House Haunted (29 page)

Such a dream!

“Don't call me sport,” Ricky said. He was frightened and angry.

“Come on!” Ray said. “I'll take you on the haunted house tour.”

Without waiting, he rolled off toward the kitchen. Jan and Ricky followed.

“You've already found the food,” Ray said rapidly, bursting through the swinging doors, pointing to the pantry. “Enough for an army. Don't know about you, but I haven't been all that hungry since I got here. There's a washer, and dryer back there too, if you need it.” He stopped abruptly, turned, rolled to a door opposite the sink, yanked it open, pointed to the darkness down a flight of stairs. “Cellar down there. If you flip on the light, there's a big open toolbox filled with stuff near the bottom step.” He slammed the door. “Excuse me.” He spun away, rolled to the kitchen table, pulled a plastic bag from his shirt pocket, and tapped a small mound of cocaine out. He produced a tiny straw, crudely lined the coke, and bent over it, snorting it into his nose. The bag and straw went back into his pocket.

“Where was I?” he said, spinning around toward them. Not waiting for an answer, he shot back through the swinging doors into the hallway.

“Guest room, sewing room, bathroom,” he said, even more rapidly, knocking on doors as he flew by them. “Plenty of space for the growing family. I heard noises or saw something you wouldn't like to see in every one of them during my little escape attempt yesterday.” He looked back at Ricky and Jan. “Just trying to save you boys the trouble.” He smiled. “Then again, maybe you had a reason for coming, like me. And maybe you haven't been able to think clearly since you stepped through the front door. You want any of this,” he said, patting his shirt pocket, “just let ole Ray know.”

He shot back into the parlor, heading for the right fork of the staircase. “You've already seen the beautiful living and dining area,” he said. “Now for the best part.”

He stopped at the bottom step, turned the wheelchair's back to it, and began to climb the stairway, jerking the wheels back up each step, one at a time. The muscles stood out taut on his arms. When Jan tried to move around to help pull him up, Ray stopped, braking himself with one hand while holding the other up to ward the Pole off.

“No problem,” he said. He grinned at Ricky. “I think sport over there saw me do a pretty good job with the wheels last night. Eh, sport?”

Terrible, horrible dream.

“Don't call me—” Ricky began, but Ray was already back at work, grunting with effort, sweating, humping up the second-flight staircase toward the top.

“I
love
this second floor!” he said at the top, not even pausing for breath. Jan and Ricky -could barely keep up with his race. “Four lovely bedrooms, one facing north,” he said, pointing at the door facing the stairway, turning to the right, tracing his hand over the top of the guardrail as he turned the corner, sharply. “One facing east,” he said, rapping on Jan's door as he flew by, “one south,” he continued, taking the next corner even more sharply, grabbing the handrail for balance, then rapping on Ricky's door, “and my own room, of course,” he said, again cornering at high speed, “facing west,” tapping his fingers over his door as he sped past. “Each with its own bathroom. There is also,” he went on, braking abruptly at a thin closed door set in the corner between the west and north bedrooms, yanking the door open to reveal a narrow flight of curving stairs leading up, “a lovely garret, topped by the lovely cupola you may have noticed on entering this spacious, thoroughly haunted residence.”

Ray slammed the door hard, turned his wheelchair to face Ricky and Jan. “Tour lecture's almost done, gents.” He fumbled the coke bag out of his breast pocket, stuck his straw straight into it, and took a quick, sharp snort. He put the straw and bag away. “Now as to why—”

There was a sound, and the door to the north bedroom opened. A young woman came out of the doorway, ignored them, and descended the stairs.

The three stared silently at her. She was barefoot, dressed in a soiled T-shirt and jeans. Her hair hung in two long braids, like a little girl's.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she went to the hallway. She walked with a limp, favoring her right foot. They heard the door to the kitchen swing open, whack closed.

After a few moments, they heard the kitchen door open and close again. She reappeared, limped calmly to the stairs, and ascended. In her right hand was a long, wide, serrated bread knife.

