House of Fear

by Joe R. Lansdale

  “We have a cottage in the country,” Miriam said. “Near a place called Marshfield, just off the M4. That’s our main home.”

  “Sounds gorgeous,” Suzy cooed, interlocking her fingers and raising her shoulders to her ears. “Does it have a thatched roof and stuff and roses round the door, and a pond with ducks in?”

  “Not quite.” Miriam laughed. “But there are ducks within walking distance.”

  “Waddling distance.”

  “Feeding distance. Just a stream. It’s a nice little routine we’ve got into, throwing breadcrumbs to them on the way to getting our paper in the morning.”

  “Now I’m envious,” Suzy said.

  “Well, Rollo got to the stage in his career he wanted to move out of London. We both did. For our sanity, he said. But he still needs somewhere to lay his head during the week. Just a pied-à-terre. You can’t commute a two-hour trip each way, every day, can you? That’s asking for trouble.”

  “Absolutely.” Suzy smiled a big smile like she’d forgotten about doing so and suddenly realised the fact. “Bathroom?”

  Miriam followed.

  “You’ll miss him during the week, though.”

  “I will. Of course I will, but this is more about creating quality time together, as a couple. That’s our priority. That’s what we’ve talked about. That’s our plan.”

  “Lovely.”

  Suzy opened the door to the bathroom and Miriam stepped inside a box-like room with brown cork-tile walls and an avocado bath and sink.

  The colour combination she found massively claustrophobic, and the window, daubed opaque with gloss paint – (so badly done, look, God, not even neatly done) – conspired to make her feel vaguely, definitely trapped. What’s more, the boiler in the airing cupboard, she was sure, was physically pulsating, the heat a Mecca for bedbugs. The combination of which meant the nausea she’d experienced earlier welled up again, the unwelcome pulsing in her forehead back with a vengeance. Searing, this time. Unrelenting. Her skin tightened across the front of her head...

  Ka-chunk!

  What was that? What was it?

  Then, hush... a kind of hushing, pitter-patter...

  Her head twisted round, almost cricking her neck.

  She stared wide-eyed at the sink. At the taps.

  “What’s that noise?” Miriam said.

  “What noise? I didn’t hear anything.”

  “You did. You must have. It was really loud. Like something turning on somewhere. A clunk.”

  Suzy slowly shook her head, mouth downturned at the edges.

  “Like a tap running. It’s stopped now,” Miriam said.

  “I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I didn’t hear a thing. Honestly.”

  Miriam stepped closer to the sink and vigorously turned both taps on full.

  Stupid. What are you like, eh? Stupid!

  She took a deep breath and fluttered her fingers quickly under the water and wiped her cheeks. Reaching out, she covered her face with a towel that was old and hard and cheap and past its best, then quickly put it back on its rail. The ghost of a towel. A shroud.

  She turned the taps off again. Clunk.

  “I’m sorry. I...”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “I don’t know what I...”

  “Don’t worry,” Suzy said, smiling. “Onward and upward?”

  Miriam nodded. “Please.”

  Following, she pressed the index finger of her right hand against the place that was now agony on her forehead, holding it there and massaging it the way Astrid, her friend the aromatherapist, did.

  “Just the central heating, I expect,” Suzy said. “I put it on boost to take the chill off. It’s probably just the pipes expanding, that’s all.”

  “Rollo says I’m too jittery. Too jumpy by half. He tells me to calm down. But I can’t help it.”

  “Of course you can’t.”

  Miriam listened to the silence of the house, and she wasn’t sure whether that pleased her or made her more nervous. She wasn’t entirely sure anything would put her at ease now, because as she followed the estate agent up the stairs to the top floor, the air seemed to become thinner and hotter, all the fresh air and life sucked out. Shroud, she thought again. Ghost, she thought again – and tried to rid herself of those words, and those thoughts, but they wouldn’t go away.

  And anyway, why did Suzy have to boost the heating? Did the family no longer live here? Had they absconded? Fled? What makes a person flee? A family, flee?

