Rhayven House
Page 19
“Tuberculosis,” Toby whispered. “Nasty disease. It continued killing, even after they discovered the vaccine. I can only imagine the number of fatalities before it.”
“After all the good she did, the townspeople blamed her for cursing them, even though they didn't have a reason. They believed they could put an end to the curse and save themselves if they got rid of her.” Ian filled a glass with water and drank long from it.
“But why did they blame her? Surely, even they knew enough about science to recognize a disease and not fall prey to the simple-minded thought it was a curse at work.” Toby couldn't quite wrap his head around it. “It wasn't the Middle Ages, for Christ's sake. It was sixty years ago, give or take.”
“Ignorance combined with fear can cloud the mind and make intelligent people commit unspeakable acts.” Ian looked intently into his friend's eyes. “We need to free her,” he said.
“How?”
“She showed me where they put her body,” Ian explained.
“Is she buried here on the property?” Toby asked. “Tell me she's not buried on the property, pal.”
“Not quite buried. More like entombed somewhere close,” Ian said.
Toby's eyes widened as he understood what his friend was telling him. “She's here in the house, isn't she?”
Nodding, Ian said, “And we need to give her a decent burial, lay her to final rest.”
“Pal, that's fucking creepy.” Toby shivered as if in support of his declaration. “I wouldn't mind living next to a cemetery. I mean, how much trouble can dead bodies cause? But to have a corpse somewhere in the house...” His voice trailed off, and then he said, “The basement's too obvious, isn't it?”
“Grab a hammer and follow me.”
Ian and Toby started punching holes in the wall using hammers. The wall where Ian wanted to hang up the framed picture of Dogs Playing Poker in the room he'd earmarked to be the library. Toby hit the wall hard and knocked a big chunk of plaster out, revealing part of the door in the wall Ian had thought the library shared with the kitchen. Chipping away at the plaster, they uncovered the door without a knob. Ripping down the old plaster, they saw the door hadn't only been plastered over, but nailed shut with dozens of nails.
It took what felt like forever and a day for them to pull all the nails out of the door. The old door refused to open; they had to remove it from its hinges in order to gain entrance to the hidden room.
There was no electricity, so Ian brought in LED camping lanterns to provide illumination. It was a little room, barely bigger than a small modern day walk-in closet. Claustrophobic in feel. The rectangular wood box took up most of the space.
“It's nailed shut, as well,” Toby declared, as he tried to no avail to open the lid. “Goddamn. They really tried to seal the poor woman in by any means necessary.”
They worked to pull out the nails and Ian lifted the lid. They looked inside.
“This is salt,” Toby said, picking up a fistful and letting the grains slip through his fingers.
“Mummification. I recognize some of this process from research,” Ian said. “The salt is why the body still has this parchment-like skin instead of having wasted away to skeletal remains.”
“Put her in a bed of salt, covering her up, and entombing her here, in her own house.” Toby's amazement was evident in his voice. He reached to touch the salt and then drew his hand back as if he'd thought better of it.
“And it also cut down on putrefaction, reducing the smell that accompanies the process,” Ian said. “They knew what they were doing.”
“The whole town in on it.” Toby whispered out of respect for the body between them. “How could they live with themselves?”
“Maybe not the whole town, but at least a few dozen of them. Not just entombing her, making it as if she'd never existed.”
“Wiping her away. So Edgar Allan Poe.”
A booming crash of thunder startled the two of them. They felt it rattle the ground beneath their feet and rumble through the house, shaking it.
“That better not be an omen,” Toby said.
No sooner had the words crossed Toby's lips than the mummified corpse—still half-buried in salt between the two men—sat up and let loose an ear-splitting, soul-stripping scream of utter anguish. Ian erupted with a scream of his own and leaped backwards. Toby stood frozen to the spot. The desiccated corpse ceased its prolonged scream and turned its head towards Ian. He felt as if the eyeless stare penetrated to his core; he recognized the empty-socket stare. It raised a hand, disturbing the grains of salt even more, and reached out to him.
Before he could even decide whether to take the proffered hand or to back up even further, the corpse began to come apart so rapidly it was reduced to nothing more than a pile of dust.
“That was extraordinarily weird and I never want to see anything like it again” He looked over at Ian. “What are we supposed to do now?” Toby asked as he poked at the dust with his finger.
“Lay her to rest.” Ian wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.
“Talk about the sins of the past coming back to haunt you,” Toby said. “Unreal. Or surreal. Whichever one suits the situation best.”
Ian inhaled slowly, looked down at the dust, and said, “Remembering is the process of knowing the past; forgetting is the process of not-knowing the past.”
Twenty-One
Deciding to forgo a real tree because he didn’t want to basically destroy one so he could decorate it, Ian bought a realistic-looking artificial tree. Not the long-needled one he’d imagined, but this one captured his attention with its regal, majestic presence, if he could assign that description to an artificial tree. Tall and full, he liked the downswept branches, the way the bottom ones draped to the floor, and pine cones—conifer cones, Ian only recently learned there were actually male and female cones—populated the branches.
