Charnel House

by Anderson, Fred

  8

  The sheet of corrugated tin slipped in Garraty’s hands when he picked it up, and one sharp edge sliced across his left palm, parting the flesh neatly. The pain was immediate and blinding, a hot burn as exquisite as if he’d dragged his hand across a spinning saw blade. He hissed and dropped the piece of metal with a clatter, blood pouring from the wound in a scalding sheet. Job didn’t have it this bad.

  Jesus, it was deep. He tried to make a fist and found that he couldn’t. Not completely. His fingers curled in about three quarters of the way and then just stopped, like they thought they were done clenching. Fuck. Were there any tendons in the palm? Garraty let his hand relax and the fingers straightened, much more than they usually did when he was at rest. That didn’t seem like a good thing. Maybe he was going to end up in the emergency room tonight after all. Sure it’s bad, doc, but you should see the other guy.

  Before he did anything else he needed to deal with the bleeding. God only knew how much evidence he was leaving for the ever-inquisitive CSI boys to find, should someone discover his handiwork under the house in the near future. He rocked back onto his butt, trying to keep his hand raised higher than his heart to ease the flow, and leaned back against the smooth siding. Blood ran in rivulets toward his armpit, nearly black in the wan light from the Mag. Garraty kicked his shoes off and then grabbed the toe of one navy dress sock so he could pull his foot out. The thin cotton was damp. Blood and sweat. A few tears and we’ll have a half-decent house band. There’d be plenty of tears in prison if he didn’t get this shit under control, that was for sure.

  Holding the dry end of the sock between his teeth, he wrapped it around his injured hand tightly and tied it in a single knot to hold it in place. Not great, but it should stanch the flow of blood. Next, he peeled off his other sock and used it to wipe down the piece of corrugated roofing, removing droplets of blood and fingerprints pressed in the dust that were so pristine it was like he had left a big flashing sign that said THIS WAY TO HOLMAN CORRECTIONAL FACILITY. With all those years managing the General Electric plant floor, they’d just love having him do the same kind of work in the license plate plant for a quarter an hour. Unless he held it together and cleaned up after himself.

  Garraty inspected the section of metal again and found a few spots he’d missed. Once it was as clean as he thought it was going to get, he pulled the sock over his good hand and stood the sheet on its long side. As he shuffle-crawled toward the opening with it, he thought once more about how much the rectangle looked like a mouth. He didn’t care for the yawning depth of the crawlspace, and the way the blackness swallowed the glow from the Mag. The way it hid everything from his sight. Something in there could be looking out at him right now, and he’d have no idea. Maybe the thing he thought he saw earlier, with its pale smudge of a face and hollowed eyes. The hairs on the back of his neck rose. A spill of yellow light fell through the opening and lit the first few feet of the tight space, but whatever he sensed in there lurked beyond it, in the void. He thought it might be grinning, the same way a young mother might grin as she pressed a pillow over her infant’s face because the goddamn thing wouldn’t stop crying all the time.

  A sound floated from that terrible darkness, low and scraping, and he knew with all certainty that the thing was no longer watching him, that it was racing toward the doorway through the viscous black on all fours, scuttling like a giant insect under the beams and joists. Knew it just as surely as he knew his own name. Knew it in the flutter of fear in his belly, and in the jitters of his hands. Coming for him to deliver swift retribution for what he’d done to the boy. I know your sins, Joe Garraty, it would say, its mouth stretching impossibly wide as it reached for him.

  Garraty lurched forward to get the piece of roofing over the opening, fingerprints and blood smears be damned, and as it blocked the dim light shining under the house he caught a glimpse of that pallid face with the big dark eyes rushing at him, its wide mouth pulled into a knowing grin that showed sharp black teeth.

