"Gramps, can I go? Please? Just for a few hours? Billy, Fred Jenks and me want to check out the old Auburn House—"
"No,” Gramps had interrupted. His voice had been harsh, tinged with sharpness and an awful kind of finality. “There's no way in hell you are goin to that house, Kevin. We might as well get that straight between us right away."
"Aww, Gramps!” Kevin had whispered. “The guys—"
"Let them go, son, they'll be fine,” Gramps had said. “It's you who'll be in trouble if you go there. Promise me that you'll never, ever, go into that house. Not now, not when you're sixty-five. Never.” The voice of authority had been replaced by nervous fear. Gramps had started shaking then. His next word came out weak and warbly, but insistent. “Promise!"
* * * *
Now...
Kevin had been caught all too easily that night. Why not tonight? Was he getting that good at hiding from Gramps's all-seeing mind's eye? Maybe. Maybe Gramps was just getting too old. Kevin only half-cared, really; all he knew was that he'd made it out this time, and he so desperately needed to see this mystery girl again.
The trees swayed in the rising wind, heralding his approach in their unique, quiet but noisy way, and Kevin imagined they were trading secret whispers with each other on the breeze.
Here comes the boy! Look how handsome! He's come to meet the girl of his dreams! How romantic!
Kevin arrived at the spot where he had seen her, and searched the area. He saw no one. “Hello?” Kevin called quietly. “Is anyone here? Hello?” Doubt began to fill his thoughts.
Maybe my imagination's stronger than I realize, Kevin thought. Maybe when you think around corners your dreams seem real. Too real.
Kevin's shoulders sank and he turned to head back to the house, disappointed and with an erection that now pained him. Just as he turned into the breeze, however, he picked up the slightest whiff of her scent on the wind: floral and fruity, but with a thick, sensuous base. It tickled his nose as he turned, facing down the length of the tree line, where a quarter-mile away the trees blended with a patch of woods at the back of the property. Kevin walked toward the woods, the erotic fragrance leading him like a leash.
Before long he stood at the beginning of a path that led deep into the forest. It was one that he knew well from his childhood; it was long and led to many secret childhood places. Now a multitude of trees traded whispers all around him, and the whiff of the girl's bouquet faded into the brisk wind. Leaves swirled in small circles around him, and Kevin stood there, lost in the utter tranquillity of the moment. The girl was nowhere to be found, but that didn't bother him any longer. He knew she would reveal herself, somehow, when the time was right. The trick was to not think about it too much. To think around corners, he was realizing, you kind of had to slip into it; concentrating would not make it happen.
The rustling of the tree leaves seemed to grow louder, just above him. Kevin looked up and saw the girl's face peeking at him between the undulating leaves. He stared into the black pits of her eyes, and felt a new wave of raw yearning course like an electric current through his body. She smiled slightly, awkwardly, as if she were trying it for the first time. Her eyes told him everything. Come to me, they said. You know where to find me, and her face withdrew into the motion-filled mass of dry, dead leaves.
"Auburn House.” The words sang to Kevin as they rolled off his tongue, as delicious and flavorful as ripe strawberries, and he realized that this was his destination all along. Kevin stepped onto the path.
* * * *
Then...
"Auburn House,” Gramps had said absently after stopping Kevin from going with his friends that night. He had beckoned Kevin to take a seat. It was clear he had a story to tell.
"The place no one talks about. Every town has a haunted house, but I doubt very much there's any other place in the world like Auburn House.
"I'm sure you know the tales,” Gramps had continued, “but you don't know the facts. It's over a hundred years old and when it was new Auburn House used to be the architectural envy in this half of the state; but then it went sour, as the folks like to say. They say that not long after Pace Auburn built the place, he murdered his family one sunny afternoon and then wrapped a noose around his own neck. After the Auburn family tragedy, no one seemed much interested in buyin the place. A couple of families tried, only to leave after a few short months, usually with no explanation, and rarely takin even the time to say goodbye. Now the place sits up on that hill, rottin and ruined but not as empty as you may think.
