by Thomas Cater
“No, but what happens if this is their time?” I replied.
He grabbed Eulah and Bob by their arms and led them to the wall. “Sorry folks,” he said, hoisting them over one by one. “We’ve got to climb the wall tonight. Mr. Case doesn’t have keys to the gate.”
I carried the lamp, took Janie’s hand and coaxed her along beside me. She dragged her feet, walking around each fallen branch, each bent weed, taking the long circuitous route around every obstacle. I was delighted beyond reason when we finally reached the house without incurring any major catastrophes. My eyes had grown relatively accustomed to the surrounding darkness by then, but that only made the house appear far more frightening than it was during the day.
I began to suspect the supernatural only held terror for special types, persons capable of over-imagining everything that could possibly happen. Janie, Bob and Eulah had an extremely sobering effect on me. I could almost believe they were incapable of imagining anything, especially conjuring up or disturbing restless spirits, and they were therefore incapable of experiencing any fear.
At the foot of the steps, I released Janie’s hand. Her arm remained extended, as if I had never released it. “We’re going into the house now, folks,” I said, and my voice broke on the last word.
“What house?” I heard Bob say as he circled for the third time. Eulah was looking in every direction, up and down and all around.
“George, are you ready?”
“Lead on, McDuff!” he said, with disturbing alacrity.
It was amusing to see George change from one person to another. He was a man of various and distinct personalities, almost a multiple personality, and a man with an ominous sense of humor. I took the lead in that doomed column.
The front door was still open and ajar, but the temperature inside the house was uncannily warm. In fact, it felt as if someone had turned the furnace on to ‘bake’ or ‘barbecue’. The décor was still falling apart at the seams, but the house proper was solidly intact. I set the lamp on a table. There was fuel in it, but I did not know how much, or how old. I turned up the wick. Within seconds, the lamp was glowing brightly, casting tall, dark shadows all around the room. Janie, Bob and Eulah were calling for still more light. I elevated the lamp and turned the wick up enough to brighten the entire room. They were attracted to light like insects.
I set the lamp on a table in the center of the room while George led his wards to nearby chairs. I searched the other rooms across the hall for more kerosene lamps. I found two and brought them to the sitting room. George was arranging wooden chairs around a mahogany table. He had removed the dusty pictures and stacked them on a couch. I lit the lamps and placed them on the tables. With three lamps glowing brightly and casting light into the hall, I felt as snug as a bug in a rug.
George was coaching and advising his command. “I want you to sit at the table, hold hands and concentrate on my words. If I tell you to think hard about something, I want to see you sweating. At all times, you will continue to hold onto the hand of the person sitting next to you. Remember, don’t do or say anything until I tell you to speak; then you can speak. Is that understood?”
They made indistinct sounds that implied they understood, but no one said so aloud. I put a lamp on the fireplace mantle and left one on the table. I found a seat between Bob and Eulah and took their hands in my own. George sat between Janie and Eulah. He was almost straight across the table from me. We turned the lamp down a wee bit, just to soften the light and give us something to focus our attention on. George lifted his eyes up to the darkened ceiling and said, “All right, let’s concentrate.” I was of a mind to ask ‘on what?’ when he said, “the light; concentrate on the light.”
I tried to look into the heart of the flame, if a flame had a heart. I tried to find the white-hot center and in effect, practice a form of self-hypnosis, but I had never been very successful at it. Still, this environment lent something to the power of suggestion. I was succeeding in something, though I dare say I didn't notice a thing. The room was growing silent and still, sometimes literally vanishing from my half-closed eyelids, but then I would call it back into being, almost afraid to let it go. The flame was taking up more and more of my undivided attention and George’s words were beginning to sink down to an unfathomed depth inside me.
I felt as if I was falling asleep when Janie’s fingers began to twitch. I squeezed them a little tighter to make her stop. It was becoming a distraction. A few seconds later, she began to twitch again. My concentration was beginning to suffer. I figured it was time to intimidate her with a threatening look.
I turned my face slowly to meet hers, but Janie was no longer sitting beside me. There was, however, something strange occupying her space. It was a creature with extraordinary features. Its eyes glowed orange as tiger lilies. Whether or not she was smiling, I could not say, but there was a display of razor sharp teeth protruding from her mouth, or its mouth, and they were as sharp as any animal’s teeth had a right to be. In those glowing orange eyes, I could see no semblance of human emotion. Mesmerized by its gruesome smile, I felt the blood I once mistook for courage in my veins turn to ice water, so I uncorked a terrifying gasp.
Even stranger than her presence was the fact that when I tried to scream, there was no sound. Her fingers tightened around my hand. Long and hairy, they were gilt with brightly painted nails. She was as strong as a man and crushed my fingers together. I could swear I heard bones crumbling beneath the skin. I tried repeatedly to speak, but I could not find the words, while her hand refused to release me.
I finally broke the circle by pulling my other hand free. When I did, the figure on my right became Janie again. I snatched my hand from hers in a second and examined my fingers. The knuckles were red and bruised where they had been ground together. I hoped they were not broken. Janie looked at her hand and grinned.
