House Haunted

by Al Sarrantonio

  “It was a real ghost, Spook—”

  “There aren't any real monsters, Ricky—didn't you know that?”

  “I'm not talking about your stories, Spook, I'm talking about something real.”

  Spook took the bottle from Ricky's hand and drank. “That's just the point, Ricky boy. They're all stories. You think H. P. Lovecraft believed all that crazy stuff he wrote? It's just stories. For fun.”

  Ricky looked at his friend, and then he told him everything, including Mr. Harvey's stories, right through the horrible vision Ricky had been shown in the cellar. Somewhere in the middle of the telling, Spook began to drink seriously from the rum bottle. At the end, he stared at Ricky and laughed.

  “Man, you ought to write that down, make some money on it.”

  Anger, born of frustration and alcohol, crested up through Ricky. “I told—”

  “Settle down, boy. Settle down.” Spook put one of his large hands out and checked Ricky's forehead for fever. “Ricky, you're as sane as the night. You have to show me this ghost.”

  “No.” Ricky stood up, knocking the lawn chair over.

  Spook looked up at him calmly, cradling the nearly empty rum bottle in his hands. “I said take me there, Ricky, or there's no way I can believe you.”

  “It said it would hurt you! It said it would hurt all of you if I didn't do what it said!”

  “And what was that?”

  “Nothing, yet. But I know it doesn't want anyone else near.”

  “How do you know that, Ricky?” Spook said reasonably. A bright, captivated gleam had come into his eyes. “Well..

  “Exactly!” Spook rose from his chair, handing Ricky the rum to finish. “Wait here, Ricky boy, and then we'll do what we have to do.”

  Not wanting to think, Ricky finished the rum in his hand. But thoughts flooded him. He had been desperate to share his frightening secret with someone; now that he had, fear had grown to encompass guilt. A dim part of him said that he was right to trust in Spook's knowledge; the brighter, keener edge of his mind said that he had merely acted a coward and dragged his friend into his problem.

  He saw the night, the darkened clouds moving across the winking stars, the close-cropped sweep of Bermuda leading to the ocean spread before him over Spook's front lawn. And suddenly a fear so deep and true and cold possessed him that he was out of his chair, nearly weeping, and trying to kick start his bike when Spook reappeared.

  “Ricky, what you doing!”

  A stifled sob escaped him; he kicked and kicked at the starter, but it wouldn't catch.

  “This is how you do it,” Spook said from behind him. Spook mounted the bike, forced Ricky's foot away from the pedal, and instantly snapped it down into life with his own sneaker.

  They tore down the driveway into the road. Spook laughed. “Don't you worry about any old ghosts.” He held a zippered bag up in front of Ricky's face. “Everything we need to fight ghosts is in here.”

  Spook laughed again, and Ricky, finally, gave himself up to the relief of having his friend with him.

  The shutters at Chambers House were closed tight. That in itself made Ricky feel the beginnings of security, because that was the way it was supposed to be. They rode the bike through the gate and up to the front porch, dismounted, and Ricky leaned it against the steps.

  Spook was already bounding up to the front door, flashlight pulled from the kit bag and snapped on, its beam bouncing up the stair.

  “No, the back door,” Ricky said.

  Spook bounded ahead, then waited impatiently while Ricky fished his key from his pocket. He took Spook's hand with the flashlight and swung the beam toward the kitchen window next to the back door. It, too, was shuttered tight.

  “All right,” Ricky said, breathing deeply, and pushed the key into the lock, snapping the metallic mechanism open.

  The door swung back into darkness.

  They hesitated on the threshold. Spook handed Ricky the flashlight and told him to shine it on his kit bag. He opened it and rummaged around inside, getting Ricky to pull the light right over the lip of the bag. “Son of a . . .” Spook said, but then he said, “Ah,” and pulled two large crucifixes out of the bag, handing one to Ricky.

  “You think this is a vampire, Spook?” Ricky asked. His faith in his friend began to evaporate.

  “Nothing evil can stand up to the cross,” Spook said. “I've made a study of it. In the books, a ghost is nothing by itself. To act, it has to have power behind it. If it's an evil power, the crucifix will guard against it.”

