Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories

by Clive Barker

  Fiona hesitates to open the front door. Go to THE FRONT DOOR.

  Fiona decides to not go inside the house after all and walks back to her car. Go to LEAVING THE HOUSE.

  THE FRONT DOOR

  It’s like Fiona has always and forever been standing at the front door. She places a hand on the wood and wonders what is on the other side, what has changed, what has remained the same. Change is always on the other side of a door. Open a door. Close a door. Walk in. Walk out. Repeat. It’s a loop, or a wheel. She doesn’t open the door and instead imagines a practice-run; her opening the door and walking through the house, stepping lightly into each of the rooms, careful not to disturb anything, and she is methodical in itemizing and identifying the ghosts, and she feels what she thinks she is going to feel, and she doesn’t linger in either the basement or her parent’s bedroom, and she eventually walks out of the house, and all of this is still in her head, and she closes the door, then turns around, stands in the same spot she’s standing in now, and places a hand on the wood and wonders what is on the other side, what has changed, what has remained the same.

  Fiona opens the door. Go to ENTRANCEWAY.

  Fiona is not ready to open the door. Go to THE FRONT DOOR.

  Fiona decides to walk back to the car and not go inside the house. Go to LEAVING THE HOUSE.

  ENTRANCEWAY

  Fiona gently pushes the front door closed, watches it nestle into the frame, and listens for the latching mechanism to click into place before turning her full attention to the house. The house. The house. The house. Sam said because the house was so old and historical (he pronounced it his-store-ickle so that it rhymed with pickle) there was a ghost in every one of the rooms. He was right. The house is a ghost too. That’s obvious. That all the furniture, light fixtures, and decorations will be different (most of everything will be antique, or made to look antique; the present owners take their caretakers-of-a-living-museum role seriously) and the layout changed from when she lived here won’t matter because she’s not here to catalogue those differences. She’ll only have eyes for the ghost house. Fiona says, “Hello?” because she wants to hear what she sounds like in the house of the terrible now. She says hello again and her voice runs up the stairs and around banisters and bounces off plaster and crown molding and sconces, and she finds the sound of the now-her in the house pleasing and a possible anecdote to the poison of nostalgia and regret, so she says hello again, and louder. Satisfied with her re-introduction, Fiona asks, “Okay, where should we go first?”

  Fiona turns to her right and walks into the living room. Go to LIVING ROOM.

  Fiona walks straight ahead into the dining room. Go to DINING ROOM.

  The weight of the place and its history and her history is too much; Fiona abruptly turns around and leaves the house. Go to LEAVING THE HOUSE.

  LIVING ROOM

  Dad builds a fire and uses all the old newspaper to do it and pieces glowing orange at their tips break free and float up into the flue, moving as though they are alive and choosing flight. Fiona and Sam shuffle their feet on the throw rug and then touch the cast iron radiator, their static electric shocks so big at times, a blue arc is visible. Mom sits on the floor so that Fiona can climb onto the couch and jump onto her back. A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck. The fire is out and the two of them are by themselves and Sam pokes around in the ashes with a twig. Sam says that Little Laurence Montague was a chimney sweep, the best and smallest in the area, and he cleaned everyone’s chimney, but he got stuck and died in this chimney, so stuck, in fact, they would not be able to get his body out without tearing the house apart so the home owners built a giant fire that they kept burning for twenty-two days, until there was no more Little Laurence left, not even his awful smell. Sam says that you can see him, or parts of him anyway, all charred and misshapen, sifting through the ash, looking for his pieces, and if you aren’t careful, he’ll take a piece from you. Fiona makes sure to stay more than an arm’s length away from the fireplace. Of all the ghosts, Little Laurence scares her the most, but she likes to watch him pick through the ash, hoping to see him find those pieces of himself. There are so many.

  Fiona curls into the dining room. Go to DINING ROOM.

  Fiona walks to the kitchen. Go to KITCHEN.

  This is already harder than she thought it was going to be; impossible, in fact. Fiona doesn’t think she can continue and leaves the house. Go to LEAVING THE HOUSE.

