by Joe Hart
He shook his head, waiting for something else. Another warning? Premonition?
“Evan, are you okay?”
He glanced at Becky, who still held Shaun’s hands in hers. Her eyes looked cautious. How long had he been standing there?
“I’m fine, gathering my wits. Not much to gather, though.”
Becky laughed politely at the joke.
“Okay, you be good,” Evan said, stepping forward to kiss Shaun on the forehead. “And like I said, you need anything, definitely call.”
“Will do.”
He stopped at the door to don a sweater and grab his laptop. He knew if he looked back one more time, he wouldn’t leave. With the feeling of plunging out of an airplane, he shut the door behind him and jogged down the hill, toward the lake.
~
Evan glanced at the van’s dashboard clock and looked around the vacant park for the third time. Wind buffeted the vehicle, making it rock on its springs. The street he parked on had no traffic, and the only buildings in sight were a row of townhouses and one small apartment complex on the corner. Dead leaves from the previous fall skipped down the sidewalk, their hides raw and brown, ready to crack and break apart with the spring’s moisture. Other than the breeze and pressing clouds, he was alone.
The door to the van opened, filling the vehicle with cool air.
“Shit, you scared me,” Evan said, relaxing as Selena smiled and climbed into the passenger seat.
She wore a blue knitted hat that contrasted her brown hair nicely, along with smart-looking slacks and a short coat.
“Sorry, couldn’t help myself,” she said, still grinning.
“Yeah, you look sorry,” Evan said, putting the van in drive. “Did you really eat lunch out in this weather?”
“Well, no, not today, actually. But I almost always do when it’s nice. I love that park. Barely anyone comes there, it’s so peaceful.”
“I could’ve picked you up at your office.”
“I know, but I like to walk, and it’s not that far from my building.”
Evan guided the van through the streets of Mill River until they rode south out of town. He couldn’t help look out his window at the lake, seeking the island.
“You doing okay?” Selena asked.
He brought his eyes back to the road. “Yeah, I’m good.”
“Worried about him?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Yes.” She smiled and lightly touched his arm. “I’m sure he’s fine. You said the PCA was highly recommended, right?”
He sighed. “Yeah, she is.”
“Then they’ll have fun while you’re off ghost hunting.”
He had to smile. “I hope we don’t run into any ghosts.”
“You said we’re going to an abandoned mansion, right? All those places are haunted, don’t you watch TV?”
“You believe in ghosts? A learned woman of psychology?”
“Sure. There’s too many people telling too many stories for it not to be true.”
“Collective hallucinations.”
“Not a chance.” She looked at him. “What do you think?”
He remained quiet for a long time. “People are haunted, not buildings. There’s things inside that they can’t let go of, and that changes them, usually not for the better.”
They drove in silence after that, with only the rush of a passing car to break it. A dirt road appeared on the right, and Evan slowed, reading the street sign.
“Wicker Road,” Selena said, as they turned onto the narrow drive. “I’ve never even noticed this before.”
The road ran straight for nearly a mile. A band of thicket not yet fully greened lined each ditch, the tops like clutching fingers bared to bones. A small farm appeared on the right, its buildings derelict, paint faded to gray, doors at odd angels.
“Nice neighborhood,” Selena murmured.
Wicker Road curved once to the right and then dead-ended in a tangle of brush and mature pines. Evan slowed the van and panned the small turnaround before the forest. A break in the woods opened to the left, and he eased the vehicle forward until they were even with it.
A lane extended in a line through the heart of the forest. Hunched trees with bowed trunks bent over the narrow drive, creating a gloomy archway large enough for a small car to pass through untouched. Evan glanced at Selena and raised his eyebrows.
“Really?”
“Oh yeah,” he said, cranking the wheel toward the lane.
Dry branches scraped against the van’s body, at times emitting a shriek like nails on a blackboard. He grimaced each time an especially loud screech came from outside, imagining what the paint would look like once they got through. After a minute of slow travel, the encroaching trees retreated and a low structure appeared.
“Shit,” Evan said, stopping the car.
Climbing out, he walked to the edge of the plank bridge running across a small, but swift-flowing stream several yards below. Tentatively, he stepped onto the bridge, waiting for it to moan or crack under his feet. It felt solid.
“You’re not really considering that, are you?” Selena said, her head poked through the open window of the van. She rolled it up as Evan climbed back inside.
“I think it’s fine. It looks sturdy anyway.” He glanced at Selena and couldn’t help smiling at her beleaguered expression. “If we break through, it’s a short fall.”
“Oh, in that case, let’s go.”
He eyed the bridge one last time, then gunned the engine. The van rocketed forward onto the planking and sped across without a bump. Evan grinned out of the side of his mouth but didn’t look at Selena. He heard her draw in a breath to say something, but she stopped.