"There are places you should never go,” Gramps had said, “because you can think around corners. In time you'll be able to figure it out for yourself, but for now I'm telling you—don't go to Auburn House. Never. Understand?"
Kevin didn't, but he had nodded anyway. To the young, the world is bright and wonderfully mysterious; we learn of its true face after we've spent a lifetime building up thick and jaded hides of denial and non-concern. It's a blindness of sorts—the young blinded by innocent ignorance and the old by the cataracts of indifference, but sooner or later we all see the ugliness that always awaits just behind the pretty veil.
* * * *
Now...
Kevin wove his way deeper into the woods, the moonlight creating a moving, dappled mosaic on the forest floor. He's coming! the trees whispered, no doubt passing the message all the way down the line. He was walking in a daze, his mind solely fixed on finding the girl—to feel her, taste her, to drink her in as he did before. He wanted to live that moment again so badly it seared the back of his throat and made his temples sweat. He would do anything to make it happen.
Every so often, when his mind began to drift and think of other things, when he could hear his grandfather's voice in his thoughts more clearly, she would appear to him again. She would slide out of the thick shadows behind a tree, or rise up from the leaves that now covered a fair amount of the forest floor. Her cold black eyes enticing him, urging him to keep going, stay the course, he was getting closer, so much closer. He could hear her voice now in his thoughts, a soft, low purr, caressing him, stroking the fires of his youthful desire. She promised him delight after sweet sensual delight. What he'd already experienced with her was but only a taste, a glimmer of what was waiting for him at Auburn House. Her house.
Kevin was now far off the path, shambling over hill and valley as the night wore on. It was dark, but the moonlight lit the forest floor. It was late, but Kevin felt not the least bit sleepy. Whenever he stumbled on a tree root or divot in the ground he barely noticed, but blithely righted himself and kept on moving. His face was blank and expressionless, a face that plainly showed that his mind was no longer totally his own.
* * * *
Then...
"Is Auburn House haunted?” Kevin had asked.
Gramps had replied, “Auburn House is about as haunted as my left kidney. Kids go there lookin for ghosts all the time, but you won't find any there. Auburn House is far worse than being simply haunted.
"The Auburn tragedy happened more than thirty years before I was even born,” Gramps had said, “but I know what really happened there. There are ways of knowin these things. Pace Auburn never killed his family, like the stories say. Pace Auburn was guilty of bein a stubborn, short-sighted ass, but he wasn't a murderer. Still, it was his refusal to accept reality that killed him and his family as sure as if he'd put a gun to their heads himself.
"Not long after they built that big house, somethin moved in with the Auburns. Somethin laid down stakes and took root there. Somethin not just evil, but somethin wrong. There's a difference, Kevin, in case you didn't know.
"The Auburns didn't do a damn thing to bring it upon themselves. They were hard workin people, honest and upright—of that I'm as sure as the sun risin in the east tomorrow mornin. This thing just singled ‘em out of the crowd. Really, though, isn't that the way of things most times? They just happen, even to undeservin folk? Bad things just have a way of gettin right in your gr
ill, or so I hear the kids say today.
"It tormented them,” Gramps had said, clearly disturbed by what he was saying, as if they were Gramps's own memories. In a way, Kevin supposed they were.
"It took away their sleep with screams in the night. It leapt at them from dark corners and from behind closed doors; it destroyed their belongins and terrified their children. It sapped their will, stole their compassion and love. Still, Pace—in his macho head-of-the-house state of mind—made the family stay. Nothin was goin to turn Pace Auburn out of his own home, no sir.
"Even after it started to hurt them, Pace refused to accept the truth. He forced them to stay the course in their home and in their faith. He became convinced that God was puttin a challenge in their lives to find out how worthy they were. God or no, Pace Auburn never backed away from a challenge. And his family, in their love for him if nothing else, dutifully obeyed.
