She breathed the late afternoon air, crisp, full of clean water, damp bark, and earth.
If she was going to go by the house – and she knew she would – she needed the fortification.
She finished off her coffee and chucked the cup off the ledge and into the creek.
* * *
Holger Blackwell bought all of Stephen King’s books as they came out, read them, and burned them. Tonight’s offering was going to be It. It was a good night for it. For It. Early February and the fire looked hungry.
Her father had seemed to be in a bad mood all night. He’d sat in his shabby chair and chuffed his way through the last few pages of the book while Mariska sat in front of the television and watched Strawberry Shortcake. She knew she was lucky to have a VCR. She was the only one of her friends at school who had one. Of course, she only had one here, at her dad’s. Her mom liked to say her dad used it as a babysitter but her mom liked to make everything her dad did sound bad. In retrospect, Mariska realized the only reason she was probably able to come to her dad’s was because her mom wanted to go on dates or maybe just have the night alone.
Holger closed the book and placed it on the coffee table.
“Why’s it so big?” Mariska’s books were a fraction of this size.
“Who knows? It could have probably been half that long.”
Holger’s latest book, the one that would turn out to be his last, was called The Jackthief, and it was nearly as long. Only his book had only ever been a Tor paperback so it didn’t have the mass of King’s hardcover. And it was only so bulky because the print and spacing were larger. The Jackthief had never even been picked up by the Book of the Month Club so it would, alas, never see a hardcover release, not even a poorly printed, not-quite-full-size shabby one. And, technically, it wasn’t his final book, but it was the last one published while he was alive. Mariska’s mother had unearthed a partially finished manuscript of a book called The One Who Creeps and bestowed it upon Mariska because, well, Holger didn’t have anything else to leave behind. Mariska had never read it, had never read any of her father’s books. It seemed weird and invasive and she was pretty sure it would end up making her dislike him. An odd man named Gregory Seymour had contacted her when she was in her mid-twenties, asking her about her dad’s books, which had all gone out of print. He said he’d like to do limited editions of them and she said, “Tell me where to sign.” The partial manuscript of The One Who Creeps came up and Seymour said he knew a really good author who could do a bang up job of completing it. Mariska didn’t even ask who it was, just said, “Yeah, sure,” and asked how much this gig paid. Seymour said he was struggling, the whole book industry was doing poorly, and the most he could offer at this time was five thousand dollars. The contract arrived two days later along with the check. Mariska signed away the rights to all of Holger’s books, put the contract on top of the partial manuscript, put it all in a large bubble mailer and washed her hands of the whole writing business. She was young, after all, and five thousand dollars could be a decent down payment on a house or nearly a year’s worth of rent. That wasn’t exactly what it went for, but it did allow her to have a really exciting, if not completely memorable, few months.
Mariska sat on her knees in front of the coffee table, rubbing the glossy back cover of the book.
“Is he a rock star, too?” she asked. “Is that why he’s playing the guitar?”
“He’s playing the guitar because he wants you to know he’s rich enough to indulge any interest he has.”
“Is that bad?”
“I don’t know.”
Holger rarely spoke to Mariska like a child so she only grasped a little of what he meant. Maybe he was hoping she would remember what he said and the meaning would color itself in as she got older. Maybe that had been the case.
He picked the book back up, riffled the pages and made an exasperated sigh. He looked exhausted. He only ever wore black. Tonight he wore a thick black sweater over his customary black work shirt and corduroys. This made his whiskered chin, the circles under his eyes, and the lines in his face look even darker than they actually were.
“What happened to his beard?” she asked. “I liked his beard.”
“He’s all yuppified now. You want to look like your target audience and those college hippies have all grown up.”
“Are yuppies bad people?”
“They’re monsters.”
An author photo of Holger Blackwell had never appeared in or on one of his books. Mariska had once thought maybe it was because there wasn’t anyone to take one, then she’d thought her dad just didn’t want an author photo or that if someone saw a photo of him they wouldn’t buy the book. Her dad looked scary. She didn’t think that at the time, but looking back through her mother’s photo albums at the younger Holger Blackwell – always in black, never smiling, looking at the person holding the camera like he wanted to eat them – she thought maybe that was the case. That notion didn’t drop until she got older and realized the world – especially women – loved evil men.
Holger stood up and opened the door to the fireplace. This was at least the third such offering she’d witnessed.
“Mom says it’s wrong to burn books.”
“I’m the child of Nazis,” Holger said and chucked the book into the fire.
Mariska paused her video and stood watching the fire, taking her father’s pinky finger in her little hand.
One thing Mariska had learned was that books didn’t really burn well. They curled up at the edges. They blackened. Her father had to jab it with the poker several times and Mariska had completely lost interest and gone back to Strawberry Shortcake before it completed its transformation into ash.
Holger placed the poker back in its stand, closed the fireplace door, dusted his hands, and said, “Well, it’s time to get back to work.”