The forest thinned and then disappeared completely, a clearing expanding into a level field, in the middle of which sat a three-story house. A rounded turret graced the front of the building, with black windows set in each level. The top had broken off at some point, leaving the turret with an unfinished look. The rest of the house appeared church-like, its walls smooth, with high-set windows in the shapes of circles and ovals. The siding was dark and rain-beaten and missing boards in a few places. Rotting shingles lay on the ground near the entrance beneath its towered front.
Evan pulled the van within thirty yards of the house and put it in park. The gray clouds above the building seemed to be only feet from the roof.
“You really know how to show a girl a good time,” Selena said, looking through the windshield.
“It was either this or the movies,” he said, grabbing his notebook from the center console.
They walked across the empty yard to the front door. The porch sagged beneath their feet, and nail heads poked through the wood, waiting to snag clothing or flesh. The oak door stood solid in its frame, with only a small peephole in its surface. Evan stopped before it, resisting the urge to lean forward and peer through the little glass eye. What if something was looking back? He shuddered.
“You’re serious about going inside?” Selena asked.
He nodded. “I want to look around, and it doesn’t seem like anyone would mind. There wasn’t even a gate across the driveway.”
He watched her give the house a look and cross her arms.
“You don’t have to come inside, you can wait in the car.”
“No thanks, I guess I’ll take half the blame when we get caught for breaking and entering.”
Evan turned the handle on the door, and it swung open without a sound, revealing a dim entryway.
“See, no breaking, just entering.”
Selena rolled her eyes.
He stepped inside, smelling the mustiness of the air, the damp scent of rotting wood and paper. Although dark, he could still make out the space they stood within. The entryway stretched toward another room, much larger than the one they stood in now. The place looked gutted. He didn’t see furniture or other adornments anywhere. Bland paint curled away from the walls in revolt, and somewhere, he heard a slow drip of water.
Plaster and insect carcasses crunched beneath his shoes.
“Charming,” Selena said, behind him.
Evan soaked in the atmosphere, imagining the house as it must have looked decades ago. It would have been impressive, especially for the time it was built. They made their way into what looked to be a large dining room with high oval windows set in each wall. An animal nest of some kind lay in one corner, and the house creaked around them with a nudge of wind.
“Apparently clock-making was a good gig back in the day,” Evan said.
What could only be a kitchen branched off to the left of the dining room, and straight ahead a stairway ran up and turned toward the second and third levels.
“If we fall through the floor in here and get trapped, no one’s going to find us, you know,” she said.
He smiled. “That reminds me of a Care Bears episode, did you ever watch them when you were a kid?”
Selena shook her head, trying to avoid crushing any more bugs beneath her shoes.
“This little girl tricks a couple of boys into coming to an abandoned house to look for treasure,” Evan said, as he put his weight on the first stair. “They fall through the stairs and end up in this little room in the basement. The girl comes to look for them after the Care Bears tell her she should, and they rescue the boys.”
“Well, if we fall through, we’ll pray for Care Bears then.”
“Shaun likes the Care Bears,” Evan said, almost to himself.
The stairs held them as they climbed to the second floor. A hallway with over a dozen rooms branching from it consumed the level, and Evan barely paused before continuing up. A rickety wooden railing leaned toward them as they neared the third floor, and he had to push it out of the way for them to pass. At the top of the stairs, a single door stood closed, with only a dark bathroom taking up the space to the right, the single leg of a claw-foot tub poking into view.
“This is their room,” Evan said. “This is where they found her.”
He couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice. Reaching out to the doorknob, he found that his fingers trembled when he touched the cold metal. Without waiting any longer, he turned the handle and pushed, the door swinging open with a squawk.
The room was enormous, taking up most of the third floor. Stained hardwood floors that would’ve been luxuriant ninety years ago were dark with water and time. The walls, once covered with some sort of decorative paper, lay bare, studs showing through the plaster like bones peeking from torn flesh. A ring of windows lined the far wall in the round shape of the turret, which made up that part of the room, and only one was shattered. A single painting, its image obscured by the damp conditions, hung on the left wall. Evan walked toward it, checking the floor as he did.
Selena let out a small gasp behind him. He turned, sure that one of her feet had fallen through or some type of animal startled her. Instead she faced the right wall, with one hand close to her mouth. Evan started to ask her what was wrong, but he followed her gaze and stopped dead in his tracks.
The shadow of the grandfather clock was on the wall.
Fear bred of impossibility rushed through him, starting in his chest and flowing outward like cold water running through his arteries.
“What is that?” Selena asked, her hand still close to her lips.
Evan walked forward, forcing away the shock. As he neared, he saw that the shape on the wall matched the clock’s outline perfectly. The height and width were both right. The edges of the shadow weren’t crisp lines but faded, elongated, and jagged. Reaching out, he stretched toward the dark silhouette.
“Evan, don’t,” Selena whispered.
He looked over his shoulder and saw Selena’s sculpted eyebrows bunched together. She shook her head.
“Don’t.”
“It’s okay,” he said, and placed his hand on the rough wall.