“Did you see that?” I shouted.
“See what?” George replied.
“Did you see what happened to Janie?”
He shook his head.
“What happened?”
I rubbed my fingers and looked at Janie again.
“She turned into some kind of terrifying animal.”
“Animal?” George asked.
“Yes, an animal; a strange and scary animal. I mean, she was wearing clothes, an evening gown and jewelry. She wasn’t just an animal; she had some human characteristics, too.”
George propped his chin on his fist and stared at Janie.
“I’m listening,” he said, with some fascination.
“There was something about her face,” I said. “It was thin. She had huge orange eyes and she could smile. Animals aren’t supposed to be able to smile, but she could smile.”
I folded my hands together and pressed my thumbs against my temples.
“I can’t remember anything else.”
“Maybe we should try again, but this time we’ll keep our eyes on Janie.”
“No! I don’t want to go through that again. Whatever it was, it told us or showed us all it wanted to. I don’t want to look at her again.”
“But it wasn’t Elinore,” George said.
I shook my head. “It couldn’t have been. Elinore isn’t an animal.”
“Bob, did you see anything?” George asked.
Bob shook his head.
“Janie?” Janie strained her neck like a chicken standing in the rain trying to figure out where the voice that had just called her name was coming from.
“Eulah, did you notice anything different?”
She was trembling so violently -- trying to light a cigarette -- which it was impossible for her to speak clearly.
“I can’t remember,” she murmured softly.
I leaned back in the chair away from the table and looked the whole crew over. There was something about Janie’s bone structure and jaw line that reminded me of the strange illusion occupying her body. It was a curious revelation, but one I did not want to encourage. I thought ab
out my second trip to the attic, when something had weighed upon my back. It was light at first, but growing heavier with each step until I reached the top step when it jumped and ran away. Could it have been the same animal? Could that animal have been the same one we had removed from the shallow grave? Why was I tormenting myself with these questions? Did my survival depend on it and how was I supposed to know? I was from out of town, a tourist. If I stayed in this house any longer, I wouldn’t know what I was doing, or where I was going.
George’s wards were slowly ambulating. It was all I could do to keep them from wandering off and falling up or down the stairs.
“George, I think it’s time we get your people back to the hotel.”
He nodded his head and clapped his hands several times. He had a way with them. It reminded me of a trained seal act. He clapped his hands and they rolled over and performed another stunt.
“All right, kids, let’s go home and call it a night,” George said.
“Are we through?” Eulah woofed.
“Party’s over,” George said.
“I had a wonderful time,” said Janie.
“Me, too,” said Bob.
“Is it over?” Eulah asked again.
George gathered them up like small children and guided them out the front door. It had grown darker and the air was full of sounds and new scents. I didn’t dare look back at the house. I was afraid those orange eyes would be glaring at me through a window. I wanted to run back to the van, but with Janie and Bob in tow, I knew that would not work. In fact, I knew it would be impossible.
I tripped on a vine and looked down quickly enough to see it slither away beneath a bush. I felt a chill travel up my spine. It tried to strangle a piece of my brain that was turning itself inside out. My medulla oblongata, the nest where all those instincts liked to hang out, was tingling. My feet were also getting tangled up with strange things I couldn’t see.
“I didn’t have this kind of trouble getting in here,” I shouted without thinking what kind of anxiety I was causing my séance colleagues.
“What?” George answered anxiously.
I was about to recommend he get a hearing aid, but I was having too much trouble with my feet.
“My feet!” I shouted, “I keep tripping over things!”
I tripped again, this time falling to the ground. Something grabbed me by the throat. It was almost as if a hand had come right out of the earth and began to squeeze.
“Aaaarrggghh!” I screamed and jumped to my feet carrying whatever it was with me. Half way up it released its grip and fell back down into the darkness of the weeds and vines.
George ran to my side. “What’s wrong?”
“Something grabbed me and tried to drag me down into the ground. It was pulling me out of my shoes.”
I felt it grab my ankles again.
“Jesus, George, It’s got me again!” I shouted.
George held my arms and I fell all over him.
“What’s got you?” He asked.
“It’s got me,” I screamed, “by the feet!”
It was too dark to see, but I could feel my feet sinking deeper into the ground. It was as if I were standing in quicksand. I could also feel claws or teeth biting into my ankles.
“Oh, shit, George, it’s got me for sure now. It’s all over.”
His hand slid down my leg. I could feel his fingers around my ankles, groping for my feet beneath the brush.
“You’re all right,” he said. “Nothing’s got you. Take it easy, you’re going to upset the group.”
With his hand on my ankle, I could raise my foot, which I did with speed. Then I started to run through the trees and toward the van.
“I’m sorry, George” I shouted back. “It’s every man and woman for himself.”
I did not run far before I collided with a tree. I hit it with so much force I bounced and fell to the ground.
