by Billy Wells
That is, until they arrived at the small airport on that cold January morning. Frank looked like a little kid with a new toy, grinning from ear to ear in his blue helmet that looked much too big for his head.
Once the plane took off, and Frank was in the air, the three of them stopped laughing and stood spellbound as they watched the small aircraft get smaller and smaller as it climbed higher and higher into the sky.
After a time, Harold, whose nickname was Hawkeye because he had the best vision of the four of them, said, “Shit, I think he just jumped out of the plane. At least, someone did.”
Ben couldn’t see what Harold was seeing; he had the poorest vision of the four. Biting his fingernail into the quick, he shouted, “What’s happening now?”
“He must have pulled the ripcord! The chute is spiraling downward,” Harold screamed above the roar of another plane taking off.
“I don’t know much about parachuting, but I don’t think you’re supposed to pull the ripcord that soon,” Murray said, in a worried tone.
“Oh, no!” Harold squealed at the top of his lungs.
“What?” Ben shouted.
“The chute didn’t open. It looks like a giant streamer trailing behind him. He’s freefalling,” Harold shouted.
Murray said, trying to stay calm. “He’ll be okay. I read all about it on the Internet last night. Frank has a backup chute. If the primary doesn’t open, he’ll release it, and once it’s out of the way, he’ll manually pull out the backup on his stomach and let it fly.”
“Oh, no!“ Harold shrieked.
“What?” Murray and Ben asked in unison, squinting into the blinding sun.
“He didn’t release the first parachute, and the backup is wrapping around it.”
They stood there in horror, listening to Frank’s gut wrenching scream as he neared the ground. He landed not far away with a bone-crushing thump in a sickening, heap of blood and guts, topped with a blue helmet. Ben would never forget that scream if he lived a thousand years.
It was bitter cold the morning Frank was buried. Snow had covered the cemetery during the night. The three of them had volunteered to be pallbearers, but Harold didn’t show up, and someone else they barely knew had taken his place.
Even before he entered the church for the funeral service, Ben had planned to sit as far back as possible. He did not intend to go up front to view Frank’s body in the coffin, but when he stepped inside, he caught a glimpse of his friend in the casket before he could turn away.
Immediately, he wished he hadn’t seen the body. Murray said it would give him closure, and make him feel better. Ben would always regret listening to this nonsense. He was convinced that dead people never look the way they did when they were alive, and this proved it.
At first glance, from where he sat, Ben thought Frank’s hair was combed like Elvis. After a pause, he groaned to Murray and the other person in the pew, “Why does his face look so puffy?”
The stranger seated next to Murray whispered, “The mortician probably stuffed too much cotton in his mouth. It’s surprising he looks this good after falling from an airplane.”
Another person next to him, talking through his hand said, “There wouldn’t have been an open casket if Frank’s fall hadn’t been broken by the pine boughs he fell through on the way down. If he’d hit the ground, he’d just be a stew of blood and guts.”
“Please, the children,” an obese woman hissed. Afterward, everyone around him went silent.
Ben hated the way his friend looked. The undertaker had twisted a ridiculous smile on Frank’s face that reminded him of the Joker’s Cheshire cat grin in a Batman comic. What a mistake. Now, he would remember Frank looking like a clown in the coffin rather than the way he looked the last time he‘d seen him, which was inebriated and happy.
After the ceremony at the cemetery, Ben and Murray received the unbelievable news that Harold had driven his SUV through a guardrail and crashed in a ball of fire at the bottom of a cliff. An eyewitness told police there was no one else in the car. Later that night, the police told Ben and Murray, it appeared to be a suicide. They wondered if Frank’s death had pushed him over the edge.
Five days later, Ben and Murray attended Harold’s funeral. The injuries sustained in the crash did not allow for an open casket ceremony, which suited Ben just fine.