  Spook stared at his friend levelly. “Believe me, Ricky boy.”

  Eager to prove his point, Spook snapped closed the kit bag, took the flashlight from Ricky, and pushed ahead into the house.

  He moved past the opening to the kitchen, ignoring it. Ricky, following, looked in to see, for the briefest time, in the moving shadows of the flashlight, another shadow move against it.

  “Oh, Jesus, Spook,” he said, clutching his friend's arm, pointing into the kitchen. “Something's in there.”

  “Let's see.” Spook moved into the kitchen entrance, nearly filling it with his bulk. He played the flashlight over the floor, the ledge, the fireplace grate, the ceiling, the furniture.

  “Don't see anything, Ricky boy,” he said. He rotated the beam out of the room toward the back door they had entered, stopping it dead.

  “Oh, Jesus, yourself,” he said.

  The door was closed.

  Spook leaned forward to try the knob. The flashlight went out. He turned his attention from the door in the dark and pushed the flashlight switch back and forth. It clicked, but there was no light. “Shit, boy,” he said. Only the tiniest cracks of light leaked through the tight wooden shutters into the house. Spook reached out in the darkness and pulled on the door.

  It wouldn't move.

  “I say shit again,” Spook said.

  He held his crucifix out like an offering. “Ricky?”

  There was no answer.

  “Ricky boy?” he called out loudly, hearing the faintest of echoes as his voice sank into the deep corners of the house.

  He reached farther into darkness, expecting to find Ricky cowering against the wall. No one was there. Wedging the kit bag under his arm, he held the flashlight in his right hand and desperately snapped the switch back and forth. “Friggin' ghosts,” he said. He wedged the crucifix under his arm with the kit bag and began to shake the flashlight.

  Faintly, he heard his friend call him.

  “Ricky, that you?”

  Again he heard his own night-echo, followed by the faintest of answers.

  “Yes . . .” Ricky's voice said.

  “Where are you, Ricky boy?” Spook shouted.

  There came no immediate answer—and then he heard Ricky singing.

  A light went on somewhere down the hall. At first Spook was blinded, but his eyes adjusted quickly. The light was segregated within the frame of an open doorway.

  “Ricky, what you doing?”

  Ricky was singing loudly Bob Marley's “Redemption Song.” His voice seemed to come from the lighted doorway.

  Spook put the flashlight in his back pocket and replaced it in his hand with the crucifix. Cautiously, he moved toward the open door.

  He stopped and looked into it. Steps led down.

  The cellar.

  Ricky's voice was definitely coming from the cellar. Now he was singing a song Spook didn't know, something Bob Marley might have written with different words:

  “Spook, oh Spook . . .

  Come down the cell-ah . . .

  Spook, say Spook . . .

  (I say now) Come down the cell-ah . . .”

  “Ricky?” Spook shouted down into the cellar, and suddenly Ricky's singing stopped. He heard his friend laugh.

  “Ricky, you been playing tricks on me?” he shouted, the first trace of hysteria coloring his voice.

  Ricky's laugh suddenly ended, and he said, “Oh, Spook, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to frighten yo
u bad. Just a joke.”

  “The whole thing?”

  “Yes, Spook.” Ricky sounded sorry. “A joke to scare you a little. You and your foolish scary beliefs.”

  “The flashlight, Ricky—”

  Ricky laughed so good-naturedly. “I fixed it when you gave it to me to hold. A little twist on the top to loosen it.”

  Spook fished the flashlight out of his back pocket, and sure enough, the top was loose. When he twisted it back on, the light flared up in his face.

  “Come on down here, Spook!” he heard Charlie say, and then he heard Reesa's laughter, too.

  “Didn't mean to scare you bad,” Ricky said. “Just a little surprise. We have a party all set up! Mr. Harvey is gone all week and I thought—”

  “You thought!” Spook howled. His feigned rage turned to laughter. He gathered his things and stamped down the stairs. “You rascals, I'll—”

  The door above him slammed shut. He saw below the ceiling line that the cellar was empty of everything but a swinging, sour low-watt bulb and some dusty shelves and a long wooden table.

