The House of Long Shadows

by Ambrose Ibsen

  Father Kaspar donned a warm smile and stood in front of me, crossing himself. Reaching past me, he went to dip his fingers in the holy water of the baptismal font, but suddenly jerked back, his smile vanishing. The look that came to replace it was one of shock, then confusion. I startled, too, taking a step away from the fountain.

  “What's wrong?” I asked.

  The priest rubbed at his fingers, the tips of them red.

  Like they'd been burnt.

  Father Kaspar stared into the water, then leveled me in a gaze I could only interpret as hostile.

  A tendril of steam rose up from the surface of the water as I went to dip my own finger in it. I pulled away at the last moment.

  “Leave this place,” ordered the priest. A couple of old women in the pews looked over at us as Kaspar pointed to the main entrance. “Get out, and never come back.”

  I was taken aback by the sudden change in his demeanor. “But... but I...”

  Pawing at what looked to be a rosary in his pocket, he stepped away from me and signaled once more to the door, where a pair of ushers still loitered. “Get out. I mean it. I don't know what you've done here, but—”

  I couldn't tell whether he thought I'd tampered with the fountain or, as I'd warned him, that my body really housed something evil that had set the holy water boiling. I detected fear in his eyes as he took another step back, ordering me from the church like I was a dog that'd pissed on the carpet.

  “Father, please! I... I haven't done anything! I came here for help! I don't have anyone else I can turn to for this! I—”

  “Very well.” The priest motioned to one of the ushers. “Raymond, call the police. This man is tampering with church property.” He turned back to me. “To think that someone would come here and meddle with a fountain simply to lend their story more credence.” He motioned to the font. There was a gap near the bottom where a pair of valves—one, I assumed for hot water, the other for cold—could be seen. He inspected them closely. “You've crossed a line, Mr. Taylor. What did you put in this water while I had my back turned?”

  Hurt by this reaction, I backed away from the priest and threw my hands up. “Fine. Fine. Don't help me, then. I'll go.” I exchanged glances with the ushers, with one of the ladies in the pews. “I'll go. I haven't done anything. I only came here looking for help, but... I'll go.” I held out the camera. “I can prove it to you,” I said as I neared the entrance, hoping that the priest might reconsider.

  He buried his hands in his pockets and shot me daggers. “I don't want to see you here again,” he warned.

  I left the church. It had never occurred to me that one could be blacklisted from a place of worship. Returning to the van, I felt sure that Kaspar had sent me away out of fear more than anything—fear that I was, indeed, home to something supernatural and possibly infernal. At no point in my visit had I been able to get close to the fountain—I'd had no chance to mess with it as he'd claimed. Nevertheless, he was uninterested in helping me, and I climbed back into my ride with a heavy soul.

  I was alone in this. There was no one I could look to for help. I considered seeking out another priest, but wasn't sure whether Kaspar would be calling the other parishes around town and warning them to steer clear of me.

  Letting the van idle, I recalled that there was one other person I could contact for help in this. He'd been unwilling to chat during the first go-round, but perhaps he'd be more talkative during a proper visit.

  I decided to go looking for Willard Weiss.

  Thirty-Five

  I made a pitstop at the hotel to gather my things, because when this meeting was through I had a feeling I'd leave Detroit, never to return. I had no idea where I'd go from here, what actionable tidbits my conversation with Weiss might yield, if any, but as soon as possible I wanted to flee the Motor City for some place that felt safe. I thought about returning to Florida, to the little town I'd grown up in. These days, memories of a less-than-perfect childhood didn't bother me so much; in fact, they were rather a welcome relief from thoughts of where I'd been recently. The demons in my past were nowhere near as vicious as the ones that pursued me in the present.

  I rushed into the hotel lobby and squared things with the clerk at the desk. From there, I went straight to the room to clear out my stuff. Everything of value got stuffed into my backpack and duffel. I did pause long enough to seek out the address to Weiss' home facility, Tremainsville Meadows, and in this lull I noticed a hunger that left me woozy. It'd been a long time since my last proper meal.

