by Ron Ripley
A flicker caught his eye.
Brian paused, his fingers just barely resting on the keyboard. He looked to the doorway and saw the basement door was open. Not by much, maybe an inch or so, but it was open.
He lifted his fingers off of the keyboard and cracked his knuckles. His eyes never left the doorway, but nothing moved. The door to the basement remained open.
Did I really see something? Brian thought.
Probably.
His hands shook slightly as he went back to work.
Again something flickered, and he looked up quickly.
The hem of a dress vanished to the right.
Brian cleared his throat and asked, “Mary?”
Nothing.
Brian’s scalp seemed to crawl, his skin tingling. Was it Mary? Wouldn’t she have stopped and waved?
“How the hell do you know what she’ll do?” he asked himself with a bitter laugh.
Shaking his head Brian tried to pay attention to his work. He opened a new email, tried to --
The computer flickered and powered down suddenly.
The light on the desk turned off, and the room was lit solely by the sun coming in through the tall windows.
The door to the office closed, the click of the lock painful to Brian’s ears.
Something was in the room with him.
Something, or someone.
Brian really didn’t know how to describe it even to himself.
The room grew colder, his hands starting to ache. Within a few moments, Brian could see his own breath.
“Who’s here?” he managed to ask.
He received no answer.
The window on the right suddenly glazed over, ice crystals racing across the glass.
Brian turned in his chair, taking hold of the piece of grapeshot as he felt the cold intensify. The second window glazed over as well. The cold moved around him, ending in front of the desk.
He struggled to keep his heart from racing.
“Who’s here?” he asked again.
Someone whispered yet Brian couldn’t make out the words.
“Who?”
“Elizabeth,” the voice hissed in his ear.
Brian stiffened, shaking slightly.
“Elizabeth,” the voice said again.
With a shuddering breath, Brian asked, “Do you need anything, Elizabeth?”
“Pain,” the voice answered.
“You’re in pain?” he asked.
Something terribly cold burned into the back of his hand.
“Free me.”
“How?”
“Free me.”
“I don’t know how,” Brian said, shaking his head.
A shriek pierced his ears, and the bulb in the lamp exploded, shards of glass cutting through the shade and slashing across his face.
“God damn it!” Brian shouted, turning his head.
The door flew open, bouncing off of the wall.
The cold disappeared. Warmth returned.
“Screw this,” Brian said, standing up, touching the cuts on his face gently. “I’m tired of this bullshit. I need some whiskey and some goddamned iron. This is my house now.”
Chapter 18: Samuel and the Deaths
Had Paul Kenyon been a murderer when he was alive? Was he still one now?
Sam sat in his armchair, smoking his pipe, and pondered the questions. The smoke curled around him, and Sam looked at the dark television screen in front of him.
Could Paul have killed people, before he had died?
Was that even possible?
Sam tried to remember everything about the boy he had known.
Yes, Paul’s temper had been frightening. Yet not too frightening since it had never been directed at Sam.
Paul didn’t like grown-ups. Paul never had.
Sam thought back to his childhood. It seemed so long ago.
Paul had loved it when they could get into Wilton on a Saturday morning and make it to the movie house. The two of them would spend all day in the theater, watching the cartoons and the serials, and being mesmerized by the newsreels about the war while it was being fought.
Paul had loved the combat footage.
Sam had also enjoyed it, not really seeing it for what it was, not really knowing what horrors could be found in war.
Perhaps Paul had truly loved the carnage of it all.
The idea bothered Sam.
Sam tried to remember the past for what it had been, not what he would rather it had been:
The hired hand who had scolded Paul for going into a stall with a wild horse. The man had left the farm abruptly afterward, leaving his meager belongings behind.
A maid who sickened and had to be brought down to Boston, where she had barely survived her unknown illness.
Paul’s parents.
Paul’s parents.
Sam closed his eyes, horror sweeping over him.
Yes. Paul could have easily murdered his own parents.
How the boy would have gone about the task, Sam didn’t know, but he knew Paul would have found a way to do it. Paul had never liked the rules his parents had attempted to enforce. Paul had, in fact, only ever listened to his grandfather.
But why is he here? Why hasn’t Paul moved on? Has he killed others?
Sam felt certain he had. Over the decades, people had been found dead around the farm, but always from natural causes. Hell, there had even been that poacher who died of a heart attack the other night.
Sam stood up and left the room, walking to the front hall to fetch his jacket and a cane. He felt awful, and he wanted a walk. Regardless of the threat Paul represented, Sam was going to go for his walk. He was going to smoke his pipe.
Paul Kenyon would not frighten him away from the thing Sam loved to do.
Sam would walk.
He closed the door behind him, heading out into the early evening, fighting the growing unease building within.
Chapter 19: Brian and the Graveyard
My mom called. She needs my help. Be home a little after seven.
Brian had a good buzz on when the text came through a little before five. He sent a simple, Okay, in response and poured himself another whiskey.