  “Come down, Spook,” a voice said, a female voice, and then the swinging bulb went out and his flashlight went out, and as he fumbled vainly with his crucifix, he was pulled down the stairs and began to scream.

  Ricky was having a most wonderful dream. He was in New York City, in a grand long black limousine, with an open top. The lights of the city shone down upon him like stars. People hung from the windows of the tall buildings and dropped confetti and their best wishes on him. They loved him. He loved them.

  The limousine stopped under the largest marquee Ricky had ever seen. It loomed out over Broadway itself, nearly covering the street. Written in huge black letters against the lit white background was his name, RICKY SMITH, and under it, APPEARING TONIGHT! In front of the theater was a huge crowd of people waiting to see, to touch, him. Police made a path for him. He threw his cape back and left the limousine and walked through the people, stopping to wave, or nod, or kiss a dainty female hand. The line waiting to see him stretched down Broadway as far as he could see, to meet with the stoplights, the horizon.

  He went through crystal glass doors, under crystal chandeliers that showed his smiling self in a thousand perfect miniatures. Someone took his top hat and his cape.

  There was a blink in time, and he was on a darkened stage. He waited for the lights to go on above him, and he held his cane very tight. He heard the audience rustle, waiting for him to dance. But the lights didn't go on. He began to be afraid. The audience began to make noise. Someone screamed, and he clutched his cane—

  Ricky awoke in the kitchen of Chambers House, curled on the floor, in darkness. He held something in his hand. His cane? He felt along its surface in the dark. It was a crucifix. He heard screaming.

  The screams intensified to a short series of pain-filled brays, then ceased.

  “Spook?” Ricky called out, trembling.

  “Here, Ricky boy,” he heard.

  Then he saw the beam of the flashlight cut across the opening to the kitchen.

  “Where are you, Spook?”

  “Come see, Ricky,” Spook said excitedly.

  Ricky stood and felt his way to the kitchen opening. The flashlight still bobbed out in the hall. He looked around the corner at it and was blinded.

  “What are you doing, Spook?”

  His friend laughed, a hearty pleased laugh. “I got your ghost, Ricky boy.”

  “Don't be kidding me!” Ricky shouted, rounding the corner, getting the flashlight in his eyes again. “Lower that thing, Spook!”

  The flashlight beam was lowered toward the floor. Ricky saw the outline of his friend standing by the open cellar door. Fainter yellow light backlit him into shadow.

  “In the cellar?” Ricky said, his fear returning. “She showed me things in the cellar—”

  “The cellar was the place she didn't want you to go, Ricky. The place where she hid her power.” Spook laughed again, delighted with himself. “It's where I got her!”

  Ricky paced forward. The flashlight beam followed his feet until he stood next to his friend. The flashlight turned toward the cellar. Ricky felt his friend's heavy hand on his shoulder.

  “Ricky, let me show you!”

  The firm grip of Spook's hand pushed Ricky on, down into the cellar. The light at the bottom was on. When he reached the bottom, he saw nothing but smooth dusty floor and the bookcases that formed the storage area.

  “Where . . . ?” he said, trying to turn his head to face his friend, but Spook's hand merely squeezed Ricky's neck, and his happy voice said, “In the back.”

  Ricky's stomach tightened as he crossed toward the storage area. The memories of what he had been shown—the horrible mutilated bodies of his friends and family—came fresh into his mind. “Spook—”

  “Go on, Ricky.”

  “I don't want to.”

  “Go on, Ricky boy!” Spook's voice said. But now it was coming from behind the bookcases. It sounded as if Spook had thrown his voice. Ricky turned to ask Spook, but the hand on his neck became very cold and thin and held him very tight. Where Spook's hand had been, he felt small strong fingers with nails longer than a man's.

  “God, no,” Ricky said. The iron grip of the hand pushed him forward as if he were attached to a machine. It steered him around the open end of the bookcases to the storage area.

  “No!” Ricky wailed. He saw blood against the far wall. The iron hand propelled him on. Below the blood was a thing, a crushed melon of a thing, that had been Spook's head. It lay upon his sitting, rag-doll-looking body as if it might collapse into itself at any moment.

