Lineage: A Supernatural Thriller

by Joe Hart

  Stub racked open the slide of the black gun, revealing its emptiness, and handed the gun to Lance. Lance took the weapon from the large man and instantly liked how it felt. The stock fit well to his shoulder and both hand- and fore-grip seemed to be made for him. He turned the gun over a few times, and then, looking at the storeowner, he grinned.

  “Can you put a light on it?”

  Stub’s smile seemed to stretch from one end of the shop to the other.

  After Stub fitted the Mossberg with a small flashlight below the barrel and told him the finer points of having a white light on a gun, Lance took his new purchase out the rear of the store and into an enclosed shooting range, which was eerily empty. Stub pressed upon him the importance of safety more than once as he showed Lance how to load and operate the shotgun. After getting the go-ahead from his new mentor, he took several shots at a man-shaped target downrange. Stub had been right. The gun handled beautifully, and although his shoulder began to throb with its recoil, within half an hour he felt comfortable loading and unloading the fat red shells Stub had provided.

  “Now just remember, always assume it’s loaded. There’s been more than one man that lost his foot or head because he didn’t check the chamber,” Stub said as Lance followed his hulking mass back into the lonely shop. The storeowner reached behind the glass case and brought out a new zippered gun case. “On the house,” he said, opening the padded interior to accept the shotgun.

  “I don’t mind paying,” Lance said as he placed the gun within the folds of the dark material.

  “I know you don’t. A man as talented at writing as you are shouldn’t be in want for money.” Lance looked up from the zippered case in surprise. “I’ve read all your books,” Stub continued. “Recognized you when you walked in the door.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?” Lance asked.

  “I figured you got that enough, didn’t need another slobbering fan drooling after you, wantin’ an autograph.”

  Lance laughed and shook his head. The big man had grown on him during the past hour they’d spent together going over the finer points of gun handling and ownership, and he now looked at him in a new light. “Thank you. I appreciate all your help, you’ve been great.” Stub waved his hands in a gesture to repel the gratitude as if he were allergic to it.

  “I do have one question for you, though,” Stub said, his jolly face growing serious as he leaned over the counter toward Lance. “Who would want to hurt you?”

  Lance thought of the lineup of people that were not pleased with him at the moment. Ellen sprung to mind for a second and then disappeared. His publishing house was next in line, but the prospect of someone from New York infiltrating his personal life and resorting to scare tactics seemed laughable in the morning light of the gun store. That left John. The caretaker’s serene face and even-keeled words replayed in his mind before fading away.

  “I really don’t know,” Lance said at last. He watched Stub’s face take on a thoughtful expression before the big man spoke again.

  “I’m assuming you came here to write—wouldn’t be anything else keeping you in a little town like this?”

  Mary’s face flashed through his mind but he shoved it away, feeling like an embarrassed teenager. “You’re very intuitive, has anyone ever told you that?” Lance asked.

  “If I knew what that word meant, I’d most likely be flattered, I think,” Stub said, his face devoid of emotion. The look held for a few seconds, and Lance was about to reassure the other man when the same thunderous laughter erupted. Stub nearly bent over with mirth while Lance joined in. Their laughter quieted after a moment and Stub leaned again on the glass case, which squeaked its protest under the considerable pressure.

  “I used to be a bounty hunter, so yes, I am slightly intuitive. You think it’s maybe someone lookin’ for something of value to steal, knowing who you are?” Stub said, gesturing to Lance.

  “Nothing’s missing, so I don’t think robbery is what’s on their minds. Besides, they seem to want to be seen. They’re not creeping around the house being quiet, they’re in my room, watching me and waiting for me to wake up.”

  Stub stood away from the counter, and Lance could have sworn he saw the giant shiver. “Gives me the creeps. You keep that shotgun bedside, got me? Someone’s there in your room again, you shoot and figure things out later. If it was me, I might be inclined to leave town, but I’m guessing you have a good reason to be here, and personally, I can’t wait to read about it.”