In February, Murray informed Ben he had decided to go through with his New Year’s resolution, which was to spend the night in a haunted house. Murray never went to horror movies when he was growing up and had bad dreams when he watched spooky shows on TV. All the kids had made fun of him and called him a sissy when he wouldn’t go with them to a scary movie.
Murray always said he envied people who were unaffected by horror movies, haunted houses, things that go bump in the night, and he wanted to be one of them. To finally quell his phobia, he had been going to the same shrink Frank had hired.
Just before Christmas, after extensive hypnosis sessions and passing a series of tests, Murray’s therapist, a Doctor Winthrop, advised him he was cured, and he would never have the phobia again. To prove it, Murray had already decided to spend the night at the Schram House; a legendary mansion with a dark history that all the old timers said was haunted.
After the last appointment with the shrink, Murray had called Ben and asked him to meet for drinks at the Purple Puma at seven o’clock the night following his stay at Schram House to celebrate.
On the night they’d planned to meet, Ben arrived early and was already one drink ahead when the bar clock on the wall read seven. After another drink, when Murray didn’t show and didn’t call, Ben called him, and it automatically went to the message center. After stopping by his apartment and finding Murray wasn’t there, he had an eerie feeling something bad may have happened at the Schram house.
Ben didn’t believe in ghosts or haunted houses, but going to the Schram mansion at night by himself was something he would never do. Nonetheless, he didn’t want to wait until morning to find out what happened to Murray. In desperation, he called a friend of his father’s, Matt Hawkins, who was now the local sheriff. He hoped he might do him a favor and go with him to look for Murray if he wasn’t too busy. Sure enough, Matt agreed to meet him at the Schram house in a half hour.
Ben shuddered when he saw the spooky house in the distance at the end of a lonely road. As he approached the large menacing structure he’d always heard was over 150 years old, he saw the yard surrounding the dilapidated monstrosity was a tangle of overgrown weeds and gnarled trees. Behind the discolored picket fence at the back of the property, he saw a graveyard with leaning headstones of all shapes and sizes. A low-lying mist crept along the ground around the twenty-bedroom shell that had been falling apart for over twenty years.
As he pulled into the driveway bordering the expansive front porch, Ben noticed most of the windowpanes were missing or broken. The huge front door squeaked eerily back and forth on rusty hinges like a black portal into Hell. The gaping void seemed to beckon him as he sat with raw nerves in his car and waited for Matt to arrive. A bitter cold wind moaned through the cracks and crevasses of the ominous facade.
Everyone who lived in the vicinity knew that the last owner, Philip Bartholomew, had hacked his wife and children to pieces before he disappeared and was never heard from again. To add to the gruesome legend of the Schram residence, the family before the Bartholomew’s met a grisly death at the hands of a mental patient who had escaped from the Rothschild asylum. The deranged maniac had chained up the husband, wife, and two children, and hacking off one limb at a time, had made a meal of them for three months.
Knowing Murray’s fear of scary places, Ben could not imagine him coming here alone after dark and was totally shocked when he saw his friend’s Mustang parked in front of the house. He pulled behind it, locked his own doors and windows, and continued to wait for Matt to arrive. He didn’t see Murray in his car, but he didn’t want to take a closer look by himself.
Finally, he s
aw the lights of another car coming up the driveway and was happy to see it was Matt Hawkins. Ben met the Sheriff in the yard.
Matt pointed his flashlight into the gloom and said, “You say Murray said he was going to spend the night here last night?”
“That’s right, Matt. He’d been going to a shrink, and this was supposed to be the conclusive test that his phobia had been cured.“
They went to look inside Murray’s car. It was locked, but peering through the driver’s side window, they saw nothing suspicious.
They also inspected the other side, and finding nothing unusual proceeded to the front door of the eerie mansion. They looked at each other, dreading what came next. Their faces were as white as a sheet as they approached the ominous structure. Matt inhaled a lung full of air, and they went in.