  The tin slammed over the rectangular doorway an instant before something smashed into it from the other side. Garraty tipped back as the thing surged forward, fighting to get through the hole, and for a long moment he thought he was going to go ass over teakettle and let the thing out into the under-porch with him to do whatever it was going to do, but then the pressure from the other side simply stopped and he got his balance back and clapped the sheet of tin into place. He leaned into the metal, pressing so hard against it his muscles cried out from the strain, the pain in his palm forgotten for the moment. Where had the thing gone? Was there another way out?

  In that terrible movie screen that lurked deep in his mind, Garraty saw the slumped shape scrambling out from under the house through a rotted section of the siding he hadn’t noticed when he was in the crawlspace. Saw it loping around the outside of the house on spidery limbs, its mottled slate skin turned blue by the moonlight. Coming up behind him right now, just about to rip through the undergrowth thicket with hands that no longer felt pain so it could feed on him, the way Jeremiah Barlowe had fed on those children in 1943.

  Garraty reversed his position and leaned back into the metal. One of the v-shaped crimps bit into his lower back and he gritted his teeth to keep from crying out. Nothing was coming toward him. He felt exposed sitting there in the beam of the Maglite. Maybe the thing was just watching him from out in the yard now, because he was so easy-peasy to see in the light.

  Or maybe it was never there at all.

  Bullshit. Something had hit the piece of metal hard enough to almost knock him over. That wasn’t imagination. Christ. Whatever it was had been under the house with him the whole time he was in there with the boy. He reached over and picked up the tire iron, pleased with its comforting weight. Thank God the metal had cut his left hand.

  Garraty leaned to one side—making sure to keep his back firmly against the tin sheet—and used the tire iron to roll the flashlight close enough for him to grab with his left hand. He turned it outward and bathed the rotting steps and dense green curtain of growth in its weakening beam. He saw nothing, but the hedge was so thick something could have been halfway through it and still been invisible to him. But if that were the case, he would have heard the rustle of leaves and the brittle snap of old dead twigs.

  Because there’s nothing out there, just like there was nothing in the crawlspace. You’re letting this place get to you. Too many stories, Garraty my man.

  Unless the thing on the other side of the metal was still there, biding its time in the darkness. Calculating. Waiting for him to let his guard down, like any predator. The minute he took pressure off the piece of roof, it would come for him, grinning that cold dead grin as it reached out to take him in its pale gray arms.

  So we’re at an impasse, amigo. A Mexican standoff.

  But how long could he hold out? His bladder was already full again, and he needed to get the cut on his hand cleaned up before an infection set in. If he sat here much longer the ground was going to start to get uncomfortable. Already his tailbone was gearing up to file a complaint with management.

  Garraty thought back to his initial look under the house, when the Maglite was strong and cut through the lightless space the same way the tin had his hand. He’d seen every bit of the crawlspace then, except for some of the knells between the joists, and there was no way for something to be there unless it could disobey gravity and cling to the subfloor like a vampire in a bad horror movie. The place had been empty. But then he’d heard the voice whisper his name, and when he looked again hadn’t he seen—if only for the briefest instant—something peering back at him?

  You saw a rat.

  Yes... eventually. What he saw at first was much larger than a rat, despite the way it slumped. Barlowe-sized, you might say.

  Imagination. No such thing as ghoulies, ghosties, or long-leggity beasties, except the ones present between your ears. Killing a kid will do that to a man, haunted house or no.

  H
e could go on like this all night. Problem was, he didn’t think there was a whole lot of night left. The phone was in his left pocket, but trying to get it out with his injured hand while simultaneously keeping the metal pressed firmly over the doorway would be more than he could handle, he thought. And if he was going to let the roofing go, it would be on his terms, not because he was trying to do something stupid like check the time. The exact hour didn’t matter. What did matter was that it was going to be daylight soon and while that might be comforting to his overworked imagination, it dramatically increased the odds of a car passing by as he left the house in the Prius. Hello, sheriff? I saw the strangest thing on the way to work this morning. Some wild-eyed man in a dented and blood-spattered car was pulling out of the woods by the old Barlowe place. Had a guilty look about him. Maybe you should check it out. The way his luck had been going, the sheriff’s office wouldn’t write the call off but actually send someone up here to discover his handiwork, and his good friends the CSI guys would be close behind, ready to identify him in a matter of hours.

