by Don Sloan
Nathan struggled to keep his eyes open, despite the chill that had begun to wrap around them. He knew that if he let the fire die, the house would quickly drop in temperature and they would be in danger of hypothermia. He had insisted, after making love, that they get dressed again in their clothing layers and jackets before climbing under the quilt in front of the fire. Sarah quickly assented and, having done so, dropped into a sound sleep. And now, listening to her even breathing, Nathan fought his own desire for sleep—
—sleep, sleep. Nathan’s eyes flew open and he found that the parlor was gone, but not Sarah. Instead, they were both still on the sofa, but on the beach across from his house just down the block. It was mid-day, and it was hot. Their layers of clothing and jackets clung to them. Sarah was just waking up.
“Nathan?” she asked sleepily. Gulls cried overhead and the surf crashed and thundered off to their right. She sat up abruptly. “Where are we?”
“We’re in one of Tipton’s dream-states,” Nathan answered. “But at least it’s warm.” He rose from the sofa and took off his jacket. He looked up and down the beach and over toward the long row of houses and saw no one. A car was cruising slowly down Ocean Avenue—but it was not from the 21st century. It appeared to be about a 1934 Studebaker, as nearly as Nathan could tell.
“Nathan, I don’t think we’re in our time frame anymore,” Sarah said, peeling off her jacket and wishing she could take off more. The heat was oppressive.
“Well, we’re not going to get any cooler out here on the sand. Let’s go across to my house and see what we can find out,” he said.
They left the sofa from Sarah’s parlor on the beach—along with their jackets—and walked across the boulevard to Nathan’s house, which looked much the same as it did in the times when he had first begun coming to the shore. The paint was a little fresher, and the plants in the garden were more well-tended, but everything was the same, right down to the Adirondack chairs on the front porch. Instead of going in the front door, he thought it would be a good idea to knock.
A young man with broad shoulders and a brown cowlick covering one blue eye came to the door. Nathan recognized him immediately from old family photos as his grandfather Jonathan, who would later be killed in the war. The young man in the front hallway looked at the couple on the front porch with a questioning gaze.
“Um, hello,” Nathan said. “We’re new in town and were wondering if you could tell us where the library is.”
Nathan’s grandfather opened the door and stepped onto the front porch. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt over pegged trousers and was smoking a short cigarette. He looked at their clothing with a curious eye—both of them had on long sleeved sweaters and jeans—but he said nothing about that. “Sure. The library’s over on Ocean Street, about three blocks from here. Go up to this street corner and turn right, walk two blocks and you’ll see it.”
“Thanks very much,” said Nathan. Sarah nodded her thanks, and the pair turned and made their way up the front walk and down the avenue. Nathan’s grandfather went back inside.
“Well,” said Sarah. “What did you learn from that, except where the library is?”
“That was my grandfather, who was killed in the war, which if I have the right time period we’re in, is about ten years from now. Boy, that was creepy.”
“Great. So what do we do now? And why are we here?”
They had walked about a block or so and were almost to Sarah’s house.
“Maybe we’re supposed to meet Moira,” Nathan said.
Sarah stiffened. “Oh, no, Nathan—I don’t think so. What would we say? She probably wouldn’t even come to the front door, much less give us directions to the library.”
They had continued walking until they stood in front of Sarah’s house.
“Nevertheless, I think that’s one reason we’re here. There’s a clue here and we’re meant to find it.”
“Nathan, I don’t know.”
“Well, what else are we going to do? We’re here until Tipton transports us back anyway.”
“You’ll do the talking?” Sarah asked.
“Of course,” Nathan said.
