by Jon Fore
“No, not really.”
“It’s my subject; I had to study it,” she said defensively.
Chris snickered under his breath as Ethan said, “I know. We all know, Abby.”
“It really is a nice house. If not for the remote location, it would be a sweet place to live,” Madison mused.
“I wouldn’t live here if you paid me. No clubs, no bars, no movie theaters—nothing to do at all around here,” Chris replied flatly.
“Sometimes, it’s nice to be secluded, you know: people don’t bother you, knock on your door selling Jesus or whatever,” Madison defended with her face twisted in mock hurt.
“Relax, babe, it’s just not for me is all,” Chris cooed to her with a broad smile.
“Found it!” Abby exclaimed as she stood with the large black iron key in her hand.
She approached the door as everyone else gathered around behind her. The lock gave easily and the door eased open with a high-pitched complaint as dust drifted down to dance and swirl in the failing sunlight.
Before them was a magnificent marble floor and two sweeping stairways, which led up to a railed balcony with hallways to either side. A grand passage led between the sweeping stairways and directly back to a rear porch many yards away. To each side were large rooms containing the bay windows they had spied through. Furniture sat tastefully, placed about in a matching Old World style. There were tables and large puffy chairs, bookcases and cabinets, even large masterfully-depicted oil paintings in wooden frames adorning the walls—all of this under a thin coating of fine dust.
“It’s almost like someone just moved out a month ago,” Ethan said as Abby drew her camera and started shooting in every direction. “Someone has to be coming up here on a regular basis, maybe to air the house out, paint it, you know…”
“Some of this stuff is worth a fortune, I bet,” Chris said in his most aristocratic voice. “An auction house would have a field-day in here.”
They began to fan out, gently stepping through the house as if afraid to disturb the dust collected there. Abby felt like a thief, who had just forced her entry into a rich family’s mansion and was now searching for trinkets to steal. The room she had entered was obviously a greeting room. Large thin-legged sofas and tables, a coat rack, and a large fireplace filled the room. Many candle sconces stood rigid against the walls, wax captured mid-drip around the edges. She could not shake the feeling that someone still lived here and that her presence would not be welcome. It was an uneasy feeling she had trouble quelling.
Chris entered what he guessed was the library: a room lined with shelves, each packed tightly with hardbound tomes. Many full body chairs where about, along with what must be a bar and a large center ceiling chandelier still holding half burnt candles. The room smelled of books, like the University Library back on campus, and carried the air of higher learning. This made Chris a bit uncomfortable; it is what he tried to escape when he agreed to come here. When he inspected the spines of the crowded books, he found he did not recognize any of the titles, some of which were not even in English. He knew as well as anyone that he was not the literary type, but there should have been at least one he recognized. What he could tell, even considering his minimal exposure to reading, was that they were very old.
Ethan and Madison had wandered into the length of the passage leading to the rear porch. Two other rooms opened off this passage, not with doors but, like the others, with arches. Ethan turned into the first he came to, apparently the kitchen. It held multiple potbelly stoves, larger than the ones he was familiar with, as well as two large opened fireplaces, one with a spit for roasting. They were clean and neat but sooty with use. Large wooden islands were about, one scored with slash marks, the other dry and dull as if used for baking and now stained with flour. A small table and chair sat near the only window—a place for the servants to eat, he imagined.
Madison had chosen to turn right, directly across from the kitchen, where she found an enormous dining hall. It held a dark colored wood table, ornate in carvings and curved of leg. The most noticeable characteristic, though, was the surprising length of it: nearly twenty feet long. The sides were lined with ten matched chairs of the same artistic cut and bowed-leg design as the table. At the head and foot of the table sat matching chairs, but wider and with a much taller back. On one side of the room silently sat a wide fireplace, useful for cooking as well as heating the room. On the other stood a hutch, still filled with china and glassware, and cabinets wide enough for placing trays of food. Hung over the table was a pair of chandeliers, both with many candleholders still stocked with thin yellowish candles. To Madison, this was the epitome of grandeur and decadence. She could easily see herself hosting a dinner party in here for important people of the film and modeling industries—after her discovery, that is. Famous actors and directors and other important celebrities would sit about, sipping the best of brandy, gushing compliments about her style and grace as a host and model, maybe even as an actor.
