The House We Haunted and Other Stories

by Amy Cross

  "I don't think this is the kind of place where you can stay clean," I tell her. "It might be better if you wait in the car."

  "I'm out now," she replies with a good-humored smile as I unlock the front door. "Besides, a little mud isn't going to kill me, is it? I'm not some kind of blinkered urban girl who can't handle the great outdoors." She sniffs the air. "Doesn't fresh air smell wonderful?"

  Once we're inside the farmhouse, I can't help but stare at the spot on the kitchen floor where Martin was found. It's hard to believe that just a few hours after we drove away last week, he dropped dead in this very room. There's a part of me that worries we might have somehow precipitated his death, as if maybe the shock of having visitors was too much for his heart. Still, he was clearly in bad shape, so I guess it wouldn't have been too much longer. I wouldn't be surprised if maybe, deep down, he even suspected that his days were numbered. Martin wasn't the kind of guy to make a fuss; he probably just figured it was his time.

  "They left the gun," Didi says, heading over to the kitchen table and looking down at the shotgun. "That's weird. Didn't you say someone from the council found him?" She turns to me. "I'd have thought they'd do something about this. Is it really a good idea to leave a loaded shotgun in an empty house?"

  Shrugging, I head over to the far side of the room and try the light switch. To my surprise, a bare bulb flickers into life above us. I wasn't even sure that Martin has electricity up here, but at least there's a little light. Reaching into my pocket, I pull out the list that my father sent me. It's just a few items of Martin's that I'm told have sentimental value, although I can't help thinking that my parents just want to get them checked out and sold. My father has never even hinted that he gives a damn about anything here at Darken Croft, and it's hard to believe that he suddenly cares about a few old knick-knacks.

  Then again, they're probably made of solid silver.

  "I should go through to his bedroom," I tell Didi. "This shouldn't take too long."

  "I'd say I'd make tea," she replies, "but I don't really want to touch anything, and that kettle looked like something from the nineteenth century last time we were here."

  Smiling, I head to the small hallway that runs toward the back of the farmhouse. When I reach Martin's bedroom, I'm shocked to find that it's just a bare little space with no furniture other than a bed and a wooden chest. I don't really know where to start when it comes to finding the things on my father's list, so I begin by rummaging through the chest. After a few minutes, I manage to find a few old items of silver, along with the dinner service that somehow ended up here years ago. To my surprise, it turns out that Martin seems to have kept everything in fairly good order, and soon I've found everything that's on my father's list.

  Just as I'm about to head back through to Didi, I spot a small leather book on the floor next to the bed. Picking it up, I open it and find that it seems to be some sort of diary, filled with scrawny, scribbled writing that I guess must belong to Martin. It's not exactly the neatest journal in the world but, as I look through, I realize that he seems to have been recording certain details, and certain days have been marked with a large X. At the end of each week's entries, Martin has written a small note, seemingly commenting on recent events. I flick through until I come to a random page:

  Short, light shower in the night. Heard her in the kitchen, but the rain soon passed and so she was gone.

  I turn to the next page:

  Huge storm, lasting from Thursday evening to Friday morning. She was outside the bedroom door for most of it, trying to get in, but I wouldn't let her. Almost let off a round. Had to stay awake until the worst of it passed.

  The next page contains a shorter note:

  Briefly rained on Tuesday afternoon. Not enough to bring her out.

  Frowning, I flick through a few more pages, but the notes are all pretty much on the same topic. He seems to have been obsessed with the weather, noting down every occasion when it rained along with some cryptic comments about 'her' and 'she'. Martin lived up here alone, so I have no idea who he was talking about, but when I glance over at the far end of the room, I spot a little pile of similar journals in the corner. Walking over, I find that he's been keeping these diaries for decades, and after sorting through them for a few minutes, I find one dating back as far as 1967. Even in these older notebooks, Martin was writing about the weather and its effect on some woman.

  "You okay in there?" Didi calls out.