Sarah took a deep breath and opened the gate. “All right. But this isn’t a good idea.”
when the cat died that should have been their first clue, darling.
but they had so many clues to follow, didn’t they, like the one that
finished up the pail of blood left over from the sacrifice. They weren’t sure what to do with it, so they just left it to sour in a corner for several weeks, gathering flies until
one of the children decided the beatings should stop and took the shotgun from its perch over the hearth and loaded it with double-ought buckshot and chased his parents down the hall, screaming and pleading, until they were both dead in a tangled heap.
that’s when the shadow and the keeper are most pleased, when the dark frenzy passes over someone close by and turns reason to madness and light to darkness.
Chapter 15
They stood on Sarah’s front porch. Nathan took a deep breath and knocked. There was no answer. Sarah looked at him and clung to his side.
“I don’t think she’ll come to the door. And even if she does, what are you going to say? ‘Hello, Miss Claymore—could you tell me what it is you do down in that secret room of yours?’”
“That’s very funny. I just might. I’ll try knocking again.”
But before he could do that, the door opened inward and Sarah gasped. She saw that it was her own hallway before her—and standing just inside the door was a woman about sixty years old. She was taller than Sarah, and built square, like an antique icebox. Moira had gained a lot of weight in the years since she took Carlos Androcci’s life in her ghastly subterranean room. Her face was puffy and bloated, like a freshly-kneaded pile of pizza crust dough. Her eyes were set close above her nose and they were rheumy. Nathan thought she looked a bit like a corpse freshly dragged from a mire. Her skin was the color of a cantaloupe, the mouth set in a hard line. She was dressed in a quilted housecoat of the deepest red they had ever seen, and her hand on the doorknob stuck out from inside one of the long sleeves. She stood there, her glassy eyes staring at them.
“Well, what is it, then?”
“Are you Miss Sarah Claymore?” Nathan asked in a tremulous voice, suddenly unsure of himself.
“Aye, that’s me. And who might you be?”
Sarah took a deep breath and said, “Aunt Moira, it’s me—Sarah—your niece; or, rather, your grand-niece.”
They settled inside on the sofa in the parlor—though Moira had to move several piles of newspapers and other stuff that had been piled there. Sarah looked around the room, which looked almost as it did in 2014—same overstuffed furniture, same oval rug, same fireplace—same floor to ceiling windows which curved out onto the front porch. They were framed in stained and beveled glass.
Moira seated herself with a wheezing groan into one of the armchairs set to one side of the fireplace.
“You say you’re my grand-niece, and you’ve got the Claymore facial features—that’s plain to see. But my brother Charlie died with only a daughter to survive him ten years ago. Are you her daughter?”
“That’s right,” Sarah lied. “We’ve come to pay our respects and to meet you. This is my friend Nathan.”
Moira looked keenly at them both.
“Well, you’ve seen me—and I see you. Now, what do you want?”
Nathan cleared his throat. “My family owns a house down in the next block and when I met Sarah, she said you lived here. How are you?”
Moira sat up straight in the chair and glared at them. “Well enough. Not that it’s any business of yours.”
Nathan smiled while Sarah fidgeted next to him. “Of course. We just wanted to see if you were all right. Does your husband—“
“Don’t have one. Don’t need one. I keep to myself and my neighbors do the same.”
Sarah leaned forward, her hands cla
sped in front of her. “Aunt Moira, what can you tell me about my father and what it was like growing up after your father died.”
“Why should I tell you any of that?” she snapped.
“It’s important to me,” Sarah said. “Please?”
Moira looked at them both for a long moment and then her shoulders slumped. “It was fair hard, it was. All we had was this house. My mother took in laundry from the rich folks to keep food on the table. Then she died and I took over her work, to keep me and Charlie alive.”
“Did you ever meet the man who killed your father?” Nathan asked. “He was a construction worker, we heard.”
Moira’s eyes grew wide, dilated within a half-second, wide as a cat’s on a dark night. She looked past them and out the windows. Her breathing grew ragged. “No, I never did,” she said. “But if I had, I’d have killed him where he stood.” Her eyes returned slowly to their normal size and she went on. “It was his fault, murdering my father and leaving us with nothing. Pa’s money was mostly tied up in get-rich-quick schemes and soon we had nothing. They never found the bastard, though they looked high and low. He was Italian, and his family probably took him far away.”