It looked just like a fir tree growing in the forest. He chose the ten foot one because he was afraid the twelve foot tree would rise too close to the ceiling. Liberally covered with so much spray-on snow—could the cloud the shit left behind be toxic?—scarcely any green showed through.
White lights. Decked out with enough lights to turn the tree into a beacon that would surely signal the hungry hordes, should the long-anticipated zombie apocalypse occur during the holiday season. Done all in gold, white, and clear and crystal ornaments. Adorned with trios of white poinsettias and petals accented with gold. He wanted the tree up and decorated in time for Toby’s arrival so they could have a dinner to celebrate the solstice.
He’d even ordered a set of special crystal and gold ornaments— a trio of Christmas spiders—for the tree. The three spiders dangled and sparkled like they were getting ready to weave their fabled crystal webs. And then he had the wild idea of starting over from scratch and making a Cthulhu tree, complete with green lights and rubbery tentacles, topped by a likeness of the Old One himself; just like the one he saw online. But he didn't think the Internet, although he was sure it could easily provide him with the components, could get them delivered in time for the holiday.
No sense in being depressed about a distinct lack of Cthulhu. After all, there was always next year; it gave him something to which he could look forward, something to focus his expectations upon.
Ian stood back and took it all in. It looked great. He felt great. The whole atmosphere of the house felt lighter, looked lighter—like a shadow had been lifted. It truly had been.
Cleansed. It made him smile because he instantly thought of Tangina the psychic in the original Poltergeist film telling the family their house was clean. The spectral inhabitant released to the afterlife.
If it had all been merely phantasmagoria—like an old Grand Guignol theatre production—Ian would have applauded the use of light and shadows. It had been real, and now it was over. Sometimes, it felt like time had slow down until almost infinitesimal increments seemed to stretch out for days; other times, it felt as if the entire experienc
e zipped by so fast it was a blur.
Life could keep moving towards being better. Ian could handle that; he earned it. He looked forward to it with a smile on his face.
It may have been a happy time, but something heavy pressed his mind—Ian missed Alex. He missed having a dog in general. Maybe it was time to contemplate adopting one. Alex would want him to help save the life of a dog in need.
And maybe a couple cats, too. The house was big enough to accommodate some animal companions. Maybe that rat he always wanted, like the rat who roamed the house in the book Devil-May-Care by Elizabeth Peters. Ian had always thought that was cool.
Or perhaps a pair of chickens. Ian had read quite a few articles about people who had chickens for pets and the poultry indeed lived inside the house.
With the spirit gone, the atmosphere of the house felt lighter. He no longer had moments when he felt like he was trying to make his way through thick air. The house, more than ever, had begun to feel like his home. And what better way to celebrate home than by bringing some animals into it? The idea made him smile. Yes, it was definitely time. Ian couldn’t wait until Toby got there so he could tell him.
He wanted to go outside, in the falling snow, and have a smoke. The brilliant, almost iridescent flakes, spiraled down like they were attempting to mesmerize him. Lighting the cigarette, he took a deep drag and watched in silence, blowing plume after plume of smoke into the winter air. Something made him want to walk down the driveway, down to the gate.
Along the way, he resisted the urge to lie down amidst the fallen flurries and make snow angels.
Glittering like crystalline sparkles all around him, the snow mesmerized him. Ice sheathed the evergreens, seemingly encasing them in glass. The night had brought a winter storm; in its wake came the cardinals. Crimson or scarlet, Ian never knew which—if either—was correct, dotted the virgin snow. He also spotted the more subtly colored females, some perching, some dancing around.
If he'd been in more of a macabre mood, he'd liken the red avians to blood spatter.
Ian looked around and wondered if by some miracle he’d spot the ultra rare cardinal exhibiting bilateral gynandromorphism, half red and half grey. It would have been breathtaking to see one in person. To his knowledge, only two had ever been on record as being seen—one in 1969 and one in 2008. But it wasn’t meant to be.
Walking through the snow-covered wrought-iron gates, made Ian feel as if he was in another century entirely; he wondered if he turned around fast enough he’d catch a glimpse through time. But if he tried it, all he’d most likely accomplish would be slipping in the snow and busting his ass.
Silence and snow.
There had to be a story in that. His writer-mind started to shift into gear and he pushed it aside because he only wanted to enjoy the moment. A lot had transpired since the day he discovered the house, but it was all worth it—even the crazy shit—because the house felt more like home than any other place he’d lived.
He mind moved forward to spring. Maybe he'd plant some snapdragons, white ones to mimic all the snow the winter storm had brought. Not necessarily because he liked the flowers, but because he'd read when the little flowers died, they turned into what looked like tiny, weird skulls. Pretty flowers that lead to macabre little skulls. He liked the thought of that.
And lilies. They would look great in the gardens around the house. White lilies were formal and properly funereal.