  "Coming!" I reply, scooping up the books into a plastic bag. I have no idea what I'm going to do with them, but I figure I can't just leave them here. If nothing else, it might be fun to show my Dad that while Martin might have been pottering around up here by himself for years, he was keeping busy with his weather obsession. Then again, his notes seem to refer regularly to some kind of woman, so it's hard not to wonder if the old goat might have had some secret mistress all along. The thought puts a smile on my face.

  "Did you find everything?" Didi asks as I reach the kitchen.

  "And more besides," I tell her, holding up the bag full of notebooks. "You're gonna love these, but I'll show you in the car. We should get going. It'll be dark soon, and I think there's more rain moving in."

  "Did he keep a diary?" she asks as we head to the door.

  "In a way," I continue. "You'll see." We make our way into the yard and over to the car, and rain is starting to fall steadily now. Once we're in the car, I place the bag of notebooks on Didi's lap; she immediately starts looking through them, and it's clear that she's fascinated by the idea of getting a glimpse into the old man's mind. "Let me know what you think," I tell her as I start the engine. "I think there was more to the old man than -"

  Suddenly the engine splutters and dies.

  "Hang on," I continue, turning the key again. This time, the engine barely gets going before juddering to a halt.

  "Please no," Didi says as I try a third time. "Chris, tell me this is some kind of sick, sick joke."

  I smile awkwardly, but the fourth attempt to start the engine is no more successful than the previous tries, and eventually I sit back and try to work out what to do next.

  "Chris?" Didi says after a moment. "Honey? Darling? Love of my life? Tell me you're pulling my leg."

  "It's okay," I reply, grabbing my cellphone as rain starts falling harder and harder on the windshield. "I have coverage for this kind of thing. Someone'll come out and fix it."

  "Okey dokey," she replies, sounding a little unconvinced as streaks of rainwater start running down the windows. "I'm sure everything'll be fine." She pauses. "God, that was a dumb thing to say, wasn't it?"

  Chapter Five

  "Tomorrow?" I reply, standing in the middle of the kitchen. "What do you mean? I pay for a twenty-four hour recovery service!"

  "You're in a very isolated location," explains the woman on the other end of the phone. "It's after 6pm, and our terms of service state that we can refuse to send someone to areas that don't have proper road surfaces. My maps indicate that the roads in your area are gravel, so I'm afraid we can't get someone out to you until..." She pauses, as if she's checking something on a database. "11am tomorrow morning."

  "What am I supposed to do until then?" I ask, stunned by the fact that the woman doesn't seem to understand the seriousness of the situation. Glancing over at Didi, I can see the pained look on her face as she sits at the kitchen table, leafing through Martin's notebooks. I guess she's sensed that there's a problem but she's hoping that I'll somehow manage to come up with a solution.

  "Can't you get to a safe place?" the woman asks.

  "A safe place?" I pause for a moment, listening to the sound of rain falling lightly but steadily on the roof. The farmhouse is dry, and it should be warm once we've got the wood burner going, but it's still not somewhere that I'd ever want to spend the night. "Yes," I tell her, "I guess, but -"

  "Then you should hunker down and wait until morning," she replies calmly. "I can assure you, your location has been logged in o
ur system and as soon as it's safe to do so, one of our trained vehicle mechanics will be sent to assist you. You'll receive a courtesy text message when he's left our depot in the morning, which should be some time around 8am. There's really nothing else I can do for you at this moment, Sir. I'm sorry."

  "I'll be looking for another recovery service when I get home," I tell her. "This is... incomprehensibly bad."

  "I'm sorry you feel that way, Sir."

  Cutting the call, I turn to Didi. She's busy flicking through another of Martin's notebooks, but I know damn well that she's been listening. In fact, there's a faint smile on her lips, and it's clear that she's waiting for me to tell her the inevitable bad news.

  "So everything's sorted, then?" she asks, not looking up at me. "They're sending someone and we'll be on our way within the hour? And you've already found a nice, cozy hotel for the night?"

  "Well -"

  "That's it, isn't it?" she continues. "Rescue? Hotel? Warmth?"