  How about a little paranoia to go with those hallucinations, Joe?

  Garraty took a deep breath, checked his grip on the tire iron, then launched himself away from the sheet of tin covering the entrance to the crawlspace. He burst from beneath the front porch and spun, bringing the weapon up like a club, ready to swing if something was coming for him—even though the part of his brain that had manufactured the slumped thing with hollow eyes whispered that if something did come for him, he wouldn’t be able to kill it with the tire iron because it was already dead. He pointed the Maglite under the porch.

  The piece of roofing leaned against the ancient siding, unmoved.

  Garraty stood crouched in a defensive position for several moments watching the section of metal, which did nothing but shine without luster in the dim glow. Pain throbbed in his left hand with every beat of his racing heart. Gradually his breathing slowed, and his heart rate approached something close to normal. Nothing came through the doorway to the crawlspace. Not that he had expected it to. Well, not the rational part of him, anyway.

  He played the light around in the cavity one last time, checking for obvious signs of his visit, and found none. Tucking the flashlight under his arm, he patted his pants for his phone and keys, then touched his back pocket to make sure his wallet was still there. Too many people were done in by silly little things like that. There were stories about dumb criminals—and that’s what Joe Garraty was now, yes indeed—on the news almost every night. Hell, there’d just been one on channel 48 a couple of weeks ago about some idiot in Huntsville who tried to rob a credit union with a deposit slip he’d filled out with his real name and account number.

  Stars twinkled merrily overhead, and it looked like the sky might be a little lighter than when he went in. Dawn would be here before too long, he thought. Garraty was beginning to feel a little foolish now that he was no longer confined under the porch. Monsters never seemed as real when you were out of the place that gave them their power. Probably by the time he got to the trailer this would seem like a bad dream. And if it didn’t, well, he had a whole case of something to help dull his memories of tonight.

  He started along the side of the house toward the opening in the growth where he’d come in with the dead boy. The circle of yellow bounced in front of him as he walked, showing him the way to avoid the jutting roots and clutching brambles. As he passed the window he’d looked through a lifetime ago he thought of the sounds he’d heard from the room above when he was in the crawlspace. Thump, scrape. Thump, scrape. Something hobbling across the floor, then lying down on the floor just inches over him. An icy finger drifted down his spine, and the little part of him that had never forgotten the story of Jeremiah Barlowe and the three dead children awakened. He’s still in his charnel house, it told him in a singsong voice. Gonna come for you!

  Garraty brought the light up and pointed it through the window frame. The room was as empty as it had been before. Nothing lay on the floor, one pale ear pressed to the pine planks, and nothing crouched beneath the sill, waiting to spring out at him. The little voice in his head could go fuck itself, he decided, and turned away from the window.

  From the direction of the front porch he heard the warbling clatter of sheet metal on brick as the section of tin roofing fell away from the entrance to the crawlspace.

  As something knocked it away, his mind insisted.

  Garraty spun and plunged into the thicket, the gap down the way all but forgotten. The gap would take him further from the car, and he’d be fucked if he was going to do that. Briars plucked at his clothes as he fought his way forward mindlessly, and thin branches clutched at him. Swinging the tire iron like a machete, he beat at the growth, forging a path through it. A thorn raked across his face, setting it alight in a thin burning strip. Still he drove forward, thinking about nothing but escaping whatever horror must surely be breathing down his neck by now, reaching for him with a desiccated gray—

  He broke through the growth and went sprawling in the weedy yard. His knee came down hard on a rock hidden in the tall grass and he screamed. Jesus, it felt like a knife had been slipped in under his kneecap. Garraty struggled to his feet and staggered toward the car. Some dim part of his mind registered silence from the direction of the house. Nothing was coming through the thicket, but that didn’t mean nothing was coming at all. He lurched through the weeds, holding the tire iron in a white-knuckled grip, ready to fight for his life but not willing to wait around for whatever the house had vomited up to catch him. When he finally rounded the end of the house and saw the Prius gleaming in the moonlight, so perfectly ordinary, he almost wept.

