by Ron Ripley
“Completely understandable,” Brian said. His hands trembled slightly, and he knew that he wanted a drink. He didn’t need one. He just wanted one.
All the more reason not to drink.
“Do you want me to ask her?” Jenny asked.
“Yes,” Brian said. “I would love it if you could ask her.”
A groan sounded from the hall. Brian didn’t even bother looking over his shoulder. Jenny’s head snapped up and she looked for the sound.
“What was that?” she asked.
“The people in the basement.”
“What?”
“The dead people,” Brian clarified. “The dead people in the basement. They’re a little frustrated right now.”
“Why?”
“Is the basement door open?” Brian asked.
Jenny shook her head. “No. Why?”
“Just making sure.”
“Did you put a lock on it?”
“Sort of.”
“What do you mean ‘sort of’?”
“I took the hammer and some four-inch nails and nailed the damned thing shut.”
“Oh.”
Brian nervously switched the grapeshot from his right hand to his left.
“Did you try salt?” she asked.
“Yup.”
“Did it work?”
“Nope. Evidently the little bastards can still open a door, evidently just not cross the line.”
“What’s that groaning sound?” Jenny asked.
Brian looked at her tiredly. “The sound of dead people pushing the nails back out. They’ll have the door open soon.”
The groan sounded again, ending sharply before being followed closely by a loud clatter.
“That was the second nail,” Brian said, with just a hint of pride. “Only eight more to go,’ he shouted at the ghosts behind the door. Laughter chased his words and something heavy banged against the basement door.
Chapter 22: Sam Risks the Kenyon Farm
A soft snow fell from the sky, the clouds hiding the moon and the stars. Sam’s small flashlight reflected brilliantly in the snowflakes and the light layer of snow coating Old Nashua Road. At the intersection, he paused, waiting for a plow with its blades up to pass before turning around and heading back the way he had come. The driver gave a quick pull on its air-horn.
It was probably one of the few men working for the State that Sam had known.
Sam waved at the disappearing lights of the truck, the spreader on the back of the mammoth vehicle spinning and throwing out a wide arc of salt and sand on the pavement. Walking at an easy, careful pace Sam aimed towards his house, which he knew he would eventually pass by on his way to the turnaround.
He started to wonder why, after so many years, did Paul speak with him? Was it the because Brian and his wife had moved into the Kenyon house? But that really couldn’t be it. Others had lived in the house, tenants, none of whom stayed longer than necessary. With so few houses on the road it was easy to know who came and who went. Who stayed and who didn’t.
Never had someone other than a Kenyon owned the home, though.
Was the loss of the home part of the answer; the fact that someone other than a Kenyon now owned the property?
Part of Sam wanted to say yes, but he knew new owners couldn’t be the sole reason.
Paul had enjoyed killing long before someone knew moved in, that much was now obvious.
No, Brian may have helped irritate Paul, but he wasn’t the sole responsible person. In fact, Brian wasn’t responsible at all.
Paul was a rotten kid. Far more rotten than Sam had ever known.
Sam passed by his house, the front light shining brightly on the porch, the lamp in his dining room glowing warmly. Soon he would be in the warmth of his own home, but first he wanted to stop at Brian’s house.
Sam needed to speak with the man.
Taking his pipe out of his coat pocket Sam paused long enough to relight the tobacco before continuing on with his walk. The familiar, pleasant smell of his pipe mingled with the smell of the snow.
Snowflakes hissed as they struck the embers, his own footsteps muffled by the snow falling. The snowfall was still light, but it was slowly building in intensity
Sam remembered the many snowstorms he had worked, both as the driver of a plow and as a foreman. Part of him missed the work; the older part of him did not.
He caught sight of the Kenyon house.
All of the lights on the first floor were on. Two cars were in the driveway, each of them with a light coating of snow. Sam had started his walk far later than usual, and if the wind was right, even with the deadening effects of the snow, he would hear the bell at the First Congregationalist Church chime eight o’clock.
Feeling anxious Sam passed by the house, reached the turnaround and looked nervously for Paul.
Sam couldn’t see his old friend anywhere.
He felt no relief, however. Part of him was sure that Paul was watching him, waiting for him to come too close.
Taking a long pull off of his pipe, Sam let the smoke out and crossed the road. He walked back along the now snow covered asphalt, his own footprints rapidly disappearing as the snow continued to fall. In a moment, he stopped at the driveway of the Kenyon house.
No need to wait on what you know needs to be done, Sam thought.
Straightening up, he walked the length of the driveway, held the railing with a gloved hand and climbed the stairs to the porch. He rang the bell and waited.
A moment later the door opened, and a pretty woman answered the door.
“Yes?” she asked, her eyes flicking past him, instantly registering his lack of a car.
Sam took the pipe out of his mouth and smiled at her. He liked this woman already. “My name is Samuel Hall.”
Her smile pleasantly interrupted him. “Mr. Hall. Yes, Brian mentioned that he saw you today. You didn’t come back, though.”
“I did not,” Sam admitted guiltily.
“Well, if you like you can come in,” she said, stepping aside and holding the door open.
