by J. A.
"Have any of you heard about the Taywood house?" asked Roger.
A couple more minutes of screaming and giggling indicated that no, they had not. I had, and in fact was the one who told Roger about it, so I sat on the couch and waited for him to completely mess up the story.
Roger motioned for two of the girls to scoot over and make room, and then joined the circle.
He took one of the flashlights and shined it up into his face, which was supposed to make him look eerie but really just made it look like he had a light-up nose. "Most ghost stories take place hundreds of years ago, but not this one," he said in a spooky voice. "The Taywood house was built a mere five years ago, by a man named Jarvis Taywood."
It was four years ago, and the man's name was Jervis, but Roger at least had the basic concept right.
"Jarvis was a crazy old man, and less than a month after he finished the house, he killed himself. Nobody knows why he did it, but he jumped into some molten plastic at a chair manufacturing company. All they ever found were his shoes, sitting by the vat of plastic, with a suicide note tucked inside. It's said that whenever you sit on a plastic chair, you may just be sitting on old Jarvis."
That statement received several squeals of delight and disgust. It was, in fact, the truth (or, more likely, just the correct version of a complete lie), though if I'd been telling the story I would've changed it to a chocolate manufacturing company, so that I could end it with "And you may have eaten him TONIGHT!"
"Anyway," Roger continued, "his family lived in the house for another year, but every once in a while they would hear weird noises. Only at night, never during the day. Creaking footsteps on the staircase. Whispering. And none of them could explain it, but the whole family felt like Jarvis was still there, watching them. Always watching."
The girls had fallen silent. "About six months after Jarvis died, the oldest daughter couldn't take it anymore, so she ran away and was never seen again. At least...not alive. They did find her body. She'd drowned in a small pond, which at its very center wasn't even deep enough to come up to her waist. And she'd left her shoes by the edge. There was no note inside, but one can only wonder if Jarvis was somehow responsible for his daughter's death."
Dead silence. The temptation to shout "BOO!" was overwhelming, but I didn't want to ruin Roger's show.
"One night, exactly one year after Jarvis killed himself, his wife heard the soft footsteps.
They were coming up the stairs. Like she always did, she pulled the blankets up over her head and waited for them to go away. They were getting closer...closer...until she heard them in her very room."
Roger's flashlight began to flicker, so he tapped it against his palm until the beam was steady again. "They stopped. She could feel something watching her. And then she heard the whisper,
'Dorothy...Dorothy...I still love you...'"
"Like in The Wizard of Oz?" asked Becky, one of Theresa's more annoying friends.
"No, not like in The Wizard of Oz," said Roger without missing a beat, "It was Dorothy Taywood, who lay on her bed, blankets above her head, listening to the ghostly voice whisper her name. The voice that sounded just like her dead husband. The whispering stopped, and finally she worked up the courage to peek over the blankets, just...a...bit..."
Roger looked at each girl in the circle in turn. "And there, standing at the foot of her bed, was her husband."
"Were his guts hanging out?" Becky inquired.
"They might have been. I wasn't there. But she squeezed her eyes shut because she was so terrified, and when she opened them again, he was gone. She immediately woke up her kids, at least those who were still alive, and they spent the rest of the night in a hotel. They never came back to the Taywood house.
"It took them a while to sell it, but finally another family moved in. They heard the same footsteps in the middle of the night. Once they even thought they heard screaming. And there were other things, too. Books would vanish and mysteriously reappear. They called the newspaper, and a couple of reporters from the Chamber Chronicle spent a week in the house, but nothing happened during that time...at least, that's what they said. The rumors, and I believe them, are that they were just too frightened to print the truth."
I continued to withstand the "BOO!" urge, which required almost superhuman strength at this point.
"Shortly after that, in the middle of the night, the father woke up...and there was the ghost of Jarvis, standing right there in the doorway. But instead of hiding under the blankets, the father got up and went after it. He ran down the stairs, but there was no sign of the ghost...it had vanished. Vanished into the netherworld. They moved out the next day.