After many moments of exploration, and for Abby many shots with her camera, the group gathered at the foyer, just at the foot of one of the grand stairways. It was clear that each one of them stood impressed by what they had seen in the house, moved to either dreams of grandeur or disgust in decadence.
“Who wants to check out the upstairs?” Chris asked, always in some form of a rush.
“I have to go up there, take some shots. Ethan, I am going to need to dump this camera soon; we forgot to do it last night, and I am almost full.”
“Did you bring another memory stick?” he asked knowing she had not.
“No, just the one…” she replied with an apologetic smile.
“I’ll set the laptop up down here. Hey, you know what?” Ethan asked thoughtfully as he began to scan the higher reaches of the room and stairs, into the huge chandelier over the foyer.
The others began looking around the room in the same fashion, but saw nothing more than the richness of the place and the layer of dust over everything.
“What, Sherlock?” Chris asked sarcastically. “Are you going to tell us?”
“Uh, yeah…” His voiced was strained from looking directly overhead. “There are no cobwebs anywhere…”
“So?” Chris asked quickly.
“With the dust over everything, and a house this big, what keeps the spiders out?” he asked softly. “If you look around, you won’t see any bugs at all.”
“What do spiders have to do with cobwebs?” Madison asked.
“That’s where they come from, sweetie,” Abby responded gently before Chris could toss an insult at her. He was always quick to nip at people, even those he was sleeping with. Abby simply liked the sweet ignorance of Madison, and had, since she met her, protected her like a child.
“They do? Aw, gross! I hate spiders!” She shook a bit as if she could feel one crawling along her flesh.
“So what’s the big deal?” Chris asked, clearly becoming agitated at the fact he did not understand.
“No cobwebs, no spiders. Have you ever known a house that didn’t have spiders?” Ethan posed.
“Well, the doors and windows were all closed,” Chris reasoned.
“There is no such thing as an air-tight house, Chris,” Ethan explained, “especially one this old…”
“Once more: so? Who really cares if there are spiders in here or not? I’m going upstairs.” He began climbing the stairway, his aggravation at not understand Ethan’s concern obvious.
“Don’t you find it a bit odd that there are no spiders in a house this old?” Ethan asked Abby.
“Actually, I do. It’s not…I don’t know…natural?” Abby knew when Ethan was serious, and there was something about this lack of insect thing that really bothered him, which worried her as well.
“Hey, it’s fine with me; like I said, I don’t like spiders anyway,” Madison said brightly as she began following Chris up the steps. “Wait for me, Chris.”
“I’ll setup the laptop; you go g
et your pictures before the light’s gone completely,” Ethan urged Abby. It was getting on in the day, and with the sun nearly set, photography would be difficult without using the flash, which meant less battery life.
Abby stared at him a moment longer, sharing with him a splinter of apprehension, a fragile blossoming of dread that something was not right with the Heart House. It was almost imperceptible, a stealthy figure of wrongness, but she could not get her hands around it. She stared a moment longer, then favored him with a crooked smile before beginning her climb to the second floor.
Chapter 5
Ethan drew his laptop from its protective casing and set it on a small table behind one of the grand stairways. He angled the screen upwards and hit the shiny silver power button. It clicked, chirped, and then displayed a bright blue logo on the screen.
The computer and its inherent technology seemed grossly out of place here, it as odd an entrant as the people walking around upstairs. The thing whirred and popped softly as the cooling fans kicked on and then off to save the battery. Suddenly, Ethan felt a chill run across his ankles as a very light breezed played over the tops of his hiking boots and under the cuffs of his pants.