Immediately, the beam of his flashlight illuminated the hideous face of Murray sitting in a large armchair directly in front of the front door. Both wrists were slashed, and two large pools of dried blood had accumulated on the floor. His throat was cut from ear to ear, and a straight razor lay open on his lap. His white shirt was soaked with blood from the neck wound. The worse part was seeing the expression on Murray’s face. He looked like he had seen the devil himself. The Sheriff called for the coroner and the paramedics.
“What do you think? Is this a suicide or a murder?” Ben asked.
Matt hesitated, and after a time replied, “There’s nothing here that suggests anything more than suicide. Murray could have sliced his wrists and his throat before he bled out, but the coroner might find something suspicious when he does the autopsy.”
“I can’t imagine Murray killing himself, but I never thought Harold would either, yet, three people saw him drive his car off the cliff.”
Just like the memory of Frank’s death scream, if Ben lived another thousand years, he would never forget the look on Murray’s face.
Matt said grimly, “I’ve seen some pretty grisly things in my time. Murders, mutilations, bad auto accident victims, but I’ve never seen a look on a dead person’s face like this. What in hell did the poor bastard think he saw when he was hacking and slicing himself to death with the straight razor. He should have put a gun in his mouth and blown his brains out rather than go through all this.”
“Murray didn’t own a gun,“ Ben replied blankly, shaking his head, and trying to hold back the tears. “I didn’t know he owned a straight razor either for that matter.”
Matt started inspecting the rest of the crime scene, and making notes on a pad he withdrew from his shirt pocket, he aid, shaking his head, “That shrink must have been out of his mind to tell Murray to spend the night in this place.”
“It was Edgar Winthrop who gave him the okay, and he’s the most highly respected psychiatrist in the state as far as I know. I’ve never heard anyone say a negative thing about him. He has successfully helped God knows how many people not only in the state, but also in the country.
“His reputation is excellent all right,” the sheriff added. “In fact, my wife went to him when she had some issues that troubled her after her mother died.”
After another two hours with the rescue squad, the coroner, and the police, Ben headed toward his car to leave. As he approached the Murray’s Mustang, he saw something shiny underneath in the headlights. Stooping down, he picked up a large silver coin. Matt, who was talking with some men on the porch, saw him and came over to see what he’d found. Ben showed him the coin and asked, “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
“You know I think I did see a coin like this somewhere, but I can’t place where,” Matt said, turning it over and looking at the other side. “When it comes to me, and I think it will, I’ll call you.”
Ben left Matt with the coroner and his crew, and stopped at a bar for a few Cuervo shots to settle his nerves before he went home. Now, all three of his best friends were dead. As he sat there getting wasted, he couldn’t get the look on Murray’s face out of his mind.
* * *
Six days later, Ben attended the funeral for Murray. At the gravesite, he ran into Matt and told him about the terrible nightmares he’d been having every night since the death of his friends. The Sheriff advised him to make an appointment with Dr. Winthrop before he had a breakdown or something worse.
When he finally decided to call, he couldn’t get an appointment with the esteemed doctor for two weeks. In the meantime, Matt had called to tell him they had closed the files on the deaths of his three fiends, which the authorities concluded were suicides.
* * *
Finally, the day of the appointment came after two weeks of sleepless nights. When Ben approached the mammoth dwelling perched on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, he felt sad that he would probably never enjoy living in a luxurious place like this himself. Winthrop was one of the richest and most respected doctors in the state. Many thought he might run for the senate as a stepping-stone to the Presidency.
Sitting in the parking lot, he thought of taking off, but someone inside saw him pull into the driveway. Leaving now would be embarrassing, and he’d probably have to pay for the session anyway.
The left side of the mansion was dedicated to the psychiatric practice. He saw the sign and followed the elaborate, stone walkway with views of the ocean. Opening the door with stained glass insets, he went into a large vestibule.
