Brimstone

by Tamara Thorne

  “I’ve never heard of a dream leaving you with bruises. Leastwise as long as you don’t fall out of bed or sleepwalk.”

  “Me, neither.”

  “Um-” Eddie appeared from behind a display of suntan lotion.

  Ben looked at him. “Couldn’t help overhearing, son?” He gave Holly a grave look. “The boy has big ears.”

  “May I say something?” Eddie asked.

  “That’s up to Holly.” Ben gave him a warning look.

  Holly turned to Eddie. “Yes. I want to hear.”

  Eddie cleared his throat. “There are lots of theories about being bruised - or bitten - in dreams. Depending on what you believe in, the answer varies from demons to hysteria, but it all boils down to the same thing. Something is attacking you while you’re sleeping.”

  “Eddie-” Ben began.

  “It’s okay.” Holly looked from Eddie to Ben. “Adeline Chance says I shouldn’t sleep at the hotel because they want me.”

  “They?” asked Eddie.

  “Pearl Abbott and my great-great-grandfather. Because of my eyes. She says they want my power.”

  Eddie looked confused, but Ben nodded. “Addie and Carrie had eyes like young Holly here, and they saw ghosts. They’d come in for a soda - just like you, Holly - and sometimes they talked about seeing a phantom orderly who pushed a cart with a bad wheel. Oh, and a cat. They saw a calico cat.”

  Holly smiled. “Miss Annie Patches. She woke me up when Pearl Abbott was hurting my arms. Adeline says Annie’s my familiar.”

  “If that’s what she says, it’s no doubt true. Listen to her.”

  “I will.”

  The doorbells jangled and a heavy-set lady in a black and white polka dot dress walked in, fanning herself. “Ben? Ben Gower? Where are you? I need my water pills!”

  “Coming, Mrs. Stuffenphepper.” Ben smiled at Holly and went to greet the Polka Dot Lady.

  Spooning ice cream into her mouth, Holly watched him lead the woman to the drug counter. Her dress reminded her of a bedspread Cherry hung around her bed for privacy when she had a boyfriend over.

  The entry bells jangled again and Keith Hala walked in. Holly waved. “Keith! Over here.”

  Grinning, the boy joined her and ordered a strawberry ice cream cone when Eddie showed up a few seconds later. “I told my grandfather about you. About what you did. He wants to meet you.”

  Eddie gave Holly a look and spoke in mock parental tones. “What did you do?”

  Holly blushed again. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Keith said. “Nothing?” He looked at Eddie. “She made Tony Pimbrough wet his pants!”

  Keith and Holly both giggled as the Polka Dot Lady glared at them.

  Eddie looked from Keith to Holly in amazement. “Really? You did that?”

  Keith nodded. “She really did. Swear to God.”

  “They were picking on us at the playground,” Holly said quickly.

  “Those two butt-breaths were picking on you? They were in my grade until they got held back twice. Stupid bullies. Nobody but cowards picks on little kids.”

  Holly felt hurt.

  “What did you do, Holly?” Eddie asked.

  “Nothing. I just told them to get lost.”

  “She gave them the stinkeye, too,” Keith bragged. “Big time.”

  “I’ll be back.” Eddie reluctantly left to wait on a new customer, a little man with a cleft chin so deep that Holly thought there were probably pirates hiding in it.

  “That’s the Baptist preacher, Reverend Swallows. He’s kind of a jerk.” Keith finished his ice cream. “You want to go back to the playground? I’ll bet Shawn and Tony aren’t there today.”

  “Sure. But I rode down on my bike. Do you have one?”

  “Yeah, but it’s too hot for that and it’s like a mile out of the way. If we hike up the trail it’s not very far at all.”

  “Can I walk the bike up?”

  Keith thought. “No, probably not. Hey, Eddie?”

  The young man paused on his way to the soda fountain. “What?”

  “Do you think Mr. Gower would be okay with Holly storing her bike here until later?”

  “Sure.”

  “I can’t,” said Holly. “It’s not mine. I borrowed it from Meredith Granger.”

