Haunted

by Tamara Thorne

  "Is that your truck?" David asked him, nodding at the pickup.

  "Oh, no sir. That's Mr. Willard's. I came with him. I just ride a bike."

  "Where's Mr. Willard?"

  "Inside." Eric looked apprehensively toward the house.

  "He's working on the downstairs plumbing. The tub was clogged."

  David nodded, deciding he wanted to ask the boy a few questions as soon as possible. "How about you two helping me carry the groceries inside, then you can take off, Amber."

  "Yes, sir." Grinning, Eric immediately scooped up three heavy bags and started for the front door. Amber started to pick up a bag, but David stopped her.

  "Kiddo, I need to tell you something about Eric."

  "He's supposed to be slow. Minnie already told me."

  "I don't think you should be alone with him until we know him a little better, okay?"

  "Yeah, I knew you'd say that. You're such a worrier. He's very nice, though." She shook her head, watching the boy mount the porch steps. "What a waste of a great bod."

  "Amber, please. You make me nervous when you talk like that."

  She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek, then grabbed a sack labeled Willard Hardware. "You're so silly, Daddy. Eric reminds me of the golden retriever Aunt Barbara had, you know, big and gorgeous, but kind of goofy." She peered into the bag. "What's this stuff?"

  "It's the stuff to fix the doors. And," he added triumphantly, "a shower massage with twelve settings. You can take that bag upstairs and leave it in your room for now."

  "You're a good father," she said with fake somberness, before heading for the house.

  With Eric's help the groceries were in Minnie's care before Amber even drove away. The housekeeper put the perishables in the cooler she'd brought the breakfast food in, fretting that someone would have to go for ice if the movers didn't show up soon. But as soon as the words were out of her mouth, the van pulled up and, to David's relief, the supervisor promised to have his men unload the fridge, pronto.

  After giving him written directions for placement of the furniture and cartons, he left Minnie in charge, and led Eric back outdoors where they would be out of earshot.

  "Let's walk down to the lighthouse and back," David suggested.

  "I haven't seen it yet."

  Eric halted. "I don't want to go in there."

  "We won't go in," David promised. "We'll just go out to Widow's Peak and look at the town." The youth's reticence intrigued him.

  Eric brightened. "You can see the pole beacon if you lean over the railing a little. It's on all the time. It's fun to watch."

  Grinning, David said, "That sounds good. Let's go." Eric began to move again.

  They walked in silence a moment, David wondering how to get Swenson to talk about his experiences in the house. He was sure he'd had one by the way he'd looked at the place when he'd informed him that the still-unseen Mr. Willard was in there. David also guessed that Eric was the one who had spilled the paint and that he was worried about the wrath of Mickey Willard when the damage was discovered. If that were true, David would take care of things.

  "There're ghosts out here, you know."

  Eric's words stopped David in his tracks. Ghost stories were the last thing he expected to hear out of a young man like Eric. But then again, he realized, the boy couldn't be too frightened or he wouldn't have been willing to work here at all.

  "Ghosts?" he asked vaguely.

  "There's one in the lighthouse, he's real scary, but he doesn't mean to be. And there're a couple that hang around outside a lot. They're nice, but kind of sad. You know who they are?"

  David realized that his mouth was hanging open and promptly shut it. "Who?" What the hell is going on here.

  "They're Mr. and Mrs. Byron Baudey, Byron and Margaret Cross Baudey, that's who they are." He stopped walking and stared at the sky before continuing to speak in a tone that suggested he'd committed someone else's words to memory. "In 1887, Byron Baudey built the house, that's why it was called Baudey House, and when his sister, Miss Lizzie, inherited it, she called it that too because that was her name and also because she thought it was a good joke to have a bawdy house named Baudey House. Then all the bad things happened and now the joke is Baudey House is Body House."

  "That's fascinating, Eric," David said enthusiastically. "Tell me more!" Through long experience, he had learned to never let on he knew anything about a subject because it caused the informer to censor himself, and some priceless bit of information might be lost.

