"The Porno Pal System," Guy murmured, his forehead resting on the grimy rear window.
"Yeah, right. The Porno Pal System." The cop smiled wanly, scratching his bad buzz cut, obviously measuring his words. "Let's talk about that for a second."
"I'm closing our doors," Guy mumbled.
"What was that?"
Guy looked at the detective, wondering what kind of charges would be leveled against this clandestine little company. "I'm officially going out of business."
"Is that right?"
Guy nodded.
The cop shrugged, then gazed back out the front window. "That's a shame," he said, starting the engine. "I was going to sign up for it myself."
Guy didn't say anything.
"Give you a ride home?" the cop asked.
Guy said that would be great, then stared back out the window as the car pulled away from the death house...
... and made 'its way back through the labyrinth of graceful old homes, their tasteful draperies and blinds drawn across their tasteful bay windows, ever obscuring the outer world from the secrets within.
IV. HAUNTED
"The supernatural is the natural not yet understood."
- Elbert Hubbard
THE BEAUMONT PROPHECY
"Ahhhhhhhhhgggg!"
Buddy Ray Dothan jerked awake in room 213 of the Motel 6 out on Steel Pike Road. He was covered in sweat. The room was dark and smelled vaguely of urine and tired fabric.
Buddy was not alone. Another figure huddled in the corner, buried in shadows, watching. About the only thing you could see of this second gentleman was the glowing tip of a cigarette floating like a firefly in the darkness.
Buddy Ray sat there for a moment, waiting for his heart to quit thumping, the same damn nightmare he'd been having most of his wretched adult life still clinging to him like cobwebs. The Beaumont house. Once again, he'd dreamt of that same rotten Victorian pile with its pigeon-spattered black turret rising up into the autumn sky, and that same diseased orifice of a doorway, gaping open and beckoning to him in the strobing nimbus of a jack-o-lantern's light.
Just like it had so many Halloweens ago when Buddy Ray Dothan was a kid and got the bejesus scared out of him by what he saw in the attic window.
"I warned y'all 'bout dozin off," said the figure in the corner, leaning forward on the Lazy Boy. Earl Spindler's face came into partial view in the blinking neon seeping through the blinds. Earl had grown up with Buddy Ray, and had also been spooked on many occasion by the Beaumont house. A leathery man in his late forties, Earl wore faded blue mechanic's dungarees pocked with grease. His gaunt, lined face was etched with a lifetime of disappointments and dashed dreams.
"Is it time yet?"
Earl looked at his watch. "Just about. Pretty near midnight. Y'all ready?"
"Ready as I'm ever gonna be," Buddy murmured and scooted over to the edge of the bed. He burrowed his feet into broken-down boots, then waded through the swamp of empty beer cans. A rail-thin man with a shock of thick, greasy red hair, Buddy Ray had the stooped shoulders and tattooed arms of a career convict. He'd done two tours at Marion — one for reckless endangerment, one for assault and battery — and was currently looking at a decade of hard parole.
"You got them waterproof matches?"
Buddy gave him an annoyed nod and told him yes, for the third time, yes, he hadn't forgotten the damned matches. They got their stuff together and left the room unlocked. Earl's battered 4-by-4 was waiting for them in the parking lot.
They got in and took off in a thundercloud of exhaust fumes and gravel dust that rose and vanished like silvery ghosts in the moon-lit autumn air.
It took them ten minutes to find their way across their little blue-collar hometown. They rode in silence, smoking cigarettes and trying to avoid eye contact with the landmarks of their childhood. It was too painful to see the playing fields and schools and jungle gyms and Dairy Queens in which they had harbored their secret desperate dreams and goals. It was too agonizing to think of all the failures that had greeted them as adults. The ruined marriages, the lost jobs, the trails of human wreckage — all because of that cursed house.
All because they had defied the neighborhood legends and had gone up to that deserted doorway and had rung that broken doorbell on Halloween.
"What if we just drive by, toss a Molotov cocktail at the place and call it a night?" Earl was murmuring, gazing out at the side mirror as he steered the truck up a narrow macadam toward the cathedral of elms that comprised Beaumont Hill.