  And it would be a while longer still. In a hurry to meet with Weiss while the sun was still out, I'd have to settle for whatever I could purchase from the hotel vending machines. I scribbled the care home's address onto a slip of hotel stationary, stuffed it into my pocket and then hauled my stuff into the hall.

  The hallway proved noisy as the other guests on my floor went about their business. From the room across the hall I heard the fiery monologuing of a talking head on the news. Venturing towards the vending room where all of the soda and snack machines were, I heard all kinds of things. A baby whining. A pair of men in conversation, laughing heartily at some joke.

  I envied them all. They were all living their lives—had things to look forward to. That wasn't the case for me. Not anymore. It was too early to sign my death certificate, but if I was even half-right about the nature of the evils that plagued me, my days were as good as numbered. I wished more than anything that I could laugh and love and carry on like these people. I missed the easygoing bliss of a lazy afternoon, the merciful ignorance of the common man. I'd seen and experienced too much now—too much for anyone to bear without gambling away a bit of sanity—and I grieved this new stage in my life. Even if I parted with these horrors, nothing would ever be the same.

  The Coke machine in the vending room wasn't much consolation, but I scooped a handful of change out of my backpack and started hunting for quarters. I'd slid two coins into the slot when, from around the corner, I heard something else mixed in with the joyful sounds of daily life.

  A whisper, low but insistent.

  “Let me in. I won't hurt you... It's me, sweetheart. Bradford from Annapolis...”

  The coins slipped out of my palm and struck the floor with a clatter. No, I thought. Not here. Leave me alone. Just leave me alone! I turned cautiously, peeked around the corner and surveyed the hallway. It was empty, silent.

  I took a deep breath, braced myself, and knelt down to pick up the change. The spirits could toy with me all they wanted, but soon I'd shut them up for good. I wasn't sure how I'd do it, how long it would take, but I was on my way to meet with Weiss and it was possible he'd clue me in to some solution for all of this. I held this sliver of hope in my heart with a vise grip.

  The coins had gone everywhere. Sliding my hand beneath the nearby ice machine in search of change, I brought out one dusty quarter after another. Reaching further, my fingers ran up against something I first took to be a thick power cord. It had some give to it, was smooth and cold to the touch. There were bumps in it, too.

  I counted four of them before it dawned on me that I was grasping toes on a human foot.

  I backed into the Coke machine with a thud that sent the bottles within it rattling.

  Trembling now and maintaining as great a distance as I could in the cramped space, I lowered my gaze and peered into the gap beneath the ice machine.

  Someone was standing behind the boxy thing, and their pale, vein-laced feet were planted in plain sight. One of the toes wiggled, as if in amusement.

  She was here, in the room.

  I forgot my hunger and thirst, and dove out into the hall. The bottoms of my wounded feet stung as I took hold of my bags and galloped towards the exit. For a second there, I wasn't sure that my bruised ankle was going to hold. I struck the walls as I went, the noises of other tenants swelling into a blur that sounded something like the joint murmurings of those invisible fiends. As I ran, glancing back towards the vending roo
m, I noticed a long, humanoid shadow seeping down the hall. It tailed me all the way to the lobby.

  I was out of breath by the time I made it to the van. Stuffing my bags into the passenger seat, I locked the doors and pulled out, nearly hitting some guy in a Mercedes. He didn't let off the horn until I was out of the parking lot, but I barely heard its bleating for the rushing of blood in my ears.

  The spirits were following me everywhere I went.

  In the daylight.

  I swerved out into traffic, and as I fell into line with a number of idling cars at a red light I began punching my steering wheel. The thing was misshapen before I finally let up, my knuckles raw and eyes stinging with tears.