  "Not quite," I reply. "It seems the roads around here aren't too good, and the people at the recovery service aren't comfortable sending anyone out after nightfall. She said the taxi companies have the same policy. It's something to do with insurance, so..." I pause for a moment. "I guess we're going to -"

  "Don't say it," she says, turning to me and putting her hands together in mock prayer. "Please, Chris, don't say those words..."

  "I'm sorry," I continue, heading over to her and kissing the top of her head. "On the bright side, it's kind of an adventure. I bet there are people who'd pay good money to spend a night in a little old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere."

  "I'm sure there are," she replies calmly, "but those people are crazy and they have weird fetishes! They're lunatics, honey, and we're not lunatics. We like hotels."

  "Isn't it kind of atmospheric?" I ask, heading over to the window and looking out at the rapidly-darkening yard. There's not much light out there now, and I'm pretty sure that it'll be pitch black within the next hour. A thin smattering of rain has been falling steadily, and I wouldn't be surprised if more comes soon. "To be fair," I continue, turning back to Didi, "it's kind of cool. I mean, we're far away from civilization, but we've got the basics." I hurry over to the wood burner and open the metal grate, before slipping a couple of logs inside and grabbing some matches. "I'll have the place warmed up in no time," I continue, as I try a few times to start a fire. "There's food in the cupboards," I add. "Not much, but at least we won't go hungry. There's water, and a light, and a bed."

  "And a gun," she replies, clearly not too impressed, "so we can shoot anyone who tries to break in and murder us in our sleep, which I think is a legitimate concern. I mean, a gun's better than an ax, isn't it? With an ax, you have to get quite close to the homicidal maniac, but with a gun you can just blow his head off as he comes lumbering toward you."

  "It's really not that bad," I tell her.

  "Here," she replies, coming over and pushing me out the way before grabbing some old pieces of newspaper and shoving them into the wood burner. "You don't even know how to start a proper fire, do you?" she continues, setting fire to the paper before closing the grate and sliding a small metal rod to one side. "There's a skill to it," she adds with a smile. "I've got it and you haven't. Apparently I'm the hunter-gatherer in this relationship. How does that make you feel?"

  "It's kinda sexy, actually," I reply.

  She rolls her eyes.

  "Sorry," I add.

  Getting to her feet, she heads over to the cupboards and opens them to reveal a few random old cans.

  "It's not exactly the hotel in Malta," she continues, "but I guess it's something. There's also those chocolates we bought for your parents in duty free at the airport. If we get desperate, we can always break those open. I know it's a bit mean to eat them, but we're only here because they asked us to come." She turns to me, and despite the situation, there's a faint smile on her lips. "You're a very lucky man," she says after a moment. "Most girlfriends who go ape-shit in this kind of situation, but I'm a very caring and understanding girlfriend who can be easily placated with promises of nights out, gifts and holidays."

  "All of which you'll get," I tell her as I walk over and give her a delicate kiss. "I swear to God," I continue, "this is the first and last time we'll ever get stranded in a remote farmhouse."

  "A remote farmhouse where someone recently died," she points out.

  I nod.

  "A remote farmhouse where someone recently died and left behind a stack of crazy-ass notebooks," she adds.

  "Last time," I tell her. "I promise."

  "It better be," she says, grinning before she kisses me again.

  After a moment, we both turn to look at the window as a gust of wind blows more rain against the glass. It's clearly getting worse and worse out there, and although the wood burner is starting to come to life, the farmhouse is still pretty damn cold. At least the stone walls should hold, no matter how bad the wind gets.

  "You think there's gonna be another storm?" Didi asks.

  "Maybe," I reply. "What's wrong? Scared?"

  "Yes," she says firmly. "I'm terrified that there won't be a corkscrew."

  "I know a trick for getting wine open with just a slipper and a wall," I tell her.