"Nope, gotta be just like we agreed," Buddy Ray told him from the shotgun seat, snapping another kitchen match with the edge of his thumbnail. He sparked his Marlboro with trembling hands. What the two friends had agreed on was that they would torch the old haunted Victorian at the stroke of 12:00 AM, torch it once and for all, on Halloween night, torch it in the same fashion they had been cursed by it so many years ago — right on that slumped porch, right after ringing that silent, broken bell. Buddy Ray still remembered that horrible moment like it had happened last week — two cocky 12 year old kids, ringing that mute doorbell, then glancing up at that cracked attic window and seeing those horrible faces in the darkness behind the glass. Somehow, it seemed as though the curse on Buddy Ray Dothan's life had started right at that moment — the endless string of bitter failure and disappointments.
Earl yanked the stick and pulled the truck over to the curb at the edge of a weed-whiskered cul-de-sac. The engine sputtered and died, and Earl sat there for a moment, looking down at his lap. "What if we're wrong?"
Buddy Ray sniffed. "We ain't wrong, alright, we ain't. I got it all plotted out, have for years."
"But what if — ?"
"Dammnit-to-hell, Earl, don't ya'll remember flunkin outta Rosewood elementary?! Happened one goddamn week after that Halloween. Same story with me. My daddy up and split that very Christmas. Been downhill ever since. It's that house. I told you a million times it's that house. The place has to go."
Silence gripped the interior for a moment. Finally Earl flicked his cigarette through the open vent, then nodded to himself. "Let's get it done then."
They carried two gallons of non-leaded gas in plastic Sky Chief tanks — one for each of them — up the twisty, narrow walkway that bisected a grove of overgrown elms. A moment later the top of the Beaumont turret came into view up ahead of the boys, peering out above the dark skeletal limbs of diseased trees. Gooseflesh poured down Buddy Ray's back and arms. Earl was just as unnerved by the sight of it, his lips pursed nervously as they approached. Here were two men who had done hard time, fought turf wars with street gangs, robbed gas stations — reduced to trembling children.
The empty house sat at the top of that scabrous hillock like a desiccated king. Its roof pitches sagging, its windows either boarded or riddled with cracks, its ancient gray clapboards ravaged with graffiti. Animals had had their cruel way with it over the years — from the frosting of bird dung along the dormers to the banquet of turds along the porch planks. In the darkness it radiated desolation — like a great monolithic stain across the shadows of the woods.
"The hell is that?" Earl whispered as they climbed the creaking porch steps, the fear constricting his voice. Some wise-ass neighborhood kid, probably earlier that week, must have come up there and put the jack-o-lantern on the porch near the door. The shriveled pumpkin had a grotesque face carved into it, serpentine eyes and a rictus of a grin that was sinking into itself. "Whattya doin'?!" Earl hissed at Buddy Ray. "The hell are you doing?"
Buddy Ray was kneeling down next to the pumpkin, removing its moldering lid. He found a candle inside its festering, fragrant husk. Buddy Ray dug for another match, snapped the little red sulfer tip and ignited the wick.
It just seemed like the right thing to do.
"COME ON! — WHATTYA DOIN'! — COME ON!" Earl was worrying off his tank's lid, the fluid sloshing noisily. "LET'S GET IT OVER WITH AND GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE!!"
They doused the porch, th
e threshold, the door, the shutters, the broken front window.
There was an awkward moment when they were done, the two of them gazing dumbly at each other, wondering which one should do the honors. Buddy Ray opened the box of wooden matches, and they each plucked one from the tiny carton. Neither man saw the rotten pumpkin behind them extruding hot wax, the tear of oily accelerant pooling in its eye, then tracking down the mottled surface of the face and plopping in the puddle of gas on the porch step like a bad penny.
"C'MON, C'MON! LET'S DO IT!"
Buddy reached up to the stained panel beside the door jamb and pressed the old cracked mother-of-pearl door bell. It made no sound. They looked at each other one more time, then tossed their ceremonial matches onto the fuel-damp clapboards of the house, and watched the flames flutter, then leap up around the lip of the door. It sounded like a low, obscene whisper. It was almost sensual to watch. Buddy Ray felt the hairs on his arms stiffen, felt the heat on his forehead.
