by Karina Halle
The place was dark, all familiar shadows. A thick layer of dust coated the floor and stuck to the chandelier above. Everything was exactly how I remembered it, down to the furniture. Even the same paintings hung from the walls, including one I used to love, Renoir’s Les Dejeuner des Canotiers. While Perry’s mom walked forward, stepping cautiously down the hall, I ducked into the living off to the side.
It had the most light, the windows large and tall, facing the street. There was a Christmas tree in the corner of the room branches brittle but still green, strands of cobwebs strung up over the lights. Stranger than that, there were presents underneath it. Just a few, but they were there, still wrapped. Waiting.
I stared at that for a few moments. I could almost make out “Declan” on one of them. A strange droning, buzzing sound came from inside the package and I had the sudden urge to go look at it, open it, but suddenly Perry was at my side.
“What the hell?” she breathed and I froze in a cloud in front of her face. I hadn’t even noticed it had been that cold in here. “Whoever was here last, must have had to leave before Christmas time.” She timidly walked across the room, to the mantle above the fireplace where Michael’s trophies were displayed. “I can’t believe they never came back for their stuff.”
I was here last, I thought as she peered at the closest trophy.
She looked to the next trophy, blinking hard. “These are all for Michael O’Shea,” she said, her voice soft and confused. “I don’t get it.” She looked at me. “Dex, was your family the last ones in this house?”
“This is all our stuff. But it I don’t know, there must have been other people. That was so long ago. We would have sold the house, I know we would have.”
“Wow.” I turned to see Maximus behind me, taking it all in. “You can feel that, right?”
“It’s freezing,” Ada said, stepping into the house, the last of us. “And it’s giving me the willies.” She went to close the door behind her and Maximus shouted out, “No, don’t!”
But it was too late. The door closed. Not sure why that made me smile.
Ada gave Maximus an odd look then reached for the knob and yanked on it. The door opened right away and I could see the relief on his face. It was like he expected us to be locked inside. Actually, I expected that too. In some ways, I wanted it.
Now that I was here, I had no intention of leaving.
I was home.
“So this place is freaking you out, is it?” I said to Maximus with a smug smile.
His gaze on me was trained and careful. “There’s definitely a feeling here.” He looked at Perry. “You feel it, it’s heavy, the air.”
“Could be all the dust,” Ada said, wrinkling her nose. She walked down the hall toward where her mother disappeared. As she passed the Renoir painting, something in the painting moved. It was barely noticeable. Ada didn’t pick up on it. But the black eyes of the woman in the background, leaning on the railing, watched her move past.
Then the eyes were looking at me. I sucked in my breath until I felt a hand at my waist.
I jumped and whirled around to see Perry staring up at me, a hurt expression on her face.
“What is it?” she asked.
I shook my head and eyed the painting. It wasn’t moving now. Suddenly I was glad that the front door had opened when Ada tried it. Why some part of me wanted to stay in here was beyond me. I felt like it was already starting to mess with my head.
Don’t tell them that, a man’s voice came into my thoughts.
I turned around, certain that it was Maximus right behind me, talking. But he was paused at the foot of the stairs, as if debating whether to go up or not. I wanted to tell him that was a bad idea. All of this was a bad idea. Whatever clarity I had moments ago was gone.
And yet, I felt compelled to keep exploring.
“Where did my mom and Ada go?” Perry asked suddenly, looking panicked.
“We’re in the kitchen!” Ada’s voice rang out from around the corner.
“Maybe we should just all stick together,” Maximus said, stepping away from the staircase. “I don’t think splitting up is a good idea.”
I laughed, despite myself. “It’s not a haunted house, Scooby Doo.”
He exchanged a look with Perry but didn’t say anything. I was starting to hate all their little glances and unsaid words. Still, I followed them.
The kitchen looked exactly as I had remembered. I mean, to a fault.
