by Geoff North
He adjusted the rear view mirror so he could see the old house peering back at him, complete with its stain glass window on the third floor, the window that should’ve been busted out years earlier. How could the place still be there? It was supposed to have burnt to the ground on Halloween night in 1979. What had changed? Why had it taken him three years to finally notice? It sat there in the mirror, a great grey block out of place and out of time. Like him.
Cathy touched his hand and he jumped. “Are you okay?”
Unfinished business.
It was an effort to tear his eyes from it. Impossible in fact.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be in such a hurry to leave Braedon.”
Chapter 21
Plans change.
The young couple moved to Winnipeg but returned back to Braedon the following spring for good. Hugh never bothered looking for work while they were away. He’d discovered a new sports lottery game that allowed him to place bets on hockey games. There was a good deal of cash to be won if you picked the winning team. More cash if you predicted which teams made it to the final, how many games would be played in a series, what the score spreads would be. Hugh loved hockey. He seemed to have an uncanny sense of betting on which teams would go all the way. Right down to the player who would score the winning goal.
It had been a profitable Stanley Cup final. A winning winter that saw Hugh turn two hundred dollars into thirty-six thousand. He bought the McFarlane house from Braedon Credit Union two days after Christmas for fifteen grand. The bank was glad to be rid of it. The place cost thousands to heat in the winter, and it had been sitting empty for decades.
And it had a reputation.
May 1983
“How’s business?”
Cathy looked up from the sink she was scrubbing clean between clients. “If you came to visit from that study of yours more often, you would know how slow it’s been.”
Hugh took a sip of coffee from his mug and plopped himself into the single salon chair in front of the sink. He looked around at the walls of the big bedroom converted to hair salon with pride. His dad had given him most of the know-how, but he had done most of the work. “It takes time to build a customer base. Be patient.”
“I think it’s because all the old ladies in this town don’t like the idea of someone so young stealing business away from the more established hair dressers.”
“The same old ladies who don’t much care for the fact we’re living in sin.”
She read more into it. “Why doesn’t your mom come here to get her hair done?”
He set his coffee down and poked her in the stomach with a finger. “Oh come on, don’t start with that again. Mom’s been going to Mrs. Mallard since before Heather was born. She’s just being loyal.”
“But we’re family… trying to make ends meet, isn’t that more important than loyalty?”
“Family.” He grinned at her. “Maybe she’ll start coming when we’re married.”
He tried to sit back up but she lowered the seat and sat on top of him. “And when will that be?”
He pushed up until she finally got off him. “As soon as we have a bit more money saved up. As soon as my book’s finished.”
“I’m no expert on the subject but I’m pretty sure there aren’t a whole lot of nineteen year old authors out there making a lot of money.”
He picked his coffee back up and gave her a hurt look. “You think I’m a bad writer?”
“I think you’re a great writer. You write like someone with a ton of life experience, like a guy three times your age.”
I was forty-seven when I hit that truck, not sixty!
She wrapped a fresh towel around the neck rest of the chair. “I just think you’re going to have trouble finding someone to sell the idea to.”
“I won’t tell them my age until they’re good and interested.”
“Well, ghost stories usually aren’t usually my thing, but you got me interested. I can see why you wanted to buy this place. It must give you a lot of ideas, lots of inspiration, hey?”
“It isn’t a ghost story,” he said with more hostility than intended.
“A guy gets creamed by a truck and lives his life over? Sounds like a spooky story to me.” Someone knocked at the front door giving Cathy a start. “See what I mean?”
“Very funny. Your next client is here.” Hugh winked at her and slipped through the hallway towards the stairway before she could answer the door. He looked out the second story hall window and saw a blue compact parked along the street. Mrs. Duffy. She would weigh the salon chair down more than Hugh and Cathy had, combined.
She should drive something bigger, something with all-wheel drive that sits a lot higher off the ground.