  Lance nodded. “I’ll finish what I’m working on. I didn’t come this far to let someone scare me out of what I came here for.” Lance realized his surroundings had faded as he heard his own words of conviction. The fact that his writing had come back was all that mattered now. When Stub spoke again, it coaxed him back from the outer wings of his thoughts.

  “You remind me of Hemingway, traveling to a scenic location to write your next work.”

  Lance appraised the other man again like a jeweler gazing at a rough-hewn stone. “You like Hemingway?”

  “Absolutely. Not trying to be darkly ironic by mentioning him after selling you a shotgun or anything.” Stub’s eyes shone with amusement as Lance chuckled at the black humor and pulled the gun case off the counter.

  “Thanks again. If I have too many beers to drink one night on a weekend, would you consider coming to my place to help me out?” Lance said.

  “I’d be honored,” the big man replied, and Lance could see that he truly meant it.

  Just as Lance put his hand on the doorknob of the store’s front door, Stub called again from where he stood behind the counter.

  “One more thing.” Lance turned and looked back across the breadth of the shop. “What I said earlier about calling the cops, don’t bother. They take way too long in these parts, just another aspect of living in a small town. Use that gun if you need it. If someone wants to hurt you, you’d be dead before the police ever got there.”

  The ride home was uneventful and Lance let his mind drift over the events of the morning as he drove. He had left John’s house with his thoughts muddled, the sincerity of the other man’s words battling with his own convictions, and ended up at the same café in which he ate lunch on his first day in town. The coffee, toast, and egg-white omelet had cleared some of the convoluted thoughts from his head but the feeling of vulnerability hadn’t departed by the time the check was paid and the sleepy-eyed waitress tipped. A means for defense had entered his mind, and the gun store at the far end of town seemed the most logical at the time. As he drove away from Stub’s gun shop (he couldn’t think of it as Endor’s any longer, no matter how hard he tried), his eyes found the front of Mary’s bookstore, and he felt himself preparing to park in front of the building. Her pretty face floated before him and he longed to listen to her voice—for her to talk about the weather would even be a calming exercise—and he had to physically stop himself from turning into an empty parking spot. Instead, he pushed the gas pedal farther to the floor, breaking the speed limit as he exited the town’s main street.

  The sun hung straight overhead, chasing the last remnants of the previous night’s clouds from the sky, when Lance pulled to a stop in front of the house. The engine’s clock-like ticking was the only sound above the distant rasp of waves washing upon the shore below the hill. His mind had already turned to the afternoon’s work when he noticed the note attached to the front door with a single strip of transparent tape. Scrawling script that would have been more at home on any doctor’s prescription pad adorned the paper. The note finally became clear only after Lance read it twice.

  Lance, sorry for getting off on the wrong foot. Please come for dinner this evening around six.

  —John

  Lance stood on the front stoop re-reading the note for several minutes. He tried to imagine different scenarios in which John could possibly be luring him away from the house for a reason, but none seemed to have any merit. Without fully committing to the invitation, he unlocked t
he door and entered the coolness of the house.

  As he walked to the kitchen, he mentally checked that everything was still in its place and hadn’t been tampered with while he was gone. The kitchen yielded a turkey sandwich and a few slices of apple before he made his way to the alcove and the waiting computer within.

  The silence of the house gave him much-needed solitude over the next few hours, and the only sound that disturbed the quiet was the rustling tap of the keyboard’s letters forming words. The lake outside the windows reflected the blue of the late-summer sky, and soft breaths of wind began to frost its middle with whitecaps. The day faded into evening without the notice of the house’s lone occupant, and it was only when the sun began to dip behind the tall curtain of trees in the west that Lance looked up from the computer screen.

  He sat back and rested, in slight awe of the work before him. The sense of accomplishment was so satisfying that he could have sighed with the pleasure of it. Another fifteen pages had been added to the last tally when he checked, his vision of the words being finally released from a pent-up dam within him solidifying into fact.

