Darker Than Noir

by Riley, R. Thomas; Zoot, Campbell; Chandler, Randy; Kauwe, Faith

  "You're still worried about him?" she asked in evident surprise. "Not to worry. You'll be joining him soon and your credit cards and money will help get me to the next furry convention. My life will continue even though yours won't." She aimed the gun at my face.

  "Please," I gasped. "I want to know. Are there any more like you?"

  Again she smiled. "Let's just say that with the advent of furry fandom, our activities aren't restricted to Halloween parties and Mardi Gras anymore."

  "One more question," I said. "What time is it?"

  Her muzzle actually dropped open in surprise.

  There was a knock on the door.

  "Pity," I said. "You can't fire that gun or they'll hear it outside."

  With a graceful yet powerful motion she got up off my chest, grabbed me by the shirt collar and brought me to my feet. Jabbing the muzzle of the gun in my back, the rat woman pushed me toward the door. "Whoever, it is, get rid of them quickly. I'm right behind you."

  "Yes, ma'am," I said. Opening the door, we found the hallway jammed full of fanboys.

  "Party!" they screamed and swept into the door like lemmings off a cliff.

  I was pushed backwards into the rat woman and immediately lost sight of her as a wave of bodies flooded over both of us. "Party!" screamed some of the voices. "Free show!" screamed others. "Where's the food?" "Where's the woman in the rat suit?"

  There was a short squeal of terror suddenly cut off, but the press of bodies was so tight I couldn't have saved her. I remembered Periwinkle's chipmunk pictures and I honestly felt sorry for the poor creature. We may be very slow monkeys, but a pack of aroused fanboys can make piranhas look friendly.

  Forcing my way out into the hall, I fought the flood of fannish humanity that wanted the rat woman, if only a very small piece of her.

  I found the stairwell mercifully empty except for one solitary man in Cocker Spaniel ears pushing his bulk up the stairs, "Is that party still going on in 544?" he asked, hunger in his voice and eyes.

  I nodded mutely and stumbled past.

  Mrs. Periwinkle's fee would be returned and then there would be much for me to forget. The chipmunks had finally come back and were just starting to tune up the cranial bongo drums. Mentally, I made a serious upcoming date with a bourbon bottle for myself.

  Sadly, I shook my head. The rat race had taken on a whole different meaning and if Mother Nature was doing a hiccup along evolutionary lines, the meek might not be inheriting the world after all. If so, I just hoped the world’s new owners would pay my bills on time.

  GHOST IN A BOTTLE

  By

  Frank C Gunderloy, Jr.

  Michael Correy's mid-morning arrival at Campion House began uncomfortably, with his old classmate and host Steven Dix settling him in the sole overstuffed chair in the somber-draped living room and insisting that they take sherry in plastic party cups. Correy, a small man, with the balding dignity befitting his years on the force, felt himself smaller still as he sunk into the yielding leather. Dix, still the maned—albeit paunchy—lion of his glory days on the football field, paced back and forth, pausing occasionally to stare into the unlit recesses of the fireplace. The single electrified chandelier, an assemblage of wrought iron and dim mock candle bulbs, was mounted so close to the high ceiling that it did little to dispel the darkness, and Dix's face was shadowed into a frowning mask. The faceted crystal sherry decanter, capturing and refracting the flickering glow into a myriad of tiny sparklers, was, Correy thought, the only thing he'd seen so far that didn't look like it belonged in a mortuary.

  Dix poured himself a second sherry. Correy, unused to taking alcohol with the morning not yet half over, and nonplussed at the lack of a proper glass, continued to nurse his first. His day had already been marred by the long limousine ride from the Richmond airport, and his taciturn driver's dropping him off to trudge a last sweaty half mile up the rutted gravel driveway.

  A tiny chime sounded, the ringing magnified by the high ceiling and hard plaster walls. Dix froze, the sherry cup pressed against his lips in mid-sip.

  "There -- hear that?" he said, lowering the drink to the coffee table. Correy was surprised to notice how his host's hand shook.