"They sold the Taywood house to a man who lived by himself. Six months later, he disappeared. They don't know what happened to him. They never found a note, they never found a body...but they did find his shoes, lying on the staircase. And since then, nobody has lived there. The house is empty...vacant, except for the ghost of Jarvis Taywood...silent except for his footsteps on the stairs...except for certain nights, dark nights, when the neighbors swear they can hear whispering...and screaming..."
"BOO!" I shouted.
Several of the girls shot me dirty looks. Theresa put her finger to her lips and shushed me.
Ashamed, I stared at the floor and was silent.
"So remember, girls, never go near the Taywood house. Jarvis still haunts it to this day...and he might just follow you home."
"BOO!" said Kyle. The girls shrieked in terror and then burst into delighted laughter. Roger handed the flashlight back to Becky and got to his feet.
"Is that all true, Uncle Roger?" asked Theresa.
"There's only one way to find out," Roger told her.
I smacked him in the shoulder before he could pursue that line of thinking any further. But not hard enough.
* * *
A couple hours later, all of the girls had been claimed by their parents except Becky. We sat in the living room, watching Kill Or You're Dead, or possibly the sequel.
"I think we should go explore the Taywood house," said Roger.
"Shut up, Roger," I suggested.
"No, really! It would be fun."
"So would running through the Chamber Police Department wearing nothing but gummi worms, and yet I haven't given in to temptation."
"Where's your sense of adventure?" Roger asked.
I put my arm around Kyle. "Son, this is what's known as peer pressure. When you get older, bad kids will try to get you to smoke and use bad words and chew this nasty black goopy stuff that makes you spit, and your job is to tell them no. Got it?"
"Got it," said Kyle. He looked over at Roger. "No."
"Good boy."
Roger chuckled and sat back to watch the rest of the movie. About fifteen minutes later, Becky's mother showed up, wearing a witch costume with fluorescent warts.
"Sorry I'm late," she said. "Did you have a good time, Becky?"
Becky nodded. "Can we go to the Taywood house, Mommy?"
"You mean..." she took a moment to let out a maniacal cackle, "...the haunted Taywood house?"
"Yes!"
"Of course not."
Becky pointed accusingly at Roger and I. " They're going!"
"No, we're not," I insisted. "I fought the peer pressure. I just said no."
"No," said Kyle.
"Good boy."
"I think you two should go," said Mrs. Becky's Mother. "It would be fun. I'll watch the kids in the van while you explore."
I sighed. "Aren't we a little old for this?"
Roger gave me a condescending stare. "Aren't you the one who spent all of last Thursday night building Death Soldiers out of saltwater taffy?"
"Don't bring my Death Soldiers into this."
"C'mon, where's your Halloween spirit?"
"Kyle, tell Uncle Roger and Becky's mom what you say to peer pressure."
"Yes!" said Kyle with a huge grin.
"The child has spoken," Becky's mom announced.
* * *
And so, yes, I found myself in the van, riding toward the Taywood house, wondering how I ended up in these situations. Well, half the time it was entirely my idea, but I wondered how I ended up in these situations when Roger was the instigator.
It took about thirty minutes to get there, during which Becky told her mother the Taywood story eight different times, each less accurate than the last, until finally it involved aliens, Frankenstein's monster, and Darth Vader. Though I have to admit the part with Darth Vader was pretty cool.
From the outside, it appeared to be a perfectly normal abandoned house. The homes on each side were also for sale, and had been for quite some time from the looks of the lawns. The Taywood place was a green, two-story wooden house with a large front porch and single-car garage.
"This is really dumb," I said as Becky's mother pulled the van into the driveway. "It's also trespassing. We shouldn't be teaching our children to trespass. Kyle, I never want to see you trespass, okay?"
"Okay."
"It's not trespassing," said Becky's mom. "Nobody owns it anymore. And you're both adults.
And it's Halloween."