She sat very still and rigid in the armchair, balancing on the edge and seeming to almost levitate. Suddenly she looked at them keenly.
“Are ye going to get married?” she asked.
The question startled them both. Nathan was the first to find his voice.
“Um, well, we haven’t known each other long,” and he cast a sideways glance at Sarah, who sat with her mouth open.
Moira smiled for the first time. “I only ask, for it would be a fine thing if you had children. They would be in my bloodline, you see.” She waved an arm around her. “I’ve no one to leave this fine house to.”
“Well, that’s a wonderful gesture, Aunt Moira,” Sarah said. “We’ll certainly consider it.”
Moira smiled again, revealing uneven teeth. “I hope ye do. For I’ve not had dealings with any of my relations in some years, as you may know.”
“Yes, my grandmother told me. Frankly, I didn’t know if you would see me.”
“Oh, happy to make your acquaintance, dearie. Very happy indeed.”
Chapter 16
September, 1890
Nagutu lies in a long row next to his brother, deep below decks aboard the Elizabeth Ann. He is seasick, lying chained by his feet in his own filth and that of his neighbors. It’s been a month since Willingham and his men collected Nagutu and the members of his clan. They have been held prisoner in the dark hold of the ship ever since, barely being kept alive on a bread and water diet once a day. They are allowed to sit up to take meals, but eating and drinking with their manacled hands in front of them is difficult.
He also cannot get to the bag behind his back that contains Bakka, the Shadow-God.
How he would make the whiteskins pay, Nagutu thinks, if only he could unleash his dark magic! He struggles to slip one thin wrist through the right manacle. Slowly, slowly and painfully the iron binding slips further up his hand in the dark.
“What are you doing, brother?” whispers the black man lying next to Nagutu.
“Shhh!” hisses Nagutu. “Don’t draw attention to us.”
Slowly and painfully the cruel bracelet slides further up Nagutu’s palm until—there! It comes off. Ever so slowly he reaches underneath him to touch the bag at his back. He unties the rawhide thong that binds it together and reaches in. Carefully, his fingers grasp the wooden idol he has longed for, and brings it out from behind his back. He smiles, showing a row of very white teeth that glimmer like pearls in the darkness. His leg wound, which was only a graze, has healed now and the fever it had brought on has left him clear-headed now and full of purpose. He mumbles a few words in his native tongue. A prayer of sorts, and an incantation—
—and slowly a black mist begins rising over the row of men stretched across the wide beam of the Elizabeth Ann. It begins to take hideous shape, forming two arms and two powerful legs, and a massive head the size of a great English Mastiff. It has a huge, snarling snout, with rows of razor sharp teeth, and a red, lolling tongue. Its long, thick arms end in claws that can eviscerate a man with ease. And it stands on the oak planking between the rows of slaves now on its massive horse-like hind legs, awaiting further orders from its keeper: Nagutu.
“Go now and kill the whiteskins!,” he says quietly, and the beast shambles off. He finds the warder near the passageway to the top deck, half asleep. By some sixth sense, the sailor rouses in time to see Bakka rushing toward him and gives an inarticulate cry of alarm. But before he can get hold of his musket, the monster is upon him, roaring. He tears the man’s arms off and eats them, savoring them as though they were pieces of filet mignon. The warder screams louder.
Willingham appears in the portal and shoves past the beast, gaining entry to the hold while it devours the warder.
“Where are ye, ye worthless nigger? I’ll teach ye to cause trouble aboard my ship!” And he searches through the gloom for Nagutu, who is trying to hide behind his brother.
“Ah, there ye be,” cries Willingham and he fires a single pistol shot into the heart of Nagutu, killing him instantly. In a flash, Bakka disappears, leaving behind the half-eaten corpse of the unfortunate warder.