He listened as the two exchanged pleasantries, Cathy telling her how big a project the house was, her telling Cathy how much her grandchildren would love exploring through it. Hugh left them to it and started down the hall. He poked his head into the first bedroom on the left. There wasn’t a stick of furniture inside it, no boxes sitting in the corner ready to be unpacked. Absolutely nothing. He looked inside the room across the hall. It was bigger, the window looking out to the north over the rolling backyard of too-long grass and oak trees blocking out the neighbors to either side. It was as empty as the other room.
This wasn’t the house he’d raised a family in. Not yet anyway. He shut the door slowly, trying to avoid the creak but only making it worse. He looked in the other two rooms down the hall, planning which kid would sleep where, knowing full well the decision would never be his to make. All four rooms had the same basic look; blockish square dimensions, high ceilings, narrow smoky windows that all still needed a good cleaning. Rock solid lathe and plaster walls, hard wood floors and foot high baseboards. The house would be worth a fortune anywhere outside of Braedon. A town not many want to move to, a house too big to move out. So here it sits.
There hadn’t been many days to explore their first home. Fixing up the main floor had taken the most time, and when he wasn’t working with his hands he worked with his mind, telling the story of a fellow who came back from death to live his life again.
Not a fucking ghost story.
There hadn’t even been time to ask around town about the house’s history. Who had lived there last? Who were the McFarlane’s? No one by that name lived in Braedon now. He went into the master bedroom and set his empty mug on the night table. There wasn’t much to see in there either. A ridiculously expensive king-sized bed he’d bought more for Cathy before moving back from Winnipeg. Two old end tables and a single dresser they shared, given to them from his parents. They looked out of place in such a large room, next to the new monster bed.
He didn’t want to go back downstairs. Mrs. Duffy would hear him, and he would be expected to visit while Cathy trimmed her curls and colored her roots. He padded quietly back into the hall and looked up at the attic door set in the ceiling. Hugh had only taken a look up in there once, back in the middle of January, and even then he’d only gone halfway. The pull down stairs had been removed decades before, and he hadn’t felt like hoisting himself up past the last rung of the step ladder. It had been poorly insulated, cold as hell he recalled. Cold enough to see his own breath.
Why not take another peek? Should be nice and warm up there now.
The step ladder had been stored away in the walk-in closet of their bedroom. He went back for it and quietly pulled the aluminum frame out beneath the trap door. The inset wooden cover lifted away easily enough and a light sprinkle of dust fell into his face. He scrambled up the steps quickly and hoisted himself up in one swoop.
Hugh sat in the opening and shivered. It was still winter cold. Now he knew why he hadn’t gone in all the way a few months earlier. The room stunk of mold and mouse droppings, reminiscent of the barn loft where Thomas Nelson met his maker. And then there was the window, the stain glass circle that cast an eerie red and green light on whatever happened to be in its path with the moving sun.
<
br /> Damned thing should’ve been bust out years ago.
He would have it replaced, or at least boarded up. Hugh got to his feet and rubbed his arms, wishing he’d grabbed a sweater from the closet when he got the ladder. There wasn’t much to see. An old fake-leather couch pushed up against the angle of roof on the west side, a pile of discarded lamps without shades, tacky gold picture frames minus their pictures, some rusty old coffee tins rolled into the angled east side. It seemed much darker on that side; there were more pieces of small junk crammed into the shadows that he couldn’t quite make out. He looked back at the couch and saw it was sitting up against a three foot high vertical wall that ran along the entire length of the attic.
A false wall…A crawl space?
Hugh walked over to one corner of the wall and went down on his hands and knees to explore further. He tapped on the wood with his knuckles feeling a little foolish. How many times had he seen people doing this in the movies? It made a hollow sound, but the material may have been rotting away from the inside. It was a very old house. He crawled along, tapping and listening until he reached the couch. He went to pull one end away and was met with unmoving resistance. How had they got the thing up here in the first place? He smacked the padded arm as he stood and was rewarded with a face full of dust. It had more cracks than seams in its faded brown material, and for a moment he wasn’t sure if it was brown. The red and green light made it appear more a grayish dull purple.