  “This could make a nice office. For Rollo,” Suzy said, walking towards the grimy Roman blinds covering the attic window. “Desk here, overlooking the street. His space. His den.”

  Miriam tried to see the glass-topped trestle table, right there. Tried to see Rollo’s laptop, open, on top of it.

  “How did you meet?”

  “Whuh?”

  “You and your husband.”

  “Oh. In work. We worked together. Venom Records. I was in the accounts department. Boring. He was on the management side. Much more impressive.” Miriam’s mobile phone emitted a bleep and she delved into her handbag to fish it out.

  “I thought that was him now, but it isn’t.” Her eyes narrowed as she thumbed the tiny keys. “I don’t recognise the number. Probably someone trying to sell me something...” She switched it off and put it back in the dark where it belonged.

  “So you don’t need to be in London, too?”

  “No, I was made redundant. No, I was happy about it. I’ll get a job locally,” Miriam said. “In a shop or a garden centre or the pub... I’m not bothered...”

  Then, again, just as she’d begun to forget it, tooth-achy pain spread up her brow and across her scalp like running water seeping along fissures... along unsheathed nerves... she felt as though her skull was open to the elements, to the dark.

  Tsch-tsch-tsch-tsch...

  “Are those footsteps?”

  Suzy turned to look at her with a frown deeply etched on her face.

  “I’m sure they are. Listen. Footsteps. Downstairs!”

  Suzy kept staring at her. The frown didn’t go away.

  Don’t be stupid. You’re imagining things. You imagine things.

  Miriam flinched. Shut her eyes. Tried to stiffen, straighten her back.

  “Mrs Lehr? Miriam?”

  She couldn’t look at Suzy any more. She couldn’t stay in the room any more. It was crushing in on her, like a great cement block pressing down on her head. Some rollercoaster was doing a figure of eight inside her. Some wave was coming up through her chest and she had the terrible feeling that when it hit she was going to collapse, and she feared that, feared it desperately and ran from it – ran from the room.

  Gulping air, she hung onto the chest of drawers on the landing as if it were a piece of driftwood.

  “Are you all right, Mrs Lehr?”

  “Yes, I’m all right.” Miriam closed her eyes again, tighter this time. “I’m being silly. I’m always being silly...”

  “Why do you say that? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. Look, I don’t like the feel of this house.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t. I really don’t. I don’t like it. There’s something about it. I can’t explain. I don’t have to explain! I don’t think it’s what we’re looking for. At all, actually! I’m sorry...”

  “Well, maybe a studio flat might be more suitable? More in your price range?” She wished Suzy would leave it, just leave it, just shut up. “We’ve certainly got some of those on our books. Perhaps if you came in with your husband...”

  “No. No! – you don’t understand...”

  “Well, this is a big decision for you to make all on your own...”

  “I know! I know, all on my own. But I have to!” She could tell how pathetic that sounded. Knew how pathetic it was. She was. “You can’t possibly...”

  She looked into Suzy’s eyes and Suzy wa
ited for her to speak. Why did she wait like that? Why was she even interested, this beautiful girl – interested in her?

  “You see, the thing is, the thing is I’ve got to get this right. It has to be the right decision, for us as a couple. It has to be. I don’t want to get it wrong because... because I always get things wrong.” Miriam felt her lower lip quivering. “I know it probably sounds pathetic to you, but you’re not me and it’s different for you and I want to please him, for once. I want him to be pleased with me. I want him to say, ‘Good girl, brilliant.’ I want him to go, ‘My god, if I was there that’s exactly what I would’ve done.’ Not...” Why the hell did you do that? You idiot! Can’t I trust you, ever? Can’t you do anything?

  Miriam caught her own breath in a gasp.

  Not wanting to let it out. The words. The thought, even.

  She felt Suzy’s hand on her shoulder, on the muscle just beside her neck, pressing where it hurt. Where everything hurt. And felt the heat lifting, the soreness cooling. But still she couldn’t open her eyes. Maybe it was the only way to say things, when she couldn’t see the world, any of it. Just...

