had just seen a moment ago. Finally, he forced his fists to unclench, forced his bunched muscles to release the tension that had bound them tight as watch springs. He drew a hand across his brow, feeling the sweat that still dripped from his pores.

  The sun, he thought. I gotta get some water next time I go in.

  He thought about stepping into the kitchen right away. He felt spooked, and knew that Sarah’s mere presence would go a long way toward soothing him. She always had that effect on him. It was one of the things he loved about her. He enjoyed life, he was happy as a general rule, but on those rare occasions when the world pressed in too hard, when life insisted on being taken more seriously than it merited, all he usually needed was to be in the same room with his wife, and things would suddenly be set to rights again.

  In spite of this, however, he decided not to go into the house. Not now. He wasn’t exactly sure why. Perhaps it was because the idea of going into the kitchen somehow seemed like an admission that all was not right with the world. As though by doing so he would be tacitly agreeing that something was wrong.

  But nothing is wrong.

  So the truck turned on. So what? Surely there was some explanation for it. Maybe not a kid playing jokes, but there had to be some rational way of determining what had happened.

  The thought made him feel better immediately. He didn’t feel like he had to figure out what had happened. Just reminding himself that whatever it was, it had a logical explanation, had a soothing effect.

  He turned to head back to the rear of the truck. He’d pile some boxes on the dolly that sat at the rear of the loading ramp, take them inside, and then – and only then – he would stop in the kitchen. Get a drink. Chat with Sarah.

  The plan made him feel better. Everything was fine.

  What about the shadows?

  The thought forced its way into his mind, an unwelcome trespasser come to threaten his sense of peace.

  I didn’t see that, he insisted to himself. That was just a trick of the sun, or a symptom of exhaustion.

  He took another step toward the back of the truck.

  And the engine coughed to life once more.

  Cap whipped around, running around the front of the truck to the still-open driver’s side door. He wanted to catch whoever was doing this.

  “All right, the game’s up!” he shouted as he practically threw himself around the door, to view the cab.

  Which was empty.

  What’s going on? he thought. Who’s doing this?

  Then another thought struck him. And he felt something stronger than unease, something verging on dread that crept up his spine on frozen feet and then wrapped itself around the base of his skull. His head started pounding. He moved slowly. Put a hand in his pocket.

  The keys to the truck were there.

  3

  The First Night

  7: 35 pm

  ***

  Cap was fairly proud of himself. The boxes were all in the house. He had done – was still doing – a good day’s work.

  And he was in the dark.

  After the truck had shimmied to life again, he had been seriously concerned that he would never again be able to go into a room by himself, let alone work someplace as dark and dingy as the attic. But the truck’s engine sputtered to silence only a moment later, and five minutes after that he was feeling remarkably well. As though the mystery of the truck had happened years before, and not mere moments ago.

  Now he was moving boxes around the attic. He still couldn’t believe how much junk he and Sarah had accumulated during their married life. Sarah sometimes commented on the fact that it felt like they had known each other – and been together – forever, and Cap felt the same way. He almost couldn’t remember life without her. She was as much a part and permanent fixture of his life as his own body. And that was fine, because if he was sure of anything, it was the fact that he was better off with her than without. The years before she had come into his life could drift away and disappear, for all he cared. All that mattered was his time with her, and the future with her and the baby she carried.

  Thoughts of the baby brought a smile to his face. He looked forward to being a father. He knew that it was a twenty-four hour a day job without vacations, without time off for good behavior. And even after the child grew up and left their home, he suspected he would continue to worry about him or her. But Cap didn’t mind that. The baby would be part of him, part of Sarah. And that made him nothing but happy, no matter what price tag might accompany it.

  He coughed as he moved through the attic, more than a little dust swirling around in the dim light of the low watt bulb that hung nakedly from a cord nearby. The place was roomy for an attic, but that wasn’t saying much. He could move around, but the space was already full of boxes and bits and pieces of the life he had made with Sarah; things that were important enough to keep, but not so important that they needed them out at all times. It was enough just to know they were nearby and available.