I'm pretty sure that none of those excuses would have carried any weight with my wife (and I didn't think any of them were true except it being Halloween). But, despite my parental advice, I've always really sucked at resisting peer pressure, from tugging on the Rottweiler's tail at age four to eating the Mystery Solid last month.
"Can I come?" asked Theresa.
"No," I said.
"Can I come?" asked Becky.
"No," her mother said.
"Can I come?" asked Kyle.
"No," I said.
"Why?" asked Kyle.
"Because," I said.
"Don't worry about us," said Becky's mom (I really should have known her real name, but I wasn't about to admit my ignorance). "We'll just play some games and have fun. Tell the ghost I said hi!"
Roger and I got out of the van with our flashlights and walked toward the house. "You're a jerk," I informed him.
"Oh, now, you're just jealous because I came up with the idea first. Remember in high school when we went looking for Bigfoot? That was fun, wasn't it?"
"It wasn't Bigfoot; it was the Loch Ness Monster. And you thought it was swimming around in the sewers, so no, I don't recall it being all that much fun. You certainly were dumb as a kid, weren't you?"
"Okay, well, I have an important question."
"What?"
"Where exactly would you wear the gummi worms? I mean, if you were running around City Hall naked you'd be way too nervous to maintain an—"
"Shut up, Roger."
We stepped up onto the front porch. I knocked on the door.
"You think the ghost is going to answer?" Roger asked.
"We don't know that nobody lives here. There could be drug dealers inside. Do you really want to walk in on some drug dealers? Drug dealers have guns, you know."
"You're right," said Roger. "Good thinking on the drug dealer situation."
No drug dealers or ghosts answered, so I tested the doorknob. Unlocked. That wasn't particularly surprising...we certainly weren't the first people to think of exploring the Taywood house, though we were probably the only ones who'd fully completed puberty.
I pushed the door open, and it let out the traditional horror movie creak. I flipped the light switch by the doorway, just in case the electric company continued to supply power out of a sense of generosity, but nothing happened. Roger and I turned on our flashlights and stepped inside.
The house was mostly barren, save for one torn couch and about eighty pounds of dust in the living room alone. The walls were also covered with graffiti that was remarkably clever despite artistic and grammar limitations.
I have to admit, though, something about the house didn't feel right. It didn't feel abandoned.
I didn't believe in ghosts, but I definitely got the sense that there was some kind of presence in the house. Of course, it was probably the presence of rats.
"Well, I've explored about all I can handle for one evening," I said. "How about we head back to the van?"
Roger grinned. "Are you scared?"
"I'm scared of what Helen's gonna do to me when she finds out I dragged the kids out here, yeah!"
"The kids are safe in the van with Mrs. Glencrest. You're being a perfectly responsible, mature parent. Don't worry about it."
I almost asked how he remembered her name, but I was pretty sure the answer would only reveal my inadequate social skills. I shined my flashlight around the room. "Well, Rog, I'm seeing a lot of dust and not much else. How much more exploring do you want to do?"
"We've at least got to go upstairs. That's where the ghost of Jarvis was sighted."
"There is no ghost. And it's Jervis."
"No, it's not. Jarvis Taywood."
"No, sorry, but I'm afraid it's...oh, no, wait, you're right. My bad."
"C'mon, Andrew, you've got to admit you're having fun. We don't get out like this very often anymore. You don't want your children to think their father is a total wuss, do you?"
"Oh no, I'd much rather have them think their father is a total idiot."
We wandered into the kitchen, which still had a refrigerator and oven but no other furnishings. Roger opened the pantry door, revealing lots more dust, some cobwebs, and a few cans of various fruits and vegetables resting on the shelves.
"Canned goods from beyond the grave," Roger pointed out.
"Spooky. Let's go upstairs and get this over with."
As we walked upstairs, I had to admit to myself that exploring a dark, reportedly haunted house really was kind of fun...not that I was going to admit it to anybody else. The stairs didn't creak as we walked up them, which kind of hampered the mood, but the upstairs was plenty dust-covered and eerie.