“That’s the end of that,” says Willingham in a loud voice. “And if any of the rest of you get any ideas, you’ll get the same.” He scans the dim hold for any sign of resistance, but is only met with a sea of frightened white eyes.
He turns on his heel and leaves. And in the dark, the carved wooden idol falls from Nagutu’s lifeless hand to the wooden deck.
Nathan woke on Friday morning in Sarah’s parlor to find the power back on and himself tangled in a comforter with Sarah right beside him. He looked out the window and saw that the storm still raged on unabated. Quietly, he extricated himself from Sarah and the tangle of fabric and got to his feet. After pulling on his jeans and a tee shirt, and slipping into his Weejuns and a Duke sweatshirt, he padded off to the kitchen in search of coffee, thinking about the strange dream about his grandfather and about Moira and wondering if Sarah had experienced the same one. Why would Moira care if he and Sarah had children? And of course she had been adamant about her not killing the workman, even though Nathan was pretty sure one of the skulls in Moira’s secret room belonged to the man. Nathan shook his head as he measured out the Starbucks hazelnut blend into the filter.
While waiting for the coffee to brew, he ran over in his mind what they knew. Of the fourteen houses on this stretch of Ocean Avenue, Tipton now owned all but his and Sarah’s. Why had he not bought theirs? Of course, his ancestors would never have dreamed of selling the old girl, no matter how large the price. And he was pretty sure Sarah’s forebears had felt the same, quirky though they may have been. That was one missing puzzle piece. Second, Tipton could apparently put them into dream-states that transported them out of space and time at his whim—but to what purpose? He and his strange, horrific shadow had not actually harmed them yet—although there had certainly been the potential for that—but as of yet they had only been frightened. Third, there were the terrible whispering voices that could only be the houses themselves. Most of them were unspeakably evil—all except one, which seemed to be intent on helping them. But which one? And how could she help?
The wind pounded the snow against the kitchen window as the fragrant aroma of coffee began to fill the room. Nathan wondered again how long the storm would last and if the electricity would stay on. He sighed heavily and went to the refrigerator in search of eggs for breakfast.
In the next block Jay Warren was also up early.
He had brought his family to the shore on a short vacation from Poughkeepsie, New York, where he worked as a grocery store manager. He had rented the big old Victorian house from a Mr. Thomas Tipton—a queer old bird. But nice enough, and the price had been reasonable. Upstairs, his young wife, Dora, slept in, but he could hear his two children
, Jay, Jr., and Christopher, stirring. They had each claimed one of the large old bedrooms on the third floor and had delightedly gone about the business of strewing their toys and clothes around the night before, playing excitedly until way past their bedtimes. Meanwhile, he and Dora had watched a movie in the parlor and then, finally, when the power had gone out, they had all gone to bed under thick blankets and comforters. Jay had called Tipton, who assured him the power would be back on soon.
And, this morning, Jay had found the old man was right as he set about the business of making pancakes on the cast iron griddle he had found in one of the cupboards. He whistled as he flipped the pancakes, pleased with his good fortune at finding this nice retreat on the Jersey shore—even if it was in the middle of a big nor’easter.
In the attic of the big house, a shadow lurked. It had awakened at the urging of its keeper and was growing hungry.
that was how he did it, wasn’t it, darling?
did what, dear?
kept himself going all those years, by feeding on fresh blood. The shadow moved quietly down the attic stairs and turned the corner into one of the boys’ rooms.
no!
yes, and it crept up behind the boy, who was about ten years old and in his pajamas, and bit his head clean off. The shadow swallowed it whole, gulping it down while the poor child’s body fell on the braided rug like a sack of corn meal. Blood began to spurt from the boy’s neck and landed on the four-poster bed linens, quickly soaking them through. And the shadow gave a horrible burp and turned its attention to the rest of the boy’s body. Pretty soon there was nothing left.
did the boy’s brother come looking for him?
oh, yes! And the shadow was very pleased . . .