“Thank you,” Sam said. He went to put his pipe down on the porch railing, and she stopped him.
“Don’t worry about that,” she laughed. “Thank you, though. Brian’s having a cigar right now.”
“Thank you,” Sam smiled. Putting the pipe stem back into his mouth Sam walked into the house, the woman closing the door behind him.
“I’m Jenny, by the way,” she said, locking the door.
“Sam,” Sam responded. He pulled off a glove and shook her hand. “A pleasure.”
“Likewise. You can just put your things on the boot tray if you like, and there’s a hook on the back of the door for your jacket.”
Jenny waited as he shed his winter gear, even stepping out of his boots. He could remember Paul’s mother always insisting that the boys do that, regardless of the season or the door that they entered through. She had not kept the rooms clean for little boys to make dirty.
Straightening up, Sam glanced at the basement door and stopped.
A hammer lay on its side by the door, long, four-inch nails scattered on the floor. The door was open a few inches, and he could see the holes in the door where the nails had been driven through.
“Brian tried to make sure the door stayed closed,” Jenny said.
Sam followed her into the parlor, careful to mind the layer of salt on the threshold.
Brian was sitting in the same chair that he had been in earlier, and the man looked ill-used. Brian raised an eyebrow as Sam sat down on the sofa. Jenny sat down in a chair across from her husband.
“I am glad to see you,” Brian said after a moment. “I honestly expected to find you dead in the barn the next time I gathered up the courage to do go out there.”
Sam nodded. “It was an unpleasant experience. I saw Paul out there. Had we not been friends in our childhood I think that he would have killed me.”
“But yet here you are again,” Brian said. “Why?
”
“Paul has to be sent on his way,” Sam said. “More than likely his grandfather is still here because of Paul as well. At first, I thought Paul was being kept here by his grandfather, but I think the man is here to keep Paul from others. If Paul can be sent on then, perhaps the grandfather can as well.”
“There’s more than just the grandfather and the boy,” Jenny said.
Sam frowned. “What do you mean?”
“There are more ghosts, more dead people,” Brian said tiredly. “In the basement there are graves, Kenyon family one and all. And it’s not just the dead family members kicking around. Oh no. There’s a whole congress of the dead bastards. There are nine that we’re sure of, but after that, well, who knows. Our friend said that there were a lot more hanging out on the edges.”
“On the edges,” Sam said, “like where they were killed.”
“What?” Jenny asked.
“Over the decades,” Sam said, taking his pipe out of his mouth, “there have been many deaths associated with the Kenyon property. Most people don’t realize or remember just how big the farm used to be. Until the seventies, the property belonged solely to Paul’s grandfather, Mr. Richard W. Kenyon. Shortly before his death, however, he deeded the lion’s share of his land to the town, to be kept as conservation land. More than two hundred acres.”
“Damn,” Jenny said.
Brian nodded his agreement.
“With a property as vast as the Kenyons’, and with one covering everything from swamps to forest, there are plenty of opportunities for someone to become injured,” Sam continued.
“And a lot of people were injured,” Jenny said, closing her eyes. “We’re pretty sure that a lot of them were out and killed. Our friend Sylvia said the same the other night. She said there were others on the periphery, watching, waiting to see what happened. People trapped but unable to leave. They’re held here by something, she just couldn’t figure out what.”
“She’s a perceptive woman,” Sam said.
“She is,” Brian agreed. “More than I gave her credit for.”
“So,” Jenny said. “How do we go about sending all of these ghosts on their way?”
“I’ve done a little research,” Sam said. “Just a little, mind you. There’s a lot of information out there and really no way to tell the good from the bad. It looks as though an exorcism could be tried. We don’t want to try and simply cast them out of the house, or from the property. That could set them loose on other people.”
“What if an exorcism doesn’t work?” Brian asked, sitting up a little in his chair. “Is there another option other than casting them out of the house?”
“I have read that there are ways to trap ghosts,” Sam said. “I do not, however, have any experience in such matters.”
“Sylvia does,” Jenny said.
“Will she come back?” Brian asked.
Jenny shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll ask her. She might even be able to bring someone else to help, or to take care of it all together.”
“And what if we don’t want to go?” a low voice asked.
Sam looked to the doorway and saw a large ghost standing there. The specter was that of a man, nearly filling the doorway. His form slid in and out of the world, yet Sam realized he had seen the man before. Stern photographs in the house when Paul had still lived.
One of Paul’s relatives. An old Civil War veteran. A man of pure violence, if the oral history of Paul’s family had been true.
Sam believed the stories.
The ghost looked malignant.
“I don’t want to go,” the man said, looking down smugly at the salt. “There are many of us who don’t want to go, bound as we are to this place. I have many and more things that I wish to do to those who travel my lands.”
Brian looked at the ghost and then turned his back to it.
“Anyway,” Brian said with a sigh. He took a long pull off of his cigar and looked at Sam. “You think that someone can actually trap them if they can’t be exorcised and we can’t be bad neighbors and just kick the ghosts out?”
“Yes,” Sam said.
“I’ll send Sylvia a text now,” Jenny said, picking her phone up off of the coffee table.
A strange, surprisingly comfortable silence fell over the room.