She reached her doorway, went into the room, and closed the door behind her.

They heard the sound of a lock being applied.

After a moment of silence, the air was bisected by the keening, sustained sound of a scream.

Ray sat frozen, then suddenly gave a whoop of laughter. “This is a job for Super Ray!”

The screaming became almost inhuman. Sounds of begging were interspersed with wildly happy cries of, “Yes! M and P! Yes!” But then the screams began to dominate. They heard a harsh, grinding sound interspersed with cries of agony.

Bellowing wildly, Ray shot forward and rammed his wheelchair into the door.

The door buckled, held.

Inside, the screams climbed to an ear-piercing shriek. The rhythmic grinding noise continued.

Ricky and Jan threw their weight against the door. It held fast. Ray retreated to the edge of the stairway. Again he shouted for the other two to stand aside. Pumping his hands down against the wheels, Ray sped at the door. He tilted back slightly so that only the metal footrest hit.

The door rattled, burst open a half inch. It stopped against the inner chain that held it closed. The screaming increased in volume.

“Dammit, help me!” Ray grabbed at Jan's hands, put them on the handles at the back of the wheelchair. He screamed at Ricky. “Pull it back and ram it!”

They rolled the chair back a few feet and rammed it forward.

“YA-HOOOO!” Ray yelled.

The chain held.

“Again!”

They hit the door twice more.

The third time, the door burst inward.

“In! Super Ray to the rescue!”

The screaming was even louder as they entered.

Laura looked up at them from the bed. For a brief, horrible moment, her screams ceased completely. Her pale, pain-ridden face split into a beatific smile. “Hello.” Then her eyes rolled up into her head, and her unearthly shrieks resumed.

She thrashed her head from side to side. Ricky gagged, turned away, and began to vomit. Ray stared, his smile gone. Jan, his face coldly white, turned his eyes away.

Laura sat propped against the headboard of her bed, holding the bread knife in both her hands, working on the flesh and bone of her right leg above the ankle as if it were a recalcitrant tree limb.

A gasp escaped her as the foot fell away. It lay on the bed like a discarded doll. Blood pumped from the open wound, pooling on the bed. Hands trembling, she raised the knife away from her leg.

The room was strong with the coppery smell of blood. “Jesus, oh, Jesus,” Ricky moaned.

Laura's shrieks trailed down to a sudden groan. She struggled to focus her gaze. Her face was bone white and slack; her voice came out a ragged whisper.

She managed a tiny smile, the ends of her slackening mouth turning up. She turned the smile on Ricky, managing, through gargantuan effort, to brighten it. “I promise I won't run anymore, M and P. I promise--”

Her hands went limp. Her head fell back, her sightless eyes studying the ceiling. There was the hint of a smile on her face.

Off in the depths of the house, they heard a deep, satisfied moan. The house itself seemed to tremble, and a bright light flashed across the windows of Laura's room. A low, sustained hum began that did not cease.

Ricky stumbled from the room, vomiting the scant remains of his biscuit and fruit breakfast into the hall. He was followed by Jan, who made it to the stairway before steadying himself, leaning heavily against the banister, and sitting down. He put his head in his hands and closed his eyes.

Ray appeared in the doorway. He rolled out onto the landing, pulled the door closed behind him.

He pushed his wheelchair toward his own room, opened the door, then turned to face Jan and Ricky.

“Now, as to why we're here,” he said, the rapid-fire coke cockiness of his voice gone, “she told me that. She said it didn't matter. She said she had us, all four of us, and that nothing we could do can free us. We can't leave and we can't make her go away.”

Ricky looked at Jan, who stared ahead as if in a trance; with one of his hands, he was idly stroking his groin.

Terrible, horrible dream.

He tried to block out the humming noise but could not. Ricky looked at Ray and pinched himself as hard as he could.

Please, Lord, let me wake up.

Tears came to his eyes, and he felt the pain of his self-inflicted bruise.

Ray turned and began to roll into his room and close the door. Ricky saw the bag of white powder and straw resting in his lap.

