by Ronald Kidd
Her hand was soft and warm. “I’m David Cray,” I said.
I nodded toward her books. “You should get a backpack.”
“I have one. It’s in the shop.”
“The shop?”
“My dad’s a fix-it man. He repairs everything. There’s just one catch—the paying customers come first. My mom has appliances sitting on his shelf that are older than I am.”
She glanced down the street. “I should get to school. Are you going?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah.”
“Then come on.”
We walked together, past liquor stores and pawnshops. Libby did most of the talking, which was fine with me. It gave me a chance to look at her. I knew she was in the eighth grade, the same as me, but she looked older, especially around the eyes. She had a way of nodding as she spoke, kind of a built-in yes. When she smiled, her face glowed like the sun.
It turned out she lived down the street from our house, in an apartment over her father’s shop, with her brother, sister, and parents. I hadn’t thought of our block as a neighborhood, but she was a neighbor.
As we rounded the corner toward school, she glanced at me. “So, it’s not true after all.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not eight feet tall. You don’t have horns or torture kittens.”
I must have looked puzzled.
“Look, David, I haven’t been honest with you,” she said. “I knew who you were as soon as I heard your name. Everybody at school knows. You’re the boy who beat up Jake Bragg.”
Suddenly it seemed important to explain. “He threatened me. He wanted me to pay him for protection. I never beat up anybody before.”
She studied my face. “Really?”
“What are they saying about me?”
“Let’s put it this way,” she said. “I don’t think you need protection, from Jake Bragg or anybody else.”
Great. I’d barely started at school, and everybody was afraid of me. Well, almost everybody.
Libby smiled. “If you don’t torture kittens, what do you do?”
“Not much,” I said. “I’m grounded.”
“Because of the fight?”
I nodded. “It’s okay. There’s hope. I’ll be out when I’m forty-three.”
“Ouch.”
“Go to school, come home. Go to school, come home. Nice, huh?”
She said, “You must be tired of your apartment.”
I didn’t want to lie to her. It didn’t seem right.
“Libby,” I said, “I haven’t been honest with you either. You know that house we were looking at? The creepy one with broken shutters? Someone does live there. It’s my mom and me.”
She stopped and stared at me.
I shrugged. “Well, there’s also my pet bat.”
She giggled, and the giggle turned into a laugh. Relieved, I laughed along with her.
“David Cray,” she said, “you are full of surprises.”
“Is that good?”
“I like surprises,” she said.
I am Poe. I wrote stories, but none so glorious and appalling as the story I will tell you now, the one that seized me and would not let go.
The story began, as it ended, with death.
Virginia, my beloved wife, died. Without Ginny my light was gone, my soul split. The only thing left was words. Oh, tender, harsh, empty words!
I planned a magazine, called the Stylus. I sailed to Richmond to raise money and left two months later, a fat roll of bills in my pocket. All was well, or so I thought.
On the way back, my head began to throb as if caught in a vise. I staggered off the ship in Baltimore, where Ginny and I had spent our happiest years.
Pain! Spasms! Seizures!
I stumbled into an opium den, but the relief didn’t last. I needed something stronger, and I wondered where I could get it.
A name skittered like a cockroach across my mind. Curse the day I heard it. Blast the day I remembered it.
Reynolds.
Chapter 4
A Minute Before Midnight
There was something odd about the house. Sure, it was old and battered and a little off-kilter, but that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about the floor plan. It wasn’t right.
When I finished my homework each day, I got into the habit of exploring the house. You wouldn’t believe the stuff I found—old shoes, postcards from the 1800s, antique buttons and jars. They were stuffed into nooks and crannies all over the house.
In fact, I became sort of an expert on nooks and crannies. I got to where I could spot them from down the hall or across a room—little places where you could hide things. In that house, it was like they were built in on purpose. Maybe the architect liked puzzles and games. Maybe he had a sense of humor and was laughing in his grave.
As I explored, though, I started to get the feeling that one of the nooks—or was it a cranny?—wasn’t little at all. There was something strange about the floor plan. The layout of the first floor seemed normal enough, with the kitchen, my mom’s bedroom, and the living room, which in the old days they called a parlor. The second floor was another matter. There was my room, a hallway, and an extra bedroom where we piled boxes and junk. But it seemed like there should be more. The rooms didn’t add up. As my wise-guy teacher Mr. Sturgeon had said about my science quiz one day, the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.
There was also the strange fact that the house had a chimney, but I’d never seen a fireplace.
Curious, I found a tape measure and used it to figure out the size of the rooms. I got some paper and drew up a rough floor plan, showing the location of the walls and the places in between. Sure enough, in the middle of the floor plan, right behind my room, was a big blank space.
I went into my room and studied the back wall. What was on the other side? I put my ear to the wall, between movie posters for The Shining and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but I didn’t hear anything. I tapped the wall. It sounded hollow.
My room had a closet at the back. I got a flashlight, pulled aside the clothes hanging there, and inspected the walls. They seemed normal enough. I was about to turn away and leave when I noticed a crack near the bottom of the rear wall. It was so thin you could barely see it. I got down on my knees and, adjusting the flashlight beam, focused it on the wall. From above, the crack had been almost invisible, but down low, from a few inches away, I could see it clearly.