  DINING ROOM

  Fiona and Sam are under the table and their parents’ legs float by like branches flowing down a river. The floor boards underneath groan and whisper and they understand their house, know it as a musical instrument. Dad sits by himself and wants Fiona and Sam to come out from under the table and talk to him; they do and then he doesn’t know what to say or how to say it; her father is so young and she never realized how young he is. Mom isn’t there. She doesn’t want to be there. Sam says there was an eight-year-old girl named Maisy who had the strictest of parents, the kind who insisted children did not speak during dinner, and poor Maisy was choking on a piece of potato from a gloopy beef stew and she was so terrified of what her parents would do if she said anything, made any sort of noise, she sat and quietly choked to death. Sam says you can see her at the table sitting there with her face turning blue and her eyes as large and white as hard boiled eggs and if you get too close she will wrap her hands around your neck and you won’t be able to call out or say anything until it’s too late. Of all the ghosts, Maisy scares Fiona the most, and she watches in horror as Maisy sits at the table trying to be a proper girl.

  Fiona walks straight ahead and into the kitchen. Go to KITCHEN.

  Fiona turns right and walks into the living room. Go to LIVING ROOM.

  Fiona by-passes the kitchen entirely and goes to the basement. Go to BASEMENT.

  This is harder than she thought it was going to be; impossible, in fact. Fiona doesn’t think she can continue and leaves the house. Go to LEAVING THE HOUSE.

  KITCHEN

  Dad cooks fresh flounder and calls it “fried French” and not fish so that Fiona will eat it. The four of them play card games (cribbage, mainly) and Fiona leaves the room in tears after being yelled at (Dad says he wasn’t yelling, which isn’t the same as saying he’s sorry) for continually leading into runs and allowing Sam and Mom to peg. Mom sits at the table by herself and says she feels fine and smokes a cigarette. Her mother is so young and Fiona never realized how young she is. Sam screams and cries and smashes glasses and dishes on the hardwood floor and no one stops him. Fiona and Mom stand at the back door and look outside, waiting for the birds to eat the stale bread crumbs they sprinkled about their small backyard. Sam says there was a boy named Percy who was even smaller than Little Laurence. He was so small because the only thing he would eat was blueberry muffins, and he loved those muffins so much he crawled inside the oven so that he could better watch the muffin batter rise and turn golden brown. Sam says that you can see him curled up inside the oven and if you get too close he’ll pull you in there with him. Of all the ghosts, Percy scares Fiona the most because of how small he is; she knows it’s not polite but she can’t help but stare at his smallness.

  Fiona saves the basement for later and walks through the dining room, the living room, and then into the den. Go to DEN.

  Fiona backtracks into the dining room. Go to DINING ROOM.

  Fiona goes to the living room. Go to LIVING ROOM.

  Fiona goes into the basement. Go to BASEMENT.

  This is harder than she thought it was going to be; impossible, in fact. Fiona doesn’t think she can continue and leaves the house. Go to LEAVING THE HOUSE.

  BASEMENT

  Fiona is not ready for the basement, not just yet.

  Fiona saves the basement for later and walks through the dining room, the living room, and then into the den. Go to DEN.

  Fiona goes into the kitchen. Go to KITCHEN.

  The idea of going into the basement is enough to make
her abandon the tour and leave the house. Go to LEAVING THE HOUSE.

  DEN

  Sam is never delicate closing the French doors and their little rectangular windows rattle and quiver in their frames. Fiona rearranges the books in the built-in, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves; first alphabetical by author, then by title, then by color-scheme. Dad shuts the lights off in the rest of the house, leaving only the den well lit; he hides, and dares his children to come out and find him, and he laughs as they scream with a mix of mock and real terror. Dad and Mom put Sam and Fiona in the den by themselves and shut the French doors (controlled, and careful) because they are having a private talk. Mom sits on the couch and watches the evening news with a cup of tea and invites Fiona and Sam to watch with her so that they will know what’s going on in the world. Sam and Fiona lay on the floor, on their stomachs, blanket over their heads, watching a scary movie. Sam stands in front of the TV and stiff-arms Fiona away, physically blocking her from changing the channel. Mom lets Fiona take a puff of her cigarette and Fiona’s lungs are on fire and she coughs, cries, and nearly throws up, and Mom rubs her back and says remember this so you’ll never do it again. Sam says there was a girl named Olivia who liked to climb the bookcases in the walls and wouldn’t stop climbing the shelves even after her parents begged her not to, and in an effort to stop her, they filled the bookcases with the heaviest leather-bound books with the largest spines that could squeeze into the shelves. Olivia was determined to still climb the shelves and touch the ceiling like she’d always done, and she almost made it to the top again, but her feet slipped, or maybe it was she couldn’t get a good handhold anymore, and she fell and broke her neck. Sam says you can see Olivia high up, close to the ceiling, clinging to the shelves, and if you get too close Olivia throws books at you, the heaviest ones, the ones that can do the most damage. Of all the ghosts, Olivia scares Fiona the most, but she wants to read the books that Olivia throws at her.

