“Lewis,” George says. “Park the car a little ways down the street. It might look suspicious. Then hurry back.”
Lewis nods. He’s a trooper. He has a flashlight, he says, in the Explorer under the seat. He disappears, and in seconds, George and I hear the truck rev to life. I wonder if Junky thinks he’s trying to make a getaway.
While Lewis is parking farther down the block and retrieving the flashlight, George helps me pry the screen off the bathroom window, setting it on the ground. I slide the window all the way open. He gives me a boost inside, and I climb up, the metal edge digging coldly into my stomach. I climb awkwardly into the bathroom. I think a cop is going to come by any minute. The jig is up! Busted! We’re all going to jail!
But there are no cops, at least not yet.
It smells funny in here, stale, along with the smell of fresh paint. Maybe that’s why the window is open. I can’t see much in the gloom. It’s pretty dark in here, but it’s amazing how it all comes back, how familiar it is to me.
I walk out of the bathroom, down the hall, and go into the kitchen. I’m spooked by how small the house seems. The memories. Every cranny and corner is familiar, ghostly, like they’re about to speak.
I unlock the back door, open it, and let George in. Lewis is right behind him.
“Got it,” he says, handing me the flashlight. I look at him. His face is dark, in shadows. I can’t really see him except from the glow of the streetlamps. It is our only illumination. I look at George.
“Something on your mind?” he asks.
I nod. I don’t know how to say it. I can’t believe they’re here with me. There is something very dangerous and romantic about it at the same time. I can’t explain it. I’ve wondered about people my whole life. I’ve wondered about friends. Most of them, apparently, I’ve imagined. What kind of people would deliberately follow me into this?
I wonder if Lewis wants me to realize that maybe I am crazy and not haunted at all.
“I don’t know what to say,” I tell them. “I want to say something. I have all these feelings inside. I don’t know how to say it, but I want to say something.”
“Let’s just make it out of here alive, pumpkin,” George says.
“I’m with George, pumpkin,” Lewis says. “Whatever you need us to do, just let us know. We’re right here.”
“I like this guy,” George says, pointing to him and grinning. “I knew he’d come around.”
“I’m a skeptic by nature,” Lewis says, shrugging. “You just have to be a little forceful with me. That’s all.”
I nod. I want to hug and kiss them both, tell them I love them, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. Not yet.
For a second, I feel a different sort of cold, a touch of wind caressing my cheek, a whisper from the past. It is from the past.
“Shall we go down?” George says, motioning to the door by the kitchen leading downstairs. How he knows this, I’m not sure. “I’m assuming that’s what we’re here for, right? No ghost hunt is complete without a trip into the basement.”
I turn to the door. I close my eyes for a second and steel myself. I grab the knob, turn it, and pull it open. I turn on the flashlight. The beam cuts through the blackness, illuminating the stairs. They’re made of wood, not carpeted, old, the same one’s I remember. They don’t look very solid.
A smell of dust and dampness rises from below. Taking a deep breath, I start down the stairs.
What am I doing here, I think? What do I expect to find? Anything?
Lewis and George are right behind me. I think it’s funny the lady is leading the way. But this is how it’s supposed to be.
The stairs protest loudly under our weight. I shine the flashlight on the concrete floor. I notice, for a second, piles of boxes lining the far wall before we’re on the ground floor. I turn and shine the light to the left. A washer and dryer are down here. Maybe the landlord owns them.
I make it down the stairs and onto the concrete floor. I shine the light against the furnace, seeing cobwebs. An enormous, creepy, yellow spider sits directly in the middle of an elaborate web, which is twice the size of a basketball.
I turn and shine the light across the length of the basement, toward a door. My breath catches in my throat. For whatever reason, I haven’t even thought about this. It’s never occurred to me until now. I am standing roughly fifteen feet from the bedroom I had as a kid.
“That’s where my room was,” I say, and my voice sounds very quiet in the dark. I step toward it, trying to ignore the big creepy spider.
I put my hand on the door and push it open. The room is empty, except for, again, a stack of boxes along the wall.
I see several rolled up posters sticking out of one, but I can’t tell what they are.