Nothing happened. He almost expected something to, but his fingers merely skimmed the dusty surface, making a rasping sound. He studied the shadow for over a minute before stepping back to take in its full form again. This was where the clock had stood years and years ago.
“It looks like it’s scorched,” he said, the resonance of his voice hollow and weak in the large room.
“Scorched? Like there was a fire?”
He frowned and leaned forward, rubbing the edge of the stain with his fingers. They came back with only dust on them.
“There’s no soot coming off it, though I don’t know if there’d be any left after ninety-some years.”
“That’s really creepy,” she said, sideling up next to him.
Her shoulder brushed his, and a tremor of heat raced down his arm. Ignoring the sensation, Evan stepped forward again and traced the outline.
“Have you ever seen pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bombs were dropped?” he asked.
“No, why?”
“The heat and radiation were so intense that the shadows of objects were burned into walls behind them.”
Evan stepped back, still looking at the dark striations along the edges of the shadow, their lines like brushstrokes of midnight. He stared at the center of the shape until Selena touched his arm.
“What does this mean?”
“I don’t know. This isn’t what I expected to find.”
“What did you expect?”
“I’m not sure. Something, but not this.”
He walked away from the spot, pausing to examine the floor in one corner before moving to the windows. The view of the forest and field surrounding the house was breathtaking, but something looked off. It took him a few seconds to realize what it was. The grass and trees closest to the house were dead. In an almost perfect circle around the building, the foliage looked brown and dismal. When they’d entered the house on the ground level, the effect hadn’t been noticeable, but from a higher vantage point, it became obvious.
Tearing his eyes away from the spectacle below, Evan moved along the wall, trying to process the clock’s shadow and the lack of growth outside. His shoulder caught something hard as he walked, and when he turned to look, he saw that the corner of the painting had snagged his shirt. He unhooked the cloth, expecting the painting to shift, but it didn’t. He reached out and tried to move the picture, but it stayed firmly in place.
“Glued or something.”
He looked closer at the painting, with its running lines that once might have been a graceful depiction of something in nature. A hole sat in the middle like a black eye forever watching the room. Evan put his finger against the hole’s edges. It looked as though someone had shot the painting with a gun.
“What?” Selena asked. She stood by the doorway gazing longingly back down the stairs.
“I said this picture is glued or—”
His tongue stilled as his eyes hovered on the lower right side of the painting. He reached up and, with care, rubbed the spot with his thumb.
“Evan, I don’t mean to sound like a wuss, but I’m starting to get a little freaked out. Can we go?”
He nodded, his eyes still locked on the words etched in the painting. “Yeah, let’s go. I think I got all I need here.”
Even in the wan light, the name stood out in ink that hadn’t suffered the span of years. He read it one more time to be sure he wasn’t seeing things, then turned toward the doorway, giving the clock’s shadow one last look.
14
“Yay, Shaun! You did it.”
Becky clapped her hands and watched Shaun’s face light up as he looked at the finished puzzle before him.
“Yay!” Shaun said.
“You did great. Okay, what’s next? Should we have a snack?”
He slapped his hands down on the table and grinned.
“Oh, be careful not to hurt yourself. I’ll get us a snack.”
Becky rose from the kitchen table and moved to the fridge, her gaze wandering to the gray light outside. The clouds hadn’t released a single drop of rain, but they hadn’t abated either. If anythin
g, they looked darker. With a quick glance into the living room, she continued toward the refrigerator.
The house didn’t seem so spooky after being in it a while. She’d almost turned back before getting to the island, her childhood fears becoming more pronounced as the boat pushed her closer and closer to the Fin. As kids, she and her friends had floated near the island on inner tubes and rafts, daring one another to set foot on land. There had been a running wager: fifty dollars to whoever actually did it. No one ever collected on the bet, and now she couldn’t remember who, if anyone, had held the money.
Shaking her head and smiling a little at the memory, Becky picked up a cereal bar from the counter then pulled the fridge door open and scanned the contents. She grabbed a juice box for Shaun, then paused, her hand hovering over a half gallon of chocolate milk.
No, that’s why Greg isn’t with you anymore, remember?
She sighed and settled for a low fat yogurt instead.
A gloom, which had nothing to do with the weather or her location at the moment, descended over her as they ate at the table. She stabbed her spoon into the yogurt as though it were the culprit of her unhappiness.
“Men are shallow, Shaun. Don’t grow up to be shallow, okay?”
Shaun swallowed his bite of cereal bar, his eyes large. “’Kay.”
“You’re such a sweetie, you know that?”
He smiled, his teeth covered with bits of the bar. Becky laughed and helped him with a sip of juice.
A dog whined behind the basement door.
Becky froze, her hand trembling enough that the straw pulled away from his lips.
“More?” Shaun asked, signing the word too.
“Shhh, hold on,” Becky said.
She stared at the door for almost a minute, sure that she’d been mistaken about what she heard. The Tormers didn’t have a dog—at least, Evan hadn’t mentioned it.
“Do you have a dog?” she asked, her eyes still on the door.