He had gold in his blood, and there hadn’t been a day since late May that he hadn’t rolled out of bed, pissed last night’s whiskey out of his system, swallowed his morning ration of Alka-Seltzer, fried himself three slices of bacon and one greasy egg, then trudged through the underbrush to the mine with a fresh flask of Heaven Hill in his hip pocket.
It had been no walk in the park, his new career.
The rock had been harder than he’d expected, although not impenetrable, the air stuffy and difficult to breathe. Every evening his muscles had ached and his lower back felt as if it were going to snap. Still, he’d made progress. The pains had never entirely gone away—at his age they never would—but most of them moderated in direct proportion to how much booze he downed. He’d gotten the knack of it pretty easily. It was, after all, only digging—a grown-up version of what keeps a tot in a sandbox smiling for hours on end. Dynamite would have helped, but Harry Whipple wasn’t going to risk an arm on explosives. Not in here. The timbers were already shaky enough. The last thing they needed was a good top-to-bottom blast.
He’d spent the first two weeks clearing a side shaft off the main mine, some three hundred yards in. Judging by the way the shaft had been drawn on the map—in what appeared to be darker ink—Whipple had a hunch this had been the last area of the mine to be worked. Probably this was where they’d run out of money, here in this shaft (maybe, he prayed, when they were very, very close), and just before pulling out, they’d filled it back in to spite the next guy. Gold diggers down on their luck would have been like that, Whipple thought. Yes, sir. Grade A prickheads, just like their modern-day cousin here. Anyway, it seemed a good place to get the hang of things because it was filled with rubble, much easier to work than the solid rock at the end of the main shaft. Once he’d gotten a wheelbarrow in on the act, he’d been able to advance nearly a foot and a half a day.
He’d gone perhaps twenty feet, was at the point where he was seriously questioning the integrity of the timbers and wondering just how he was ever going to replace them, when he punched through into empty space. There was nothing behind that rock he’d removed from up top there. Nothing at all. He’d stuck his shovel through, waved it around.
Nothing, only moist air that seemed a good fifteen degrees colder.
Fragments of a short story he’d read years ago in school flashed through his mind: something about a man bricking his worst enemy up inside a wine cellar. Had he opened up a grave? Was it one of the gold diggers the others had wanted out of the picture for some reason? Was there a skeleton, the fingers scraped away as he’d gone mad with hunger and fear? Or was there gold in there, enough to make him the wealthiest man in Berkshire County? He took a healthy tug on his whiskey. Suitably bolstered, he crawled up and loosened a few more rocks until he had a hole big enough to get his shoulders through. Then he shone his lantern, drew a breath, and looked.
He was looking into a cave.
“Motherfuck.” His words had no echo at all.
Nature, not man, had been at work here. That was his immediate reaction. The walls were dark, smooth, moist from water that had been dripping for centuries, and they shimmered iridescently in the lantern’s glow, shimmered as if they were the source of the light, not a reflection of it. It was not a wide cave; with your arms outstretched, you could almost touch both walls. Maybe “cave” wasn’t the right word. Maybe “chasm” was better.
Whipple squinted into the distance. He could see the ceiling—it was only ten feet or so above where he was—but he could not determine where the cave ended. It did not seem to end. It seemed to penetrate deep into the mountain’s bowels, winding and curving past the limit of his vision.
He repositioned the lantern and looked down.
His heart skipped a beat. For an instant he was afraid he was going to pass out.
There was a bottom all right; you could just barely see it—a hundred feet down, at least. He tugged desperately on his flask, but booze didn’t have what it took to level this one out. His head was swimming, the way it always did whenever bottom was greater than the distance from his eyeballs to his feet. Whipple was an acrophobic. A very serious one. Ladders, tops of roofs, even attics—you wouldn’t find him that high to save his life. And those were small potatoes compared with bridges or skyscrapers or, God forbid, planes.