"When someone realized the Auburns were missin—no one had seen them for weeks—a few men from town went on up the hill to pay them a visit. They came back stricken and white-faced, and none of them was ever quite right since.
"One day in August that thing killed Pace's family, one by one; lured them into his study and slaughtered them right then and there. It put them on display so Pace would find them—one big happy murdered family waitin for father to come in from the fields. It even posed them for God's sake. His littlest girl was sittin at the piano, her face wired up in an eternal frozen smile, her teeth missin and her eye sockets hollowed out.
"Pace found them when he returned home that evenin, and usin his grief and confusion, the thing convinced him to kill himself. He did, of course—tied a rope ‘round his neck and left himself to dangle from the chandelier in the main hall, nice as you please. No neck-jerk for Pace Auburn, just a slow choke. He pulled himself up, hand over hand; even tied off the rope himself, if you can believe it. That thing made him do it, it gave him the strength and the determination to get the job done right."
Gramps's face had gone ashen and all strength had left his voice, but he continued.
"The Auburns are gone, but it's still there, Kevin, peekin out of the broken shutter-slats and from the shadows under the porch steps. It prowls the house and grounds and watches from highest windows. Auburn House is its territory, its home now. And every now and then, maybe just for the fun of it, it still reaches out and claims someone.
"Do you remember a few years ago, Kevin? That little boy that went missin over in the next county? The police think he drowned in the lake out there, but they never found his body. I know what really happened to him. That thing in Auburn House reached out and snagged him, like a fisherman castin a line into a calm, quiet pond. It lured him, Kevin; he was only five, but I guess he was a corner-thinker too, because it reeled him in from over fifteen miles away. It promised him things—toys and candy and puppies; it guided him through the abandoned backfields of old farms and down lonely dirt roads and through the thickest woods. It took two whole days and nights but the little boy finally found his way to Auburn House, and into its waitin arms.
Whatever it is, Kevin, it doesn't like corner-thinkers. We threaten it because we know it exists. It's tried to get to me a few times, but I know how to protect myself, and I keep my distance from that place. You should too, Kevin. Please listen to me and stay away from Auburn House. Never go there, for any reason."
* * * *
Now...
Kevin spotted the mysterious girl again, breaking his train of thought. She was smiling at him from a wide split in the trunk of an old, dead tree. Kevin's heart leapt at the sight of her. He walked slowly towards the tree, reaching out his hand to touch her delicate face. Suddenly her face blurred, and in its place was a pair of fierce yellow orbs, staring directly at him.
A lash of electric fire in his hand, and his face was full with a flurry of grey and white, beating on his head and shoulders. Another streak of fire across his cheek, and then it was gone. Kevin fell backwards, crying in pain and fear and surprise, and landed hard on the cool ground. The pain in his face and palm was now mixed with a spreading warmth that he immediately knew was blood. He tasted its coppery tang on his lips and felt it hot and slippery between his fingers.
Kevin looked up just in time to catch a ghostly shape climbing over the treetops, wings outstretched and flapping furiously. A screech broke the night, and underlying it was a soft peal of phantom laughter.
An owl, he thought. A fucking owl. Jesus! Kevin looked down at his hand. A long, open wound extended from the outside edge into the center of his palm. It felt deep, and blood was flowing freely. He knew the same was true of his face.
It bit my hand and raked my face with its talons, he thought. I'm lucky it didn't take out my eyes.
Kevin felt in his jacket for anything that might help, and found a few tissues in his pocket. He wiped his face with them, noting that the cut on his face wasn't as deep as the one on his hand. He pressed the tissues hard into his palm and closed his hand around them. The cut was bad, but the bleeding would stop eventually. The harsh shriek of pain he'd first felt was now settling in as a deep throbbing ache; but it served a purpose—for the first time since waking up, Kevin felt totally clear-headed.
"Christ, what am I doing out here?” he said to no one as he stood up. How far from home was he? Two miles? Three? He really didn't know, but guessed more than that, much more than five, which would bring him close to...
For the first time, fear took hold in Kevin's gut, and for the first time, he began to understand.