The table was made with settings for three people. One at the head – where Pippa would sit. The other two across from each other at mid-table. There was never a place for my father – he was never home – and there stopped being a place for my mother. She was just never sober enough.
Each setting had a red, white and black graphic woven placemat, something Swedish that Pippa had picked out, a plate, a fork, a knife. There were matching graphic napkins held together with a silver circle. Her place had a white glass. The other two had mugs.
One of the mugs said Michael. The other said Declan.
Perry’s mother was standing over them in a daze. She slowly raised her head and looked right at me.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Why are these still here?”
The answer wasn’t in my eyes. I had nothing.
Perry and Maximus were equally silent, trying to make sense of it. Ada leaned over Michael’s cup and peered in.
“Oh, gross!” she cried out, stumbling backward into her mom who held her up. Her hand went to mouth, looking like she was going to vomit.
Curious, I walked over and looked for myself. It was filled to the brim with wriggling black insects. I stared at them for a moment, trying to figure out why it was familiar.
“What is it?” Perry asked. I heard her come up behind me.
I glanced at her over my shoulder and smiled. “Just Michael’s daily tea.”
She frowned, her face paling a bit. “Dex. What is going on here?”
I shrugged and walked over to the fridge. I opened the door.
A puff of dust blew out of it and once it cleared, I could see a dead rat inside, the black insects crawling out of it. “I guess they came from here.”
“All right,” Maximus said, irritation coloring his tone. “This is getting ridiculous. I think it’s time to leave.”
“It’s always been time to leave,” Ada said with disgust, walking around the table and heading to the hallway.
“No!” I suddenly yelled, the force of my voice surprising myself. Ada stopped in her tracks. Everyone stared at me in shock. “We’re not leaving until I find what I’m looking for!”
“Dex,” Perry said carefully. “I don’t know what’s going but someone is playing a cruel joke on you, on us. None of this shit should be here all these years later. Dex, we have to go. You’re not yourself.”
At that, Jingle Bell Rock came blaring out from the living room. Perry’s mom screamed, jumping in the air.
I ran out of the kitchen and down the hall to the living room my eyes briefly glancing at the Renoir lady. She had the head of a blackened goat.
I skidded to a stop at the entrance to the living room and felt everyone crowd behind me. Perry sucked in her breath.
The Christmas tree was lit up, a mess of cobwebs and twinkling lights. The radio was blaring and black candles were lit everywhere, inky droplets of wax gathering around their stems like they’d been burning for decades.
“The presents,” I heard Perry whisper. Under the tree, the presents were leaking shiny red blood, soaking through the wrapping paper.
All of a sudden a few thumps resounded from the ceiling, making the light fixtures swing. That was the upstairs bathroom above us.
We weren’t alone in the house.
But then again, I already knew that.
It was time for me to come home.
I turned and quickly darted up the stairs, taking them two at a time while Perry yelled for me to stop. But she was already too far away and the world wa
s turning a little too black.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Perry
I didn’t know what happened. One minute we were staring at the Christmas display in the living room, as if the house still had electricity under all that dust, the next minute Dex had pushed past me and started sprinting up the stairs.
“Dex!” I yelled at him, trying to grab on. What had Maximus just said about not splitting up?
“Damn it,” Maximus cursed and then went up the stairs after him. I was about to but then I didn’t feel quite right about leaving my mother and sister downstairs alone.
“I think you guys should leave,” I told them but their attention wasn’t on me. It wasn’t on Dex and Maximus who had gone up the stairs. It wasn’t on the Christmas display and the presents of blood.
It was on the man standing by the window, slowly pulling the curtains shut. He was wearing a sharp suit, his back to us. There was something off about him. It was his hand, as he reached for the curtain.
It was a cloven hoof.
The curtains closed, shutting out the outside world, making the world inside turn black. I widened my eyes, trying to see better but the man was gone, disappearing into the shadows of the room
“Who the hell was that?” my mother asked, her voice soft and shaking. I looked to her and Ada. They both looked like they were going to faint.
