Every House Is Haunted

by Ian Rogers

  Consciousness returned in what Joe thought was a very cinematic fade-in of details. First everything was blurry and wavering, like the dissolve before a flashback. Then they gradually became clearer, details filling in, shapes taking on sharper, more definite forms, until he got a complete picture of his surroundings.

  He was in a movie theatre.

  Of a sort.

  It was a dark, cavernous room with aisles and seats and a big screen, but that’s where the similarities ended. The walls were covered in what Joe first took to be photographs—Polaroids, he thought, isn’t that what psychos always put on their walls?—but when he squinted at them he realized they were a combination of screen shots and storyboard stills. The high walls of the theatre were covered with them.

  “Where the hell am I?” Joe asked, rubbing his head. He was lying on the stage in front of the screen. Below him, on the floor between the stage and the first row of seats was a group of young people, one of whom he recognized as the kid who brained him with the film canister.

  “You’re in our sanctuary,” the kid said in a squeaky voice that robbed it of any reverence.

  “Your what?”

  “The place where we come to pay worship.”

  Joe felt a cool tingle of fear. “Are you Scientologists?” he asked.

  “No,” the kid said. “We’re Cultists.”

  “Oh Christ,” Joe muttered. He looked wildly around the theatre. On the back wall, above the square hole where the camera peeked out of the projectionist’s booth, was a red neon sign that said THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR.

  “We are the Director’s Cult.” The kid saw Joe’s face and held up a calming hand. “It’s just a play on words. We’re not really a cult. We don’t worship Satan or kill people or anything.”

  “Good to know,” Joe said feebly.

  “Our mission is to show the world the cinema that has been hidden for too long. To part the red velvet curtains of ignorance and deception. To reveal the truth about deleted scenes and alternate endings. The Unseen Hollywood.”

  “The Unseen Hollywood,” the other Cultists said in low, reverent voices.

  “What does that have to do with me?” Joe’s voice trembled as he struggled to remain calm. “Why did you kidnap me?”

  “We didn’t kidnap you,” said the Cultist. “We liberated you from those who would take your work—your art—and lock it in a vault, never to be seen.”

  “What are you talking about?” Joe said. “Most DVDs feature bonus features, including deleted scenes.”

  The Cultist shook his head regretfully. “Nothing more than a useless gesture. People don’t really see. They don’t know. We’re going to show them. We’re going to make them see. Make them realize a movie is more than just the sum of its parts. It’s also the pieces that don’t make the final cut.”

  Joe swallowed dryly. Sarah’s words echoed in his mind: Sometimes it’s about what you don’t see.

  The lead Cultist signalled to the others and they came forward.

  One of them grabbed Joe’s arms, the other his legs, and together they lifted him up and onto a low platform he hadn’t noticed behind him. There was a mechanical whirring sound and the screen began to rise up into a slot in the ceiling. Behind it was an enormous machine that looked a bit like the Play-Doh Fun Factory Joe had played with as a kid. He struggled harder.

  The Cultists bound him to the platform with some sort of crinkly, shiny material that Joe’s frantic mind realized was film stock. These guys were crazy. Didn’t they know everything was done digitally these days?

  The platform to which Joe was bound was positioned underneath the towering machine. From his vantage point Joe was looking up at what appeared to be an enormous lever. The kind a giant might use to squeeze juice from an orange. Or in this case, Joe.

  “Christ!” he shrieked. “You said you didn’t kill people!”

  “We’re not killing you,” said the lead Cultist. “We’re deleting you.”

  “How is the public supposed to learn the truth if I’m dead?”

  “You won’t be dead. You will live forever in the eternal heaven of the silver screen.”

  “The silver screen,” intoned the other Cultists.

  “You will be a symbol for deleted actors everywhere. A symbol that the studios will be unable to ignore. They may take your lives, but they will never take your freedom!”

  Joe frowned. “That’s from Braveheart.”