With both hands gripped at the side, Hugh pulled it away from the wall, not a clean lift but a noisy scrape along the dusty floorboards. He crawled back behind it and continued his inspection. There was a round knob in the middle of the wall, painted over in the same thick brown as the rest. He pulled hard and saw a perfectly straight hairline crack appear down the length of it. A hidden door, he thought, or maybe not so hidden, just forgotten beneath multiple layers of lead-based paint. He pulled harder and had to put his knee into the wall before it screeched open a few inches. With his back braced against the twenty ton couch, Hugh yanked with both hands until the entire door tore away in a protest of flaking paint and rusted hinges.
Inside was blacker than a monkey’s rear-end pinched in ink, the kind of darkness that warns you not to stick a hand inside if you ever want to get it back. Stuffy dry air rushed out after decades of confinement. It smelled of old paper and cardboard. No mouse shit or dead flies in there. No light at all trickling in from warped roofing boards or missing shingles. It was a three-foot square hole into the past.
He considered going back downstairs for a sweater and flashlight. No, that would force him to walk past Mrs. Duffy. He wanted to know what was in there today. His fingers disappeared into darkness, enveloped by stinging cold. He could see his breath rising against the black opening.
A cardboard box.
No, too hard. A crate made of wood. He pulled and it rubbed against the edges of the door frame. There was an oval-shaped handle near the top of the crate. It was an old dairy bottle container. Hugh hadn’t seen one in years, and even then they were no longer being used for carrying fresh milk around. He dragged it all the way out and hefted it up on the couch to get a better look at the weighty items inside.
A copy of the Braedon Weekly Times sat on top. ‘Farmers Brace For Summer Drought’ the headline read. No pictures accompanied the article, just column after column of small print. The date at the top was May 2nd, 1949. He placed it aside and read the headline from Jan 16th, 1950. ‘Longest Cold Snap in Braedon History’.
Hugh had to chuckle.
Weather and farming. That’s all they talked about back then, too.
He waved the white fog of his breath away and dug deeper. How could it be so cold up here? It had been unusually chilly when he climbed through the trap door, now it felt as frozen as a meat locker. He pulled out a couple issues of Life from the early fifties, an Eaton’s general merchandise catalogue from the late forties. Beneath that was a double stack of smaller periodicals that made him catch his breath.
This…is impossible.
The colors on the comic book covers were as bright and glossy as anything sitting new on the shelves of Braedon Pharmacy this very day. At first he thought Cathy must have been up here, planted replicas under the old newspapers and magazines.
“I got you! Didn’t I? Thought you’d found a treasure chest full of gems?”
Hugh wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t even blinking; in fact, he’d momentarily forgotten how to breathe. This was no joke. No one could’ve pulled off such an elaborate prank, least of all Cathy. These were the real thing. He pulled a dozen or so from the crate and spread them gently out across the floor, fanning the wonderful 1940s and early 1950s books out like a hand of cards.
Batman, Superman, Adventures into Terror, Adventures into Weird Worlds, Crime Does Not Pay, Tales from the Crypt, Planet Comics, Whiz Comics, Wham Comics. He grabbed another handful. Space Patrol, Weird Science, Mister Mystery, Battle Action, Classics Illustrated. The cover banners were bold, demanding to be bought for their explicit content and ridiculously low ten cent cover prices.
Hugh leafed through the pages of one and marveled at its condition. Even in the creepy red and green glow of the attic he knew the paper was creamy white, as creamy white as paper can stay in total darkness. He smelled it. No traces of mildew there, no scent of previous seasons with high humidity. They had been sealed away in their little black cubby hole for decades in a perfect frozen state. Hugh looked back in the crate. There had to be at least two hundred more to go through. He thought buying new books off the shelf a few years ago was a treat, but this…this milk box was his Ark--no, it was a hidden tomb, the books inside were undisturbed riches from a not so distant age. He was Carter, and this was his Tut.