  I wiped my eyes and stared at my sorry reflection in the rearview, stunned at what I saw. The circles under my eyes were so dark they looked like I'd applied them with makeup. My cheeks were painted in stubble and my skin was dry and flaking. There'd been a change in my hair, too. There was a streak of grey running through it where, last I'd checked, it had been dark. I'd thrown self-care out the window completely over the past several days, but I hadn't expected to look quite so rough as this. I looked ten, fifteen years older than my age.

  This haunting was literally killing me.

  Bolting into the fast lane, I set off for Auburn Hills to corner Willard Weiss. He was my only remaining hope.

  Thirty-Six

  I parked at the very edge of the visitor lot outside the Tremainsville Meadows assisted living facility. There were a handful of other cars, and I reckoned that most belonged to legitimate friends and family of patients there.

  I was probably the only person who'd come here to shake down one of the tenants.

  Making my way to the sidewalk and strolling into the community proper, I did my best to look natural. I was pretty hard on the eyes, disheveled, but hoped not to attract any undue attention as I went poking around.

  And there was, unfortunately, a lot of poking around to be done.

  I didn't know where Willard Weiss was staying, and couldn't exactly stop at the visitor's center to ask for directions.

  The assisted living portion of the campus was more of a retirement village, comprised of one-story duplexes and staggered kiosks where staff members congregated. Neat, winding sidewalks wormed through the entire campus like veins. Every lawn was perfectly manicured, every tree expertly trimmed.

  A pair of staff members dressed in olive green scrubs—Orderlies? Nurses? I couldn't be sure—stepped out of one of the kiosks and eyed me with real curiosity as I stormed up the walk, reading the numbers posted outside each building. I held my breath, hoping that they'd lose interest in me, and sure enough they wandered off the next minute. The numbers on the duplexes—11-33, 11-40—meant nothing to me. I needed names.

  Short of asking one of the staff members where I might find Mr. Weiss' residence and alerting them to my unwanted presence, I had no option but to seek out his location by other means. It occurred to me that the residents here probably received mail and, if I was lucky, that the last names of tenants might appear on the mailboxes of specific units. I hiked around for close to half an hour, dodging more of the wandering staff and getting strange looks from various patients and their guests. I must have looked homeless, or else mighty suspicious, skulking around like I did.

  Eventually, I did stumble upon a bank of mailboxes situated within a gazebo. My hunch had been correct; last names were listed alongside the unit numbers. A moment's search and I'd found my man.

  WEISS—UNIT 10-44

  Several more minutes were spent trying to orient myself to the seemingly random ordering of the duplexes. Here was unit 12-10. Across from it was 09-13. Just when I was beginning to feel hopeless and was considering asking a kindly-looking old woman lazing on a bench near one of the kiosks, I located the unit I was looking for. Like all the rest, it was painted white with flaky brown trim and shutters. Peaceful though the retirement community was, some of the buildings therein looked in need of a facelift.

  Maybe if I came out the other end of this fiasco unscathed, I'd offer to fix up Weiss' duplex as a thank-you.

  The lights were on in the window, which was a good sign. Someone was home.

  The trouble with showing up to a place unannounced is that you can never be sure how you'll be received. Actually, in this case, that wasn't entirely true; I had a strong feeling that my presence here would not be welcome, and so decided to rely on stealth rather than good manners to gain entry.

  When the area had cleared of passersby, I approached the duplex above whose front door the numerals 10-44 were etched and peered in through the front window. I spied a television set, an easy chair, and a small, cluttered table. There was no sign of the unit's tenant, however. It was possible I'd caught Weiss on the crapper, or that he'd stepped out for a bit.

  I tried the knob to the front door. Locked. Walking about the perimeter, I sought out another way in. Half-hidden by a towering pine on the other side of the building, I found it. A sliding glass door. A careful pull of the handle showed me it was locked, and the long, white blinds were drawn so that I couldn't see in. For all I knew, the old man was just inside the window, and would hit me over the head with something the moment I snuck in.

  It was a risk I'd have to take.