  The lead Cultist shrugged and signalled to one of his brethren. The other Cultist picked up a control box dangling from the ceiling by a thick insulated electrical cord. He pressed a red button and the sound of heavy machinery powering up filled the theatre.

  Joe didn’t know much about the production side of filmmaking, but he knew what he was looking at . . . what he was lying directly beneath. It was a larger version of a device that some might say was the real thing that made movies.

  A film splicer.

  Joe closed his eyes. He told himself this was only a movie. This wasn’t real. Soon someone would yell “Cut!” and he’d be having coffee with Sarah and the other actors. Every action was followed by a cut. This is what he told himself while the sound of the machine grew louder.

  All he had to do was be cool. Stay in character.

  And wait for the cut.

  Six months later, Barton Collins received a package in the mail.

  He was in his office making phone calls. He had met a couple of actors at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival who hinted that they might be interested in new representation. It was good for them, but especially good for Bart. He needed clients. He was losing clients like fleas off a dead dog. He sent them out on jobs, but they didn’t always come back. Most of them he figured left the business out of frustration, or decided to move to New York or L.A. to be closer to the action. Actors could be so flakey. Sometimes Bart wished he had listened to his mother and become a chiropractor.

  He opened the package while he punched in a phone number he had written down on a bar napkin. Inside was a DVD. He vaguely recognized the title; probably a flick featuring one of his actors. He checked the cast list on the back of the box, but didn’t recognize any names. He looked at the cover, which said this particular DVD was a “Special Limited Collector’s Edition.” That meant it had all kinds of bonus features, like behind-the-scenes documentaries, audio commentary tracks, deleted scenes. Stuff he never bothered watching.

  The phone number was out of service. Bart swore and slammed down the receiver. He dropped the DVD in the wastebasket next to his desk and went to put on a pot of coffee. He thought about calling his mother.

  THE TATTLETAIL

  “Dad, I need a demon.”

  John Smith put down his copy of The Paranormal Times and looked at his son: twelve years old but small for his age; soft blue eyes magnified by outsized horn-rimmed glasses; thin, almost feminine lips, carefully neutral, nothing like the petulant frown Lizzie used when she wanted something.

  “A demon? Whatever for?”

  “The school’s putting on a talent show for pets. Demons, bogeys, familiars—as long as they’re not classified as dangerous with the Registry, anything can be entered.”

  John folded his paper, crossed his left leg over the right, and steepled his fingers thoughtfully under his chin. “Well, a talent show certainly sounds like fun, and while I’ve encouraged you to take an interest in the Academy’s extracurricular activities, I’m not sure owning a demon is a good idea.”

  “Why’s that, Dad?”

  John smiled inwardly. Ever the judicious debater was his son. “Owning a pet is a big responsibility,” he explained. “And a demon! Your mother would throw a fit!”

  “I’ll feed it and take care of it,” Tad said. He removed his glasses and calmly wiped them on the hem of his dress shirt. “I’ll keep it outside. You and Mom won’t even know it’s there.”

  The Demonology Department at Blackloch Academ
y looked more like an aisle in a library than an office. The walls were top-to-bottom bookshelves, the lighting was virtually nonexistent, and the air was so still that to the casual observer the room seemed to exist in a total vacuum. The only furnishings were a small roll-top desk and a straight-backed chair, over which a Blackloch Owls varsity jacket was draped.

  When Tad entered, Professor Dandridge was standing in the middle of the room with his hands behind his back, almost as if he were expecting him. He was certainly an odd man, both in looks and demeanour. One of those unfortunate people who was both very tall and very skinny, with rails for arms and stilts for legs, his head seemed to float in a nimbus of silver hair that some students opined made him look like a mad scientist. According to the Blackloch rumour network, that hair had been fire-engine red until Dandridge spent a night in the Ivy-Lesper mansion in Lotusville. And that was just one of the many stories floating around about Blackloch’s demonology professor. Another said that Dandridge got his suits at the local mortuary . . . with a spade and shovel. Tad didn’t think that particular yarn was true, despite the Demonology prof’s admittedly fresh-from-the-grave wardrobe.