  Fiona goes back to the entranceway and to the front stairs. Go to THE STAIRS.

  Fiona goes into the kitchen. Go to KITCHEN.

  The first floor is enough. Fiona doesn’t think she can continue and leaves the house. Go to LEAVING THE HOUSE.

  THE STAIRS

  Sam ties his green army men to pieces of kite string and dangles them from the banister on the second floor and Fiona is on the first floor, pretending to be a tiger that swipes at the army men, and if foolishly dropped low enough, she eats the men in one gulp. Fiona counts the stairs and makes a rhyme. Dad falls down the stairs (after being dared by Sam that he can’t hop down on only one foot) and punches through the plaster on the first landing with his shoulder; Dad brushes himself off, shakes his head, and points at the hole and says, “Don’t tell Mom.” Mom walks up the stairs by herself for the last time (Fiona knows there’s a last time for everything), moving slowly and breathing heavy, and she looks back at Fiona who trails behind, pretending not to watch, and Mom rests on the first landing and says there’s a kitty cat that seems to be following her, and she says that cat is still with her when she pauses on the second landing. Sam says there was a boy named Timothy who always climbed up the stairs on the outside of the railings, his toes clinging to the edges of treads as though he was at the edges of great cliffs. Climbing over the banister on the second floor was the hardest part, and one morning he fell, bouncing off the railings and he landed head-first in the entranceway below, and he didn’t get up and brush himself off. Sam says that Timothy tries to trip you when you are not careful on the stairs. Of all the ghosts, Timothy scares Fiona the most, but she still walks on the stairs without holding onto the railings.

  Fiona walks up the stairs without holding the railing (and actually smiles to herself), and then goes into her bedroom. Go to FIONA’S BEDROOM.

  The stairs make Fiona incredibly, inexplicably sad and Fiona doesn’t think she can continue and leaves the house. Go to LEAVING THE HOUSE.

  FIONA’S BEDROOM

  She spies out the window, which overlooks the front door, and being that their house is on top of a hill, it overlooks the rest of the town, and she picks a spot that is almost as far as she can see and wonders what the people there are doing and thinking. Dad reads her the Tales of Mr. Jeremy Fisher using a British accent; it’s the only storybook for which he uses the accent. Mom takes the cold facecloth off of Fiona’s forehead, thermometer from her mouth, and says scoot over, I’ll be sick with you, okay? That night, Dad isn’t allowed in her room and he knocks quietly and he says that he’s sorry if he scared her in the basement and he’s sorry about dinner and he’s making it right now and please open the door and come out, and he sounds watery, and she’s not mad or scared (she is hungry) but tells him to go away. Sam is not allowed in her room but he comes in anyway and gets away with it and he smiles that smile she hates. She misses that smile terribly now for as much of a pain in the ass as he was as a child, he was a loyal, thoughtful, sensitive, if not melancholy, man. Sam says that there is the ghost of a girl named Wanda in her closet and no one knows what happened to her or how she got there because she’s always been there. Of all of the ghosts, Wanda scares Fiona the most because try as she might, she’s never been able to talk to her.

  Fiona will go to all of the second floor rooms in their proper order, waiting until she’s ready to go to her parents’ bedroom. Go to SAM’S BEDROOM.

  The second floor is indeed too much. Fiona doesn’t think she can continue and leaves the house. Go to LEAVING THE HOUSE.