The waiting area was not like the typical doctor’s office. Several expensive paintings covered two of the walls to the left and right. The wall in front of several sets of plush, beige chairs and a large teak coffee table was lined with degrees and awards. A floor to ceiling aquarium with tropical fish covered the front wall. There was no sign-in sheet.
Before Ben could take a seat, a young woman in a designer suit appeared in the doorway and greeted him, “Dr. Winthrop will be with you shortly. Please have a seat. Would you care for a latte, espresso, regular coffee, or tea?”
“I’d like a latte, please.” Ben replied. He’d never had a latte, and thought he’d try one.”
He took a seat, and in a short time, the woman brought him a steaming latte in an antique cup and a form to fill out to provide his medical history and personal information. She smiled warmly and left the room. Sipping the heavenly brew, Ben noticed one large plaque listed Winthrop as one of the top ten psychiatrists in the United States for the fifth year in a row.
After five minutes elapsed, the woman returned, retrieved the forms he’d filled out, and led him into the doctor’s office. The room had a sofa, a love seat, and two armchairs situated in front of a massive desk with a wall full of leather-bound books.
Ben took a seat in one of the overstuffed armchairs. After several more minutes elapsed, the door opened to the left, and Dr. Winthrop entered and took his seat behind the desk.
“Hello, Ben. I understand from your form, you’ve been troubled with severe nightmares.”
“Yes, every night for the past month, I wake up screaming with my tee-shirt drenched with sweat. My primary physician gave me several medications to calm my nerves and to help me sleep, but none of them helped at all.”
“Who is your primary physician?”
“Dr. Joseph McCabe.”
“I know Joe very well. We play a round of golf now and then. So… you say the nightmares started about a month ago.”
“Yes, I remember precisely, it all began on February 25, which was a Sunday.”
“Do you have any idea what could be causing your nightmares?”
“I believe they have something to do with the death of my three closest friends, and the resolutions we made on New Year’s Eve. Strangely enough, each of us had a phobia that plagued us all of our lives, and we made a pact to overcome them this year. In response to that, two of my friends began therapy with you, and as far as I know, you cured both of them in a very short time.”
“Are you referring to Frank Jessup, Murray Abrams, and Harold Carmichael?”
“Yes, those are my three friends, but as far a
s I know, only Frank and Murray were patients of yours.”
Winthrop started to say something, but remained silent while Ben continued, “As you know, Frank wanted to prove his fear of flying was over by going skydiving. The three of us bet him $100 he wouldn’t go through with it. We lost the bet, and we also lost him as a friend when he opened his backup chute too soon and fell to his death.”
“I saw it in the paper, and couldn’t believe it. I consider curing Frank of his problem one of my greatest achievements.”
“It’s amazing what you accomplished with Frank in such a short time and tragic that it led to his untimely death.”
“I assume Murray was another friend who met an unfortunate end.”
“Yes, Murray’s death, although considered by the authorities to be a suicide, troubles me. That’s part of the reason I wanted to talk with you.”
“I’m sorry, Ben, but I really can’t discuss another patient’s confidential information. I can only try to offer a solution for your own personal problem.”
“I understand, I guess. I hoped you might shed some light on the suicide. Apparently, you did cure Murray of his phobia, and he wanted to prove it by spending the night at the Schram house alone after dark. I’ll never understand why he wanted to do such a crazy thing. I don’t know anyone, including me, that would go there at night by themselves.”
Ben paused to control the flood of emotion building as he spoke about the loss of his dear friend, and then continued, “When Murray didn’t meet me for drinks like we’d planned, I called the Sheriff, a long-time friend of my father’s, to meet me there. I arrived first and waited for the Sheriff before I got out of my car. Do you know about the background of the Schram house?”
“I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never been there.”
“Do you have any idea why Murray would commit suicide in such a creepy place? If he thought he was cured, why would he bring a straight razor with him?”
“I have no idea. It makes no sense. He was entirely cured the last time he was here for therapy.”