  The grin that spread across Eric's face was one of pure pleasure. If he was considered slow, then being taken seriously was probably a rare treat. "Well, Byron Baudey, he got rich in the spice trade. He had his own boat and everything, and he decided to retire young because he was in love with Margaret Cross, who said anyone who married a sailor was a widow whether the sailor was dead or not and she wouldn't be a sailor's widow.

  "Well, he already owned this land and he'd built the lighthouse with his own money because so many boats had sunk here. The town really liked him for that." He paused to watch as a flock of pelicans flew overhead.

  "So then Byron Baudey hired a bunch of men to help him build the house. It was hard to build because the land is mostly rocks and he wanted to have a big cellar for potatoes and stuff and for his wine collection--"

  "Cellar?" David asked quickly. "Do you know more about it?" The cellar was the focal point of various theories about the house and he hadn't been able to find out much about it in his research so far. According to legend, Lizzie used it as a sort of soft-core bondage and discipline playground, though her daughter, Christabel, later converted it into a torture chamber worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. After the night of the massacre in 1915, a dozen bodies, Lizzie's and Christabel's included, were never found and, because of the stench that emanated for sometime thereafter, which was said to still manifest occasionally, it was theorized that if anyone could find the secret entrance, they'd find the bodies, too. It was a mystery that David hoped to solve.

  "Well, I think it's there. Byron Baudey took a bunch of dynamite and blasted the cellar out of the rock. Then he evened it out with a pickax, or that's what Uncle Craig guesses."

  "Is that who told you about the Baudeys?" David asked as they resumed walking.

  "Mostly, but everybody knows about them. Uncle Craig, he got real interested because he almost got killed there once."

  "He did?" David could hardly contain his excitement at having found this treasure trove.

  "Uh huh. He just missed getting killed. He was--" Eric hesitated, "a new policeman--"

  "A rookie?"

  Eric's eyes sparkled. "Yes sir, that's right. A rookie. The chief sent him and his partner over to check the house because there were all these hippies having a… a commune in it."

  1968. That's when it happened. David envisioned the headline from the copy of the old New York Times article he had in his file: "TWENTY DIE IN DRUG/SEX ORGY IN HAUNTED HOUSE." The bodies were nude, horribly mutilated, and bizarrely arranged. David had never been able to find out the exact positions of the corpses but he suspected they bore a resemblance to the positioning of the victims in the 1915 massacre. Maybe now he could see the police photos. "Is your uncle still a policeman, Eric?"

  Eric nodded proudly. "He's the chief. Sometimes he takes me for a ride in his cruiser."

  "What does he think of your working here?" David asked as they came to the end of the promontory.

  "He thinks it's just fine." Eric leaned over the railing and pointed down at the rocks. "See the beacon? It's right there."

  David looked and got a face full of brilliant white light. He pulled back quickly. "That about blinded me."

  Eric straightened. "It makes me see spots. That's kind of neat. Red Cay's right there."

  They turned north and looked out at the town. Tiny cars traveled the compact downtown area and the pier he and Amber had been on last night jutted out into the half-moon bay. Gulls and pelicans flew arou
nd it and boats were docked in a small harbor adjacent to the pier. The sleepy little fishing village was almost painfully picturesque. It was no wonder it had attracted so many artists.

  "Eric, what does your uncle think about all the ghosts here?"

  "He doesn't believe in them."

  "But you do?"

  "Sure. I see them sometimes," he added matter-of-factly.

  "You know that where we're standing right now is really called Widow's Peak?"

  "Yes, I'd heard that."

  "It's just this part that's kind of uphill, from the lighthouse back."

  David smiled. "How did it get the name?"

  "Margaret Cross Baudey threw herself from this very spot after her family died. She was too sad to live," he added pensively. "That's why she walks around out here sometimes." He paused. "I think other widows came here too, before her.

  Uncle Craig would know."

  "And you've seen Margaret?"

  Eric nodded, as if David's question was completely ordinary.

  "Uh huh. I've been here a lot with Mr. Willard since you bought the house and I've seen her three times. Once in the daytime, twice when it was getting dark. I saw Byron Baudey too, once." He smiled. "I hope they get to see each other sometimes. That'd be nice, don't you think?"