I swallowed down the lump in my throat, my mouth feeling like it was filled with sawdust. I hadn’t even noticed how fast my heart was racing until I felt it leap against my chest.
“I don’t know,” I croaked out. “I don’t know, I don’t know.” I grabbed their hands and they both gasped from fright and I pulled them toward the front door. I didn’t know what was going on, but this was not their fight. This was Dex’s, and because it was his, it was also mine. But my mother and Ada, they had no reason to be here, no stake.
They had to go. It had been a mistake to bring them here in the first place.
I reached for the doorknob, ready to turn it and escape into the heat and sunshine that seemed like another world, but I cried out in pain instead. It was as hot as grabbing a stove top and immediately seared my skin.
“Perry!” my mom cried out, reaching for my hand. I could barely open it, it was already raw and red, burning away. “We need to get ointment on it.”
“We need to get out of here,” I told her, trying to push past the pain. “It’s fine. Let’s go out the back.” There had been a glass door leading from the kitchen into the small backyard, we had just been so enraptured by the place settings that I didn’t get a good look at it.
We hurried to the kitchen and were surprised to see that the blinds in there had been pulled shut too, shuttering us in darkness. I went straight to the backdoor and reached to open it with my good hand but Ada had already beat me to it, wrapping the end of a placemat around her palm as a precaution.
But the doorknob wouldn’t turn, no matter how hard she tried. “Fuck!” she yelled.
I expected my mother to admonish her for her language but she was looking back at the hallway. While Ada struggled, I turned and saw a little boy enter the kitchen, dressed in pajamas.
“What are you doing in my house?” he asked. He had to have been around seven years old, sandy hair, big dark eyes. He had a sharp look about him and spoke like he was highly educated for his age.
My mother and I exchange a glance.
“Uh,” I said, “you live here?”
Had we just been busted in someone else’s house?
But as much as that seemed like it, that couldn’t be it. The little boy narrowed his eyes at us and padded across the kitchen to the table where he sat down. “I’m not the only one here,” he said. “I expected dinner to be ready.” He clasped his hands in front of his plate and bowed his plate, as if he were saying grace.
My mother cleared her throat. “I think we have come in here by accident. Could you tell us the proper way out of here? The front door and this door don’t seem to be working.” Her voice was shaking but she was holding it together.
The boy kept his eyes closed and mumbled a few incomprehensible words under his breath before saying, “You can get out through my window. Upstairs. But don’t go out my brother’s, you’ll fall to your death.”
My chest tightened as the kid reached for Michael’s mug and brought it toward him.
“I wouldn’t drink that,” I told him. “Something has gone rotten in there.”
He looked at me and his eyes were completely black, like a shark’s. My mom stiffened beside me, seeing it too.
“There’s something rotten in the whole house, so as long as the door stays open.”
“What door?” Ada asked, sounding like she wished she hadn’t opened her mouth.
He brought the mug to his lips and took a sip. Tiny black woodbugs fell from his lips, spilling onto the table where they squirmed. “You don’t want to go through that door,” he said. “I was brought there once.” He wiped his lips with his pajama sleeve, leaving the bodies of insects behind. He looked like he wanted to continue but he shut his mouth.
This had to be a dream. This couldn’t be happening. Nothing was making any sense at all and the longer we stood in that kitchen, talking to a little boy in a house full of dust, the more the outside world seemed to darken beyond the blinds.
This isn’t a house, I thought to myself. This is nowhere. This is where we were led.
The boy smiled at me. “I can hear your thoughts, you know.” He said this with pride and a wicked look came over his empty eyes. “You are opening the door wider, just by being here. That’s what he told me.”
“What who told you?” Ada asked.
“The man in the suit,” he said simply. “The more you stay, the wider the door gets. He says you need to stay here with me.”
“What is your name?” my mother asked in a harsh voice.