We walked into the master bedroom, which had a bed frame but no mattress. "This is where they saw him," Roger said. "Do you feel anything...watching you?"
I shook my head. "But I feel cold...oh, so cold...ever so cold...hold me, Roger...share your manly warmth..."
"Ha ha," said Roger. Then he raised his voice. "Jarvis Taywood, if you're here, show yourself! Reveal your spectral presence to us mere mortals! Let us gaze upon your ectoplasm from the other side!"
Nothing happened.
Roger frowned. "Well, he's just being a snot."
"Maybe you weren't loud enough."
"Yo, Jarvis Taywood!" Roger shouted. "Come on out! Here, ghostie, ghostie, ghostie! Here ghost, c'mon boy!" He let out a dog-calling whistle.
"You know, if his ghost really did haunt this place, you're screwed in the afterlife."
Suddenly Roger turned toward the doorway. "Did you hear that?"
"What?"
"Shhh!"
"Sorry."
"Shhh!"
We were both silent for a long moment. "I heard something downstairs," Roger said.
"Probably just something trying to force its way into our plane of existence. Don't worry about it."
"I don't know what it was. I'm gonna go check it out."
"All right, you go downstairs and get killed, I'll investigate up here some more. Meet you in purgatory."
"Sounds good," said Roger, leaving the bedroom and heading downstairs. I wandered around the room some more, not quite sure what I thought I was looking for, considering that we were just here on a lark. A stupid lark, at that.
I walked out of the bedroom and investigated the bathroom, which was a hotbed of non-existent paranormal activity. The other bedrooms were just as empty. Still, I couldn't deny that there was something decidedly eerie about this place. I half-expected to see the words "LEAVE
OR DIE!!!" appear in blood on the wall at any moment.
I nervously turned around and glanced at the wall behind me. There were no words in blood, not even an ad.
Why was I so creeped out all of a sudden? And why wasn't I more ashamed of myself for getting creep
ed out?
"Hey, Roger!" I called out. "What'd you find?"
No response.
"Here, Roger, Roger, Roger! C'mere, boy!" I said, letting out a dog-whistle.
Still nothing.
Great. As if he hadn't regressed enough by dragging me out here in the first place, now he was playing obnoxious teenager pranks. If I walked downstairs looking for him, he'd probably leap out at me from behind that ugly couch. What a dork.
I briefly considered turning the tables on him, letting out a scream of terror and faking my own death (or something comparable). But then I figured that if he actually had heard a noise, it might have been Mrs. Whatever and the kids. Most likely, they were all plotting against me right now, but I didn't want to scare the kids, at least not in a fake-my-own-death kind of way.
In a moment of maturity I decided to just walk downstairs and let them jump out. No sense letting things get out of hand. I'd already put myself at more than enough risk of getting in trouble tonight.
I casually walked down the stairs, which did creak this time. "Okay, Roger, no more free Froot Loops at my place if you don't come out right now."
He didn't answer. I headed toward the sofa, keeping close to the wall so that hopefully I could see behind it before he decided to jump out at me. But he wasn't there.
I checked the dining room and kitchen, including the pantry. No sign of him.
I quickly checked the rest of the downstairs area.
Nothing.
Fine. So he left me. I opened the front door, which let out such a loud creak that I wondered if he really could have gotten out without my hearing it.
I walked outside, shutting the door behind me, and went over to the van, which I was almost surprised to find was still there. Becky's mom rolled down her window. "Have fun?"
"Oh, gobs. Did Roger come out here?"
She shook her head. "Not that I saw."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive." She certainly looked believable enough, but I wasn't about to discount anyone from Roger's sinister plan.
"Well, then, he's just being a doofus," I said, walking around and getting in the van. "What about you guys?" I asked, looking back at Theresa, Kyle, and Becky. "Have you seen Uncle Roger?"