He inched backward—back toward the safety of the shaft. No wonder his nineteenth-century brethren had stopped digging here. He was goddamn lucky he hadn’t toppled into that abyss himself. In his one glimpse he’d seen that the drop to the bottom was sheer cliff, not a foothold anywhere. The only way down would have been by rope. Not this gentleman. He had gold fever bad, but there were limits. He’d just found his.
The noises had begun the next day, a day in early June. Soon enough they’d become part of the background, nothing more, nothing less. They were low, rumbling kinds of noises, as if large parts of the earth had gotten restless and were slowly shifting position. He’d heard them before, of course. Most of Morgantown’s old-timers had. Not nearly this loud, he had to admit, but the same distinctive groaning—like a giant grinding his teeth, as schoolchildren were fond of saying.
They were called the Morgantown Noises, and since the white man had settled the region, two generations after the Mayflower had anchored off Plymouth Rock, there had been a running record of them. They were not continuous. Decades had passed when no one had heard them, and then there had been spells of a year or two when they were heard monthly or even weekly. The Quidneck Indians, who’d been the original settlers of this part of the Berkshires, believed they were restless evil spirits. The white man had a less romantic explanation. The seismologists who had studied them—at least three since 1900 had—had concluded that they were almost certainly caused through the mechanics of plate tectonics, the natural shifting and rearranging of plates within the earth’s crust, the identical process that, on a far greater scale, was responsible for California earthquakes.
Since his childhood Whipple had heard the Morgantown Noises several times. Once they’d been accompanied by a trembling that had shaken the dishes in his mother’s china closet. The seismologists had described that incident as an earthquake, very low-powered and harmless, as most earthquakes in New England and New York had been since records were first kept. Mostly the noises had been muffled, lasting five or ten minutes until they were gone.
It did not puzzle him that the noises this time were louder. Of course, they were louder. He didn’t know diddly-squat about seismology, but he had enough neurons still firing to reckon that whatever caused the noises, it had to be louder the closer you got. And he was inside the goddamn ground, wasn’t he? And when he wasn’t, he was living closer to the mountain than ever before, wasn’t he? So what did you expect, that the noises would be quieter here?
He did not re-seal the side shaft. He simply determined not to go down there again and went to work at what he considered the next most likely spot for gold, the end of the main shaft.
The noises, like the cave, had soon enough receded to the background.
His hand was trembling, but he managed to get another match lit.
It was still there, the thing in the shadows.
“Motherfuck,” Whipple swore under his breath.
It was moving. Not at him, but out of the mine, back toward the entrance and the side shaft. Faster, as if it had crept up on him and now did not appreciate being seen.
“I’ll be a goddamn son of a bitch.”
A bird.
No, a dinosaur.
Goddamn if that wasn’t what it looked like, a dinosaur with wings. Just like in that documentary the faggot public TV station had shown sometime last year. A baby Rhampho-what’s-its-name. A foreign-sounding word. One of those Latin jobs.
Dinosaur.
Oh, man. If ever he needed proof he’d been hitting the sauce too hard, here it was, in Panavision color. Seeing dinosaurs. That beat everything. He almost laughed, it was so crazy. The urge grew suddenly,
and then he was laughing, an uncontrollable belly laugh that shook his frame.
The match smoked and went out. Whipple got another going on first try.
It was still there. Whatever it was, it had stopped in its tracks. Almost as if it had decided to . . .
. . . to catch one last glimpse of him before scooting away. The match went out.
Oh, man, Whipple thought. You oughta ease up on the sauce, old boy. At least switch to something lower octane.
