Eviction Notice
A Slayer of Evil (Prices Negotiable) Story
By
Andrew E. Moczulski
Copyright 2012, Andrew E. Moczulski
*****
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
She was like the personification of good cheer; a sharply pressed and professionally cut sky-blue suit, the absolutely brightest green eyes I had ever seen, soft white skin with a dusting of childlike freckles, and a smile so bright it could melt copper. The best part was the hair, though. A bright, frizzy mass of red curls that bounced around seemingly of their own accord and appeared constantly on the verge of absorbing her head. It was almost hypnotic. Under different circumstances, I'd have been asking if I could buy her a drink.
Under the current ones, it was starting to get hard to listen to her talk.
“And if you'll turn your attention to the ceiling, you'll notice the simply exquisite molding normally only to be found in homes built in the pre-classical era but which was included in this particular home at the express request of Mr. Harcourt Stanfield, the wealthy financier who first ordered construction as long ago as eighteen-seventy-five,” she said. I had been talking to her for nearly three hours now as we toured the house in question, and I still couldn't work out exactly how she chose which words deserved emphasis. It clearly wasn't any sort of human intelligence. Maybe her voice just did it automatically, or possibly she had some kind of device hidden in her hair.
“That is very wonderful Ms. O'Conner, and I thank you so much for telling all of it to me despite my repeated claims I will not be increasing my offer no matter what,” I said with forced cheer. I chose to emulate her own speech patterns, in the hope she would perhaps understand me better this way “I will give your employer ten thousand dollars for this house. And that is all.”
The smile didn't quite fade, but the wattage might have decreased by about five percent. “Yes, I have... noticed, Mr. Fitzpatrick. And while I understand your unique position, I had hoped for a tour of the manor and grounds to make this clear, I must specify that the dwelling you wish to purchase is in fact worth... well...”
“Roughly one-hundred times my offering price?” I said cheerfully. In contrast to her, I wasn't terribly striking. My eyes were a nice blue, I guess, but beyond that I was pretty average. Brown hair. Medium height, in shape but not hugely muscled. T-shirt. Jeans. Big baggy jacket that looked about thirty years old but comfortable and had tons of pockets.
The lovely Ms. O'Conner and I did have one thing in common, though. Both of our images were carefully crafted lies. She was designed from the ground up to make customers feel comfortable, make them trust her clearly adorable Good Ol' Irish Lass self, and (let's face it) to make the sort of customers who noticed her skirt tugged around her thighs very interestingly think with their hormones instead of their wallets.
My image was carefully crafted to inform her that I didn't care.
“Well, yes,” she said. I think she wasn't used to people being this cheerful in her presence. I strongly suspected that by halfway through her presentation of a home, most people just watched her in a kind of mesmerized daze. “Given the age of the home, the extensive size of both the manor itself and the grounds, the prime location here in the lovely rural countryside of upstate New York, the-”
“Ten-thousand dollars. My one and only offer.” I interrupted quite happily. “The house is in disrepair, the grounds are unkempt, and the location is an hour's drive from the nearest town, which is barely a town. Frankly, I think that ten grand is generous!”
It was not generous. It was stupidly, ridiculously dirt cheap. But half the joy of being a customer is that you get to be indignant about stupid things, right? That's the American Dream, right there. The right to be proud of things you shouldn't be proud of and be offended by things that shouldn't offend any reasonable human being.
“While some might argue that this exquisite antique home built by one of New York's finest captains of industry might, perhaps, be a bit of a fixer-upper, I personally feel that-”
I waved a hand, cutting her off before she could start describing the molding again. Or god forbid, the buttresses. “But more than that? More than the fact this place is, quite frankly, an inconveniently-located dump that should have been condemned ages ago? I strongly suspect that you, Ms. O'Conner, were instructed to try your very best to wring as much money out of me as possible, but in the end, to take whatever price I offered.”
She didn't reply. But the smile definitely faded this time. It made me a little sad, actually. She had such a pretty smile, even if it was totally fake.
“Possibly,” I said, almost idly, “because nobody has made any offers on this house in the last oh, forty years, have they?”
“Not... not as such, no.”
“Because of the location? Noooo, there's always someone who wants a nice rural summer home, get back to nature, commune with the... elk, or something.” I said. Given how often work took me out into the wild and how messy that tended to get, I personally didn't like nature very much and would never go there for fun. I really have no clue what people go out there to commune with. Shrubs, maybe? Lots of people like shrubs, and they don't move around as much as elk so it's probably easier to commune with them. Regardless, I kept speaking, deciding elk sounded good enough and going back to change it to shrubs now would just make me look indecisive. “Because of the disrepair? Nooooo, that's like a challenge to the right sort of buyer, especially with how popular all that house-flipping nonsense was for awhile, right? So now, I wonder why it's been so long since anyone has made any offers on this fine home with its amazing mold?”
“Molding, actually.” She muttered.
“Could it be because of the, y'know, horrible murders?” I asked, my eyes wide with feigned shock. “The ones you so carefully didn't tell me about as you were describing the exquisite craftsmanship of the windows? See, I did my research too, and funny story: the history of this house is really less about the fantastic architecture, and really more about the fact that everyone who has ever lived in this house except for the original owner himself, has died under mysterious circumstances! Most of them very much on the horribly violent side, and the vast majority within three weeks of moving in, no less! How terribly odd, wouldn't you say?”
“A bit odd,” she murmured. She was not smiling much at all, anymore. I really was starting to feel bad now; her smile had been nice. It made me feel chipper, I admitted it, and the more it faded the less happy I was. Maybe I should get a clown nose or something, for the next time I met her. After I finished destroying her business position, of course.
“Why, it got to the point that people began to say that the ghost of Mr. Stanfield... that would be Harcourt Stanfield, I believe? Wealthy industrialist and entrepreneur whom you yourself so thoughtfully mentioned before? Whose charming family of cutthroat, money-obsessed robber barons and occasionally just plain robbers was well-known for treating their workers like slaves and their slaves like cattle? Why, people started to claim that he was still haunting the house, and would wreak horrible vengeance on anyone who lived here.” I said. “But of course, that's crazy, because everyone knows ghosts do not exist.”
“... Yes.”
“Even though in every single one of the deaths, there was never any sign of forced entry, and it is completely impossible for them to have been suicide in the majority of the cases. Unless that strapping young man in 1957, the most rec
ent owner, I believe, who lived here alone and which all evidence suggests was alone at the time of his death, somehow managed to throw his own head onto the chandelier in the main hall? Which, I grant you, would have been pretty impressive if he had pulled it off, don't you th-”
“Yes, that will be quite enough, thank you!” Ms. O'Conner said. Her skin had gone so pale the freckles were starting to look creepily dark.
“I just feel that would be a somewhat difficult trick to perform. But that may be just me.” I said. “Not that it's really relevant to our situation right now. What is relevant is that I am going to give you a very small sum of money for this house. And you're going to accept it. Because your employer? He desperately wants to be rid of it. It costs him in taxes year after year
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