For a second—the briefest instant—a flash of light brightens before my eyes, and I am transported back in time. The room is not abandoned at all but looks exactly how I remember it: posters on the walls, my bed, the television. To my left is the vanity mirror. I see all this. It is happening before me now.
Janeen is sitting in the chair in front of the vanity mirror, wearing white, cotton panties and a training bra. Her hair is solid black. Thick, black eyeliner accentuates her eyes. She is brushing her hair, looking at herself in the mirror. Stuffed teddy bears and heart-shaped pillows cover the bed. I never had stuffed animals as a kid, and I think—in some way—Janeen’s bedroom and mine have gotten, somehow, intertwined. We are one and the same.
Janeen turns and smiles.
Just as quickly, the vision fades, and it is only a barren room again.
“Rayleigh, you okay?” Lewis asks.
“Took a trip,” I say.
I hear laughter in my head. I try to ignore it. Is it me, or is the room glowing a pale, incandescent blue?
I move to the boxes and inspect them. I shine the flashlight through them and see books I’ve read, my comb, a hand mirror, knick-knacks, and several VHS cassettes. One is Carrie. The other, appropriately is, Ghost Story. I see The Exorcist, Salem’s Lot, the black and white version of The Haunting, and Alice Sweet Alice.
How this is possible, how they are still here, I don’t know. Maybe they are hallucinations. But I don’t think they are. I know the impossibility of the moment is too great, too ridiculous to be anything short of real. They’ve been here for twenty-three years, and I don’t know how that’s possible. Why would my folks pack all of our stuff up but leave this? Why would they not tell me? What happened after Janeen died? How come the other people moving in didn’t throw it out? Why can’t I remember? Maybe I’m imagining it, and it’s not really here at all.
I rifle through more boxes and come out with something that looks strangely familiar. It strikes a dagger. A notebook. It has a faded green cover. On it is written simply, Book of Poems by Rayleigh Angelica Thorn. Every page is filled with childish, dreamy words. I skim through the pages and see my eleven-year-old handwriting, loopy, and fancy, very girly. Some of the ‘I’s’ have big round circles over them. Coincidentally, I happen to see Lacey’s name, and it all comes back. I close my eyes. The room grows brighter. For a second, I hear a dog barking, and I wonder if it’s Bandit.
I pause before I speak, saying very quietly:
“Let’s burn it all,” not sure who I’m talking to. I’m surprised this sort of thing comes out of me, and I’m not sentimental about it. Not sure I want to know why. I realize, I think now, what has been happening, as ludicrous as it is.
This is all my fault, somehow my parents’ fault as well. They packed it up, left it, thinking it would cure me. Running would be enough to save me from my own haunted mind, even if it was to the next biggest city. Plenty of distractions to take our minds off the small town. Only they never realized the haunting was real.
We left the house and everything behind because they were worried about me after what had happened with Janeen. I invented Lacey through some deep-rooted psychological problem good old Doctor Brown had failed to cure. Janeen
has lived in this house and has been haunting me ever since, driving me crazy because my memories are tangible here. They are alive. My memories live in the hairbrush, the posters, the video-cassettes. The house has never been rented. It stays abandoned because it is haunted, because Janeen is still hungry. I don’t know why the memory of Janeen is so powerful. I wonder if I’m inventing my own psychosis. Jesus, what a thought!
“Lewis,” I say. He turns to me, raising his eyebrows. I have his full attention. “Will you get the boxes on the other side of the basement and stack them in the middle of the floor? I’m going to take these and add them to it.”
I hear a scream. I don’t know if it’s outside or inside my mind. The blue grows stronger.
Don’t do this to me, Rayleigh. I love you.
“Fuck you, you worthless bitch,” I say out loud, and George and Lewis both look at me, shocked.
Before I know it, I’m in a race against time. I can’t help it. The more this idea sits, the harder it will be to put in motion. I don’t know if it’ll work, but it’s the only idea I’ve got. Lewis seems to agree.
“Rayleigh,” he says. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“There’s no other way,” I say.