It was getting colder. Hugh could barely control his shaking body.
Now he knew why the house had never burned down this time round. He was meant to buy it; he was destined to discover this lost treasure.
He was wrong.
A small female voice spoke from within the blackness of the crawlspace.
“Those used to be my brother’s.”
Chapter 22
Hugh didn’t look over his shoulder to see who or what it was. He crawled slowly toward the attic floor opening gripped in a cold that made his skin numb and his joints ache, a fear that made the hair on his arms stand straight. He couldn’t look back, he couldn’t scream. The comic books were forgotten, his only thought was to get out.
Mrs. Duffy called to him as he walked past the salon a minute later. “Hel-oo, Hugh! How are you this afternoon?”
He ignored her and went straight to the kitchen. He grabbed another coffee mug from the cupboard, content to leave his favorite one three stories above for the rest of eternity, and poured himself a hot helping. He sat at the table and took three long swallows, grateful for the sear it created as it went down.
Cathy came in a minute later, not looking too happy. “What the hell was that? Can’t you even stop to say hi? Jesus Christ, Hugh! She’s a paying client.”
“Oh that, yeah...Sorry.” He took another long sip, his hand shaking.
She saw his distress and reached for him. “What’s wrong? You feel sick?”
He pulled away, not wanting her to feel how cold he was. “I’m fine, just fine. Tell Mrs. Duffy I had to go to the washroom or something, tell her I didn’t hear her.”
Cathy nodded and started back to the salon. She turned and gave him one last look.
He waved her off. “I’m okay. We’ll talk once she’s gone, alright?”
Hugh finished his coffee and went to brew a fresh pot. The last ten minutes couldn’t have happened. What were the odds of finding a box of vintage comic books in the attic of an old house? It was exactly the type of daydream a guy who loved comic books would have. And wouldn’t a guy writing a ghost story maybe think he’d heard creepy voices speaking to him from a black hole in the wall?
It’s NOT a ghost story.
He poure
d water into the carafe and looked through the window into the backyard. The grass needed a good mowing. One more shot of caffeine and he’d get right to it. The fresh air would clear his mind.
“I’m happy you live here.”
Hugh dropped the glass pot into the sink. Fortunately it didn’t break, and even if it had, he wouldn’t have heard over the buzz-fear ringing in his ears and the hiss of running water in the sink.
The little girl voice spoke again. “I said I’m happy you live here.”
Hugh moaned and shut his eyes.
This can’t be happening. I’m going mad.
He spun around quickly and saw the kitchen was empty. He turned off the tap and caught the end of Mrs. Duffy telling Cathy how much she enjoyed picking raspberries in the summer. It wasn’t Mrs. Duffy who had just spoken to him, and it hadn’t been Mrs. Duffy stuffed up in the attic crawlspace.
They met out on the front veranda four hours later. The lawn was mowed; the sun had begun to set, and Hugh hadn’t set foot in the house since the incident in the kitchen.
Cathy handed him a cold can of Coca-Cola and he rolled the dewy metal across his forehead gratefully. She sat in a patio chair next to him. “You feeling better now? The way you were acting before, I could’ve sworn you’d seen a ghost.”
“Funny you should say that.”
“That’s what you get for snooping around in the attic.”
He almost dropped the soda. Had she been responsible for the whole thing?
She laughed. “Relax, I don’t read minds, it’s just that you left the step ladder up in the hallway. I had to climb up there and close drop the door back into place. I swear the whole upstairs floor must have dropped ten or twenty degrees.”
“Did you…see anything up there?”
“Just junk and a hideous old couch.”
“Did you see the crawlspace opening? Did you see all the old comic books on the floor?”
She laughed again and it began to annoy him. “You must have fallen asleep up there. There were no comic books on the floor, and I definitely didn’t see any kind of crawlspace.”