He stood at the clearing edge of the woods, and before him was a hill. At the top of the hill was his destination. The house loomed, dark and menacing, draped in bright moonlight, surrounded by thick, leafless, lifeless trees.
Auburn House.
"This is bullshit!” Kevin yelled at the house. “Bullshit! Leave me alone, do you hear? Leave me alone!"
Tears, as hot and painful as the blood that seeped from his wounds, ran down Kevin's cheeks. He now knew what Gramps had meant with all the lectures, all the warnings. He finally understood the danger of thinking around corners and it frightened him to his core.
Relief also flushed Kevin's thoughts. He'd narrowly escaped, this time. He'd broken the spell just in time. He would go back and tell Gramps, right away. He knew its tricks now, and he would be wiser the next time. Kevin turned to leave, determined not to look back, took a few steps, and abruptly halted.
He felt a sensation in his head, a tugging at the dead-center of his brain. It had an almost physical quality—not painful, but it was vaguely unpleasant and nauseating.
It reached out and snagged him, like a fisherman castin’ a line into a calm, quiet pond.
He turned, though he fought against it with everything he had, and faced the house. Kevin began to panic, and the panic blossomed as he finally and completely understood the meaning of Gramps's warning.
The girl had him now, and she toyed with him, flaring the deeply-rooted desires within him, making him almost want to go to her despite his conscious repulsion. He walked unwillingly up the wide swath that cut through the wooded slope leading up to the house, a barely discernable driveway of past times. At the top he could see the ghostly-white figure of the girl, her wrap undulating in the breeze; and part of him ached to be with her while another recoiled in pure terror.
It promised him toys, Kevin. Toys and candy and puppies.
"No,” he said, closing his eyes and clenching his fists tight, sending fresh waves of pain into his hand. It helped, but it was not enough to break her hold over him.
Auburn House is its territory, its home now.
The trees weren't whispering anymore, they were laughing.
As he neared the house, the girl seemed to sideslip out of his view in an instant—a smudgy liquid blur in the moonlight. When he at last reached the front yard of Auburn House, the invisible leash forced him to a quick halt. He wept quietly to himself, unable to even reach up and wipe his eyes.
&
nbsp; The house was larger than he would have guessed. The weathered and warped clapboards appeared raw and rough in the moon's stark glow. The entire house canted slightly to the right and the sagging roof contained wide patches that were devoid of shingles. The expansive wrap-around porch crested and sagged along its length like a lazy ocean wave, the railing almost completely rotted away, leaving only old, bent support posts to hold up the dilapidated roof. Every window-pane had been long ago shattered, (OR: every window-pane was shattered) forming gaping black sockets (like the girl's eyes) in the house's façade.
It still lives there, Kevin, peekin’ out between the broken shutter-slats and from the shadows under the porch steps.
Kevin couldn't see under the porch—the thick weed beds that besieged the house on all sides hid it from his view. But he was absolutely certain that the wretched abomination was under there, watching him through the gently swaying growth.
Kevin looked up into one of the windows, the very bedroom where Elisabeth Auburn had given birth to two of her children (there are ways of knowing things)—and he saw the unknown girl's face floating out of the darkness and hovering at the window's edge, framed by the jagged broken glass of the window-pane. The burning strain in his groin intensified instantly, as sweet as it was unwelcome. His yearning was twisted now, the bitter tang of betrayal had spoiled the illusion forever. It made Kevin feel used. Stained.
And the face which had always been so beautifully stoic cracked a grin—a hideous stretching of its lips that extended well beyond its ears, curling at the ends in tight little knots. Its brow clenched, creating deep furrows in the smooth-as-glass skin of its forehead, and the round, bottomless black eyes elongated into narrow slits.
It was then that Kevin's terror escalated to a whole new sensation. It wasn't something he could describe with words because the best description would never do it justice. Yet it must be described, even in a paltry and clichéd manner.
Something Wicked SF and Horror Magazine #5 Page 10