Maybe some moon plants, those odd plants that only bloom at night. Did they come in white? They had to. Almost everything did.
And he could also get some of the really large primeval-looking green plants like Ricinus communis and Heracleum mantegazzianum to stand as sentinels around the garden. The tall plants would certainly make a stunning statement. He'd most likely have to plant them as annuals, because they'd almost certainly never survive the freezing temperature of winter.
Sure, they could be poisonous, but who the hell would climb inside the walls and start nibbling on the greenery? If they did, they deserved what they got.
Realizing he could go for one of the new vegan hot dogs he had in the freezer, with sweet relish, sweet onions, chili, ketchup, and some sauerkraut, he stopped planning his landscaping and turned around and made his way back to the house, whistling along the way.
Rhayven House
Staring down from the window, she looked at him and wanted to laugh.
This was her house. Always. Born here, raised here, died here. And she hadn't gone anywhere. But if it made him feel better to believe she had? Then so be it.
She understood now. So much time had passed. There was no one on whom she could righteously inflict her vengeance. No. Those who were responsible for wronging her, had all eventually died, leaving only innocent descendants. Vengeance would be a waste of her time and energy anyhow. Ian had made her understand.
She smiled.
This one and his friend. They discovered the body that had been secreted away, a dirty reminder of what they had done. Her body. Unable to leave it where it had lain in for so many years, they'd gotten permission to give her dusty remains a proper burial in one of the cemeteries closer to the town.
Sacrificium.
She liked how they'd cared enough to do right by her and her corpse.
Yes, she could be quiet and he'd never know she was still there, but she'd be watching.
And she looked down at him again.
It is remarkable to think of the number of people who co-exist with a spirit or spirits and are none the wiser. A far greater number than many would believe. Unless the spirit allows its presence to be known, the living will carry on in ignorance
—from the diary of Algarath Craven
Postscript
Rhayven House is another ode to my love and enjoyment of haunted house stories (and movies.) I love English ghost stories in particular—something about the atmosphere that draws me right in. There is simply nothing better than curling up on a cool, perhaps stormy, evening with a ghost story. I've been known to take a few hours to re-read James Herbert's Haunted, Elizabeth Peters's Devil-May-Care, any number of stories by Barbara Michaels's like Be Buried in the Rain and House of Many Shadows, and many of the books by John Saul, as well as a few others.
There's just something about stories with things that go bump in the night that make me want to light a few candles and curl up in bed to read them for hours on end, until the night begins to fader and the sun is peeking up over the horizon.
This novella, my ode to the gothic, came about because the character of Ian got into my head several years ago and ever since then, kept telling me every once in a while he needed a tale of his own for people to read. I kicked the idea around for quite a few years before I felt the time was right. Ian was so nice and polite, I couldn’t make the poor guy wait any longer and so I finally began putting pen to paper—rather, putting fingertips to keyboard—and let the words flow.
I in no way attempted to reinvent the wheel with this book; no, I simply wanted to write a ghostly tale for the people, like myself, who enjoy reading a classic-style ghost story, a story I would enjoy reading.
The story revealed itself rather quickly, faster I believe than any other tale I've written, and I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent writing Rhayven House. Don't tell any of my other books, but this could be my favorite. There's just something about this tale and the character of Ian that resonates with me.
Rhayven House is not a roman à clef, French for “novel with a key” where a non-fiction story wears a mask of fiction. Although, I admit I use pieces of real life in all of my stories. It makes them creepier, at least it does in my opinion.
I like haunted house stories and tales of ghosts so much because of my personal experiences with them; the world is coming to the realization such things exist as more and more people come forward with their own stories—ranging from terror-filled stories to the friendlier variety. But you don’t have to believe in ghosts in order for them to be real.
Thank you for reading; I hope you enjoyed my little tale of the ghostly. I know I had a great time writing it. We may see more of this guy names Ian in the future.
There a few people I need to thank for their much-needed and invaluable assistance. Without them, this would have been an arduous task indeed:
Laura Meese, for coming to my rescue and using her skills to create cover art and graphics for my story and for creating the trailer for everyone to see;
Melissa Saville, for creating my banner art for the title pages of Parts I, II, and III;
Meg Jordy, for utilizing your skills with the English language so my story flows and people believe I know how to properly use punctuation. I learned a lot from you and I can't wait for our next project;
Eric Michael, for using your artistic skills and drawing the Rhayven House skeleton key for me;
Savannah Russe, a great author, for being a fellow animal lover and just all around great friend who supports me every step of the way. We share a fascination with the concept of spirits;
Tacie Heavner, for playing and recording some of To A Wild Rose by Edward McDowell for me to use in the trailer for my book;
Teffany Bridges-Jones, for coming to my rescue when the issue with those pesky headers reared its ugly head and stymied me;
Cassie Foster-Doty, for attempting to help in my hour of need—I appreciate it very much;
Chris Ellis, for being my creative twin and all around good friend for letting update you on my progress on pretty much a daily basis; I very much look forward to our creative endeavors;