His face was flushed, and he was a little dizzy even holding onto the edge of the counter. He left the whiskey open by the sink, unsure whether or not Mary would put the bottle away, although he no longer really cared whether she would or she wouldn’t
I need to know what’s going on, Brian thought. I need to know if they’re down there still. Did they leave?
Brian finished off his drink, put the glass by the bottle and turned to look down the hallway towards the basement door.
He had closed the door before entering the kitchen and in a moment, he would see if it had remained closed.
Carefully, his balance skewed slightly from the alcohol, Brian left the room.
A nervous laugh slipped out as he caught sight of the open basement door.
The lights were on, and Brian thought he heard something as he started down the stairs.
Someone laughed gently.
Yes, Brian thought with a sigh. Yes, someone’s down there.
He paused on the stairs, the light harsh as he blinked, trying to decide if he was doing the right thing. Should I wait for Jenny?
Brian knew he should, but curiosity was now getting the best of him.
He had to know what was going on.
He placed his right foot on the dirt floor and felt their presence.
A terrible chill, far worse than the one he had faced in his study. Even with the whiskey in him, Brian started to shiver as he pushed his hands deep into his pockets. He squeezed the grapeshot and started towards the hidden room. The temperature continued to drop as he crossed the floor.
The light bulb by the stairs shattered, leaving a single bulb glowing by the furnace.
Gritting his teeth Brian walked the rest of the way to enter the small room.
The false wall was still open, the air
still and dark.
Brian couldn’t see anything, but he heard something. Something moving in the darkness.
“Mary?” he asked, his voice hoarse and shaking.
Silence.
“Elizabeth?”
“Yes.” A whisper, nothing more.
“Are you alone?” Brian asked hopefully.
“No.”
His stomach plummeted. He tried to keep his breathing in check, his strained heart threatening to beat its way out of his chest.
Christ, please don’t let me die down here.
“Who else is with you?” Brian managed to ask.
“The others.”
Brian rolled his eyes and stifled a nervous chuckle. “Okay. Who are the others?”
“Mary, Nathan, Margaret. And others,” Elizabeth whispered.
“Why won’t Mary answer?” Brian asked.
“She can’t,” Elizabeth answered. “She’s mute.”
“Oh,” Brian said. He took his hands out of his pockets and put them under his arms, trying not to shiver. Licking his lips nervously, he asked, “Why are you still here? Do you, do you know you’re dead?”
Laughter filled the air, and not just Elizabeth’s. Brian heard the deeper voices of men mingled in.
“Of course, we know we’re dead,” a man said. “We wish for nothing more than to be away from here.”
“Do you?” a soft voice asked, and the laughter stopped.
“Do you all really wish you were no longer here?” the same soft voice asked again. “Or do you wish that you were like this man here? Flesh and blood? Spirit in the body? Able to touch and to feel, to know once more the pleasures of the body, to taste the food and to smell the autumn?”
No one answered, and Brian found that he was too afraid to even move. The cold around him was becoming unbearable. He couldn’t stay in the basement much longer. He clenched his teeth tight to stop from chattering.
“They lie to you,” the soft voice said. “They lie to you. If they could take your body from you, they would. Yes, they’re trapped here. We all are, and there are more, far more than those buried beneath this house. The boy killed many and more. It is his passion. Yet do not think the dead wish for nothing more than freedom from this house. What you have, what you enjoy, they wish for those things as well.”
“You speak too much, Edgar,” a female voice hissed.
“Not enough, perhaps,” Edgar replied. “You need to beware, Brian Roy. The danger to you and your wife comes not only from the boy but from some of these others as well.”
A scream ripped out of the darkness, followed by dozens more and a great cacophony erupted. Fighting the urge to run in the darkness Brian made his way out of the room, heading towards the dim light showing at the top of the basement stairs.
“Where do you go my love?” a lilting voice purred in Brian’s ear. “Do you not wish to stay here, to let me taste your flesh?”
A cold hand caressed the lobe of his ear.
“No,” Brian said, keeping steadily on toward the stairs.
“You must,” the voice said pleasantly. “You will. One night when you are with your wife, it will be me and not her. The others are not strong enough for such a thing, but I am. Look for me in your wife’s eyes.”
The voice’s creepy happy laugh followed Brian up the stairs and sounded through the door as he slammed it closed.
Chapter 20: Sam Starts to Read
Sam liked to read. Researching different topics was usually a relaxing way to spend an evening.
Now, though, now he was fighting the urge to read until he passed out.
Sam had gone to half a dozen libraries and as many bookstores.
On his dining table stood stacks of books. Perhaps fifty, and those were only the most reliable books that he could find on the subject of ghosts and how to remove them. Sam had no doubt that he had spoken with Paul. He had no doubt either about Paul’s ability to kill and harm on a regular basis.
Sam needed a way to stop Paul. He needed to find a way to send him on to the light. More than a few of the books recommended doing that. That was how you were supposed to get rid of ghosts.