  "Very." Eric hadn't told him anything he didn't already know. The first deaths in the house were those of Byron and Margaret's young daughter, Charity, and her infant son. In 1905, Charity was raped, the baby being the product of that assault. Charity never recovered from the violence of that night and the murder-suicide in the tower was the result. Then, in 1909, Byron was found dead near the lighthouse, most likely the victim of a simple heart attack. The following year, Margaret threw herself from the cliff. David had read vague accounts of their ghosts walking the grounds, but hadn't paid them much attention: he assumed these stories to be garden-variety ghost stories. He found the later murders far more interesting.

  He glanced at Eric Swenson, who was avidly pointing out landmarks in the town, and David guiltily realized he hadn't heard a word the boy was saying. He resolved to concentrate.

  "See that boat pulling away from the pier? That's the Painted Lady. It belongs to Andy Cox. So does that one, and that one." He pointed at two fishing boats tied to the dock.

  "I see. Who does that one belong to?" David pointed at a large ketch just heading out to sea.

  "That's Bo's tour boat. He rents to sport fishermen."

  "Eric, how come you don't like to go in the lighthouse?"

  David asked bluntly. Seeing the boy's look of surprise, he added, "I mean, if Byron Baudey isn't a mean ghost or anything."

  Understanding dawned on Eric's handsome face. "Oh no, Byron Baudey walks around out here. The one in the lighthouse is just really scary. He can't help it. He's really sad and angry all the time and he's kind of hard to take."

  Either Eric Swenson was mentally ill, or David had found himself a genuine psychic. If Swenson wasn't making it up or imagining it, then he was actually sensing things, and unlike Theo Pelinore, he seemed to be very down-to-earth about the whole thing. Theo, David had decided in retrospect, probably possessed just enough sixth sense to feel a haunting much as many other people did. After all, she hadn't claimed to have experienced anything unexplainable except for last night's events. He'd have to quiz her more carefully, though he expected to find that she was merely a battery for the manifestations to draw on. He studied Eric. "Do you know who the ghost is?"

  Eric made a face. "It's Captain Wilder, but I don't like thinking about him because he's so sad and awful to look at. He's got no head."

  "No head?" ·

  "No, sir. It got chopped off by Christabel."

  "Lizzie's daughter."

  Eric nodded. "Captain Wilder was the first one she killed." He unbuttoned the cuffs on his denim shirt and started rolling up his sleeves. "It's getting warm."

  "It sure is." David thought it would be nice to get back to the house and lose the sweater. "And the captain's killed a few people too, hasn't he? Since he became a ghost, I mean?"

  "No," Eric replied somberly. "He just scares people because he can't help it. He wouldn't mean to kill them."

  "They're scared because he's headless?"

  Eric thought about it. "No, sir, I don't think so. I'm the only one I know who sees him like that." He hesitated. "Of course, there could be others, but I don't think they'd say so. I don't talk about it, usually, because it just makes people think I'm crazy."

  "I don't think you're crazy," David assured him.

  "I figured you wouldn't, since everybody in town says you’re crazy."

  "What?" David asked, taken aback.

  Eric cleared his throat and took his voice up an octave.

  "That crazy writer is gonna die in that house."

  "Ferd Cox!" David laughed.

  "That's him!" The boy beamed.

  "That was a great imitation."

  "Thanks!"

  David couldn't contain his curiosity. "Who else says I'm crazy?"

  "Oh, most everybody."

  "Do you think I'm crazy, Eric?"

  He scratched his head. "No more than me."

  Wondering what that meant, David prompted, "Tell me more about the captain. What does he look like to most people?"

  Eric shrugged. "I don't know. Different. Most people don't see him at all."

  "Do you know anyone else who's seen him?"

  "Yes, sir. Billy Galiano saw him."

  Pay dirt! Galiano was the boy who survived the lighthouse accident last May, just before David bought the house.

  "Billy's friend, Matty Farmer, he saw the ghost too. That's why he died--he got scared stupid and he fell."