  "Then I'll make you a deal," she continues. "I'll get the place warm, and I'll sort out some food, and I'll even try to find a way to make the bed nice. In return, all you have to do is go out there into the rain and fetch those chocolates from the car. And one of those bottles of wine we picked up as well. It'd be nice if we can find some glasses, but I'm not a classy girl. I can drink straight from the bottle if necessary."

  "Why do you get the easy jobs?" I ask.

  "Because I'm your girlfriend," she replies, "and because you feel bad for bringing me here." She pauses. "Go on. Get out there, hunt for wine and chocolate, gather them in your big, strong arms, and bring them back inside so we can start to make this evening less disastrous. I'll even read to you from Martin's notebooks later, if you fancy something really atmospheric."

  Smiling, I head to the door. There's a real gale developing, but as I head out into the yard, I'm relieved to find that the rain isn't too bad. Not yet, at least. It's a struggle to get to the car, though, and I have to fumble in the darkness for a few minutes as I try to find the chocolates and wine in the boot. Once I'm done, I head back to the farmhouse, but I pause for a moment as I spot Didi through the rain-spattered window. She's opening some of the cans she found in the cupboards, and I'm struck by the fact that I'm incredibly lucky to have her. Most people in this kind of situation would be angry, but Didi's the kind of person who can soldier on with good humor.

  I should have gone through with my original plan of asking her to marry me in Malta. Still, I'm sure I can find another good moment. With a smile, I head back into the farmhouse.

  Chapter Six

  "Listen to this," Didi says, sitting on the bed as she goes through Martin's notebooks. "No rain tonight, but I heard a banging sound coming from the kitchen. Got up to take a look, and eventually found it was a mouse that had been trapped in one of the cupboards. Killed the mouse and went back to bed. Should have known better. She still can't come with it isn't raining." She pauses, before looking over at me. "Who's he talking about?" she asks.

  Shrugging, I push the door shut and head over to the bed. Like Didi, I've decided to sleep in my clothes tonight, since the whole of Martin's farmhouse seems distinctly dirty. The place stinks of pipe smoke, pig crap and festering garbage, but at least the wood burner is keeping the place warm.

  "What about this?" she asks. "Rain again tonight, but not enough to draw her out. Heard a few scratches on the bedroom wall, but the bad weather soon passed and she wasn't able to do any more. Good night."

  "Sounds about right," I mutter. "I mean, he was pretty screwy."

  "He talks about her in all the notebooks," she continues. "It's like there was some woman who was bothering him, and he couldn't make her go aw
ay. Do you think he was delusional? Was he imagining someone here?"

  "What's the alternative"? I ask.

  She shrugs.

  "I'm certain he always lived alone," I reply as I sit next to her on the bed. "That was always one of the reasons why my parents worried about him so much. Apart from the pigs, he never had anyone around. Not a wife, not a girlfriend, nothing. From what Dad told me, there'd be a visitor maybe once or twice a year, but it was usually just someone to read the meter or bring a message from the council, telling him to take better care of his land. He didn't have any friends."

  "Could he have been referring to a pig, then?" she asks, flipping through the notebook. "Some kind of pig that only came when it rained?"

  I stare at her.

  She glances at me and smiles.

  "I'm trying to make sense of it all," she continues with a laugh. "There has to be some kind of explanation!"

  "Maybe he was just nuts," I point out.

  "Even mad people have a kind of logic," she replies. "They have rules in their head."

  "Seriously," I continue, "you shouldn't spend so long fussing about it. Anyone'd go crazy if they spent the entire life living up here alone with only a bunch of pigs for company. I mean, think about it. The guy obviously went a bit Mr. Geiser while he was here. Didn't you notice the way his hands were shaking?" I wait for her to admit that I'm right, but she simply turns the page of the notebook and carries on reading. "There was something wrong with him," I continue after a moment. "It wouldn't surprise me if the autopsy shows some kind of brain damage, or maybe bleeding."

  "Uh-huh," she replies, still engrossed in the notebook.

  "Until just over a week ago," I continue, "you'd barely even heard of him. Now you're poring over his diaries as if he's the most fascinating person in the world."