He looked down and scanned the floor for the source. He noticed a door next to the table which opened under the stairway. It was not an obvious door, designed to look much like the wall and moldings around it, but it was a door nonetheless. It was short, squat, and just slightly ajar, enough to allow the chilly breeze to waft across his feet.
He could hear the others walking around upstairs but chose not to call them down to see what he had discovered. He eased the door open and found a brick wall, not like the foundation or the steps to the front porch, but pitted, reddish bricks, very old and held together with aged and crumbling cement.
This was the first real sign of wear or apparent age Ethan had seen. It made him think the house was just a shell, a shiny wrapper for some bitter tasting candy. The house was actually old and near collapsing, as only seen in this small part hidden behind a small door, under new moldings and countless gallons of white paint.
The bricks were dirty orange and rounded at the edges. Clearly stamped in each one was the moniker U.S., which was worn and faded as well. They made him think of gold bars hidden deep within some vault somewhere. He reached up and gently felt the bricks. They were icy cold and vaguely moist. As his hand crossed a line of cement holding the bricks in place, it crumbled away like dry cookie dough, much more easily than it should have for old cement. He prodded it gently with his finger, and accidentally made a neat hole through the sandy stuff. He heard the smaller bits falling on what sounded like wood and then skittered down into oblivion. When he drew his finger out of the hole, he felt a rush of cold air. A rancid, sickly stench assailed his nose but quickly dissipated.
He made his way to the other stairway, but there was no door there. He returned to the glowing laptop, now ready for his user name, and logged in. He could hear the others coming down the stairs above him, talking loudly and sharing quips among themselves.
“Almost ready here. Come check this out, you guys,” Ethan called to them.
“What?” Chris asked, overzealous as usual.
As they came around the side of the stairs, Ethan absently pointed at the brick wall behind the door.
“Why would someone put a door there? You think they needed easy access to the foundation or something?” Abby asked as she shot a couple of pictures.
“It's not part of the foundation,” Ethan said as he took the camera from Abby. “There is a room or something behind it.”
“Why does it look so old?” Chris asked.
“I don’t know. I just found it myself. It’s really weak, too. See the hole there? I made that with my finger.”
The others just stared at the wall, all of them apparently as puzzled as Ethan was. He began to transfer the images from the camera’s small memory card onto the laptop as the others began investigating the wall.
“Why would someone wall this off?” Abby wondered aloud.
“Maybe there is hidden treasure behind it!” Chris offered quickly, ever hoping for the get-rich-quick solution of his life.
“Give it a rest.” Ethan said dryly and Abby chuckled.
“No, really, maybe someone hid something valuable behind here. Maybe it’s been forgotten about,” Chris seemed rather excited, even for him.
“Well, we won’t be busting down any walls. We are just guests here, and Mr. Brighton is not even charging us to visit,” Abby said flatly. “Can I see the pictures when you’re done? I want to get a closer look at the guy we saw on our way up.”
“Yeah, it’s almost done…”
Chris trailed off as a thud sound came from the wall, and each of them clearly heard it repeatedly as if something was rolling down wood steps.
“What the fuck, Chris? Didn’t you hear me?” Abby shouted. She was clearly upset now, her face washed in red.
“I didn’t do it! It fell all by itself!” Chris protested, his voice a bit strained. He was not actually close to the wall, but enough so in Abby’s opinion.
“He didn’t do it. I saw it. It just sort of fell,” Madison added quickly, trying to quell a building argument.
“Bullshit, guys. Come on, close the door. Don’t touch that wall anymore, okay?” Abby’s voice had softened and become more pleading.
“I didn’t do it!” Chris shouted louder. It was clear he was angry at the accusation, but almost unreasonably so.
“Fine. Let’s just close the door,” Abby said, sounding much like a mother counseling unruly children.