  The cold hand pushed him down toward the blood on the wall. Toward the head.

  “Oh, God, oh, Lord . . .”

  His face hovered six inches from Spook's destroyed head. He heard the settling of bodily fluids down in his body, the drip of crushed matter.

  “Please! No!” he begged.

  Spook's head twitched; then, slowly, it rose up into itself, a pulpy misshapen mass. The eyes opened and the mouth opened and smiled and then laughed.

  “Ricky boy! Too late for old Spook! Should have listened to her, Ricky!”

  Parts of the head collapsed, leaving a smashed ridge of bloody moving mouth. The eyes melted out of the head and dripped over onto Spook's body.

  “Should have listened!”

  Ricky thrashed against the vise grip that held him as he was pushed down closer to the gurgling, flapping mouth. “Should.. . have ... listened ...”

  What was left of the head gave a sound like an egg being opened. Then it spilled over away from the red-fleshed neck cavity.

  “Let me go!” Ricky screamed.

  The grip pressed him down close over the open neck. “Oh. . . God. . . Ricky. . . .” he heard, down inside, retreating into the distance.

  There was silence.

  The voice that went with the iron hand, the female's voice, said, “Here's what you're going to do.” The hand squeezed Ricky's neck so hard he felt he would black out. “If you don't do exactly what I say, right now, the rest of them will be down here looking like your friend in one hour. I'll start with Reesa. Do you understand?”

  The hand held him so tight he could barely cry out, “Yes!”

  “Listen . . .

  Thirty five minutes later, his motorbike abandoned against a nearby tree, Ricky stood before the huge, gleaming, spotlighted length of the cruise ship S.S. Eiderhorn. Its height, its row upon row of tiny round portholes, its triple, massive smokestacks, completely dwarfed the pier. In the night, in the brilliance of its illumination, its stark colors of black and white and red, it was a beautiful, dreamlike thing. Ricky had seen it a thousand times; it docked in Hamilton Harbor every Tuesday, bringing tourists from New York City, mostly old people with a hunger for sweater and rum shopping, and every Saturday, like this Saturday, it pulled its anchor, turned, and headed back the way it came.

  As Ricky watched, trembling, waitin
g for the hand on his shoulder to guide him, a steam horn blasted proudly into the night, signaling last call.

  “Aboard!” someone shouted.

  Across the street, a clutch of last-minute shoppers hurried toward the ship. One beautiful black woman, holding her hat on and managing to wave at the Eiderhorn with her other hand, which clutched four huge shopping bags, was followed to the gangplank by ten or twelve others.

  “Now,” the cold female voice said to Ricky. The cold hand propelled him forward until his path suddenly intersected that of the running woman with the packages.

  “May I help you, ma'am?” the cold voice said beside Ricky. Only now it wasn't cold, but warm, filled with charm, much like Ricky's own voice. Ricky's head was pressed down, and not waiting for an answer, his hand was shoved toward the woman's shopping bags.

  “Why—yes!” the startled woman replied. Ricky took three of the bags and bounded ahead of her up the gangplank. As Ricky reached the porter above, the cold hand turned his head down toward the woman and the voice, so much like his own, said, loud enough so that the porter but not the woman, would hear: “Meet you in the room, Auntie!”

  The hand on his neck propelled Ricky forward. After twenty yards the voice, cold again, said, “Put down the bags,” which he did. It pushed him on.

  He was guided to a stairwell, and they descended. The bright deck gave way to softly illumined passageways. The ship was being readied for departure, and busy employees passed. No one questioned him. They continued downward; the lights became less soft, more infrequent.

  Finally, they reached the bowels of the ship.

  The hand forced Ricky to sit. He felt something buzzing at his back; felt the metal deck beneath him vibrating with a different tone. Far off, he heard the sound of hissing steam. He was in near darkness.

  The grip on his neck loosened. Ricky felt out along the walls. His hand found a bucket with a mop in it, a shelf close over his head. In front of him was metal deck, a metal sliding door that was open a crack.

  The door slid closed.

  The grip, near-strangulation, returned to his neck.