I wedged my fingernails into the crack and wiggled. Something shifted. I dug my nails in farther, then lifted and pushed. There was a creaking sound, and a wall panel swung outward, as if attached to very old hinges. Behind the panel was a door—an old, old door.
I shone the light on it. The wood was pitted, and the handle, lock, and other hardware were brown and tarnished. I tried the handle. It turned, but the door seemed stuck. I tried again, with no luck, then threw my shoulder against it. The door flew open, and I went stumbling inside.
I had dropped the flashlight, so I picked it up and shone it around. I was in a room about the size of mine. There was a high ceiling covered with spiderwebs, like mold on a slice of spoiled bread.
Something scuttled across the floor, taking cover behind a big, bulky object in the middle of the room. The object turned out to be a large, antique writing desk, covered with a blanket of dust and an assortment of odd items—a kerosene lantern, an old-fashioned quill pen, a sheaf of paper.
On the other side of the desk was a long, low table covered by a cloth, with a giant bird crouched on top. For a moment I thought the bird was real. Then, advancing slowly and shining my beam on it, I realized it was a carving. I blew off the dust. Mistake. A cloud rose up, thick as fog. I coughed and fired off a round of sneezes. When the dust settled, I examined the carving. It was a raven. Someone had shaped it in perfect detail, then painted coal-black feathers and eyes the color of blood. On the base were the letters E. P.
“Is that your name?” I asked. The raven didn’t answer.
&
nbsp; I circled the desk, and the red eyes followed me. Beside the desk, against a wall, was a grandfather clock taller than I was. The pendulum hung motionless, and the hands had stopped at one minute to twelve.
On the opposite wall was the missing fireplace. It had been bricked over. Next to it was a rectangular shape that once had been a window, and it was bricked over too. The room, for whatever reason, had been sealed. The only entrance was the secret one through my closet.
There was another object nearby, and I realized it was an old desk chair. I rolled it over to the desk and wiped off the seat with my shirtsleeve, being careful not to create another dust cloud. Then, propping up the flashlight to illuminate the area, I sat down.
You’d think the chair would have been rickety and uncomfortable, but it felt good. Leaning forward, I checked the desk drawers. In the top drawer was an ancient key.
Remembering the lock on the door, I went over and tried it. The key fit. By jiggling it, I was able to lock the door and unlock it again.
I returned to the chair, put the key back, and checked the other drawers. They were filled with paper, blank and yellowed with age. I picked up the quill pen from the desktop. As I did, a blast of energy raced up my arm and through my body. My ears tingled, and I swear that my hair stood on end. My hand twitched, eager to do something. I went into my room and got a bottle of ink that I’d used on a calligraphy art project I’d done at school. Then I came back, took some of the yellowed paper from a drawer, and began to write.
Wild, fevered scenes leaped to mind. I was on a ship in a storm, being sucked into a huge whirling vortex. I sneaked through a dark alley, and a hairy beast jumped me from behind. I was in a hot-air balloon, floating up to the moon. Each scene was a story—eerie, thrilling, fully formed. It seemed as if the stories had already been written, but somehow I had to write them again.
As fast as the scenes came to me, I captured them on paper. My hand flashed across the pages, spewing words. When one page was filled, I tossed it to the floor and picked up another.
My shadow, hunched over and huge, flickered on the wall behind me.
I don’t know how long I went on like that. It could have been an hour, maybe two. When I looked up, pages covered the floor. I was sweating. The surge of energy had passed, replaced by a low hum, like an electric current.
I glanced up at the grandfather clock. It might be daytime outside, but in this room, sealed off from the world, the time was always a minute before midnight.
I set down the pen and picked up my flashlight. I stumbled across the room and out the door, shutting it behind me and closing the wall panel.
I wasn’t sure what had happened, but I knew one thing. I would be back.
Chapter 5
Surrounded by Gravestones
“Are you okay?”
We were at breakfast, and my mom was looking at me over the morning paper. Around our house, breakfast was one of the last vestiges of family life. Eating at least one meal a day together was something that years ago my dad had insisted on. After he left, my mom had started the tradition again. I guess it was her feeble attempt to hold the family together, at least what was left of it. It wasn’t as if we said much, though. She would read the paper, and I would play with my phone. Heartwarming, isn’t it?
“I’m fine,” I mumbled.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “You’re always tired, but all you do is go to school and come home. That is all you do, isn’t it?”
“Sorry to tell you this, Mom, but I’ve been sneaking out to run triathlons.”
“You’re a wise guy,” she said. “A tired wise guy.”
The funny thing is, she was right. I was tired, and all I’d been doing was going to school and coming home. Of course, there was more to home than met the eye.
I had returned to the secret room, as I knew I would. Needing a better light source, I had filled the lantern with kerosene and lit it. The light was good, but as smoke curled up from the lantern, I realized it might be dangerous in a sealed room. So, on my way home from school, I stopped by the hardware store and bought an electric lantern. It operated on batteries, because I had noticed that the room had no electrical outlets. What kind of room doesn’t have electrical outlets?