“Well, since there is this hole,” Chris said as he stepped aside to show a neatly missing brick, “couldn’t we take a look inside?” His anger had given way to that old excitement of adventure.
“Just be careful, don’t knock anymore bricks out or Mr. Brighton will be pissed,” Abby pleaded again.
“Yeah, sure, it’s not like he comes up here often enough to find out. I’ll get my flashlight,” Chris volunteered as he rushed toward the front door where the packs waited.
Madison tried to peer through the hole, but it was too dark. “It really cold in there,” she mused.
“Done. Here, click on ‘Slide Show’ to walk through the images,” Ethan offered as he slid the now-empty memory card back into the camera. “Just don’t take too long; the battery is already at ninety percent.”
“No problem. Thanks.” Abby rewarded him with a smile. She began to tap on a single key as the images changed on the screen.
“Here, look out,” Chris said as he worked his way around Madison. Ethan just stood back and watched the couple try to fit their face into the small hole where the brick had been.
“Ah, cool, you guys! There’s stairs going down and a room at the bottom. We have got to go down there!” Chris sounded like an over-imaginative child.
“Ethan, isn’t this where we saw that guy?” Abby asked as she scrolled quickly from one frame to the next, then back again.
Ethan leaned close; he liked hovering just out of touch with Abby. She was so warm, and even after two days without a shower, smelled fresh and wonderful. “Yeah, he was right there, next to the tree…” The man was absent from the photo.
“What’s that thing? No, other side, near the bottom,” Madison asked.
“I took eighteen pictures of that guy, and he is not in any of them. Could that be?” Abby asked the always-levelheaded Ethan.
“It looks like a dead rat or something. But look at this, over there, see it?” Chris pointed out to Madison.
“Could it be? It would have to be; it’s what we are looking at,” Ethan replied.
“Is that a coin?” Madison asked.
“What’s really strange, Ethan, is see there next to that small tree? See how in this picture it is bent, then in this one it isn’t? Almost like something was holding it down and then released it. See in this frame, it is past where it should be, then in this one standing straight up agai
n?”
“No, it’s too big for a coin. Maybe it’s a pocket watch. I think there is a chain attached to it,” Chris said through the hole in the bricks.
“That’s precisely where he was when he started back down the hill again. Maybe the wind?” Ethan pondered.
“Maybe it’s a broach or something!” Madison began to sound as excited as Chris did.
“The other trees aren’t bent; the leaves are not even moved. Do you remember a breeze?”
Another brick fell free, coaxed by the faces pressed against it, and tumbled loudly down the stairs.
“Shit,” Abby whispered.
“Alright, guys, enough of that. Let’s shut the door before the whole wall comes down,” Ethan said authoritatively.
“Who put you in charge, man?” Chris asked defensively.
“Just shut the door, Chris, alright?” Abby asked, her voice strained with aggravation.
“I’m sorry, Abby. I didn’t think a brick wall could be so, I don’t know, easy to break,” Madison said, clearly sorry.
“It’s alright, Madison. Let’s just get the door shut. Maybe Brighton will think it’s just from age.”
Chris eased the door shut, obviously trying not to knock any more bricks loose. “Sorry, Abby,” Chris finally offered.
“We better get our beds made up and what not, and it really is time to eat.” Ethan said, trying to sound brighter than he felt. The person missing from the photos was a bit disturbing—too close to a need for the medication he had taken in the past. Even though the others had seen him, it was still just like it had been when he was younger and haunted by that bum with dead eyes.
“Can we cook in the kitchen, you think?” Ethan asked. “There was some wood there, and we need to eat the stuff in the cooler tonight before it goes bad.”
“Yeah, why not. Do we need more wood?” Abby asked.
“No, there is plenty in there. It’s old, but dry wood burns well. It will warm the house a bit, too. It’s getting cold in here.”
“Like a witch’s tit,” Chris said as he groped one of Madison’s ample breasts.