He lit another match, expecting this time to see the next creature in the series—a giant bunny rabbit, maybe, or a giant talking lizard. But this time there was nothing in the shadows. No movement. Nothing lurking. No goddamn dinosaur returned through millions and millions of years to personally stalk and devour Harry Whipple. Whipple moved falteringly toward the lantern, reached it before the match burned out, and held the flame to the wick. The Coleman flared to life with an intensity that hurt his eyes. Compared with match power, the lantern lit the mine like sunshine. Just for argument’s sake, Whipple stumbled over to the far wall of the mine. It was as he thought: no footprints; no signs of disturbance of any sort; only the rubble he’d kicked up inside a mine abandoned a century ago.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Wednesday, August 27
Brad was poring through the Morgantown Daily Transcript, drinking black coffee and making his notes on a yellow legal pad.
Abbie sat across from him, fiddling with her spoon. The Boar’s Head Inn was a pretty neat place, she’d decided. Three— count ‘em, three—cats, each appreciative of petting, and a big friendly hunk of a sheepdog, called Champ, that seemed to do nothing but snooze were present. Lots of places to explore, both indoors and out. Really neat things to eat, too. Cheerios and pastries and toast with grape jelly and everything for breakfast, with that really nice Mrs. Fitzpatrick not minding a bit filling a special order for chocolate milk (after Daddy reluctantly had given the Big OK). About the only losing point was how spooky some of the corners of their room got after dark; but Daddy had determined through close examination that nothing was hiding there, so that wasn’t really so bad after all.
Brad’s mind had locked on to the paper. He wanted to go in Monday with a real zinger of a game plan, something that would impress Dexter and motivate the troops right off the bat. He’d finally decided on one. He was going to initiate weekly writing seminars. If he’d uncovered one major weakness in all the back issues he’d gone over, it was the paucity of quality feature writing. When it came to flair, the Transcript was very gray indeed. With work, that could be turned around. It might never reach Times level, but he’d seen some pretty small papers turn out a damn good product. They could do it here.
Brad made a note about a new reporter named Rod Dougherty—of the entire staff, Dexter had mentioned in a lengthy letter, his stuff seemed to have the most potential—then took his nose out of the paper and put his pen down. The last fellow breakfaster, a middle-aged man who had arrived last night, had finished, and now he and Abbie were alone in the dining room. Like every room in Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s inn, this one seemed to whisper, “Feel at home. You’re among friends now. The world turns a little more slowly inside these four walls.” The dining room was blue: light blue wallpaper, a more substantial blue on the upholstered chairs and rug. The ceiling-to-floor windows were crowded with hanging plants—philodendron, Swedish ivy, Christmas cactus, African violets, many in full bloom. And that amazing fireplace. With mantel and associated brickwork, it took up most of one wall, and it was no inconsequential wall. Brad imagined settling in by it some fall afternoon, a brandy in his hand, a hardwood fire blazing . . .
. . . and he was surprised to find himself thinking about that woman Abbie had been talking to, Thomasine.
She hadn’t come down for breakfast this morning, or if she had, she’d eaten and gone before he and Abbie had arrived. He hoped she hadn’t checked out. For two days he’d wanted to talk to her. Wanted to find out some more of what she—a woman of her age and (there, you’ve said it, you chauvinist pig) good looks—was doing in the Berkshires. On the basis of what Abbie had said, he was intrigued. Indian research. Hmmm. Probably she was involved in some kind of archaeological dig. Could be a story. He wondered if the Transcript had already done one. He’d have to have Dougherty or someone check into it.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick startled him from his thoughts. She backed abruptly through the kitchen’s swinging doors, a portly bundle of good cheer. She was carrying a coffeepot in one hand, a wicker basket in the other. In the basket was a confusion of brochures, newspaper clippings, and scribbled notes.
“More coffee?”
“No, thanks,” Brad said. “Any more and my teeth will float.”
Mrs. Fitzpatrick laughed—the high, thin laugh of a woman who turns beet red at dirty jokes, while secretly relishing every word. She put the pot down on the server and returned to the table with her basket. She sat down. Unconsciously her free hand reached for the plate of Danish, still half full. She grabbed a raspberry pastry, generously buttered it, and took a large bite.