  “He’s not always like that, but sometimes...” Miriam said, wiping her eyes with the heel of one hand. “And I’m not always a moron, but I am sometimes... I know I am, and I don’t blame him for getting irate. And when he’s irate he loses it and words come out and I know he doesn’t mean them. Not really.” She gulped on her inhale and shuddered. “Why am I saying this? God...”

  Suzy’s fingers squeezed, but she said nothing.

  “Most of the times it’s okay because I know he loves me. Most of the time...”

  Bang!

  Suddenly Miriam’s head exploded, hit by a fist. Her eyes sprang open, glazed, pupils contracting with terror into pin-pricks. Her breath, caught between an exhale and an inhale, knotted in her throat. A metal rod shafted through her spinal cord, lifting her to her feet.

  The door had slammed.

  The door downstairs. The front door.

  “What was that?”

  “Mrs Lehr?”

  She swung round to look at Suzy, but Suzy just stared at her. Of course she did. What did she hear? Nothing.

  “Miriam?”

  The naked light bulb hanging over the stairwell went off.

  Ghost!

  She held her breath. She felt her bladder loosen. A squirt like acid inside. In some organ inside her. Some substance. Some poison wanting to get out. Please.

  Just as suddenly the light bulb came on again.

  Then off. Then on again.

  Please!

  She bleated. Pulse pounding.

  “Miriam, what is it? You’re frightening me. Say something.”

  But she didn’t. Couldn’t.

  Instead she toppled, caught herself, stumbling, ran downstairs – almost leaping the entire first flight of steps and risking breaking her ankle in the process. But she wasn’t even thinking about that. She was thinking about the dog-smell that was back, and the nail in the wall, and the absent picture, and the absent family, and careering down the next flight –

  Clinging to the banister rail because her feet were hardly touching the floor now –

  Swinging round the newel post, not even letting the half open door to the master bedroom (smelly duvet, net curtains, bed bugs) catch her eye. Didn’t want anything catching her eye, ears, nose, throat, senses, brain, especially brain –

  Desperate to get to the front door, desperate to find the front door and open it and be free –

  She was there.

  She could see it.

  The front door, closed – as she knew it would be, must be – with day, sunlight, life beyond.

  She ran towards it – please! – hands stretched out with fingers splayed in front of her until they found the wood, spidering to the Chubb, the lock, the snib – all that now stood between her and –

  Ka-chunk!

  Again!

  She froze. Turned. Back to the door, the Chubb, the snib.

  Eyes pulled open. Eyes unable to close.

  Staring down the tunnel of malignant wallpaper – turning the narrow passage at the kink at the electricity meter, down one step – back into the kitchen (where she hadn’t set foot!), lit from the yard (what yard?) where she could see her...

  Nail... Family... Shroud...

  Ghost!

  Oh, Jesus Christ!

  A man bent over the sink – twenties, overweight, puppy-fat, paunch – head arched in profile, eyes unblinking, staring down at the running tap. Holding up a spoon and looking at it. Polishing it on his sleeve and looking at it again – and looking through it, past it – at her.

  Oh, Christ!

  The ghost lowered the spoon.

  She felt pee ooze into her knickers. And she thought, don’t let me be afraid. I don’t mind dying, God. Dying is fine: just don’t let me be afraid...

  “Mrs Lehr?”

  The young man placed the spoon on the stainless steel draining board and wiped his hands on his jacket. He walked towards her in a shuffling motion. A little gawky, she thought. A gawky ghost. His long-toed winkle-pickers – all the rage recently – clicking on the tiled floor.

  Tsch-tsch-tsch-tsch...

  He took her hand and shook it.

  “I heard a voice upstairs. I was starting to get a bit spooked, to be honest. I thought the house was empty. What time do you make it?” He looked at his watch. “Only, when you weren’t here on time I phoned the office. Couldn’t get a signal indoors, so I went up the street. Is something wrong?”

  Miriam walked past him to the staircase and stood with her back to him. Suzy hadn’t followed her down.