I do not know how long I was unconscious. The front yard of the Ryder estate must have been a primeval swamp or a tar pit at one time, a place that bushwhacked animals and humans. The voices came like a landslide, rumbling, tumbling and rising out of the loamy darkness deep within the earth, enough to drive a person mad if he listened to them all. That damned wall that reached to the center of the earth, and someone had kept building on it, generation after generation, keeping those spirits imprisoned and bound to that parcel of unholy ground to wait for a redemption and resurrection that would never come.
No matter how hard I listened, or tried to listen to each one of their voices, or how hard I tried to sympathize, I could not hear one clear distinct voice. There were too many of them, too many…until suddenly the voices stopped. I opened my eyes and George was holding my head in his arms.
“Are you all right?” He asked. “That was quite a shot you took from that tree.”
“George, is that you?”
He smiled and nodded. I could not help thinking how seedy he looked. I reminded myself that George had forsaken money. He was interested only in saving humankind from the clutches of Satan. The spirits too were interested only in living in my derelict home and not interested in anything else, or so I thought.
“George, put me down,” I said. “I want you to hear something. Put me down and then come down here with me. Put your ear to the ground and tell me what you hear.”
We both put an ear to the ground and the sounds were there. The voices were crying and screaming for help, dozens of voices. The pain and the sorrow, the anguish was heart breaking, and it brought tears to my eyes.
“Jesus!” George screamed. “If I didn’t hear it, I wouldn’t believe it.”
We listened, but the sound was too terrible. We were in tears when we lifted our faces from the earth and looked at each other.
“It’s terrible,” he said. “What are we going to do?”
My body was trembling. “I don’t know, George; I’m not a religious person, remember? I am an atheist, a non-believer. I don’t believe any of this.”
“Not believe? How can you not believe? Put your ear to the ground again.”
I declined. “I can’t. I hear it, but I don’t know what to do.”
George folded his hands and started weeping and praying, which didn’t seem to accomplish much in the way of changing things.
“My God, this place must be Purgatory!” He said.
He started rocking, weaving, and praying aloud. I touched his arm.
“George, not now; I don’t think it is prayers these people need. I think it’s something else, something from our side that can help them out, but I don’t know what it is.”
Eulah, Janie, and Bob were wandering harmlessly through the trees. I no longer felt fear or apprehension for them, or for myself.
“Come on, let’s get these people back to the hotel.”
It took all the strength I could muster to get off the ground. Something had sapped the strength from me, nearly dried me up. I staggered back to the van. On the way, I grabbed Bob and Eulah by their bony elbows and steered them along.
The land and the earth beneath my feet felt different from before. Once, it had been terrifying and full of the unexpected. Now it felt old and familiar, as if its secrets were exposed.
Now I also felt more powerless than before. It had to do with the wall. If only it could be breached. I firmly believed all those trapped spirits would be free to return to wherever they were destined to return to, if we could break through the wall.
The idea came to me while I was warming up the van. I turned on the lights. The wall stuck out like a target right there in front of me. All I would need to do is accelerate and I could probably drive the huge RV right through it. I gunned the engine. It was in good shape. I eased it into low gear and revved the engine again. The motor roared.
“All set?” I asked. There was no response. “George?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Hang on to our passengers. I’m going to make a pass at the wall.”
“Yo
u’re going to pass what?” He said anxiously.
I revved up the engine and let the clutch out as fast as the transmission would tolerate without snapping the drive shaft. The van lurched forward, picked up speed and before I could get it out of low gear, it smashed into the wall; it flooded to an abrupt stop.
“Everybody all right?” I asked.
Janie was on the floor. Eulah and Bob were tangled up in each other’s scrawny arms and legs. George was trying to pick himself up from under the dashboard.
“That was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do,” he said.
I turned the motor and lights on again and peered out over the front. The wall was still standing. The van had a crumpled front end and the bumper was twisted and lying on the ground. I backed the van away from the wall and looked for stone fragments.
“You’re lucky this thing still runs,” George said.
I checked, but couldn’t see a single niche or scratch in the wall. The motor’s timing, I noticed, was off; a fan belt whined and something was pinging noisily.
“Something is wrong,” I said.
George said it sounded like the water pump.
“No, I mean, something is wrong…out there.”
Everyone looked out the window. The trees were motionless; everything seemed to be deliberately waiting…for something…
“I think this is the answer,” I said as I backed the van up and prepared for a second run.
“No, don’t,” George said. “Let’s think about it. Tomorrow we’ll come back and see if we accomplished anything. It’s too dark to see clearly now. Besides, we have to get these people back to town. We can’t let anything happen to them.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I turned the van around and drove back to the Phoenix Hotel. There was a little steam coming from under the van when I parked. The damage didn’t look as bad as it sounded. I locked it up and helped George conduct his people into the hotel.
Mrs. Abacas was sitting at the front desk. The Hapsburg hater had apparently gone to bed. The TV was off and the lobby was silent and empty. Mame was going through a cardboard box filled with smaller boxes that comprised her card catalog. It was dusty and battered enough to come from the basement. I went straight toward the desk and left the problem of transportation of the others to George.