“I almost forgot these,” she said when she had swallowed. “Spent half the evening getting them together, and here I’ve almost let you slip away without them. That would be just like me.”
Abbie surveyed the basket. “What is it?” she asked.
“Real estate ads and flyers. You know, the ones addressed to resident and occupant and so forth. Plus some notes I made on the phone with Wilfred Smith. He’s a dear old friend, has an agency over in Pittsfield. I know how hard you’ve been looking, so I thought I’d get my two cents worth in. ‘Course, don’t feel obligated to do a blessed thing with it. You do as little or as much as you like.”
“That was awfully nice of you,” Brad said.
“If you’re going to be an editor, you’re going to need a place fit for an editor to live. Not to mention the fact that you’ve got the sweetest girl in the world, and we wouldn’t want a peach like her living in any dump.”
Abbie giggled.
“You are a peach. Reminds me of when Ginny—that’s my daughter—was her age, Mr. Gale. Lord, it seems so long ago,” she said thoughtfully.
“Say ‘thank you,’ Abbie,” Brad prodded.
“Thank you, Abbie,” she mimicked. It was a trick she’d picked up in New York from one of the big kids who lived down the hall.
“Abbie . . .” Brad scowled.
“Thank you, Mrs. Fitzpatrick,” she managed before giggling again.
“I’ll let you paw through this on your own time,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said, “but do you mind if I make a recommendation? Might save you some trouble.”
“Not at all.”
“This isn’t in any of the papers. That’s why I don’t have a picture. Wilfred told me about it. New listing, hasn’t had a chance to get it into his flyer yet. You jump right on it, and I bet you’ll be the first to see it.”
She rustled through the basket and found her note, written with a lazy hand. Squinting, she scrutinized it. Her lips moved slightly, as if she were asking herself some weighty question. Then she tapped her forehead with the palm of her hand. She’d obviously remembered something.
“That’s right,” she mumbled. Turning toward Brad, she said, “Before I get your hopes up, let me ask you a question.”
“Shoot.”
“Do you need furniture?”
“Not really. We’ve got five rooms of it sitting in a warehouse in New York. The movers can have it here in a week or less. At least that’s what they say. I just have to give ‘em the word.”
“Good,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said, the creases in her brow loosening. “Because according to Wilfred, this doesn’t have a stick of it. Not even a refrigerator. Do you have a fridge?”
“No, but I could buy one.”
“Double good. This is Harold McGuire’s place. Harold senior. Went to school with his son a million years ago. His name was Harold, too. We called him Junior. He made it big out West somewhere, St. Louis, I believe i
t was. Became an accountant. Anyway, when the old man died last year, he came into the place. Sold all the furnishings, Wilfred says. Beats me why he didn’t get rid of the house, too, but that’s people for you.”
“Maybe it was for tax purposes,” Brad offered. “You can get screwed on capital gains.”
“Most likely that was the case. Anyway, he’s decided to rent it, but who’s to say he won’t change his mind in a year or two and decide to sell? You did say you were interested in either renting or buying, didn’t you?”
“Yes. It all depends on the price.”
“Well, you can’t beat this price. I don’t know whether Junior’s got fluff between his ears instead of brains, but all he’s asking is five hundred a month. Course, you pay utilities, but wait’ll you hear what you’d be getting. This is a Victorian, three full stories. Never been in it, but Wilfred says it’s got five or six bedrooms, three baths, fireplaces, pantry, library—you could take your editing home to that nice and easy—porch, full-size attic. I can see your little peach up in that attic now, rummaging through old trunks or playing with the dollhouse I know you’re going to build her.”
Abbie’s eyes had been widening, and now they were huge. She’d never been in an attic (unless you counted the top of the Empire State Building, but that wasn’t a real attic, no matter how high and scary it was), but she’d read enough about them to know that they were very special, very magical places. Once all the ghosts had been cleared out, of course, a task she’d leave to the resident spook chaser, Dad.
A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult Page 551