  "Certainly," Correy answered. "Watch—it's about to happen again." He pointed to the almost-depleted decanter, where, driven by the pressure of expanding alcoholic fumes in the growing warmth of the room, the glass stopper abruptly rose and fell in its bottle-neck seat. The chime of crystal on crystal rang through the room a second time.

  Correy leaned back, smug in the professorial accuracy of his observations. The smugness only lasted for an instant. Dix lunged across the table, clamping one hand on the neck of the decanter, the other atop the stopper as if to prevent the offending bit of crystal from further motion. Then, stepping to the fireplace, he swung the offending bottle like a baseball bat, smashing it against the blackened firebricks, his hands still gripping neck and stopper. The decanter seemed to explode rather than shatter, spraying the hearth with shards of crystal and flooding the room with the nutty-sweet odor of aged wine.

  "My God, Steve!" Correy shouted, struggling up from the overstuffed chair and grabbing his host by the arm. "What the devil's gotten into you? That decanter must have been worth a hundred dollars."

  Dix, still holding the neck of the smashed crystal, sat down abruptly on the edge of the table, his shoulders heaving. He made a high-pitched noise, but Correy wasn't sure whether he was laughing or crying. Finally he spoke.

  "More like a thousand," he said, and Correy now realized he was laughing. "But it was worth it, every penny. I think I got her that time."

  "Got her? Got who?"

  "The Campion Ghost, Mike," answered Dix, holding out the remains of the decanter neck like it explained everything. "That's why I wanted you to come — to help me get rid of her. Wait 'til you I tell you what's been happening here."

  As if in response, the remnant of crystal shattered in Dix's hand.

  * * *

  They'd begun earlier by discussing place names. "I just assumed it was named for the flower," Dix said. "Until I saw it written 'Campon' or sometimes 'Campan' in some of the older records. Then I thought it might be a corruption of the French 'campagne'—a country house. French names were popular among the gentry of King and Queen County in the early 1800's."

  "How about the Spanish 'campana'—bell house?" said Correy. "Didn't you tell me the old Captain made most of his fortune in the Caribbean trade? 'The Spanish Main,' so to speak?"

  Dix stopped pacing in mid-stride, turning to stare at Correy for a long moment.

  "Why would you say that?" he snapped. "Have you heard the bell already? You just got here." His shoulders slumped, and he rubbed his eyes with one hand as if trying to clear his vision.

  Correy realized then that his host was extremely depressed, although doing his best to hide it. What's going on?he thought. He had indeed believed he heard a bell just as the limousine roared away, leaving him to peer curiously at the chimneys and balustrades along the roofline of the restored Virginia mansion. However, he could see only the ubiquitous lightning rods, detecting neither bell tower nor weathervane that might have given off a ringing sound as it spun on rusted metal bearings. A kitchen bell, perhaps, he'd thought, and I would certainly welcome a bit of breakfast. But that theory evaporated as he finished his climb up the driveway and could at last see past the twisted and interwoven branches of what proved to be an overgrown crabapple orchard. Campion emerged from the shadows as an unadorned aggregate of bleak gray clapboards and weathered shingles, its front and rear entryways set flush with the walls in such a manner that one might have thought it a house without doors, and its paucity of windows promised an equally bleak interior.

  After a hearty-enough handshake at the door and a brief respite to unburden himself of his overnight bag, Correy found himself shifting back and forth in the depths of that overstuffed chair in that cavernous living room, staring with increasing unease at Dix across the
coffee table. What, he thought, with just a twinge of jealousy, ever possessed me to accept an invitation from someone, old classmate or not, who is hell-bent on squandering a comfortable inheritance to refurbish a dilapidated Virginia estate. Correy equated old houses to bed-and-breakfast establishments, and his tastes ran to neither. Humid and musty in the summer and drafty in the winter, they never truly responded to the ministrations of modern heaters and refrigerated air conditioning. And although the floors might be refinished to a glassy polish, they always creaked, so that a post-midnight trip to the bathroom -- which was invariably at the end of a long ill-lit hallway -- could not fail to awaken the entire household.

  He was beginning to think the visit a mistake, and wonder if there might be an afternoon flight back to Baltimore, when the smashed decanter revealed Correy's true reason for inviting him.