  He pushed one of the boxes onto a shelf, then glanced over. There was a window in the attic, but it was grimy and dim. The light from inside the attic didn’t reflect off it, just absorbed into the dirt and dust that coated its surface. And that was fine. He didn’t need to see out –

  (into the forest, into the dark, the shadows reaching to me, trying to grab me, to pull me away screaming)

  – to be content. Claustrophobia had never been a problem for him. He was fine working away, finishing up the stacking of the boxes that would be kept in storage. Just fine. Nothing to worry about.

  He realized that he was thinking that over and over. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about. It was like some kind of mantra in his mind.

  Nothing to worry about.

  But instead of steadying him, instead of convincing him that was the case, the words seemed to carry with them an undercurrent of unease. The words of a condemned man telling himself a reprieve was coming.

  Nothing to worry about.

  Nothing at all.

  Not even the shadows.

  His skin started to crawl again, and he realized that he was in exactly the kind of place where things tended to jump out at people in scary stories. He glanced around in spite of himself, feeling a bit foolish but unable to resist the need.

  Nothing there. Just boxes, shelves, the light. Nothing out of place.

  Nothing to worry about.

  Nothing at all.

  He glanced back at the stairs that led out of the attic. There was a door at the bottom, standing wide open. Light streamed in from the second floor hallway, a cone of brilliance that set the bottom steps into bright contrast. The fact that the door was open made him feel better. Sarah was downstairs, the door was open, there was nothing to fear.

  Nothing to worry about.

  ***

  Sarah decided that she was going to finish up a few more boxes, and then call it a night. She knew that in years past women had worked crops and plowed fields right up until the last minute before giving birth. And though she respected them for their work ethic and toughness, she didn’t feel any particular need to compete with them. She was pregnant, she was hot and sweaty, she was completely bushed.

  Besides, she didn’t want to end up so tired that she wasn’t interested in the night-time frolics that Cap had been hinting at all day. He had set up the bed in their room that afternoon, grinning and whistling an overly jaunty tune as he worked, pausing only to leer at her whenever she stuck her head in to check on him.

  She knew that she felt a bit odd about looking in on him as often as she had, but she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something was wrong. It wasn’t just the feeling of being watched, nor was it the glimpse of the red whatever-it-was that had flashed past the kitchen window. No, it was something else. She felt like she was being… absorbed somehow. Like she wasn’t in a house, but rather in the belly of some great beast that was digesting her so gradually that she barely noticed it happenin
g.

  But she did notice. Something felt wrong, and though she tried to chalk it up to her pregnancy, she couldn’t avoid the feeling that she was on the verge of something. What it was, she couldn’t say. But it wasn’t a good feeling.

  She flinched as a thud sounded.

  It’s just Cap, moving stuff into the attic, she thought. Get a grip, Sarah.

  As if to confirm her thoughts, another thump reverberated through the house.

  “That man could teach a rhino how to stomp around,” she said. She meant the joke to cheer her up. Humor and fear could not exist together. Cap had taught her that. There was no greater insult to evil than to laugh at it.

  But no sense of jollity accompanied her weak attempt at a joke. Not even thinking about Cap was helping her shake the uneasy feeling that was invading her senses.

  It felt suddenly like The Before.

  She shrieked a moment later as a burst of sound stabbed through the air. It was white noise, static. Her hands clapped over her ears and she turned to try to locate the source of the noise. At first she couldn’t, it seemed to be coming from everywhere. Then she realized that it was the stereo. It had switched on.

  By itself.

  She screamed without meaning to. But the stereo’s own scream was so loud that her own startled yell didn’t even reach her ears.

  The stereo tuner started adjusting itself, snatches of music, bits of talk radio spearing out at her. It was so loud that the music and voices didn’t sound like anything human. They sounded like the howls and screams of some kind of otherworldly beast, trapped and injured by forces even more terrible than itself. Screeches of pain, banshee wails.

  She stepped toward the stereo. It was like walking through syrup. The air was thick around her. But not warm or comforting. The air pierced her with cold that had come from nowhere. Only an instant before it had been fine, not too warm or too cold. But now she shivered.

  The sound continued to change, cycling through a series of tones as it changed stations, bursts of speech and song interspersed with static that shredded the air like a fusillade of bullets.