by Dan Poblocki
Mr. Faros told us to think of the tale like a metaphor. Like: What does the labyrinth represent? Dreams? Fears? Death? But, I thought, what if it doesn’t represent anything? What if it was just a place where horrible things happened?
Anyway, for the rest of the day, I haven’t been able to stop imagining this labyrinth — the stone maze that someone built so they could torture hordes of young people. Did something like that actually exist? And could it exist again today?
Once, on a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I got separated from my group. I guess I’d been staring too long at one of the intricately painted Egyptian coffins. I wandered around for what felt like forever, falling deeper and deeper into the depths of the building, looking for Mrs. Flannigan and my class, but they’d disappeared. All these thoughts ran through my head. What if someone kidnapped all of them? What if the museum somehow ate them? What if they were all playing a joke on me, and once we were back at school, everyone would point and laugh and say what an idiot I was? I knew I could find my way back to Brooklyn if I had to, but deep down I was filled with dread that I’d never see anyone I knew ever again.
Eventually, a security guard made an announcement over the intercom, asking me to approach one of the museum staff, which I did. They brought me back to the lobby where I found Mrs. Flannigan waiting for me with tears in her eyes. She hugged me until I couldn’t breathe. And I cried too, finally realizing how terrified I’d been.
Tonight, I’ve been imagining myself inside the Minotaur’s maze. In the dark. Turning left. Turning right. Not knowing where I’m going. And around every corner, there could be this giant thing reaching out for me, waiting there to snatch me and stick me in its mouth and chew me up and swallow me down.
NO ONE SAID A WORD when, pulling into the Tremonts’ driveway, they saw two large trucks pass in the opposite direction, heading away from the cul-de-sac, carting off the Dumpsters that had been parked in Ursula’s overgrown driveway since the beginning of the week.
Climbing out of the hatchback’s backseat, Cassidy felt nauseated thinking about all of Ursula’s junk disappearing into a landfill somewhere — it was the opposite of what the old woman must have wished. She stood at the end of the driveway with Ping, watching as the trucks rumbled off around the corner, the sound of their engines echoing through the valley. Both girls sighed, then dashed toward the Tremonts’ porch as the rain really started to come down.
Stepping into the foyer, Cassidy overheard Rose speaking quietly to Joey. Something that sounded like thank you. And I’m proud of you. She didn’t hear Joey’s answer but knew enough to steer Ping toward the living room, where they squatted on the floor beside the coffee table to examine the treasures that Rose had been kind enough to buy them at Junkland.
Cassidy used her T-shirt to buff Triumphant, as well as the small porcelain penguin and the tiny plastic pig on which she’d used her reward money. Ping flipped through the magazines, her long dark hair obscuring both her face and the articles that caught her attention.
Eventually, Joey wandered over carrying his map of Whitechapel. He knelt beside them, silently spreading open the map so that it covered most of the coffee table. Cassidy helped him weigh down the curled edges of paper, placing the remote control on one corner and her new tiny pets on another. Ping placed several copies of Strange State on the corner closest to her, and Joey used a PlayStation controller to secure the last.
Cassidy glanced over the map, remembering what Joey had pointed out on the ride home, the old trails that were no longer there, the streets that had appeared where once only cornfields had grown. She imagined her own neighborhood in Brooklyn, wondering how drastically a map from this same time period, maybe a hundred years ago, would have reflected the change in her everyday landscape. The world back then had been completely different. Fewer trains. Wider streets. Smaller buildings. The skyline of present-day New York belonged to a different city than the one of old.
Picking up where they’d left off in the car, Joey said, “Did you guys notice what was missing when we drove through the entrance into Chase Estates a few minutes ago?” It was a playful question, Cassidy thought, but Joey’s eyebrows were set in a serious line, his mouth pulled into a knowing smirk.
“Missing?” Ping asked.