“The only thing we can do,” Ray said, as Ricky did not wake up, “is die.”

What Rich Falconi
didn't
need was the earnest young man standing on the other side of his desk.

“Look, Dr. Brennan,” Falconi said, lifting a pencil and tapping the point gently against the pad of his thumb, “I've done all I can for you. If Minkowski hadn't given you a green light, you wouldn't have gotten this far. I let you see Gaimes, like you wanted. He told you some things you wanted to hear. You left him your phone number and address in case he wants to get in touch with you again and tell you more things you want to hear. That's wonderful. I'm happy for you. The rest of this, I don't have time for.”

Brennan began to light a cigarette; at Falconi's scowl, he put the match out and slipped the cigarette into his pocket.

Falconi slammed the pencil down flat on his desk; his voice rose a notch toward annoyance. “You want to know what I had waiting for me when I got in this morning?” He counted off on his fingers. “One, a guy in an ill-fitting priest's costume, his wife dressed as a soiled nun. Two, a medium named Margie Firewater, who called on the spirit of someone named Atu to cleanse this city, all of it—we're talking about a
generous
spirit here-- of, in her words, `Filth, corruption,
and
littering.' Three, a special delivery letter from someone claiming to be Gary Gaimes's long lost father, written in
crayon
, for Christ's sake, from Reno, Nevada. Says he forgot all about Gary until yesterday, when he heard about him on the news. Wants to come here and have a reunion, and, as a favor, write down his life story—along with his own, of course, I imagine in crayon—then sell it to the highest bidder. Four—” he stopped counting with his hands, smacked at the copy of the
New York Post
that lay closed on his desk; the cover, with a blown-up photo of Gary Gaimes, head bowed slightly, smiling, being taken out of a police cruiser with his hands cuffed behind his back. The headline said “GAMES KILLER KAUGHT: HAD HELP FROM GAL GHOST!” “—I've got crap like this all over the place, from England, I got a call from
Stern
, the West German rag, from
Playboy
wanting my story, from the Enquirer wanting anybody's story, the janitor, the guy who brings coffee around on a cart, anybody. Never mind the
Post
and
Daily News
guys are practically camped out in front of the building.”

He folded his hands, let his blood pressure subside, tried to look as reasonable as he could when his eyes met Brennan's again.

“So
please
don't tell me anything fucked-up, because I really don't think I can handle it.”

Brennan, who had stood patiently through this tirade, made sure Falconi was finished, then sat down.

“Afraid I have bad news for you on that.”

Falconi almost told the young man to leave. He would have, if Minkowski hadn't talked so highly of him after Brennan had called, begging to come in, begging to be let in to see Gary Gaimes. Minkowski was funny like that; there was almost no one else in his own field that he trusted, respected, or liked. Brennan was the first Falconi had ever seen who scored on all three counts. They had used some of Minkowski's approved colleagues before, and Mark had usually spoken, and briefly, about why he thought they should be brought in, but the mention of Ted Brennan drew from Minkowski the absolutely only rave Falconi had ever heard from the man.

“He's top-notch. He's not afraid to fuck with his peers. I knew him in school and know, I know because I saw with my own eyes, that Ted Brennan mastered everything in his field before moving on. He didn't find a comfortable cubbyhole to stick his ass into. He went looking for something beyond what was going on at the time. In the popular press, he sounds like a kook. But if you read the few journal pieces there have been about him—and, more important, if you read the few, very few pieces he himself has authored in the journals—you find absolutely nothing shoddy or obtuse about his work. He plays by the rules, Rich, and he stays solid inside the borders—even when what he's looking at lies outside any borders.” By now, Mark was pacing, talking to the four walls, waving his arms—a classic Minkowski lecture. “If you look at his early work, just out of school, you find nothing but brilliance. His studies of acute schizophrenia are masterful. They formed a groundwork for eight or nine much less talented drones to build solid careers on later. And he left it behind, because he had found out what he wanted to know. He could have stayed where he was and built his life out of any of that early work, but he didn't.”