  He jammed the Mag into his pocket and pulled out his keys as he limped to the car. Fresh blood soaked the sock tied around his left hand. The cut must have reopened when he fell. With the pain in his knee, he probably wouldn’t have noticed if he’d cut a finger off. Garraty yanked the door open and fell into the seat. The solid thunk as he pulled the door closed behind him as beautiful a sound as the first time he heard one of the twins say da da. He jammed the key into the ignition and started the Prius so he could get the windows up. As they rose, sealing him in, he thumbed the button to lock the doors. Only then did he allow himself to relax a little.

  The headlights speared the old house when he started the car. Nothing was coming for him. Garraty leaned forward and peered up at the two windows that flanked the old chimney, half-expecting to see a ghostly Jeremiah Barlowe looking down at him through dark hollows of eyes, a malicious grin showing his black teeth, one ashen hand raised in farewell.

  There was nothing up there.

  With the windows up, Garraty could smell the stink of shit again. Great. You’re the gift that keeps on giving, kid. He dropped the shifter into reverse and backed away from the house. As he started down the hill to the road and the lights swept up the weathered structure he turned them off. He’d come too far to do himself in by drawing unwanted attention. It wasn’t over yet, not by a long shot. And now that he thought about it, he realized it would probably never be over. Not really.

  9

  The eastern sky had begun to lighten by the time Garraty neared the River Bend trailer park. The trip home had been nerve-wracking but uneventful. He hadn’t seen a single trooper or sheriff’s patrol, though he’d been watching for them with an almost obsessive fervor. In his haste to get the hell away from the Barlowe house he hadn’t thought to check the front of the Prius for blood or other damning evidence, and paranoia ate at him the whole way. Guilt did that to you. He didn’t dare stop anywhere for fear that he’d draw attention to himself. All he needed was some well-meaning deputy to pull over behind him, thinking he’d broken down, and that would be the end of it. There was no way the car was undamaged. He’d hit the kid hard. That first loud bang was permanently etched into his memory. There was probably blood all over the front bumper, not visible in this early morning light but painfully obvious in the bright beam
of a cop flashlight. Not to mention his red-rimmed eyes and the bloodied sock tied around his hand, or the dirty, cobweb-laced clothes. He’d be in lockup faster than you could say lethal injection.

  The entire trip, the beer had whispered to him from the passenger seat, trying to convince him that cracking one open would make them both feel better, but he had resisted. Now, as he turned off the highway onto the lane that wound among the forty or so trailers to the single-wide in the back he called home, he reached over and pulled a can from the box. Lights were on in a few of the trailers Garraty passed, people up for another day at the grind or who had never gone to bed the night before. As he popped the tab on the Pabst and took a long pull, he wondered what his neighbors would do if they knew a child killer walked among them. People could forgive an accident as long as they didn’t know he’d been drinking, he thought, but hiding the body under the house was going a little too far.

  Never mind what you did with the ice scraper.

  Never mind that, indeed. He’d like to pretend that part hadn’t happened, that he’d imagined it just like he imagined all the sounds and the ghoulish grinning thing scrabbling around in the darkened crawlspace. But it had happened, and he had to live with himself. It wasn’t as simple as a momentary lapse of judgment, either. The whole fucking night had been a royal screwup. What he’d done with the ice scraper was just the crowning achievement. Things would have gone a lot differently if he’d simply gone home from Titsville and slept off his buzz, but he wasn’t ever content with just a buzz, was he?