A period of furious activity usually followed one of the burnings. It never really occurred to Mariska that when her father left her there in front of the television, when he went through the kitchen and the dining room and into his office, that he was sitting at his desk to work on The One Who Creeps.
She fell asleep on the floor in front of the television.
She dreamed she was outside, in the woods behind the house. She was freezing cold. The woods around her were frozen but the leaves were still on the trees. They were frosted over with ice and it made her think of a moth’s wings. She could sense someplace warm and moved toward it. A stabbing wind rolled through the woods and the frozen trees creaked and moaned like they’d been frozen forever. She reached what she thought was the back door to her house but when she got closer to it she realized it was the door to a giant fireplace and assumed this was the warm place she sought. Drawing even closer, she saw her father beside the door. Children were lined up behind him and he casually plucked the first in line and tossed it into the house, into the roaring fire. He spotted Mariska and a bolt of fear seized her. Her father said in a voice that didn’t sound at all like his own, “Don’t be afraid. Take your place at the back of the line.” She obediently did so. She thought it would be awful, standing at the back of the line and waiting her turn to be burned alive, even though, at this rate, it looked like it would take her father ten or fifteen minutes to get to her. But the girl next to her in line was friendly looking and a little bit fat. Mariska asked her if she ever watched Strawberry Shortcake and the girl said, “All the time!” and they began excitedly talking about that and the dream dissipated and Mariska woke up to credits rolling up the television screen and the room seemed too bright because no one had turned off the lights and she was freezing because the door was open and an icy wind had sucked all the fire’s warmth from the room and the fire itself was only a bed of winking orange coals.
She stood up and walked over to the door.
“Dad?” she called out into the darkness. Sometimes, no matter how cold it was, he would go outside to smoke. Sometimes he smoked cigarettes that came in a red and white pa
ckage and sometimes he rolled his own and sometimes he smoked a fat, smelly cigar.
When he didn’t answer, she shut the door.
She locked it because that was what her mother told her she should always do when shutting the door to her house. Mariska walked through the kitchen and into the dining room. The light from her father’s office was on and the door was open. She had never seen this door closed unless he wasn’t in it, which he usually was. He didn’t care about being bothered, but he didn’t want anyone going through his stuff when he wasn’t there. Mariska understood. She didn’t like it when people played with her toys either.
His shoulders were slumped over the desk and he pecked slowly on his typewriter that she thought was the exact same color as her nipples.
“Sweetie?” he said without turning his head.
“I had a dream.”
“Were you in your room?”
“No. On the floor.”
“You shouldn’t fall asleep on the floor.”
She noticed a bottle of something the color of apple juice. This bottle looked fancier and was made from glass.
“Do you need me to tuck you in?” he said. He sounded ready to fall asleep himself.
“I’m thirsty.” She now stood right beside him.
“Do you need me to get you some water?”
“What’s that?” she pointed at the bottle.
He laughed a little. “That’s bourbon, sweetie. It probably wouldn’t make you less thirsty.”
He offered her the bottle.
She brought it to her lips and recoiled at the smell. She handed it back.
She pointed at his nipple-colored typewriter and said, “Can I play on the typewriter?”
“Sure,” he said. “This one’s electric. See how it plugs into the wall? Do you want to play on this or the old typewriter?”
He pointed to one of the bookcases lining the walls. There was something that looked like the skeleton of what he currently pecked away at. She also thought it looked like it was made from coal.
She touched the electric typewriter and said, “This one.”
“Okay. Maybe I need to stop vacuuming my brain for a minute anyway.”
Her father never said he was writing. He was either “working” or “vacuuming his brain.” He pushed back his chair, stood up, and stretched, the bones in his body making soft popping noises.
He put a couple of pillows in the chair, lifted her up, placed her down, and scooted the chair toward the desk.
“Remember,” he said, “writing is the worst job in the world.”
“I want a new one.”
“Huh?”
“New paper.”
“Oh. Of course. Collaboration is for the weak and simple minded.”
He stripped out the piece of paper with his words on it and rolled a new one in.
“Have at it,” he said.
She pecked out a few letters, hit the space bar, and pecked out the same letters because she liked them. He grabbed the key to one of his desk drawers from the top of the desk and dipped it into a little amber bottle. He quickly sniffed the key and put the bottle back into his pocket.
“Was that medicine?” She continued to peck at the keyboard, already feeling herself getting tired of it.
“Something like that.” He grabbed the bottle of bourbon and sat down in the comfortable chair beside the desk. “Sometimes this makes me sleepy.” He held the bottle up and took a slug. “And the other stuff wakes me up.”
“If I had that medicine, I bet I wouldn’t even have to take naps.”
“And you probably wouldn’t fall asleep in the middle of the floor.”
She was now completely uninterested in the typewriter. She turned to face him.