  “Young Tad Smith!” Dandridge beamed. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Hi, Professor,” Tad unslung his backpack and took out a hardcover book with a frayed binding. “I came to return your book.”

  “Capital!” Dandridge’s hands emerged from behind his back and came together in a hollow clap. “Sea Serpentry and the Bermuda Triangle.”

  “I liked it,” Tad said, handing it over. “Dr. Cody has some interesting theories on migratory habits. Was he ever able to prove any of them?”

  “He tried,” Dandridge said with a dark grin. “Oh, how he tried! He used to teach here, you know. Advanced Biology, aquatic species, of course. He went on sabbatical—oh, it must have been three or four years back—to the Fuqua Islands.”

  “In the North Pacific?”

  “Yes, that’s right. He was about to start a year-long study of the Marianas Trench.” Dandridge patted the book with one of his long, cadaverous hands. “He believed there was a portal located at the bottom. If true, it would’ve gone a long way to proving a lot of the theories in this book.”

  Tad gave this what he hoped was a respectful amount of consideration. Then he said, “Professor, I was wondering if I could borrow another book?”

  “Oh? Did you have one in mind?”

  “Demons, Deities, and Demi-Gods.” He coughed into his hand. “The advanced edition.”

  Dandridge folded his arms and leaned against one of the book-lined walls. “That’s a serious book,” he said evenly. “Would this have anything to do with the school’s talent contest?”

  Tad looked down at his shoes.

  “I thought so. Well, I don’t see the harm in lending you that particular volume. It’s not as if it were part of the Restricted Collection. But I don’t think I need to tell you that demons classified as ‘dangerous to humans’ are strictly verboten in the talent show. And only a handful of Portentas are—”

  “I know, sir. And yes, I was planning to enter the contest. I just . . . I wanted . . .” He frowned. “. . . I didn’t want to use something out of the primer, sir. That’s what everyone else will be doing. I wanted to be different.”

  “You wanted an edge.” Dandridge’s colourless lips spread in a vulpine smile.

  “Yes,” Tad admitted, “I wanted an edge.”

  “I would never keep a pupil from learning—” As he spoke he turned to the shelf he had been leaning against and selected a volume bound in dark red leather. “—especially one as bright as you, Smith. And as I said before, I can’t prohibit you from borrowing it. But I will remind you to stay within the rules of the contest—”

  “I will, sir.”

  He held the book out to Tad.

  “—and don’t even contemplate purchasing anything dangerous—”

  “I won’t, sir.”

  Tad took the book.

  “—and above all else, be sure to have an adult present.”

  By the following evening Tad had gone through the book six times and kept coming back to the same entry—Cordovian Tattletail. The book described it as a mimic that takes on the characteristics of whatever it eats. Tad didn’t know exactly what that meant; like many of the books about demons he had read, vague descriptions seemed to be the rule rather than the exception. But he figured that as long as he kept its diet simple, then there shouldn’t be any possibility of a gruesome bloodbath.

  There was only one place that he could purchase a demon locally. The Mall, as it was called in most circles, was a pocket portal not unlike the one Dr. Cody theorized was at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. Quite literally a tear in the dimensional fabric of reality, which in this instance also happened to be the most popular hub of commerce in magic artefacts in the Tri-State area. Tad had been there with his family a few times. One of those trips had been to Heads and Tails, a pet shop that specialized in rare demons. They had gone for Lizzie’s birthday, and she had picked out a sinister-looking fish, called a Striped Shadow, which had lived for about one week. (At the toilet-side service, Tad pontificated aloud on the health and safety of Lizzie’s kids, should she have any one day, and was summarily sent to bed without his dinner.)

  Tad was confident he would be a better pet-owner than his sister. And because the talent contest was being sponsored by the Blackloch Academy, he was able to convince his mother and father to foot the bill for the Tattletail in the interest of his budding education. “But you know the rules,” his father said from behind his newspaper. “If it turns out to crave human flesh, you have to banish it.” Tad agreed. But as long as he kept the Tattletail on the vegetarian diet he had planned out, it wouldn’t be a problem.