Joey pointed to a section near the center of the map, just off the main road. Cassidy leaned closer and saw what he meant. The road clearly passed a site that had been marked “Chambers Farm.” A little rectangle was drawn near the road, labeled “house.”
“Oh hey,” said Cassidy, trying to sound excited, “that’s where we are.”
“Not quite,” said Joey. “The cul-de-sac should be farther back, away from the road.” He slid his finger east about three inches. “Here.”
Ping shook her head. “That can’t be right. This map says that the Chambers farmhouse should be right next to the main street. But the only thing that’s there now —”
“Is the entrance to Chase Estates,” Joey finished.
“Weird,” said Cassidy. She shuddered, thinking about the abandoned place a few hundred yards up the hillside. Outside, the wind picked up, heaving rain at the house, coating the screens so thickly in water that she could barely see out into the shadowed backyard. “I thought that Ursula lived in the original farmhouse. Your dad told me that when I asked him about it a long time ago. But it’s not where this map says it was.”
“Nope,” said Joey. “Either the house up the hill isn’t the original farmhouse …” He paused, nodding in the direction of the overgrown driveway. “Or someone moved it.”
“Moved it?” Ping said. “How the heck do you move a house?”
“I’ve heard of ways,” Joey said. “I think there’s a bigger question: Why would you move a house?”
OWEN CHASE SAT at his computer trying to catch up on work, but he could not concentrate. Death and the storm had kept his mind sequestered for the past hour. The rain showed no sign of letting up. It roared against the skylight in the dim office at the rear of his house — the most impressive house in all of the development.
Chase Estates. Owen had named it after himself. So what if the rest of the town thought him to be an egomaniacal pig? If they’d had the money or the clout, he was certain they’d have done the same. The American Way.
Owen had purchased the land from an elderly farmer named Aidan Chambers almost fifteen years prior, decreeing after breaking ground that no other home raised in this development would ever exceed his own five-thousand-plus square feet of living space. And yet, on nights like this, when the rain flew and the wind bellowed, Owen longed for a cozier space, something with less marble, lower ceilings — something like the home he’d grown up in on Long Island, out past the urban reach of New York City.
Sometimes, he imagined his mother was in the next room, baking her famous chocolate-chip cookie pie as he sat and watched those now classic television shows. Andy Griffith. Mister Ed. I Love Lucy. These memories haunted him, especially when he was alone in “the palace,” as his wife liked to call their home.
Tonight, however, Owen was not alone. Kitty was upstairs, lying down, having taken something to calm her nerves. She had been torn to pieces when he gave her the news about her mother, Millie, that morning. The rest of the day they’d spent making calls, answering calls, accepting condolences, giving condolences. There’d barely been enough time to consult with the Monsignor and finally with Dalton’s Funeral Home down in the center of Whitechapel before the end of business hours. Now, Owen’s email inbox was flooded, and he felt as though he’d never catch up.
The sound of the rain and the wind was not helping. Nor was his memory of the previous night, when he’d received a very unwelcome visitor …
He wondered if Kitty had an extra of whatever it was she took. Maybe he’d forget about the rest of the work he was trying to catch up on and join her upstairs.
No, he thought after a moment, if it happens again, I want to be sure my mind is clear. But a
beer wouldn’t hurt, would it?
After struggling to rise from the chair’s sunken seat, he stumbled, exhausted, toward the office door. Swinging it open, he saw the short dark hallway that led to the cavernous foyer beyond. Thankfully, Kitty had left one set of sconces glowing faintly, so that he might find his way to the bottom of the winding grand staircase.
Flicking off the light in the room behind him, Owen continued toward the glow of the foyer, passing by the garage door on his left where he’d stored most of the stuff he taken from the Hermit’s driveway. He paused, his curiosity keeping him still.