  “It’s too hot to ride up,” Keith told Eddie. “And I want to show her the shortcut.”

  “Steve comes by every day before going to the hotel,” Eddie said. “He has a pickup. He can bring the bike up.”

  “But-”

  “Keith’s right,” Eddie said. “It’s too hot. Take the trail. It has shade and Meredith won’t mind.” He pulled a phone up from under the counter. “You can call and ask if you want.”

  Holly decided that was a very good idea.

  The steps began at an ancient retaining wall near the top of Main Street, not too far from the Humble Station, and though tall and steep at first, they were easy to climb. Soon they transformed into a series of broad switchbacks, part wood, part earth, part stone. It was surprisingly shady, lined with shrubs, flowers, and trees, and Holly thought taking it was a great idea, at least until Keith yanked her back just before she stepped on a rattlesnake sunning itself on a stone.

  After that, she kept her eyes on the trail until low green shrubbery studded with white flowers crisscrossed a ten-foot portion of the path. “Wow. Look at the morning glories.”

  Keith halted. “Those aren’t morning glories.”

  Holly bent, looking at the trumpet-shaped flowers. “Really?”

  “That’s jimson weed,” Keith told her. “It’s poisonous. My grandfather said never to touch it. Sometimes shamans used to use it to have visions, but it was dangerous even for them.”

  “I wonder why it’s growing right here.” She raised her half-empty can of Coca Cola to her lips. It tasted good even though it was warm now.

  “You want to see something cool?” Keith asked.

  “What?”

  He pointed at a narrow trail half hidden in weeds. “If we go just a ways, we can see the haunted house. Do you want to?”

  Holly hesitated only a fraction of a second. “The place with the rocking chair?”

  Keith nodded. “Yeah, it’s pretty spooky in there.”

  “Okay. That sounds great.”

  They turned onto the narrow path, Keith in the lead. As they passed more jimson weed, Holly pushed her bangs off her forehead and wondered if they’d see any ghosts. As nervous as she’d become about seeing them at the hotel, this was different. It was exciting. Fun.

  Less than five minutes later, the trail ended in a wide spot. Everything green fell away, even the jimson weed. A ramshackle old house stood in a clearing. Everything around it was dead.

  “There it is.” Keith spoke softly, as if he didn’t want to be overheard.

  Holly nodded. “Wow.”

  It was a ruin, a dilapidated mess, for sure, and bigger than Holly had expected. Way bigger. Two gnarled old trees, dead, leafless skeletons, framed the tall building. The house itself was covered in parched, faded clapboard, once orangish, maybe the color of rust, and the corrugated tin roof shone dull gray in the hot sun. Holly stepped closer, looking at the broad but broken wooden stairs that led to a covered veranda. Pale blue paint hung in curls from the porch ceiling. The curlicued columns that held up the porch roof were oddly ornate for a house with a tin roof.

  The windows were half-broken victims of boys and rocks and revealed nothing but gray twilight on the first floor. Suddenly, something pale moved in one window. Holly jumped, then realized it was just an old piece of curtain waving in the summer breeze.

  Keith watched her. “Well, what do you think?”

  “I don’t see any ghosts yet.” With a quick grin, she walked to one side of the house, then the other, where she stared at a tall cement staircase that stood at least six inches from the wall and led to an upstairs door. “That’s weird.”

  “For sure. Let’s check it out!” Keith started up
the freestanding steps, hand lightly skimming the old iron railing. Holly followed. When she was even with a first floor window, she bent and peered in. From here she could see turquoise paint on the walls of the front room. Though peeling and stained, it gleamed bright where stray sunbeams hit it and somehow that made the house even creepier. Beyond that, she saw a dark doorway at the far end of the room. She craned her neck, but couldn’t spot a rocking chair.

  Taking the stairs, she joined Keith, who stood looking in a small window beside the second floor door. “See anything?”

  Keith jumped and nearly lost his footing. Holly grabbed his arm. Both looked down. Up here, the stairs were at least a foot from the house. They looked at each other, breathing hard.

  “You scared me!” Keith dragged his eyes up to Holly’s.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to!”