  Lance stood from the chair after saving the file, and walked to the kitchen. The clock on the stove read 5:20—just enough time for him to shower, dress, and arrive at John’s home. Indecision tossed within him. The temptation to completely ignore the caretaker’s request appealed to him just on principle, but on the other hand, if the old man wasn’t responsible for the night visitations, he might possibly have an idea about who was.

  After deliberating for over five minutes, he decided he needed a shower, regardless of his destination afterward, and headed to the bathroom upstairs. The hot water washed away the grime of the past twenty-four hours, and with it, his reservations.

  As he dressed in a comfortable pair of jeans and a light T-shirt, he resolved that he would hear what John had to say and glean as much information as he could from the elderly man. He reminded himself that hardly anything was ever what it seemed, as he pulled a bottle of wine from the fridge and slammed the door. He needed only to think of the rough-looking gun-store owner he had met today to verify that intrinsic truth.

  The ride to John’s house was quick and lacked the vengeance of his prior visit. As he pulled the Land Rover down the long drive, he noticed how truly beautiful the setting was. The afternoon sun threw shafts of golden light through the thick layers of surrounding forest. Several small birds flitted between branches, recovering bits of food from leaves while keeping an ever-watchful eye on the black vehicle that glided below them.

  Lance parked farther away from the garage than he had that morning, and gazed up at the house before he stepped out of the SUV. There was no movement in the windows, but he could see a bit of smoke curling behind the roof, from the deck beyond, he assumed.

  After pulling the bottle of wine from the back seat and climbing the stairs for the second time that day, he knocked again on the storm door. He expected a trick of some sort. Perhaps John would come to the door with a scowl and tell him exactly what he thought of the new owner of his beloved estate.

  The man who pulled open the door looked like a younger version of the one he had encountered that morning. John’s hair was combed to one side and he had donned a clean set of jeans and a button-up short-sleeved shirt that had an embroidered fish jumping free of a wavy blue line on the left breast pocket. His eyes were soft within their sockets and held no trace of the anger and resentment Lance had seen that morning as well as during their other meetings. John pushed at the storm door and propped it open, looking at Lance.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello,” Lance echoed, not sure where to go after the initial greeting.

  “Please, come in,” John said, stepping back from the entry while holding the door. Lance stepped through the doorway and surveyed the house around him.

  The house was cool with the touch of air conditioning, and the layout looked close to what Lance had imagined earlier that day. A modest kitchen sat to the right, a bright oak table holding position near the window that looked out on the front yard. He could see a living room to his left, a weathered couch pushed against one wall. A large rocking chair sat in the far corner of the room at an angle that inhibited it from performing service to its name. Most of the house was dressed in lightly stained wainscoting, and no pictures decorated the walls, whose colors were surprisingly modern and neutral for someone John’s age.

  “Thanks for coming,” John said as he closed the door behind Lance.

  “Thanks for inviting me after this morning,” Lance returned. John pulled a tight smile onto his lined face and nodded. “I really wanted to apologize—”

  John held up a hand. “No need to apologize, son. The sorry is for me to say. We weren’t properly met and that was my fault.”

  Lance frowned, thinking back to the last two times he had seen John and how rude his choice of words had been. He began to say so when John strode past him to the fridge, which sat at the far end of the kitchen.

  “You a beer man, Lance?” John asked as he bent to inspect the contents of the fridge.

  “Every man is on some level, I suspect,” Lance said as he stepped into the kitchen, noticing how clean and orderly the room was. There were no stray dishrags lying on the spotless counters, and not a solitary crumb could be seen on the wide cutting block near the sink.

  “Bud Light okay?” John asked, holding up two already-frosted bottles.

  “Perfect,” Lance said, taking one of the beers from John’s outstretched hand.