Just last night, he’d stood in the same spot, a dull whiskey buzz numbing his limbs, when he’d heard something on the other side of the door. His fuzzy mind quickly provided an image: A couple of the neighborhood delinquents had broken in and were looting his taxidermy trove. Owen had swung the door open with a loud crash. The motion-activated light was already on, and beyond the open garage door a vague indigo dusk obscured his driveway. To his surprise, there were no teenagers rummaging through his belongings; instead, to his horror, he found himself staring into the eyes of Ursula Chambers, who was standing in the direct center of the garage.
She’d been dressed in a silvery purple jogging suit, white stripes running up the sides of her plump legs, her skin sallow, almost gray. As he stared in shock, he noticed streetlights peering back at him through her. He’d clutched at the doorframe to catch himself from fainting. Ursula had turned her head slowly, seeming to take in the scene, the piles of taxidermy animals that had once inhabited her home up on the hill — the fox, the badger, the owl, the hawk — the treasure that Owen had hoped to make a mint from at the Hudson House Auction in the fall.
When Ursula had glanced back in his direction, her eyes flared with anger. She didn’t need to say a word for him to understand what she was trying to communicate: Return the items to the house. Or else.
“Get out of here!” Owen had screamed at the thing. “Get out! Get out! Get out!” By the time Kitty had come running, the apparition had gone. In fact, it had dissolved into nothingness even before he’d spit out the final word of his rampage.
Now, all that seemed like it had been a dream. A vivid hallucination. Something he’d seen in a scary movie. Bad things happened all the time — more often than most people were willing to admit — but ghosts? Ghosts existed only in the realm of fiction.
He imagined Millie, her eyes crimson, laughing at him with shimmering Ursula, their voices rising and crackling and piercing the night. How funny to watch a grown man shiver at the thought of two dead old ladies. A real hoot it must be.
Now, to reassure himself, Owen reached out, for the second night in a row, to tug open the door to the garage. This time, the room was pitch dark. Sheets of rain waved against the automatic doors. Quickly, he reached inside and flicked on the lights. Bright fluorescents flickered from the ceiling. The space was empty. Owen released a deep sigh. He chuckled to himself, not feeling particularly jolly, mostly foolish. Had he really thought he’d find them there, waiting for him?
He was about to close the door and head upstairs, when he glanced inside one more time. It was then he noticed that the four dead animals that he’d leaned against his tool storage shelves were gone.
For a moment, Owen thought again of intruders, but quickly, his mind moved on to darker possibilities. Early that morning, he’d meant to head back over to the farmhouse with the animals, right after he’d stopped at his mother-in-law’s house to drive her to the store. After being so shaken by the sight of Ursula standing in his garage the previous night, he figured that whatever easy cash he could have made from the auction was not worth a summertime of nightmares. But of course, the day had made other plans for Owen. For Millie. For Kitty. And so the animals had remained in his garage.
Except … they hadn’t. Someone had taken them.
Owen clicked off the fluorescent lights and closed the door, turning back toward the glow of the foyer. “Honey?” he called out as he ambled slowly forward, hoping she might appear at the top landing, arms open, wearing her beauty-queen smile. But his own voice bounced around the house’s entryway. Honey, honey, honey …
If he could have seen himself, could pause to imagine the sight of a six-foot tall, three-hundred pound man tiptoeing breathlessly into the marble foyer, he may have stopped and shook away his fear, doubling over in giddy laughter at his childish behavior, but his mind was keeping pace with his heart, and both had begun to hurt. Just before he crept into the light of the new room, a different sort of sound resonated off the heights of marble and stone. Somewhere in the house a click-clack, click-clack clatter of claws tapped a tile floor.
He froze. Had an animal found its way inside, trying to escape from the storm?
Click-clack. Click-clack. Something was moving through the dining room on the other side of the foyer. Coming closer. If he didn’t go immediately, it would find him standing there. The thought terrified him. Silently, he stepped backward, hoping to hide himself in the hallway’s shadow.
Growling and screeching sounds swirled resonantly around the space, mixing in awful harmony, like off-pitch voices of the children’s choir singing in church on Sundays.