Until the ghost spoke again.
“Do you really think that you can remove us from our home?” the ghost asked, chuckling. “You cannot.”
Sam watched Brian get up, transfer something from his left hand to his right and walk to the doorway.
Brian took his cigar out of his mouth, exhaled and as he put the cigar back he threw a punch with his right hand.
The ghost laughed, but the laugh turned instantly into a howl of rage as Brian’s fist passed through the ghost.
“Prick,” Brian said, walking back to his chair.
“How the hell did you do that?” Jenny asked, voicing Sam’s own question.
Sitting down Brian opened his right hand and showed them the small iron ball he had been holding. “Iron. Just like Sylvia, and Paul’s grandfather said. Iron.”
Jenny’s phone chimed, and she picked it up.
“Sylvia said she doesn’t do anything like that, but she has a friend who does. She gave him our information and he’s on his way,” Jenny said.
“Good,” Brian said grimly. “Anybody want some coffee or something to drink?”
“Coffee please, babe,” Jenny smiled.
“Water please,” Sam said. A feeling of nervous excitement raced through him as he thought about someone coming to deal with the ghosts.
“Two coffees and one water,” Brian said, standing up again. “Let’s hope none of the dead get annoyed because I’m in the kitchen.”
Sam watched as Brian left the room, the muscles of the man’s jaw seeming to dance under the skin.
He’s more afraid that he’s letting on, Sam thought. But he sure does seem as angry as he does scared. He’s a good man.
Silence settled over the room as he and Jenny waited for their drinks, the logs in the fireplace snapping behind them. Somewhere in the house, a person laughed, and footsteps ran across the floor above them.
“I hope Sylvia’s friend gets here soon,” Jenny said, a note of anxiety in her otherwise calm voice. She pulled at an earlobe and tapped her foot.
Sam could only nod in agreement.
Chapter 23: Leo Moreland Arrives
Leo surrounded himself with books.
Literally.
His two room apartment was a massive gathering of books.
The books, most of them careworn and well-read, were written in an array of languages. They were also piled on everything except the coffee maker, and Leo’s bed.
His bathroom didn’t have any books in it though. Leo feared for their safety around water.
Leo had four pieces of furniture. A desk for research, an old Queen Anne, wingback chair battered by time, the narrow bunk he slept on, and the bureau for his clothes.
Few people were allowed into his apartment.
The windows were covered by bookshelves. The sun damaged books.
Leo had two lights. One behind his chair and one on the desk. He didn’t trust electricity, and he made sure everything was unplugged before he went to bed and when he left the house. He had his reasons.
Leo hated the very idea of fire near his books. So he didn’t have a kitchen. He didn’t have a microwave. Just a coffee maker.
Leo ate out for every meal. Leo ate every meal at the small restaurant in the building across from his own.
He made good money doing research for people, writing for people, and trapping ghosts.
Leo disliked trapping ghosts, but it was something he knew had to be done.
When Leo trapped a ghost, he bound it within a miniature edition of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. He would bring the book to a medium who could then take the necessary time to convince the ghost to move on.
Leo made good money: Money to pay for his a
partment, money to pay for his meals, and most importantly money to pay for his books.
Leo was sitting on his bed, taking his shoes off when his phone buzzed.
He picked it up off of the floor. The text was from Sylvia.
Can you help a friend of mine and her husband?
Yes, he sent back.
Thank you.
A moment later an address in Mont Vernon followed.
It’s bad, she added.
Okay.
Leo put his shoes back on, wondering how much a cab to Mont Vernon would cost. He picked up his phone and called the cab company, requested Frank and gave the address.
“It’s going to be an hour or so before he gets there,” the dispatcher said.
“This is Leo.”
“Leo?” the dispatcher asked and in the background, Leo heard someone speak. “Oh. Um, Frank’s on his way. About five minutes.”
“Thank you.”
New dispatcher, Leo thought. Everyone else knows my voice.
Leo took his wallet and keys off of the desk, as well as his miniature Macbeth. He took his jacket off of the back of his chair and pulled it on before unplugging the electrical cords.
Soon he was standing at the entrance of the building, slightly out of the snowfall which increased steadily as he waited. Within several minutes, a maroon Mercury Sable with ‘SK Taxi Service’ on the sides pulled up.
Leo stepped out into the weather, hunching his shoulders against the snow as he crossed the old sidewalk to the car. Leo opened the back passenger side door and climbed in.
“Hello, Leo,” Frank said, smiling at him in the rearview mirror.
Leo smiled back. “Hello, Frank.”
“Mont Vernon?”
“Yes. How much?”
“Twenty for you, Leo,” Frank said, not bothering to signal as he shifted gear and pulled away from the curb. “Need me to wait when I get you there?”
“Please.”
Leo buckled up as Frank picked up speed, disregarding and ignoring road signs, most traffic lights and the weather in general.
Leo forced himself to relax. Frank had been his preferred driver for nearly ten years now. Frank’s first cab had been haunted, and Leo had helped the ghost move on. The ghost, an irritated Unitarian minister, had caused several minor accidents by disturbing the other cab’s electrical systems.