  “In the time I was out, you came in. Obviously,” the young man said. “I wondered why the lights were on. They tried to phone you, by the way, the office, did they?” Miriam didn’t answer and hadn’t moved. “My name’s Olly, by the way.”

  “Suzy?” Miriam called up the stairs.

  “Excuse me, Mrs Lehr...”

  “I was with your colleague... She’s –”

  “Colleague?”

  “She took me upstairs.”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Yes. She showed me round the place. Room by room. She’s up there. I was with her.”

  “No, Mrs Lehr. That’s not possible. It’s just me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  She turned to look at him and he was pale. His eyes flickered, avoiding hers, the way people did at funerals. The way people looked when they had bad news.

  “Do you want a cup of tea or coffee? The owners made me one before they took themselves off to the London Eye. I was just cleaning up. They said to offer you one. Nice people.” He edged past her, holding his tie flat to his stomach. “Sit down and let me explain. Not that I can. Not really.”

  He switched on the kettle to bring it back to the boil. Miriam came into the kitchen, but remained at the door.

  “Have you heard of Suzy Lamplugh?” the young man said. “She was an estate agent. She went missing on the last Monday of July 1986. Nobody ever found out what happened to her. It’s a mystery. Wasn’t until 1994 she was officially declared dead, presumed murdered.”

  Miriam decided she would sit down after all, and felt her way to the nearest chair like a blind person.

  “She went out to show someone a property. The last entry in her diary said, ‘12.45 – Mr Kipper – 37 Shorrold’s Road O/S’. ‘O/S’ meaning she was going to meet him outside.”

  “Suzy Lamplugh,” Miriam said as the kettle rose to a shriek. “It was in the news for ages. Years... Suzy Lamplugh...”

  “Her white Ford Fiesta was found about a mile from the office outside another property in Stevenage Road. No sign of a struggle. No trace of her. Nothing. To this day.”

  Miriam thought of the face she first saw, so tanned, so healthy. So – her throat tightened at the idea – alive.

  “To be honest I don’t know much about it. Just what they say in the
office. Apparently Suzy’s parents set up a charitable trust in her name. I think her mum got an OBE for it.”

  “It was her mum’s birthday,” Miriam said.

  “Was it? You know more than me.”

  Miriam held the image of the greeting card still wrapped in cellophane in her head. Didn’t want to explain. Explain? She couldn’t explain anything.

  “She’s been seen before,” Olly said. “In this house, I mean. Other people in the business. I always thought it was bollocks. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Miriam said. “She was a very happy girl. She had a wonderful smile. She wouldn’t want anybody to be sad. I think she was probably an amazing person.”

  Neither of them noticed that the kettle had boiled.

  Even now, so soon, Miriam felt all her impressions of Suzy starting to fade. The words, the voice, the images. Was it real, what had happened? Or passing, like the heat of the day? A memory, like a yesterday, a yesterday that visited today. A feather she tried to grasp even now, but the very act of grasping sent it floating away, again, and again...

  “1986,” Olly said. “I wasn’t even born.”

  “I was three.”

  “Nobody who knew her works at the office any more. But we keep a small picture of her by the copier machine. To remind us.”

  “To remind you of what?”

  “I’m not sure. Just her, I suppose,” he said.

  Miriam stood up and walked back into the hall. She didn’t know why she touched the banister rail, resting her hand there, but she did.

  “Do you think she even knows she’s dead?”

  Hunched over in his chair in the kitchen, Olly shrugged.

  “I mean, what do ghosts want?” Miriam thought aloud.

  “Perhaps they don’t want anything. Perhaps they’re just drawn to places they’ve been, they’re familiar with, and do what they did in life, over and over... like a kind of loop tape. Like a scratch in a record you can’t get out of... Ever...”

  “She was happy. She’d been windsurfing.” Miriam sensed her eyes prickling again as the word hung in the air like a heartbreak, and knew this time it wasn’t the pollen. She turned slowly to look at the sunlight-bleached world beyond the front door and squinted slightly in preparation to entering it, hearing waves unbidden, imagining the fondest of kisses, imagining sand on skin all over again. “I need to go now.”