Another scream sounds. It ricochets off the walls in dark blue energy. Corona of Blue was never me at all. Maybe it was Janeen, or Carmilla, or Lacey, even. It’s hard to figure out who is who anymore. I think they’re all the same. It all comes together in some twisted, malformed nightmare, and now it’s a goddamn demon trying to drive me mad before it kills me. It has driven me mad, but it hasn’t killed me yet.
George helps me with the boxes in my room. We carry everything out and into the middle of the basement. Lewis is grabbing every one he can find and stacking them with the others. We have a big pile of Rayleigh junk, Rayleigh memory, Rayleigh madness in the middle of the basement floor.
“We don’t have any lighter fluid,” George says.
“We’ll have to make do,” I say.
I fumble in my purse for a lighter. I do not think about the fire department. I don’t think about how the house is made of brick, and how it will be harder to burn. I don’t think about how much jail time I’ll have to put in for arson, or the trouble I’m getting Lewis and George into. I feel horrible for all of this, but I don’t know what else to do.
Rayleigh, don’t do this. I love you Rayleigh. Even in death…this is the only way I can love you.
“You killed Lacey,” I say. “You’re trying to kill Pug.”
In the gloom, to my left where Lewis grabbed the boxes, a figure stands in the shadows. It is a girl. She is tall, wearing a knit hat and Converse sneakers. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t speak. In the gloom, and the light of the flashlight, I see her eyebrows angled in fury. Her eyes are black pits of endless hatred. It’s Emma, Pug’s cemetery girl, the one who came in to see me at the bookstore that day. The flashlight shines on her for a split-second, and I see I mixture of familiar images swapping back and forth with each other, moving in a swirling vortex.
The images are me at eleven, black hair, pale, ghostly vampire. I see Janeen with fair skin and green eyes. Part of her even looks—resembles Lacey—and this is the image that fuels my rage.
“Burn it,” I say to George, handing him the lighter.
George and Lewis both stare at the figure in the basement. They can’t believe it. They can see her, and for that moment, I realize my madness is no longer my own. I have truly been haunted, and I actually feel relief, as crazy as that sounds. I feel better knowing the haunting is real, and that I’m not just a lunatic. I have a reason for my madness now.
George bends down and tries to light the cardboard, but he’s having a difficult time getting it to start. He can’t do it.
Emma, I’m surprised, doesn’t say a word. She simply stands there. I hear no thoughts from her. She is simply looking at me in vengeful fury, roughly ten feet from the pile of junk, as if she’s trying to burn her eyes into my soul. She doesn’t want me to forget that look, and I don’t think I will.
“Here, George,” Lewis says with some trepidation, as if he wants to get this over with as quickly as possible.
Lewis reaches into one of the boxes. He finds a can of hairspray. Thank God for flammable hairspray—the next best thing. In a comical parody, making me laugh, he douses the entire can on the boxes, the posters, the video-cassettes, and everything else. He sets the can back inside one of the boxes. George tries the lighter again, setting it against the darkest, wettest parts of the cardboard. Silent flames suddenly catch and spread. The posters catch. I hope it’s enough. I hope the entire house burns down.
Emma is looking at me. Janeen. Grown. Somehow. I can’t explain it, manifesting herself through memories, changing her name, her appearance, trying to confuse me. It is the ghost of Janeen, the ghost of my past, and every abhorrent thing that’s ever happened to me. It is my past, my present, and my future.
Suddenly, the cardboard catches beautifully. I no longer need the flashlight. The basement has a bonfire in the middle of it. I am slightly saddened over the posters, the movies, especially, Book of Poems, but I know this is essential. For some reason, the words on those yellowed pages have more life than I realize. For some reason, Book of Poems—in its own right—is the cause of all of this. I don’t know how that is. I just know.
Emma opens her mouth. Her eyes go wide, and she screams, but she doesn’t make a sound. Somehow, this makes the image more horrifying. The flames are high now, and they mask her face, but her figure is still visible behind the flames. George, Lewis, and I take a step back as she wails in painful fury.