Neither man noticed the pumpkin catching fire behind them, the tiny flames licking up the side of the gourd, then hopping into the air like a luminous bird taking flight. They were too busy watching the house catch fire, the orange glow reflecting off their baleful faces. Neither noticed the fire coalescing behind them, billowing above the pumpkin, metamorphosing into the shape of a giant ghostly figure. Neither saw the radiant orange arms reaching out for them, the luminous jaws opening. Neither noticed the creature made of fire until it was too late.
Buddy Ray whirled around and opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out.
"WELCOME HOME!!!" said the glowing phantom.
"AAHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
The fire devoured both of them, their screams swallowed by the maelstrom. They staggered and slammed against the rotten facade, as the fire swallowed them, gobbled them, chewed them up, until there was nothing left but a roaring tidal wave of white hot pain. Then the blackness engulfed them both... and everything went away.
They awoke sometime later. The pain was gone, the noise was gone. They were inside the house. At least it felt as though they were inside the house. It was hard to tell, it was so dark.
Eyes adjusting to the gloom, they realized they were lying in a vestibule at the base of a narrow staircase. The muffled sounds of voices, sirens, car doors slamming, came through the walls from somewhere nearby. The air smelled of mold and swamp rot. The two men managed to rise to their feet and then feel their way in the pitch darkness along the wall to the steps. Lacking any other way out, they did the next best thing.
They climbed the steps.
The ancient risers did not creak, their footsteps completely silent.
They found their way through a door.
The attic was filled with ancient, moldering trunks and antique furniture shrouded with stained sheets. Earl went over to the tiny attic window and looked down. "Aw Jesus no, no... God no."
Buddy Ray hurried over, crouched next to Earl, and gazed through the dormer porthole, down at the front of the Beaumont house.
An EMT unit was parked next to the hook and ladder truck, its red chaser lights flickering off the fog bank of noxious smoke from the dying embers of the dwindling fire. Buddy Ray's heart turned to ice, his soul constricting, his whole pathetic existence distilled down this terrible moment of clarity, gaping down at his own scorched body being loaded onto a gurney next to Earl's, then stowed into the rear of the morgue wagon.
But worse than that — far worse — was the realization that he had seen all this before, that he had been shown this by the house. Time and time again down through the years. One horrible moment replayed endlessly in nightmares: when little 10-year-old Buddy Ray Dothan had gazed up at that decrepit, cracked attic window some thirty-odd Halloweens ago...
... and had seen his own adult face up there next to Earl's... his own tragic future written across the owlish, charred expressions of two hideously disfigured ghosts.
OBITUARY MAMBO
The magic was staring.
In the darkness of his bedroom Timmy Gebhardt saw impossibilities begin to play across the circus motif of his wall paper. Cartoon clowns shed their billowy suits and exposed themselves, pointing great fleshy erections skyward. Elephants mounted tigers. Ring masters made lascivious gesture while merry-go-rounds ran out of control, orbiting the two-dimensional bacchanal with comic book grace.
All because Grammy had died.
Timmy shut his eyes and pulled the blankets to his chin. He knew it wouldn't make it go away, but at least he'd find temporary refuge beneath the womb of fabric. Thank God for blankets!
A sound burped within his closet. Timmy heard it below the din of screaming calliopes. It boomed and grumbled toward him with the rhythm of nightmare steam whistles, daring him to look. When he finally opened his eyes Timmy saw an empty snowsuit reaching for him with hollow arms.
"Hey... !" he gasped. "MOM!"
The snowsuit began to dance. It twitched and dipped near the foot of his bed like a manic pair of trousers left on the clothesline during a storm. The empty nylon limbs staggered and pin-wheeled and jitterbugged angrily. The show went on for several moments before Timmy realized what was happening.
The snowsuit was dancing Grammy's dance.
Timmy's mind raced. Three days ago at Aunt Noreen's backyard barbecue, late in the evening, through a haze of hardwood smoke and Chinese lantern light... he'd seen the dance. A quivering, trembling, jerking dance. It had made Timmy sick to see Grammy like that — lips smeared red and sweaty, boobies falling out of her dress, eyes fogged up with Rolling Rock beer — doing her filthy dance. Now a JCPenney snowsuit was doing the same dance in Timmy's bedroom.