  “It’s okay. Look inside.” He pointed at the window.

  It wasn’t broken and layers of grime stuck to it, but Keith had rubbed a spot clean enough that you could just see in. Holly, mindful of the foot of daylight between the stairs and the house, tried to make out what was beyond the haze on the inside of the glass. Sunlight pierced holes in the tin roof like bullets, spotlighting the dark floor and grimy turquoise walls. “It’s a hallway.”

  “Yeah. See the doors?”

  “I do.” The doors, once white, were all neatly closed. “Do you think there’s anything in the rooms?”

  Keith giggled. “Maybe piles of dead bodies?”

  Holly snorted. “All chopped up in pieces!”

  “My grandfather says this was a boarding house for nurses for a while, but they moved out.”

  “I wonder what happened.”

  “Maybe they were murdered!” Keith suggested.

  Holly nodded. “Maybe they’re still there, in their rooms.” A million ghost stories swirled into her brain and she loved them all. “Keith, this is so much fun! Back in California, my girlfriend and I would walk around the neighborhood and I’d tell her ghost stories about the houses and people we saw. But she didn’t really like them. She got scared, you know?”

  “I like getting scared.” Keith peered in the window with her. “It’s fun.”

  “I know.”

  Keith looked at her. “Have you ever been scared for real?”

  She nearly said no, but the scare was too recent, too personal, to deny. “Yeah.”

  “By a ghost?”

  Somberly, she nodded.

  “Tell me.”

  She glanced in the murky window. “Not right now. I want to have fun here. You want to go in?”

  “Upstairs?”

  “Sure.” Holly tried the knob, and to her surprise, it turned. “Have you ever been upstairs?”

  “No. Just downstairs, just for a minute. It’s a lot spookier inside.” He hesitated as Holly pushed the creaky door open. “Maybe we shouldn’t go in up here.”

  “Why?” Holly almost teased him about being scared, but he didn’t look afraid. He looked like he was thinking.

  “Because these old buildings have lots of rotten wood, especially if the roof leaks - and this one does. My grandpa says never to go upstairs in ruins like this because you’re likely to get killed. He says never to go in here downstairs either, because it has a basement and the floor can break through.”

  Holly peered in, saw no sign of broken floors, and it made her want to go in all the more. “What if we watch where we walk?”

  Keith considered. “Well, maybe if we’re really careful.”

  “Let’s just go in for a minute. We’ll come back out if it’s too dangerous.”

  “Well … I guess.”

  “I bet nobody’s been up here for a million years. We’ll be the first. There might be all kinds of neat things in there!”

  “Okay, but you follow me, and step where I step. I’ve explored stuff with my grandpa before, and he showed me how.”

  “Okay. You lead.”

  The inside of the old house smelled like dry wood and dust. A sickly sweet scent that made Holly’s nose twitch hung behind the other odors as they trod lightly on the creaking wood, staying near the walls. Long creases of black edged the floor moldings and patches of mold stained the walls where rain had come in. Holly stepped away from Keith as they neared a door on the other side of the hall.

  “No, don’t walk in the middle!” he ordered.

  “I want to see what’s inside.”

  “The floor is really bad; can’t you hear it creaking? It’s worse in the middle.”

  “But-”

  “There’s a door on this side coming up. We’ll open that one.”

  Knowing he was right, she moved back behind him. They halted at the door and Keith turned the knob. The door creaked open and they gasped. There was a huge hole in the ceiling in the middle of the room and the wooden floor was littered with plaster. Beyond that, in the far corner, stood the shadowy form of a woman. A headless woman.

  “Holy crap,” Keith whispered. “Do you see that?”

  “Uh huh.” Holly stared at the figure, but it didn’t move or resolve into a person. She stared harder, willing her eyes to super-see like they had when she practiced with Adeline. After a moment, her vision strengthened. “It’s not a ghost. It’s a dress form.”

  “A what?”

  “It’s a model you use when you’re sewing clothes.” She stepped over the threshold, but Keith yanked her back by the arm.

  “The floor is ruined. You’d fall through it.”