  “Let’s go out on the deck,” John said, motioning to the rear of the house. Lance followed the caretaker through a narrow den with wide windows, to a sliding door that opened onto a spacious deck. The platform overlooked a sweeping lawn that fell away from the house and terminated in a dark pond. Cattails leaned in the breeze of the evening and a pair of ducks glided across the surface of the water. A modest gas grill smoked contentedly at the far corner of the deck, giving off a subtle smell of past meals.

  “Wow. You have a beautiful place here, John,” Lance said, taking in the view.

  “Yeah, it’s no Superior, that’s for sure, but it’s calm and quiet. That’s all a man my age needs, calm and quiet.”

  Lance nodded and studied the older man for a moment. The stoop of John’s shoulders beneath his shirt along with the slight downturn of his mouth told volumes. He was alone. Regardless of the fact that there had been no sounds of stirring within the home to announce another’s presence, Lance could read the caretaker’s face and posture like a road map. Memory and sadness were John’s real clothes, and Lance knew from wearing his own outfit of misery that they were unyielding burdens that refused to be sloughed off, no matter how hard one tried.

  “Have a seat,” John said as he folded himself into a padded wicker chair beside a glass table at the center of the deck. Lance did the same, and for a time both men sipped beer in silence.

  “Beautiful night,” John finally offered, gazing around at the tall trees that ringed the clearing behind the house.

  “Yes, it is,” Lance agreed.

  “Getting used to the area then?” John asked, shifting in his chair while taking another pull from his half-empty bottle.

  “Yeah, I am. It’s definitely a change from the cities, but I’m enjoying it. My other place is a lot like yours actually—secluded and wooded. I like the feeling of not being hemmed in by houses.”

  John gazed out across the pond. “My wife and I lived on the north side of Minneapolis when we were first married. Couldn’t stand it, and that was sixty years ago. No offense, it was like a shoe two sizes too small, just didn’t fit. We moved up here in 1950. Built the place and haven’t left since.”

  Lance nodded, feeling more and more foolish as the older man spoke. John’s words and easy demeanor were forthright, and Lance became ashamed at the thoughts of suspicion he had plastered the man with. The remorse he felt at branding him a criminal outstripped the assurances John had stated earlie
r, and Lance set his beer down on the table next to him.

  “I do have to apologize, John. I’ve been an ass. I was so sure you were responsible, and I reacted and lashed out. I had nothing else other than your standoffishness and the fact that you had the only other set of keys to go on. So, I’m sorry.”

  John had lowered his head to gaze at the beer bottle in his hand. He didn’t look up as he replied. “Like I said earlier, no need to apologize. I didn’t act myself the day we met. I was flustered at the prospect of the house changing hands again, and I let my emotions get the best of me. I don’t blame you for questioning me, you don’t know me, but my hope is you’ll get to over the time you own the old place.” John broke his eye contact with the bottle and looked up at Lance imploringly.

  “I think that’s just fine,” Lance said, smiling across the table. A glimmer of light shone in John’s morose eyes for a moment and then was gone like a comet burning to nothing in the atmosphere. “Now that we’re on the same side of the fence, tell me what’s been going on in the house. The curiosity’s been driving me bat-shit crazy.” Lance sat back and laughed as a smile broke John’s wrinkled face.

  After taking a drink to wet his voice, Lance recounted the occurrences of the past two nights to John, who sat quietly listening. Lance paused only when John went to the kitchen to retrieve two fresh beers. Lance left out what he had seen through the keyhole of the locked door on his initial viewing of the house along with the nightmare that had visited him earlier that day. His trust of the older man was building and he didn’t want to taint it with unsubstantiated feelings, irrational dreams, and something that could have been his eyes playing tricks on him. Instead, he fell silent after finishing the account, letting the whisper of the wind in the pines and the occasional chittering of a red squirrel pervade the tranquility of the absence of words. John turned his beer in slow circles on the table beside him for a time, deep in thought. He remained impassive for so long that Lance began to consider assuring him that he hadn’t imagined the nighttime encounters, when the other man spoke.