The snowsuit tipped a headless collar toward Timmy and displayed its emptiness. Dark blue nylon, twitching in a frenzy of movement. Impossible movement.
Timmy screamed.
Footsteps approached. They seemed to neutralized the terror like a buffing wave of honey. His mother's footsteps, soft and familiar against the braided rugs outside his door. In the moment before she entered the room, the snowsuit froze and stood at attention. As the door flew open and lights went on, Timmy tasted another victory.
It couldn't get him now. Nothing could penetrate his mother's force field.
The snowsuit parachuted to the ground.
"Mom?"
"He's not right. Emotionally, I mean."
Sally Gebhardt was ironing. Her right hand was welded to the iron as she spoke.
Across the room, her husband Jack gazed through plate glass windows and nursed a double Johnny Walker. His back was damp with sweat. "Seems normal," Jack murmured, "under the circumstances."
"Maybe... maybe not," Sally muttered, brushing a strand of dishwater blonde from her lips. She was tired of crying, tired of drinking, tired of being awake. Her eyes felt raw. "I had to lay with him for over an hour tonight before he drifted off."
Jack turned away from the window and sank into a recliner. His face was lined with years of failed ad campaigns, three-martini lunches, and corporate melodrama. He took a long pull on the scotch before speaking. "What do you suggest?"
"I think he needs a psychiatrist."
"Sounds good to me." The comment came out of Jack on an exasperated breath, and Sally could feel the patronizing tone like a cool breeze. Each time they broached the subject of Timmy's problems Jack became so goddamn noncommittal, Sally could just scream.
"I'm serious, Jack," she said. "Timmy's not holding up well. He's only ten years old... and he's so full of guilt, it's scary."
"Why do you think he's guilty?" Jack asked, swirling ice cubes around the bottom of his glass.
Sally kept ironing. Although she despised housework, there had been something oddly reassuring about it since the funeral. Once the dust had settled and all the stone faced relatives had gone, Sally had gladly immersed herself into the banalities of homemaking. There were bathrooms to be cleaned, hallways to be swept, and funeral food to be covered and crammed into th
e freezer. It was all deliciously mind-numbing.
But now, in the blink of an eye, all the horror had flooded back.
"You know as well as I do... " Sally said. "He hated her." Tears bubbled up within her and tracked down her face. She bit into her lower lip and tried to iron, evenly, back and forth across Timmy's Michigan State t-shirt. The room went out of focus for a moment and she felt hot chills. It was the realization that sent acid through her veins. "He loathed the woman... " she wept, "and feels responsible for her death."
Jack rose and went over to his wife. He tried to lean across the ironing board and touch her, but he found the steam and grief unbearable. Instead, he simply stared at the carpet and mumbled, "Sally... it'll be all right."
The words went unheard. Sally was lost in the terrible flash-frames of her past. She could still see Grammy, pale and naked in the moonlight, hunkering over a hedge of the rose bushes... the woman's arms weeping blood from vertical slashes of a razor blade. Blood... turning black and luminous in the darkness.
The first in a long line of suicide attempts.
At the hospital Sally had seen the change taking place. It had happened as vividly as time lapse photography. Strapped to her bed like a crazy woman, Grammy had changed. Her eyes had darkened with despair and resentment, her personality had curdled, and her anger had crystallized into the shifting gaze of a lunatic. She had become a statistic; a frustrated divorced woman who didn't even have the skill to take her own life properly.
Sally had tried to help. She had placed Grammy into group therapy at St. Francis, introducing the woman to other divorced men, taking her along to Jack's business outings and barbecues. After several months, Grammy became a fixture in her daughter and son-in-law's lives. But the inner wounds had never healed. Grammy had compensated with a vengeance. She refused to eat and started wearing younger women's hairstyles and clothing. She bought a Giorgio Armani sweater, low cut and sheer, and began flirting with Jack's account reps. She dated them indiscriminately, coming home drunk and restless in the wee hours of the morning. Her face had begun to age rapidly beneath the garish makeup. It was as if she'd been cheated out of youth and was getting a twisted sort of revenge.
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