“Can we go look at the trees?” she asked.
“Why would you want to do that?”
She told him about her dream.
“We’ll have to get you bundled up.”
“Aren’t you gonna read what I wrote?”
“Oh, of course. I wasn’t sure if it was ready yet.”
“It is. It’s really good.”
He leaned over the desk and read aloud. “Yog yog yog yog yog.”
She started laughing. She didn’t exactly know how to pronounce what she’d written and liked the way it sounded coming out of her father’s mouth, like the sound a frog would make.
“That’s really great. Very Lovecraftian.” He placed a hand over the top of her head.
“Not the brain sucker!” she squealed.
He flexed his hand. “I think it’s starving to death.”
* * *
They crunched across the backyard. She wore her snow boots, her father’s big wool coat, and one of his knit stocking caps.
“Aren’t you cold?” she asked.
“I think the air feels nice.”
The woods seemed a lot farther away in the winter than they did in the summer. When they reached the woods, he scooped her up and rested her on his hip.
“Is this okay or do we need to go into them?” he asked.
She studied the trees closely. There were maybe a few dead leaves clinging here and there to the ones that didn’t have needles like a Christmas tree. But they were mostly bare.
“See,” her dad said, “it was just a dream.”
They turned and walked back to the house. The lights from the living room and her dad’s office were still on, producing a warm glow. The back door was shut tight and, hopefully, not locked. She’d forgotten to tell him about the open door.
“Did you leave the door open earlier?” she asked.
“No. Why?”
“It was open when I woke up.”
“Are you sure that wasn’t just part of the dream?”
She looked back toward the woods. She couldn’t see them at all now. They were just a gray mass in the distance. They hadn’t been full of leaves. How could she be sure of anything?
“I don’t know,” she sighed.
When she looked toward the house, she focused on the windows that didn’t have light in them. She thought she saw shapes moving around in those dark rooms. Quick moving liquid shadows. They made her scared. Or maybe it was what her mom called anxious. Her mom had said that was like being scared when there wasn’t really anything to be scared of.
“Will you read what I typed again?” she asked her father.
“Sure. When we get back inside. Okay?”
“I mean now. You remember, don’t you?”
She thought it would make her laugh if she heard him say it again. It would make her less scared. Less anxious.
“Yog,” he croaked.
She started laughing and wrapped her arms around his bony shoulders.
“Yog yog yog.”
They stamped their feet and walked into the house where the fire was now completely dead.
He made her some hot chocolate and sipped bourbon. They watched Strawberry Shortcake until her head started to droop and then he picked her up and carried her into her bedroom.
“Are you going back to work?”
“Yeah, honey, I have to. Night night.”
He gave her a peck on the forehead and disappeared into the yellow light of the hallway.
It was the last time she ever saw him.
* * *
Mariska had bypassed her car in town, deciding to take the ten-minute walk. She wasn’t really much of an outdoors person. She felt like it would be better if she saw the house unencumbered by her car. She could linger. It was a good time for lingering. Probably not for much longer. The last few nights had been below freezing. Soon the town would be naked and cold, but she would be very far away from it. Although, she knew she’d probably be back.
The house was at the end of Spring Street, facing it, sitting low across a fairly large lawn. When her father lived there, when she used to visit him on the weekends, a series of three or four towering pine trees had stood behind the ugly guardrail. Those trees were gone now. They had been gone the last
time too. The long gravel driveway was off a road farther down, so that the address was not actually Spring Street. She tried to remember what it was. Something Pike, maybe. She’d always used her mother’s address as her own.
She stopped at the guardrail at the end of the road, almost close enough for her knees to touch its cold surface.
She stared at the house, at the couple windows that were lit up. Of course the light that came from windows was hardly ever a soft yellow anymore. Now it always seemed sterile – clear or bluish.
She never found out what happened to her father. She didn’t think she wanted to find out. The thing that would have been best for him and probably the hardest for her to take was if he had just decided he’d had enough of his current life and left. If that were the case – and she really doubted it was – some part of her hoped he would make contact with her before he died. She had no clue what they would possibly say to one another. She didn’t think she’d ever really known him very well and she was now very very far away from being daddy’s little girl. But she had always felt close to him. Still did.
The door to the carport at the top of the driveway opened and her heart sped up like she’d been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to be doing.
A man walked out under the carport and lit a cigarette. He glanced at her but didn’t make any gesture of acknowledgement. A woman who looked a little younger stepped out behind him and did the same. He said something to the woman that Mariska couldn’t hear and they smiled and laughed. The woman playfully, almost seductively, punched him on the arm. They looked happy. Mariska knew she needed to go. She could already feel the house’s power reaching for her. The memory of something frozen almost perfectly in time. The lure of contentment. The feeling of contentment would always be followed by the world crumbling beneath her feet.
Creep House: Horror Stories Page 6