Peel Back the Skin

by Anthony Rivera

  You’re getting too old for this, John.

  He’d been having the blackouts for months now, ever longer periods of fugue. He didn’t mind so much. They passed the time between sleeps. But this was different. This had been a visual and auditory hallucination, more real than any dream.

  Maybe Bettie was right. Maybe the old house is haunted after all.

  But John didn’t believe in haunts. If things like that existed, Bettie would have come back to him years ago. The night she’d gone, even as she lay on her deathbed, she’d promised to be with him, forever.

  I’ll send you a sign. Just so you’ll know it’s me.

  And like an old fool, John had waited. Years and years he waited. But she didn’t come. Even when he talked to her, all through the day, she never talked back. That’s when he knew there was nothing beyond. His Bettie would never have been able to stop herself from talking back.

  After years of no response, John had given up waiting and had settled into a life of sleep, checking the ferry offices and reading the newspaper. It was a daily routine that had suited him perfectly.

  Until now.

  As he made up two cups of hot chocolate, he was remembering the first night they’d spent in this house.

  * * *

  The ferry had stopped forever that very same morning, and Bettie was teary all day, weeping at the slightest provocation. Just the sight of the red door being taken down in the ticket office, replaced by a cheap plywood board, sent her into a crying fit that lasted two hours. Even after they got into bed, she pressed against him, sobbing quietly for a long time.

  At some point she fell quiet, and he had thought she’d finally gone to sleep. He was proved wrong when the cupboard door across the room opened with a loud creak, and she sat straight up in bed as if given an electric shock.

  “Hayden Brooks!” she shouted. “Go away. You’re not welcome here.”

  He tried to hold her, but she was taut with tension, trembling all over, refusing to take her gaze from the shadows that crept around the open cupboard door. It took him another twenty minutes to calm her, and that involved turning on the lights, shutting the cupboard door and holding it closed with the back of a chair, checking under the bed and making sure the windows were locked.

  Even then she was reluctant to say any more. When she finally relaxed she was embarrassed by her outburst, berating herself for behaving like a slip of a girl. But after some coaxing, she told him a story of a cuckolded ship’s captain, a descent into alcohol and a trio of missing children who were never found.

  “Hayden Brooks was his name. And he was the most evil man ever to live in the town. He went to the gallows for his crimes but he never repented. His house used to stand on this plot. They had it burned to the ground and the ashes scattered. My family put this house up some years later.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “In the old days,” was all she’d said, suddenly sounding like the little girl John knew she kept hidden deep inside. “But Brooks is still here. He can’t leave.”

  All that night she’d clung to him.

  “Mother said he couldn’t harm us, that he was just a haunt, with no power over God-fearing folks. And during the day, I know she was right. But some nights, it’s hard to remember that.”

  The next morning he put up the red door in the kitchen.

  * * *

  John realized he was standing over two cups of cold hot chocolate. The clock struck twelve.

  Sorry Bettie. I’m getting too old.

  He poured the drinks down the sink and made a new batch. He left Bettie’s mug on the table, as he’d done every night since she passed, and dragged himself up the stairs. Before he settled, he checked under the bed and put the back of a chair against the cupboard door.

  * * *

  He almost felt normal again the next morning. The red door didn’t rattle at all while he had his cereal and toast, and the jolly lads on the radio kept up a constant stream of witticisms that even had him smiling as he went out into the sunshine.

  The first inkling he had that something was wrong came as he turned out of his drive and headed down towards the main street. Two policeman stood outside the post office, talking gently to a young woman who was near hysteria. John kept his head down and walked past quickly.

  Bettie never liked getting involved in other’s business. Where other local women would gather for gossip and spend hours over their shopping trips, Bettie was in and out in minutes. John always followed her example. The people of the town had long since learned not to try to engage him in chatter, and John liked that just fine.

  There were more people out and about on the street than usual, gathered in small clumps, chattering animatedly, but none of them paid John any heed as he made his way to the pier.

  The building was never going to win any style awards, not even in its heyday. It was little more than a two-story box with a roof. Some of the top floor had caved in now, the portion that would have been Mr. Phillips’s room. John hoped he’d be long dead before the room where he and Bettie had lived fell into such ruin. Several of the upstairs windows still had glass in them, but most of them had been broken by a combination of the elements and stone-throwing youths. Up in the eaves, two empty hanging baskets swayed gently in the wind. In the pier’s pomp Bettie would have them full of a starburst of color that brought gasps of delight from the travelling passengers.

  As he got closer, the vision of the night before started to prey on his mind, but all apprehension was forgotten when he saw that the main door lay wide open.

  Someone got inside.

  He broke into a shuffling run. By the time he got to the door and into the offices proper, he was panting like a dog. He cried out when he saw what had been done.

  Day-Glo pink letters, over a foot high, ran along the wall opposite the ticket office, his ticket office.

  OLD MAN RATCHETT EATS SHITE.