  * * *

  In the Campion kitchen, the hard shine of the new chrome dishwasher and stove stood in sharp contrast to the soft glow of hand-rubbed dropleaf table and cane-back chairs. Dix sprawled in one of the chairs, Correy dabbing at his host's hand with a folded kitchen towel.

  "Stress builds up in old glass like that," said Correy. "You cracked the neck of the decanter when you broke it, and the warmth of your hand finally made it let go. Like the aftershock from an earthquake. That's a nasty cut it gave you."

  "Always the logical detective, huh, Mike?" said Dix, pulling his hand away. "Stop fussing—it's just a nick. I've had worse."

  "So I see," said Correy, noting with some distaste the angry telltale scar of another recent, more extensive gash in his friend's palm. "Now— are you going to tell me about your so-called Campion Ghost?"

  Dix did not answer, but waved Correy to follow him up the winding back stair to a room where a pair of dormer windows admitted streams of welcome sunlight. The brightness of the room had obviously been paramount in its conversion from bedchamber to office. Still silent, Dix lifted a book from atop a paper-jumble on a desk under one window, and handed it to Correy. The book fell open to a well-thumbed page.

  "Campion, Built 1823-26, by Captain Isaiah Weifel," Correy read. "Noted for the classic New England style 'Widow's Walk,' an appurtenance more decorative than useful in the isolated Virginia countryside." Then his eye skipped down the page to a paragraph underlined in heavy pencil strokes. "Even though in mourning, Ella Weifel continued as hostess of the famous dinner parties, with John Davis Weifel, the only surviving son, occupying the Captain's chair as host and master. However, John Davis seemed not to appreciate the fine cellar that had been assembled by his late father, and apparently allowed it to be depleted. The parties stopped abruptly upon the tragic death of Ella in 1839. [double underlining] John Davis that same year undertook to extend the foundations and construct the attached kitchen, an unusual addition for those times. However, he remained at the estate for only a brief period thereafter, departing to take up residence in Baltimore. Campion remained empty until . . ."

  "What is this?" said Correy, flipping the book over.

  HISTORIC BUILDINGS OF KING AND QUEEN COUNTY VIRGINIA

  Victoria D. Combs and Wallace T. Raines.

  "An appropriate title," said Correy. "But I don't see anything here about ghosts."

  "No, that's only the history part of it. Let me tell you the trouble we've had here since we started the remodeling."

  * * *

  Harry Bates, the work crew leadman, climbed part way up the cellar entry, peeled off his dust mask, coughed, and spat into the tall grass before speaking.

  "Like we was stirrin' the ashes 'a Hell down there," he said. Then he called across to where Dix and Jake Schaperelli, the contractor's foreman, were standing at the dropped tailgate of Jake's pickup, reviewing specifications for reinforcing the stone foundation.

  "Jake—you, too, Mr. Dix—we found somethin' you oughta see."

  Jake had wisely chosen a parking spot under a shady oak upwind of the ancient mansion. The cloud of dust pouring from the basement doors and windows half-hid the house in a grey miasma and drifted like smoke over the grassy hillside.

  "What is it, Harry?" Jake asked the dust-covered workman.

  "We found us another basement—under the flooring—must 'a been sealed off when they laid in them old bricks."

  "The Cask of Amontillado," laughed Dix, closer to the truth than he might have guessed, but he got only a blank stare from Jake in return.

  "We was tearing them bricks up around the foundation so's we could set the forms in place," said Harry, leading the way through the settling dust. "Most of 'em was pretty much crumbling away anyways—you oughta have us pour a concrete floor whilst we're at it—and we found us a wooden trapdoor over near the west wall. The lid, it just fell to pieces when I prized it up, and there's steps goin' down. Here, I'll shine you a light, but you can't see much. Air's too thick yet."

  "Careful," said Jake, as Dix dropped to his hands and knees to peer over the edge of the dark hole. "That framing looks pretty rotten to me."

  "Ssh!" said Dix. "I thought I heard something."

  "Rats, maybe," said Harry. "Or them damn chimney swifts. Chimney comes clear down here to the cellar."

  "No," said Jake. "I heard it too. Sounded more like somebody ringing a bell."