  In my years fixing houses I'd learned an easy way to circumvent such doors and went rummaging around in my pockets for the multitool I always carried. Kneeling in the grass and looking around the property, finding myself perfectly alone for the moment, I withdrew the flathead screwdriver portion of the multitool and carefully eased it into the seam where the door met the track. With a bit of pressure, I succeeded in bumping the door off the track, and could now slide it open and closed as I pleased.

  I won't lie; my day had been a nightmare. Still, I felt mighty proud about that maneuver. It was like something out of a heist film. If life ever went back to normal, perhaps I'd record a video about this kind of stuff. “How to break into a house like a pro!” I could only imagine the comments I'd get on that video.

  The door slid open and I slipped into the building quickly, so as to avoid being seen. The white blinds rattled as I brushed past them.

  I was standing in a kitchen. There was a freshly-made sandwich on the counter and a frosty bottle of Diet Coke, too. This kitchen opened up into the living room I'd seen from the other window. A courtroom drama murmured from the TV. Directly across the small kitchen table was a hallway that appeared to lead to a single bedroom and bathroom.

  It was from this hallway, with a stony gaze, that the tenant suddenly emerged.

  He filled up the doorway as he paused in the hall. He was taller than I'd imagined and had a good bit of weight on me, too. A wreathe of white hair festooned the sides of his head; the top was mostly bare. His nose was long, his eyes green and sharp. Dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a white T-shirt, the man cut an imposing figure. He didn't look like the kind of man who needed help taking care of himself. Though I'd placed him somewhere in his early 80's, it was clear that the years had been kind to him.

  “Willard Weiss?” I said from across the kitchen.

  The man dissected me with a steely gaze. If looks could kill, he'd have spilled my guts across the kitchen floor.

  “I just want to talk,” I said, presenting my palms.

  The man didn't move. He just kept on mad-dogging me.

  “I tried calling before, but...”

  Weiss' eyes shifted towards the counter. “I see you didn't get the fucking hint, huh?” he spat.

  I turned to the counter, eyeing the sandwich and soda he'd left there. “If you want to sit down and eat, I won't keep you. I just want to talk. I'll try not to take up too much of your time, sir. I just... I need your help. I wouldn't have come here otherwise.”

  He smirked. “Mighty kind of you, letting a man eat in his own home. Why don't you get the fuck out of here?” He took a heavy step towards me. The table stood between us, but his arms looked long enough to reach me ev
en from there. I really didn't want to hit an old guy, and side-stepped towards the counter, where I noticed the cell phone that was sitting a foot away from the plate of food. That was what he'd been looking at. He wanted to call for help, get me kicked out of here.

  I snatched the phone from the counter and shoved it into my pocket, getting stern with him. “Let's cut the shit, OK? I don't make a habit of breaking and entering, so when I do it, you'd best believe I have a damn good reason. Now, you're going to tell me what I want to know, or else—”

  “Or else?” challenged the old man. “What will you do? It doesn't matter what I tell you, kid. You're not going to like what I have to say.”

  “Let me be the judge of that.” I motioned to the table. “Just tell me about the house on Morgan Road. About Irma. I've been seeing hideous things ever since I set foot in that place. There was a body stashed behind one of the walls—since unearthing it, I've been haunted by this devilish woman.” I shook at the memory. “I can't say for sure, but I think it's your wife's spirit. Irma's ghost.”

  Weiss slid down into a chair. He was shaking now—judging by the redness in his cheeks, it was with anger, rather than fear. He stared at me, fists balled on the tabletop, as I continued.

  “I bought that house from the City of Detroit. I'd planned to renovate it. Even after finding the corpse, I'd tried to keep fixing it. But...” I trailed off for a moment. “I just want to know if you can tell me why I'm seeing these things. I understand your wife died in that house. Is it possible that Irma's spirit is still lingering there—that she's the one I've been seeing? What about that body in the living room wall? Do you know anything about that, or was it put there after the house was abandoned in the early 90's?”