The visions continued to flow, from my mind to the page, from the page to the floor. Comets battered the Earth, destroying cities and towns. A plague struck, and people died off like flies. Robots sprang to life, helping humanity but plotting in secret. After days of scribbling, the paper started to pile up, forming a barrier like a wall. I liked that. It made me feel safe.
Then one day after school, it all changed.
I was sitting at the desk, writing. That day it was about people who had been buried alive. They screamed and scratched and pounded on their coffins, but no one came. The words poured out, and I tried to keep up.
There was a noise. I looked up, startled. Libby was standing there.
“Okay, don’t be mad,” she said.
I stared, surrounded by gravestones.
She spoke quickly, tripping over the words. “I knocked on the front door, but no one answered. I knew you were home because—well, you’re always home. I figured you didn’t hear me, so I pushed open the door and called your name. No answer. I started getting worried. Maybe it’s the house—this place is creepy. You were here all alone. What if you got sick, or fell and hurt yourself? Maybe you were injured and bleeding. I had to find you. I looked around and noticed a light coming from your closet. I shouldn’t have come in, I know. But I was scared.”
She looked around the room. “What is this place? What are you doing?”
“I’m not sure,” I said.
She moved to the desk and looked down at the paper I’d been scribbling on, then at the pages piled on the floor. I realized it must have seemed strange.
“I’ve been writing,” I explained.
“I guess so.”
“This story is about people trapped inside coffins.”
She gave me a long, hard look. I could tell she was right on the edge—accept me and find out more, or turn away and never come back. It would have been so easy for her to leave and join the other kids at school, the ones who stared and pointed but never talked to me. I don’t know why, but she stayed.
“Okay, David,” she said, “this is seriously weird. You live in a haunted house. There’s a secret room with no windows. And you’re writing about…coffins?”
In the week since I’d discovered the room, it had become the most important thing in my life—sometimes, it seemed, the only thing—and yet I hadn’t told anyone about it. Maybe I never would have if it hadn’t been for Libby. With her there, it all poured out.
I told her about the floor plan and the tape measure and the big blank space. I described the hidden door and the dark room behind it. Picking up the electric lantern, I showed her the fireplace and window that had been bricked over, the carved raven, the grandfather clock with hands that never moved.
I went back to the desk, threading my way among the old, yellowed papers. They were everywhere, covered with words I barely recognized. How could I explain them?
“The stories are about coffins and beasts and monsters,” I said, “but to be honest, I’m not sure who the writer is.”
I described the scenes that played out in my mind and how I tried to capture them on paper. It wasn’t exactly writing. It was more like taking dictation.
Glancing around the room, Libby shivered. “David, what’s going on?”
Chapter 6
Snakes and Scorpions and One-Eyed Dogs
That night I had trouble sleeping. I tossed and turned, thinking about Libby and everything that had happened. She hadn’t stayed long, but she had promised to come back. Part of me was glad she had shown up. Part of me was angry and wasn’t sure why. Finally, tangled in the sheets, I fell asleep.
I was standing on the sidewalk, looking up at the house. As I watched, the shutters opened and seemed to blink. The house
leaned toward me. An awful smell rose up, like meat that had been left in the sun. Worms wriggled out of the windows. They were headed straight for me.
I edged back, but they kept coming. There were snakes and scorpions and one-eyed dogs, snarling, slithering. I yelled, but no sound came out. So I ran, down the streets and through the gutters. A hot wind blew. The ground shook.
As I stumbled along, I heard a terrible clattering noise. I looked back, and there, spilling out of the house, came an army of skeletons. They staggered and lunged, their lipless skulls grinning. They wanted me. They hungered for me.
The clattering grew louder. The wind howled. It tugged at me like some evil vacuum cleaner, pulling me back toward the house. I grabbed a tree trunk and hung on for a moment, my body parallel to the ground, feet flapping like flags. Then I was sucked in, past the skeletons, over the snakes, through the door; dragged up the stairs, across my bedroom, and into the closet.
The wind stopped, dumping me onto the floor. Looking up, I faced a wall. My life was full of walls. Keep out. You don’t belong.
Suddenly I wanted to go into the room. I needed to. Something was happening. I didn’t know what, but I had to be there.
I swung back the panel, opened the door, and stepped inside. The room was the color of blood. When my eyes adjusted, I saw why. The eyes of the carved raven glowed bright red.
I moved past the raven and toward the clock, stopping in front of it. The pendulum hung motionless. Opening the case, I swung the pendulum, and the clock started tick, tick, ticking.
A moment later, the minute hand clicked to twelve. There was an awful grinding noise, and the chimes began. Low and deep, they rang through the room. My heart raced. My fists clenched. The chimes felt like blows, like what I had done to Jake Bragg.
Behind me, beneath the chimes, I heard a bumping sound, then another. Turning around, I saw the raven, its eyes glowing like lasers. There was another bump, and the carving rocked back and forth. The sounds were coming from the long, low table where the raven sat.