Owen turned and ran. The noise of scrabbling claws erupted behind him. A high-pitched scream followed it, and Owen Chase, barreling toward his office door, released his own desperate howl. He grabbed the knob and swung the door open. He slipped inside, slammed it shut, then turned and leaned against it. He pressed the button in the center of the knob. The lock clicked.
The rain had calmed. The room was dark, his desk a vague silhouette against the far window. Owen felt pressure in his ears, the thudding of his own blood rushing into his head. He clutched his hands to his scalp, stepping silently away from the door. He wondered if this was what going crazy felt like. Or maybe he was in shock from finding Millie dead on the floor. “Kitty!” he called out again and again, shouting until his throat was raw. But then he thought, what if she wakes up? What if she comes downstairs? What if she discovers what was making those noises?
The noises … They’d stopped. He pressed his ear against the door, but the house was now quiet. If there was something in the hall, he couldn’t allow his wife to stumble into it. He had to be sure. He turned the knob; the lock snapped open. He pulled on the door, peering into the dim crack. The hall was empty. Either the sounds had been in his head, or the thing had moved on to another part of the house.
Bang!
Something toppled to the floor behind him. As lightning flashed, Owen spun. Perched on his desk were two shapes. Bright images of the hawk and the badger were etched into Owen’s sight. The hawk spread its wings in the darkness. The badger reared up, hissing. Owen raised his arms in defense. The office door creaked open as the other two specimens slipped quietly inside. None of them were quiet for long.
Mr. Stanton told me that a person can be haunted by a memory of something bad. I guess that’s why I started writing in this notebook. My memories.
But most people hear “hauntings,” and they think “ghosts.”
Some say a person can become a ghost if they have unfinished business leftover from their life. They might never have gotten the chance to tell someone that they love them, so their spirit lingers, eternally hopeless. Or a person might have been murdered, and in death, they long to tell the living who it was that wronged them. Either that, or the ghost might try to take their own vengeance.
At the cemetery near my apartment building, there is lots of strange energy, at least according to Janet and Benji. They say they’ve heard all sorts of stories about ghosts haunting the grounds. I’ve always wondered, What kind? The kind that loves? The kind that kills? Or the kind that are only memories?
Once, the three of us went walking there after school. We wandered the twisted paths, up and down hills, snaking past gravestones and monuments. Janet had brought her phone, which has a pretty good camera in it. We came to one spot where a large mausoleum w
as built into the steep hillside, so that the roof of the weird building actually met the lawn.
Above the door, a name had been carved into the stone. WHITNEY. The entrance had been boarded up. A crooked gate was locked across the boards with rusted chains. Benji was the one who’d noticed that there was space at the bottom of the doorway to see inside. Staring into the darkness, we saw a set of stairs leading down into shadow.
At the bottom of the stairs was a room, and at the back of the room was a wall made up of small compartments. Janet explained that this was where the Whitney family was entombed, that each compartment contained a dead body. I stumbled back, but she leaned forward, pulled her phone from her pocket, and reached through the bars to take a picture.
A weird thing happened when we got back to Janet and Benji’s place. She uploaded the pic to her computer, where we could examine it on a bigger screen. What we saw gave us goose bumps on top of our goose bumps. In the middle of the tomb, there was a bluish mist. And in the middle of the mist, Janet pointed out, a pair of black eyes was staring up at us. We could just make out the shape of a head, thrown back. Its mouth was twisted open. Janet deleted the picture immediately, then yanked the computer’s plug out of the wall, even though I told her that might mess everything up.
Later, when I was trying to sleep, I thought about ghosts. Then I thought about the cemetery and Janet’s picture. I wonder, when I am dead, will my ghost hang around on earth for unfinished business? What business did the figure in the mist have down in the darkness of the tomb? The thing didn’t look human. And then I wondered if what Janet had captured on her camera might be something other than a ghost. But what? A ghoul? A demon? Or something worse? Something I can’t even imagine?
I never got all the way to sleep that night. And I haven’t been back to the cemetery since.