  "The ghost didn't kill him?" David nudged.

  "No, sir. Uncle Craig told me that Billy said they were up at the top of the lighthouse and they heard footsteps coming up the stairs. There wasn't anywhere to hide, so they came down. They just thought they were going to see a drunk or maybe even get in trouble, if one of the police saw them go up there. But they saw a black cloud--that was the captain. Billy said he was really scary. He told Matty Farmer that they were going to run right through it. And that's what Billy did.

  But Matty chickened and ran back up the stairs and he fell."

  "Why is the captain so scary if they don't see him like you do?"

  "I guess you could say he feels scary." Eric considered, scratching his chin. "I think the captain's still mad that he got killed. I think maybe he loved Miss Lizzie and didn't want to die."

  A star-crossed love affair between the madam and the mariner. Images crowded into David's brain, making him itch to get to the keyboard. "The captain loved Lizzie? Did your uncle tell you that?"

  "Oh, no, I just think he did. I kind of feel it, you know?"

  "I understand." Even if it hadn't actually happened, that romantic thread was just the sort of thing he needed now to flesh out Mephisto Palace--David liked to draw from reality whenever he could. "Did Billy say exactly what the captain looked like to him?"

  "Black stuff," Eric said simply. "Sort of like a big old ball of black fog. Calla Willard said she thinks she saw him once, but he just looked like a ripple in the air or something."

  Both the darkness and the ripples were common forms of manifestation and that lent credence to Eric's tales and David began to think the boy was truly gifted. For that matter, though there was a simplicity about the young man, David wasn't so sure it was a simplicity of intellect. It might be, he thought, that Eric Swenson possessed an unerring bullshit detector and a willingness to accept the unexplainable. Those traits would logically go with more overt psychic abilities and someone whose thinking processes were so different from your average person, especially in a small town, David suspected, might not feel the need to conform. As this occurred to him, Eric extended his arms and began turning circles, swooping and twirling and obviously enjoying the hell out of himself. David watched, thinking he'd been turning Eric into a char
acter in his book rather than seeing him for what he probably was: a mildly handicapped young man who might possess some psychic abilities.

  "Eric!" he called. "What're you doing?"

  Eric stopped twirling. "You were busy thinking, so I took a ride on a Tilt-a-Whirl." He grinned broadly, showing straight white teeth. "It's fun. Not as good as the one that comes with the carnival, but it still gets me dizzy." He studied David.

  "Are you done thinking?"

  David couldn't help smiling. "Yes. Eric, you couldn't tell me what I was thinking about, could you?"

  He stared at David curiously. "You mean you don't remember?"

  "No, no." He almost laughed, then seeing the look in Eric's eyes, began to wonder if the boy might be pulling his leg.

  "Actually, you seem to have some psychic abilities and I was wondering if you're telepathic at all."

  "Well, I guess you were thinking mostly about me and if I'm crazy or not. And you're all excited about those ghosts."

  "You're right. On both counts."

  "But I didn't read your mind, sir. First, you wouldn't be here if you weren't all excited about ghosts. And that's what we were talking about. Second, everybody in Red Cay wonders if I'm crazy." A slow smile spread across his face. "Just like they do you, sir."

  "Touché." Quite suddenly, Swenson made him nervous. You’re reading things into his words, he cautioned himself. Still, he resolved to get Minnie Willard's view on Eric as soon as possible. "Call me David, please, Eric."

  "Yes sir. I mean David."

  David smiled. "Let's get back to the ghosts."

  "Okay."

  "Have you ever seen ghosts in the house? Maybe in the tower?"

  "Oh, I won't go in the tower. I can hear that baby cry sometimes and I hate that I sure don't ever want to see those ghosts in there." He looked at his shoes. "Mr. Willard told me to put new bulbs on every floor in the tower and I said I did it. But I was chicken," he confessed. "I didn't do it. I just opened the door and stuck my hand in and left them. I was afraid he'd fire me if I said I was afraid. I'm sorry."

  "That's all right, Eric. I'll take care of it."