In the corner to my right, I see something awful, abhorrently vile, and my blood runs cold. For this thing, I have no explanation. It is another little girl I’ve never seen and do not recognize. She is completely naked, no more than five or six-years-old. She looks like Gollum from Lord of the Rings, only more twisted and sickening. She has gray, leprous skin. I smell sewage, shit, urine, and blood coming off of her. Her spine is a staggering array of crooked steps poking out of her back. Her skin is split here and there, scabrous and bleeding. She has long, stringy black hair falling out in clumps. Visible, scaly bald spots are on her head. She is holding a charcoal pencil in her deformed right hand, a curled claw. One arm is shorter than the other. She turns toward me and smiles with a black, ink-stained mouth. Black lumps of gums without teeth bleed profusely. Her nose is a fleshy, raw hole. Her eyes are enormous and solid black. I think, for a minute, the orbs are black until I realize she doesn’t have any eyes.
She is not a girl at all. I don’t know what she is. Her fingernails and toenails are long, curved, and dirty. Scratches and welts mark her body. She is drawing a picture on the wall of a girl’s face. Of course, it’s mine. It’s also Charlotte, the picture George drew hanging in his apartment.
I try to quell the horror rising within me at the sight of this creature. The heat of the flames is warming me, making me sweat. The boxes are completely engulfed now. The flames lick the ceiling, the wooden beams there, and begin to catch. A half-finished framing job with 2 X 4’s begins to smolder, and I wonder if this fortunate circumstance will be enough to burn the entire house down.
The last image I see, of course, is of Janeen herself. She is kneeling on the ground, her tear-stained face pleading with me. She is the same age, eleven, kneeling just two-feet away. Her eyes look frightening, but only because thick mascara is running down her cheeks. She is wearing my clothes. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I was looking at myself as a little girl, only with green eyes instead of brown.
“Rayleigh,” she pleads. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. How can you do this to me?”
For a second, looking at her, I feel all her pain, and I understand why she is trapped here. I understand other forces have manipulated and betrayed her, that the ghost of Janeen is not only hungry but absolutely terrified. I know exactly what her dementia must’ve been like, what she felt, and
how she saw me. For the first time since Janeen was killed, I manage to mourn for her with sincerity. I feel her loss. I feel her emptiness, her love, and her pain. And I do mourn. I cry. It is a true mourning, the way mourning should be. I miss her. I love her. And I want her—more than anything—to be at peace. I don’t want her to be a vengeful, wicked, evil thing anymore, and I’m not sure that’s what she wants either. I get the impression, somehow, someway—for whatever reason—that she simply never had a choice. I wonder if I’m the one who caused her to suffer, who trapped her here, and she simply doesn’t understand what I have to do. What it is, I realize, I must do.
Apparently, different versions of her exist. Emma, for one.
Carmilla is another.
The naked monster in the corner turns and hisses at me. She actually moves with frightening speed, crawls in a hopping, loping fashion. She grabs Lewis’ pant leg and sets her bleeding, oily gums against his calf. Lewis stares down at the girl in horror. He is so paralyzed, he doesn’t even know what to do. He doesn’t want to touch her, and I can’t blame him.
George grabs my arm and pulls me toward the stairs. Lewis lashes out, and the girl lets go, hissing at him. Suddenly, it seems the entire basement is in flames. Janeen screams in pain, horror, despair, and confusion as we backpedal up the stairs.
“RAYLEIGH! DON’T GO! DON’T LEAVE ME WITH THEM! DON’T GO! RAYLEIGH! DON’T LEAVE ME HERE! RAYLEIGH, I LOVE YOOOOUUU!”
I cannot explain what this does to me. In those words, I feel all the suffering Janeen has endured not only as a child, but over the last twenty-three years. I feel the horror. I feel the dementia, the madness possessing her brain. Janeen thinks she will be locked in this house forever. She thinks she will be imprisoned with every vile version of herself that has ever come into existence. She thinks she will be trapped, locked down here for eternity with them, and that she will never be able to escape.
As we hurry up the stairs—making our getaway before the police find us—I realize that this is what my mission has been all along, to convince Janeen otherwise. In order for me to set her free, I have to prove her wrong.
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