  A neat spiral of all-too-human feces provided a full stop on the floor at the end of the script.

  John shook with rage, hot tears running down his cheeks.

  You’re better off out of it, Bettie.

  He knew this was going to take all day to clear up, and that he’d have to get started sooner rather than later, but the ritual needed to be observed first.

  He did the rest of his rounds. He went to the night watchman’s office first. The door was closed. Nothing seemed to have been touched. He couldn’t remember checking here yesterday, but, then again, that was nothing new. He rattled the doorknob and it didn’t budge.

  Maybe I’m not as old as all that.

  He walked along the pier back to the office buildings. A vivid memory came to him, of standing on this very spot, waving his father off to a war from which he wouldn’t return. He’d realized years before that his attraction to the old pier was more than just sentiment. In a very real sense it held what little history there was that defined him as a person, from that day waving to his father, to meeting Bettie one day on his way home from the mainland, to all those days and nights handing out tickets. He was the one who ensured everyone got to where they wanted to go; the static hub in the town’s wheel.

  He shook his head.

  Wool gathering again, John. This won’t do. There’s work to be done.

  He continued past the ticket office. He didn’t look in at the graffiti—he’d be seeing it up close soon enough.

  The door to the waiting room was closed, and for that he was thankful.

  Bettie wouldn’t want any of their kind in her room.

  He eyed the door handle warily. It didn’t move. Even so, he gave it a wide berth as he passed it on the way to the storage shed, and again on the way back.

  Two hours later, he had made progress on removing the graffiti. He could still see a faint outline on the wall, and he’d always know it had been there, but at least no one else would ever have to suffer the sight.

  He scraped the feces from the floor and into a bucket. The water supply
had long since been cut off to the pier, so he dropped the mess down the nearest drain and washed it away with bleach.

  Satisfied he’d done what he could with that, he turned his attention to the door. Luckily, fixing it was simple. All it needed was a few new screws around the lock and it was solid again, probably even better than before.

  When he closed it behind him to head home, he felt an air of satisfaction.

  Job well done.

  It lasted just as long as it took for the first ripe tomato to fly through the air and squelch on the door behind him. He had to duck to avoid another.

  Little buggers!

  The rage came back, twice as strong. He ran, screaming, straight for the low wall from which he guessed the bombardment had come.

  * * *

  Later, as he stood once more in his kitchen, staring at the red door, he was ashamed at how he’d lost control so quickly. And he hadn’t even caught the youths. One second he was running for the wall, the next he was lying on his back on the gravel track, staring at the sky and wondering how he’d got there.

  All he’d achieved was getting muck and grime all over his clothes.

  Bettie would be disgusted with me.

  He showered and changed. By the time he got back to the kitchen another day was almost gone. They were playing silly word games on the radio.

  Axiomatic. A machine for chopping wood.

  There was a lot of laughter, but John didn’t join in. The exertions of the day were catching up to him.

  Haven’t had as much excitement for many a year.

  He made tea and some dry ham sandwiches, then settled down at the table with the day’s paper. He couldn’t concentrate. Even the football results made little sense, and it would be useless to attempt the crossword with his brain so addled by fatigue. He laid his head in his hands and was asleep in seconds.

  He was woken by a cold chill at the back of his neck. A faint light—orange and flickering slightly—showed from outside.

  That’s not right.

  Somewhere, deep down, he knew that he should just get up and close the door. Maybe even take a dive into the whisky bottle. Even though he wasn’t a drinker and it would surely make him as sick as a dog in the morning, at that moment it seemed preferable to any alternative.

  But the urge to see was stronger still.

  He moved slowly to the door.

  Once more the handle was cold in his hot palm as he pulled the door further open, and once again he stepped out onto an empty pier.

  He knew what was coming next.

  The tannoy rang out, tinny and echoing. Mr. Phillips’s voice came loud and clear.

  “The ferry approaching is the nine-thirty from Kyle.”

  The thwup of the paddles sounded in the distance, and a mournful whistle announcing the Lady’s arrival. A few yards along the pier, the handle of the waiting room door squealed and turned. John’s breath steamed in front of his face.

  He felt strangely calm, as if all potential for fear and excitement had been leeched out of him during the day.

  The waiting room door swung open, a yellow light spilling a long rectangular outline on the pier.

  The ferry will be here soon.

  John stepped forward so that he was standing in the light from the waiting room.

  Inside, something shuffled.

  His heartbeat started to go up a bit. It was a struggle to take another step.

  The thwup of the paddles in the water got closer.

  “Please stand well clear of the edge.” Phillips’s voice said loudly.

  John could see half of the waiting room from where he stood. The yellow light came from an old light fitting. He recognized it straight away. In fact, he knew it intimately. Over the years he’d changed the bulb many times and cleaned out the shade even more often. No one had cleaned this one for a while. The half-dome of glass looked grimy with dust, and black flecks showed where a small army of flies had crawled in and been cooked in the heat.

  Something shuffled again. There was a scrape.