He turned the mug so we could read it. “Michael,” he said, pointing at the name on the mug. “My brother is upstairs. We’ve been waiting for him for a long time to come home.”
“Why?” I whispered. I found myself clutching onto my mother’s arm with my good hand.
Little Michael smiled at me. “Do you want me to show you?” He looked past me at Ada and my mother. “You’ll have to come too. Then I’ll show you how to get out.”
I wanted to find Dex and Maximus. I wanted a way for Ada and my mom to leave. We really didn’t have a choice.
“Okay,” I said. “Can you promise no harm will come to any of us, including Dex?”
Despite his eyes, he looked crestfallen. “I would never hurt my brother. I wouldn’t hurt any of you either.” He got out of his chair and started toward the hallway. He said over his shoulder. “But the man in the suit…” He raised his finger to his lips. “Stay quiet so he won’t know you’re here.”
But the man in the suit already knew we were here. That was the man in the living room. And when we crept down the darkened hallway, my eyes were drawn to the painting on the wall. What used to be a watercolor of people sitting around and talking and eating was now a scene of utter destruction, dismembered bodies being engulfed by flames. I could almost hear their screams and feel the heat of the fire.
There was a laugh from the living room and I could just see someone long legs as they sat in a chair, the wall blocking me from the sight of their body. A glass of scotch was on the table beside them. Silent night was humming softly from the speakers while the fireplace was now lit. The perfect scene on a cold winter’s night. Even though I knew I would see a cloven hoof if he reached for his scotch, and then maybe a face of unimaginable horror, I couldn’t do anything but stare.
But little Michael reached for my hand, tugging it, his finger still at his lips. His eyes implored me to follow him and to not go into living room.
He led us up the stairs, his ice cold hand in mind, and down the darkened hallway. All the doors we passed were closed and I couldn’t help but wonder which one Dex was in. Everything wa
s so quiet, so, so quiet, that it was hard to imagine anyone being up here at all. But both Dex and Maximus had to be, unless the both escaped the way Michael was about to show us.
At the end of the hallway there was one door open and I got the impression that the inside of the house was a lot larger and longer than it should have been, as if it was existing in its own dimension.
“In here,” Michael whispered and pointed inside his room. We stepped in. There was a small lamp lit in the corner, casting the room in shadow. There were trophies and ribbons and pictures of cars and trucks on the walls. There was also a window that was slightly ajar, showcasing the brick wall of the neighbor’s house.
I walked right over to it and was shocked to see that it was now dark outside. In the span of an hour it had gone from eleven AM to eleven PM. That couldn’t be right. But regardless of how time was spinning, there was a little ladder hanging outside of the window. Either Michael had an escape route growing up or it was put here just for us.
I turned to say something to my mother and sister but just saw Michael leaving the room, closing it behind him. He never looked back at us.
“Mom,” I whispered, turning to her. “Call dad.”
She nodded and brought out her phone. The three of us huddled by the window while she tried to dial.
Ada was staring at me with a blank look in her eyes. “I’m dreaming, right? Totally dreams. Totes.”
My brows furrowed in sympathy. “I wish we were. All I know is this isn’t a house and you guys need to get out of here right now.”
“Damn,” my mother swore, hanging up the phone. “No service at all. No nothing. The phone doesn’t even work.”
We quickly tried Ada’s and mine but the same thing happened. They were useless electronics.
There was a polite knock at the door and a shadow spilling out from under the frame. It looked far too large to be little Michael’s. Shadowy fingers trailed down my spine.
I turned back to Ada and my mom, making sure they were looking at me. “Listen, you have to go now. I’ll hold the ladder and make sure it’s steady. But I don’t think the kid was joking when he said this was the only way out. We don’t know what’s downstairs but I know we all know it’s not of this world.” I made sure to look at my mother long and hard. “Mom, I know you see it. I know you can’t explain this away, so don’t even try.”