  * * *

  Dix drew a deep breath, and began to rearrange the papers on his desktop for perhaps the tenth time since they'd sat down in the office.

  "They finally got a ladder down that filthy hole," he said at last. "The stairs had decayed so much you could crumble the wood in your hand. And as soon as they lowered an extension light down as well, I knew we'd found what was left of Captain Weifel's famous wine cellar."

  "Don't tell me," said Correy. "You uncorked a century and a half old bottle, and a ghost came out instead of a genie."

  The haggard stare he got from his companion made Correy wish he hadn’t been so flippant in his response.

  "No," Dix continued after a long pause. "All the bottles were broken."

  "Well, what did you expect, after so many years? A few broken bottles don't . . ."

  "There were hundreds of bottles. Great long racks and baskets full of them. All broken. A lot of the racks had collapsed, but you could tell someone had gone down the rows systematically with a hammer. And on one wall, mildewed stains where bottles had been pulled out from some of the baskets and smashed, with a great pile of glass below."

  "I'd like to see it."

  "There's nothing to see now. I had it filled in and let them pour a concrete floor like they wanted. I had the antiquities assessor from the Tappahanock Preservation Society come for a look, but he said there was nothing worth keeping—except for one thing. This"

  He rummaged in the top desk drawer for a moment, then held out his hand. A tiny gold cross dangled from a chain looped around his fingers.

  "The assessor found it twisted around a nail at the top of those rickety old stairs. He said that was common practice in those days, using a cross to protect the rest of the house if you sealed off a room."

  "Protect the rest of the house? From what?"

  "From the Campion ghost, Mike."

  Correy laughed. "Steve, you've been stuck out here away from civilization too long. Why don't you come back to Baltimore with me and forget about bells and bottles and ghosts for a while. I only have to be in the station one or two days a week to see how my research assistants are doing, and I have to spend half a day on the firing range, but we'll spend the rest of the time down at my cabin on the Severn. We can take it easy, fish, go crabbing. Give you a new perspective on all this stuff."

  Dix shook his head. "You haven't heard the half of it yet," he said.

  * * *

  "Jake! Jake—come quick! Harry's had an accident!"

  Damn, another one! thought Jake Schaperelli. Now what? How could he have an accident on lunch break?

  He found Harry standing under the tangled overhang of one of the gnarled crab-apple trees, surrounded by the rest of the crew. Harry step
ped out from the cluster of grumbling men when he saw Jake coming.

  "Lookit," said Harry. "Jest you lookit this."

  He turned sideways, lifting his leather carpenter's apron to present his thigh and hip for Jake's inspection. A ragged hole was torn in Harry's faded jeans, the edges more shredded than ripped. The skin showing through the hole looked raw and abraded.

  "What happened?" asked Jake.

  "Damn soda-pop bottle blew up. I set it longside that tree whilst I got my sandwich out and it blew sky-high. Sounded like a cannon goin' off. I thought I was kilt. Mighta been, too, if I'd been right next to it. Way it was, it just peppered me like a load a' birdshot. Apron stopped most a' it."

  The grumbling began again, the men knotting into a group behind Harry. One of them said, "Go on—you got to tell it."

  "We talked it over first thing this mornin'," said Harry, thrusting out his chin, "And this just puts the cap on it. We're all of us walkin' off, right now. You can get yerself another crew to salvage all them old shingles. You couldn't get me back up there on that Widder's Walk for love nor money, anyways . Too easy for a man to fall -- or get bumped, if you catch my meaning. You was smart, Jake, you'd walk with us."

  "Look, Harry -- fellas -- I know there's been a string of things, but . . ."

  "Ain't no 'but' about it. Ever since we found all them old busted bottles, it ain't safe to have nothin' glass round this place. There was Jimmy's thermos. If he hadn't a' looked first, he'd a' had a mouthful a' broken glass. And them cracked headlights on the cement truck. I sees how you park your truck down the hill with the rest of us, stead of up close to the house."

  "And I suppose a spook broke that half-pint in Billy Clayton's hip pocket, too?" said Jake, his temper flaring. "That's what this is all about, isn't it? You guys are ganging up on me because I fired him for bringing liquor on the job."