  No problem at all.

  “It smells,” was John Smith’s first and only comment on the matter of Tad’s Cordovian Tattletail. And, to be fair, there wasn’t much more that could be said. In comparison to some of the other entries in Demons, Deities, and Demi-Gods, the Cordovian Tattletail was no great shakes—at least not in the looks department.

  It was the size of a large puppy, with smooth, grey skin and a long slim body. Its eyes were the colour of dull rubies and stared out from beneath a thick precipice of brow. One moment it appeared to be scared; the next it seemed decisive, thoughtful. It was a Lesser Demon and a Portenta, the latter meaning it could turn into something more than the former. If given the proper motivation.

  Tad named it Dennis. Not because it looked like a Dennis or because he thought Dennis was a particularly good name. Dennis was merely the first one that came to mind. That was how Tad’s thinking worked most of the time. On those very few occasions when his projects resulted in failure—like the time he brought the futon to life and it went through the big picture window in the living room, never to be seen again—he invariably gave his father the same answer: It seemed like a good idea at the time. Tad was not aware that these seemingly random decisions were in actuality communiqués from his subconscious, and that his decision to purchase a Cordovian Tattletail and name it Dennis came from the same place as the decision to enter the talent contest in the first place. Nor would he have cared. If Dennis turned out to be a Great Old One, one of the unspeakable deities that could destroy entire galaxies by blinking, and inadvertently brought about armageddon, Tad would have offered up the same explanation.

  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

  He took Dennis out to his mother’s greenhouse. The vegetarian diet was to begin today, but first he needed to pick up a few groceries. As he escorted Dennis to a huddle of potted ferns, he made a mental note to secret the veggies off his dinner plate. Waste not, want not.

  A week later, Dennis had doubled in size. He was now as big as a Shetland pony and as green as the Incredible Hulk. He had eaten five ficus trees which were Betty Smith’s pride and joy, and Tad had been forced to relocate Dennis to a chained post b
ehind the woodshed. He mowed the lawn twice that weekend and fed Dennis the clippings. The demon grew and grew.

  The following week a series of thunderstorms rolled through town and Tad learned something else about his Cordovian Tattletail. One of those things they neglected to mention in the text books.

  He had gone out to the woodshed around eight that morning, as had been his routine since becoming a pet-owner. He had put on his slicker and galoshes and went out to the chopping block where Dennis liked to sleep. Usually the demon was awake and waiting for him, red eyes gleaming, mouth open and salivating. But not today. Tad found Dennis lying on his side with his back to him. He didn’t appear to be breathing.

  Tad ran over and crouched down next to Dennis. He felt for a pulse and located it—both of them, in fact—but it was low, very low. And his breathing was very shallow. Tad timed it on his Casio as only two or three breaths a minute.

  “Dennis! Dennis, wake up!”

  He grabbed the demon’s long, scrawny arm and shook it. Two red pinpricks of light appeared in the deep hollows of his eyes. Tad untied him and carried him back to the house. Tad’s dad remarked that Dennis smelled worse wet than he did dry and disappeared back behind his paper. Tad’s mother told him to take Dennis out to the greenhouse.

  Tad did as he was told, carrying the demon out to the greenhouse and placing him on the workbench. He turned on the heat lamp his mother used for the few tropical plants she grew and trained the light onto Dennis. He wasn’t thinking about the talent contest. He just wanted Dennis to be okay. He never had a pet before and hadn’t expected to feel so attached to it. It wasn’t a bad feeling.

  “Photosynthesis,” Tad said for the third time. He spoke in the tone of someone discussing festering wounds and putrescent corpses. “Photo-stinkin-synthesis.”

  It was Monday. The thunderstorms had packed their bags and moved on. Dennis was on the mend, but Tad’s prospects of winning the Blackloch talent show were not good.