  “Yeah, okay.” She stopped concentrating - she didn’t want Keith to stare at her eyes - and contented herself with looking around the room. It was the same ugly turquoise and the sickly sweet smell was strong. She wrinkled her nose.

  “It’s rotting wood,” Keith explained. “Come on.”

  She pulled the door closed and followed Keith along the hall. There was one more door and when they opened it, the room was small and simple and held nothing of interest. They moved until they arrived at the stairs.

  “Wow!” Holly touched the nearest bannister, ran her hand over the cherry finish. Dust came away on her fingers, but the rail was smooth, shining, and perfect. “It looks almost new.”

  Keith nodded. “It does.”

  They peered into the dim main room below - the gray light entered mainly through the windows. It was just enough to see the planked floor and the bottoms of the bannisters - she even saw a single shredded curtain on the front window.

  They looked at each other. “Is the rocking chair down there?”

  Keith nodded.

  “Want to go down?” Holly’s eyes were getting used to the darkness and she could now see an old pendulum clock hanging on the wall, the hands stopped at twenty of four, like a frowning slash of a mouth.

  “The stairs aren’t safe.” Keith said. Thoughtfully, he reached out and gripped the bannister, shook it. It didn’t budge.

  Holly watched him. “That looks safe.”

  “I dunno.” He tested it again. “Maybe.”

  “Let’s. I’ve always wanted to slide down the stairs.”

  After a long pause, Keith spoke. “Okay, but do exactly as I do. Step where I step. And wait until I’m all the way down and say it’s okay.”

  Holly nodded as Keith took a cautious step closer, tested the bannister once more, then threw his leg over the rail and looked up at Holly. “Ride ‘em cowboy!” he cried and slid down to the first floor.

  Holly waited, watching as he dismounted. “Okay, come on down.”

  “Thanks for dusting it for me!” She settled onto the rail and raised her arms like she was on a roller coaster until Keith ordered her to hang on tight.

  She slid down the steep rail and as she cleared into the first floor, the atmosphere changed. “It’s chilly down here,” she whispered.

  “It always is,” he whispered back.

  “How many times have you been here?”

  “A few. It’s creepy, huh?”

  “Yeah. Where’s the r
ocking chair?”

  “I don’t know. It was in here before.”

  Except for the old wooden clock, there was nothing in the room but a moldering braided rug near a window. There were ugly dark stains about five feet up on one turquoise wall and on the floor beneath it.

  “Blood stains,” Keith said softly.

  “Really?”

  “They look like bloodstains, don’t they? They’re really old.”

  Holly took a step toward the stained wall, cautiously testing each board as Keith had. Finally, she stood before the stain. It really might’ve been blood, the way it was all in one spot except for small spatters on either side. It had run to the floor and puddled there. A foot out from the wall was another, bigger stain.

  Keith joined her and she pointed to the wall stain. “If somebody got murdered, that’s where he was standing when they blew his brains out.” She pointed at the floor. “And that’s where he fell.”

  “You think?”

  “If it’s blood.”

  “Yeah.” Now Keith pointed. “The kitchen is back there. Come on.”

  The kitchen was empty save for an old rusted farm sink hanging at an angle on the wall. The cracked yellow tile looked bleached and pitted and there were traces of linoleum still clinging to the wood plank floor. The room was bright and hot with sunlight streaming in through broken-out windows. You could see places where cabinets had hung, but it wasn’t very interesting. There was a door at the far end. “Basement?”

  “Probably.”

  She looked away - basements were officially on her too-creepy list now. “Let’s go see the other rooms now.”

  “Sure.”

  Returning to the living room was a shock. In the shadowy room, it felt so cold that she wished she had a sweater. And then she remembered the cold at the hotel elevator, the chill fingers stabbing her arms, and how freezing cold Steve’s ankle was where he’d been grabbed. “Keith?”

  “Yeah?”

  She scanned the room but saw nothing unusual. “It’s too cold in here. It feels weird.”

  “I know.”

  “It shouldn't be this cold. It’s like a hundred degrees outside!”

  “Yeah, it’s weird. But it’s okay, it’s always cold in here. It must be because it’s haunted.”