Sending the poor ghost, who wasn’t aware of their own death, on to the great beyond.
Sam was fairly sure most of the advice was convoluted made up rubbish. And they were wrong about the whole not being aware ‘of their own death,’ thing as well.
Paul was dead. Paul knew he was dead. Paul seemed like he was having a grand old time killing things.
Sam had done a little research on deaths around the Kenyon farm.
Perhaps sixty for certain. All perfectly normal, natural deaths. Nothing unusual about it being on the farm, considering the original farm had been over three hundred acres. Three hundred acres that included thick woods, a few areas of sharp granite faced drops, a swamp, and more than a few brooks. People hunted the land when they weren’t supposed to, hiked it when it was posted not to, and some had even tried to log parts of it.
In 1967, a crew of five men trying to harvest some maple trees in the northeast corner of the property died in a truck fire. All five men burned alive in the cab of the truck.
No one could figure out how five grown men had gotten into the cab of a truck, or why they had locked themselves in and didn’t try to escape.
Sam had a good idea though; Paul.
Hunters accidentally shooting themselves. Fishermen accidentally drowning. Hikers dying from falls or medical conditions.
Paul.
Sam felt certain Paul had killed many and more. He was pretty sure some bodies were never found.
Sam had seen other articles in local papers over the years and never thought twice about them. Stories of men going missing on hunting trips. Hikers vanishing.
Yet while the dead included men and women, there were never any children who were killed.
Paul had always liked other children. Neither Sam nor Paul had seen many other children outside of school and yes there had been the usual fights and rivalries, but Paul had always liked the company of other kids.
Sighing, Sam closed the book he had been looking at and stood up from his chair. He walked back to the dining table, put the book down and stretched his old and tired body. Beyond the windows, the sun started its descent below the horizon, and Sam would eat a simple dinner. After that he would walk as he had always walked, regardless of Paul’s threats.
Sam would walk.
Sam went into the kitchen, going about the business of getting his dinner ready and thinking about what he had read so far about ghosts.
‘Going to the light,’ was the one coherent theme so many of the authors had stressed. But Sam knew Paul wasn’t interested in going to the light. The boy was simply having far too much fun.
The other option was to ask Paul, politely, to leave.
Sam snorted, shaking his head as he started the water to boil for the oatmeal. Again, Paul didn’t want to leave.
After issuing a polite request, some of the books suggested attempting the purification of the home the ghost was attached to. But Paul was attached to the farm, and the farm was huge. Yes, Paul’s grandfather had donated some of the land, but he had donated it to the town to serve as a conservatory.
Perhaps the old man had known Paul’s ghost wouldn’t have been restricted to new boundaries placed upon the farm. Setting some of the land up as conservatory land would have kept people from building houses on Kenyon land. Houses where, of course, Paul would have enjoyed free reign.
So, the question was how did one go about purifying an entire farm?
It didn’t sound like a feasible option.
Two options thus remained. First, Sam, and hopefully the man Brian, could find someone who might be able to exorcise Paul and send him to the afterlife whether he wanted to go or not. The second, if the first wasn’t an option, was to find a way to trap Paul in one place and bind him there.
Both of those options, however, would require the assistance of Brian.
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The man had seemed approachable and pleasant if a little nervous from his encounters with Paul.
Paul had been Sam’s best friend. Speaking with Paul at the turnaround had been wonderful. Realizing Paul would kill him in the barn had not.
Sam sighed, brought his dinner to the table, and sat down to eat.
He would need to speak with Brian soon.
Chapter 21: Jenny Comes Home
Brian had managed to make it back into the parlor. After turning up the heat and starting a fire in the hearth, Brian still hadn’t been able to get warm until just before Jenny came home.
The click of the deadbolt caused Brian to look into the hall. He half expected to see someone other than his wife walk in.
The smile on her face fell as she looked at him. Closing the door behind her, and seeing his ashen face, Jenny asked, “Babe, are you okay?”
Brian shook his head.
“What happened… and…” Jenny paused in front of the doorway, looking down at the floor. “Is this salt on the floor?”
“Yes,” Brian managed to say.
“I thought that we needed kosher sea salt,” Jenny said, stepping over the line and entering the room.
“I don’t know. The old man just said salt. That was it.”
“What old man?” Jenny asked. She took off her coat and dropped it and her bag on the sofa before sitting down in her chair.
“The old man in the barn,” Brian said, and then he told her everything that had happened. Everything about the boy and the old man all the way to the ghosts in the basement.
By the time, he was finished talking, Brian’s throat hurt. Jenny sat back in her chair, her face having growing paler with each part of the story revealed.
“You can’t live like this,” Jenny said shortly. “We can’t live like this.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean your heart may just give out.”
“I know,” Brian said. “We can’t walk away from the house, though. We’ve put a lot into it.”
“Maybe Sylvia knows someone who’d be able to help us,” Jenny said. “I don’t think what we need she’d be able to do herself. She seemed kind of upset about what had happened when she was here.”