  SAM’S BEDROOM

  Fiona sits outside Sam’s room and the door is shut and Sam and his friends are inside talking about the Boston Red Sox and the Wynne sisters that live two streets over. Fiona finds magazines filled with pictures of naked women under his bed. Dad is inside Sam’s room yelling at (and maybe even hitting) Sam because Sam hit Fiona because Fiona took some of his green army men and threw them down in the sewer because Sam wouldn’t play with her. Sam lets Fiona sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag (she always asked to do this) because they watched a scary movie and she can’t sleep but isn’t scared and tries to stay awake long enough to notice how different it is sleeping in Sam’s room. Mom hides under Sam’s piled bed sheets and blankets and they trick Dad into going into Sam’s room and she jumps out and scares him so badly he falls down on the floor and holds his chest. Sam tells Fiona to come into his room and she’s worried he’s going to sneak attack, give her a dead arm or something, and instead he’s crying and says that they aren’t going to live in this house anymore. Sam says that there aren’t any ghosts in his room and tells her to stop asking about it so Fiona makes one up. She says that there’s a boy who got crushed underneath all of his dirty clothes that piled up to the ceiling and no one ever found the boy and Sam never takes his dirty clothes downstairs because he’s afraid of the boy. Of all the ghosts, this one scares Fiona the most because she forgot to name him.

  Fiona goes into the bathroom. Go to BATHROOM.

  The second floor is indeed too much. Fiona doesn’t think she can continue and leaves the house. Go to LEAVING THE HOUSE.

  BATHROOM

  Dad leaves the bathroom door open when he shaves his face and he says there goes my nose and oops no more lips and I guess I don’t need a chin. The shaving foam is so white and puffy when Fiona puts it on her face, and she greedily inhales its minty, menthol smell. Sam is in the bathroom for a long, long time with what he says are his comic books. Mom is strong and she doesn’t cry anywhere else in the house, certainly never in front of Fiona or Sam, but she cries when she’s by herself and taking a bath and the water is running; the sound of a bath being run never fails to make Fiona think about Mom. Everyone else is in her parents’ bedroom and to her great, never-ending shame, Fiona is in the bathroom with the door shut, sitting on the floor, the tile hard and cold on her backside, the bath running, the drain unstopped so the tub won’t fill, and she cries, and Dad knocks gently on the door and asks if she’s okay and asks her to come back, but she stays in the bathroom for hours
and until after it’s over. Sam says that there was a boy named Charlie who loved to take baths and stayed in them so long that his toes and feet and hands and everything got so wrinkly that his whole body shriveled and shrank he eventually slipped right down the drain. Sam says that if you stay in the bath too long Charlie will suck you into the drain with him. Of all the ghosts, Fiona finds Charlie the least scary, but she talks to him in the drain.

  Fiona goes into the hallway stands in front of her parents’ bedroom. Go to PARENTS’ BEDROOM DOOR.

  Fiona stays in the bathroom, like she did those many years ago. Go to BATHROOM.

  Fiona doesn’t think she can continue and leaves the house. Go to LEAVING THE HOUSE.

  PARENTS’ BEDROOM DOOR

  The door is closed. It’s the only door in her haunted house that is closed. Even the door to the basement in the kitchen is open. The door is closed. It’s a Saturday afternoon and the door is closed and locked, and Fiona knocks and Mom says please give them a few minutes of privacy and giggles from deep, down somewhere in her room, and Fiona knocks again and then Dad is yelling at her to get lost. The door is closed because it’s almost Christmas and she doesn’t believe in Santa anymore but hasn’t said anything, and she knows she can’t go in there because their presents are wrapped and stacked along one bedroom wall. The door is closed and Mom’s smallest voice is telling her that she can come in, but Fiona doesn’t want to. Fiona places a hand on the wood and her hand is a ghost of her younger hands. She wonders what is on the other side, what has changed, what has remained the same. Change is always on the other side of a door. Open a door. Close a door. Walk in. Walk out. Repeat. It’s a loop, or a wheel. Of all the ghosts, the ones in her parents’ bedroom scare her the most because maybe nothing ever changes and even though she’s an adult (and likes to think of herself at this age as beyond-adult because its connotations are so much more dignified and well-earned than the title elderly) she’s afraid she’ll make the same decisions all over again.