  Someone just stood up from the bench.

  Three figures moved forward, faces deep in shadow, bodies little more than silhouettes. The larger person in the center led the other two by the hand.

  Suddenly, John couldn’t breathe.

  The paddle noise grew so loud he could hardly hear. The pier trembled at his feet. He stepped aside as the three figures came out of the waiting room. The pier filled with steam and fog as the paddle ferry pulled in to the dock.

  He couldn’t take it anymore. More by instinct than judgement his hand found the handle of the red door and he threw himself into the kitchen, slamming the door hard behind him. He lifted the whisky bottle and poured half of it down his throat without a pause, then stood, head spinning and guts on fire, until reality started to fill in around him.

  It was only later as he dropped, exhausted, into bed that he realized.

  For the first time, he hadn’t left Bettie her hot chocolate.

  * * *

  John approached the pier with a degree of caution the next morning, as if somehow the events beyond the red door would have imprinted themselves on the physical building. But the only echoes of the past that came to him in the clear light of day were the ones created by his own memory.

  The ticket office stank of bleach and carbolic soap, so he left the front door open wide while he did the rest of his rounds. He had to take a few minutes to clear up the rotting tomatoes from around the entrance, and he eyed the wall warily as he cleaned. But there was no giggling from behind it and no bombardment.

  Maybe I did accomplish something yesterday after all.

  After cleaning up he sat at the stool behind the ticket window, reliving old times. He’d done this for many years now, at least three times a week, playing pretend games like a child’s tea party, welcoming invisible customers and passing out imaginary tickets for a ferry that had long since stopped running.

  Previously he had always gone home feeling slightly sad, but somehow closer to the old days, closer to Bettie. Today, all he felt was cold, damp and tired.

  His day didn’t improve when he arrived home to find two young policemen on his doorstep.

  They wouldn’t tell him what it was all about, but they asked a lot of questions about the Jones gang, and John was only too happy to tell his tales of woe all over again. They came in and shared a pot of tea, and he noticed that they had a good look around, one even going so far as to go upstairs. He said he was going to the bathroom, but John knew his house. He knew the steps above them meant the man was in his bedroom.

  But he had nothing to hide, and the law is the law. He let them poke around and ask their questions. By the time they left, they were a lot more relaxed than they’d been on his doorstep.

  Policemen in the house. Bettie would be mortified.

  That thought made him guilty for forgetting the hot chocolate the previous night. In penance, he washed all his dirty clothes. Once done, he poured the whisky down the sink and put the bottle in the bin.

  Never again. That’s a promise Bettie.

  He made a pot of tea, just the way Bettie liked it, put the radio on, and sat at the table with the paper.

  That’s much better.

  The BBC lads were making jokes about politicians. He’d heard most of the material many times over the years, but the sheer nostalgia of it all settled him, and he started to feel more like his old self.

  He got lost in the crossword so didn’t notice the time. It was only the cold draft on his neck that told him the door behind him had opened once more.

  The orange light flickered from beyond, but this time he had no trouble ignoring it. He stood and went to the door but didn’t go out.

  “The ferry approaching is the nine-thirty from Kyle.”

  He heard it pull into the pier and smelled salt air and smoke.

  He closed the door gently.

  The room fell quiet, save for the studio laughter from the radio. He went ba
ck to the crossword. At ten-thirty he made two mugs of hot chocolate and left one on the table for Bettie.

  That night he slept soundly for the first time in weeks.

  There were no dreams.

  * * *

  It was raining when he got up, one of those steady drizzles that looked to be settling in for the day. But a little rain wasn’t going to stop him. He put on his overcoat and headed for the pier.

  The young policemen were back at the green. This time they were surrounded by a group of women. The women’s voices were high and shrill, but the rain deadened the specifics and John wasn’t interested enough to attempt to make out what was being said. Two of them pointed in John’s direction, and one made to cross the road towards him but was held back by the policemen.

  John put his head down and kept going.

  It’s none of my concern.

  He was pleased to note that nothing had changed at the pier. There was no new vandalism, and all the doors and windows were secure. He felt so good that he walked along the dock and stood beside the waiting room door.

  As he put his key in the lock and turned the handle, he half expected the tannoy to start up above him, but all he heard was a rustling in the room beyond, the telltale whump-whump of a pigeon taking to the air.

  He pushed the door open, slowly. There was only darkness inside, and a musty dry smell that stung at his nostrils and in his throat. He fumbled for the light switch and turned it on. Nothing happened. Overhead, a pigeon cooed softly then went quiet.

  His eyes started to adjust to the darkness. The room was just as he remembered it, although it had been several years since he’d last opened the door. Long benches ran round the walls of a square room. Years ago there would have been a heater in one corner and sometimes a newspaper or two left behind by the passengers. Now there was just the benches.

  He walked to the center of the room and looked up. The light fitting above him was intact, just as it had been in his vision. The black specks where the dead flies lay even looked to be in the same pattern.