Rhayven House (17 page)

     Sobering quickly, Toby said, “And did you ever consider she just might be fucking nuts?”

     “There is that, yes.”

     “Maybe all she wants is someone to put flowers on her grave, to remember her and to show respect.” Toby traced a finger round and round on his palm.

     Ian quickly covered his nose and mouth with his hand. “Holy heavens, what the blazes is that stench and where’s it coming from?”

     Wrinkling his own nose as he went to the windows and started throwing them open, he said, “It strikes me as a combination of nightshade and damnation. As for where it’s coming from, my guess is the guest of honor left behind her signature scent.” He sat down at the table again. “Hopefully, we can air the place out.”

     “It’s not a pleasant scent, I grant you, but it’s already dissipating. She must be in one of her moods.”

     Toby began to move his fingertip in a repeated circular pattern over the surface of the table. “Between desire and darkness lies the eternal abyss.”

     It made Ian stop and look at his friend. “Where did that come from?”

     “What?”

     “The line about darkness and desire.”

     Toby stopped tracing the circle pattern. He blew out a breathe and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

     “It sounded awfully literate.”

     “Maybe I picked it up from one of your books,” Toby said. “It sounds like something you’d come up with.”

     “I do have a way with words,” Ian admitted.

   
 
“Let's consider this experiment. I don't think it was nearly as successful as you'd anticipated.”

     “Why do you say that?”

     “She didn't tell us anything of any goddamned use,” Toby said. “Zip. Zilch. Zero.”

     “Not nada. She spoke to us.”

     “Weird riddles of Latin. Nothing useful. What are we supposed to learn from that?”

     “I don't have a clue, but at least it was a step in the right direction.”

~ ~ ~

     Later in the evening, after Toby had gone to bed and Ian had worked on his book, the ghost came into the room. It happened as soon as he'd turned off
Abigail
, the King Diamond CD. Ian felt her. Her entrance was heralded by a rather cold breeze, but not just any regular cold breeze. This one was accompanied by a slight ladylike giggle and Ian knew he was no longer alone.

     A chill nested between his shoulder blades, sending a tendril to curl around his spine. He fought off the urge to succumb to the chill.

     Sitting on the couch eating a bowl of his favorite maple flake and pecan cluster cereal, Ian felt her not only come in but seemingly peruse the room and walk around the couch, as if she was taking stock of the situation, feeling him out.

     “Hello,” he said around a mouthful of sweet flakes, not really expecting her to answer him, even if Belle had told him a séance wasn't totally necessary in order to have a conversation with a spirit. He felt like she wanted him to talk to her. “Are you feeling better?”

     A subtle flowery scent washed over him.

     “I'm glad,” he said, taking the scent to mean she was indeed feeling better. He leaned forward to gently set the bowl of cereal on the coffee table. “Allowing negativity to engulf you doesn't do you any good.”

     The scent intensified—which meant she must have been standing closer to him.

     “Is it my being here you object to?”

     A feathery light caress of his cheek. So it must not be him. Surely this visit could be interpreted to mean she didn't hate him, she might even like him—during a sane moment.             

     “I don't like to think you're tormented by remaining in this house. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

     The touch disappeared, replaced by a distinct suggestion of a giggle, like the one when she first entered the room. A chill pulsed slightly, making Ian shiver—perhaps caused by her movement. He wanted to reach out, to see if he could feel anything. His hand passed through the very cool air, touching nothing solid or even semi-solid. He pulled back.

     “Was it you who put the information in my head about the music you played the other night? And how in the world did you know about the music?”

     The flowery scent was nearly instantly replaced by a rotten smell.

     She suddenly spoke to him again.

    
Vengeance is better than they deserve.

     “Vengeance against whom?” Ian asked. “Who were the people who wronged you?”

    
My divine retribution.

     “For what they did to you?” He had no clue as to who did what to her, but it wasn't the best idea to anger her, especially when she was in such close proximity to him. No telling what she would or could do.

     More than ever, he believed everything happening in the house, the paranormal stuff, was the result of causality. Ian may not have known the original factor, the cause, but he knew the effect or the phenomenon—the haunting—because he was experiencing it.

     “What did they accuse you of doing?”

     No answer.

     Ian took a chance and asked, “What did they do to you?”             

     The scream erupted right by his left ear—a sudden gut-wrenching and terrifying release—and Ian let loose with a yelp of his own as he jumped up off the couch. It happened so fast his knee hit the coffee table, overturning the bowl, sending a mixture of cereal and soy milk across the glass. The spoon clattered to the floor.

     Ian stood looking down at the mess. He heard Toby running down the stairs.

     “Christ. You okay? What happened now?” his friend demanded before he came to a stop on the bottom step. “And are you bleeding?”

     “You should lead off with the bleeding question,” Ian said, walking out into the hallway.

     “Are you?”

     “Bleeding? No, but I'm not afraid to admit she managed to scare the bloody bejeezus out of me.” Ian looked up at his friend. “Bloodcurdling screams are called that for a reason. Definitely.”

     Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Toby stepped down from the bottom stair. “Hell of a way to wake up. You nearly induced a myocardial infarction.”

     “What are you complaining about? She damned near gave me the heart attack.” Ian filled Toby in on what had transpired.

     Toby took it all in. “Are you ready to pack up and haul ass out of here now?”

     “No. I want to see if anything else happens tonight,” Ian almost shouted.

     “Okay.” Toby shrugged. “I'm awake now, might as well stay up and see if she makes herself known again.”

~ ~ ~

     The chill didn't leave Ian, not even a few hours after the ghost frightened him and left the room. Instead, it felt like it had worked its way down deep to his bones and curled up for a long stay. Goose bumps still plagued him, and he shivered as if he stood naked amidst a raging snowstorm and the frigidity had entwined his spine, squeezing for all it was worth.

     Toby sat up to keep him company for a while, but then his friend had given up the ghost—no pun intended—and went back to bed. Ian attempted to stay up in case another event took place. He tried jotting down notes for the non-fiction account Toby wanted him to write while the latest incident was fresh in his mind; the words kept blurring together and he gave up after finding himself dozing off.

     The temperature was cold enough for Ian to turn the heat on before he went to bed. He reached out and flipped the little switch on the thermostat as he walked by, and heard the furnace in the basement rumble to life.

     Stifling a yawn, Ian went upstairs and crawled into his big bed.

~ ~ ~

     The sound of his bedroom door opening—the brief, hesitant squeak of the old hinges—pulled Ian from a nice dream where he was accepting an award for one of his books.

    
Who?

     Opening up his eyes, he looked. Through the haze of sleep, he recognized Toby standing in the doorway, light from the hall illuminating him from behind in an almost ethereal manner.

     “What's the matter?” Ian asked.

     “Can't you feel it?” Toby came into Ian’s room and crawled into the bed, underneath the blankets, snuggling up against Ian's back, and wrapped his arms around him. “It’s fucking freezing in this house.”

     “The heat's on.” It felt colder than he'd expected, especially since he knew he'd turned the heat on. It felt like someone had turned the air conditioner on full blast and let it run for a few hours.

     “I checked the furnace; it is on. Warm downstairs, just cold up here.”

     Feeling Toby's bare chest pressed against his back, Ian shifted slightly—just enough to get comfortable—and maybe to keep Toby from feeling how hard his heart was thumping. Toby tightened his grip.

     “Give me enough space to breath,” Ian said, his voice muffled by the blanket.

     “You know something?” Toby asked quietly.

     Exhaling slowly, Ian pondered whether or not he wanted to know. Deciding he better ask, he said, “What?”

     “Too bad Edison never realized his idea of building the spirit communication apparatus back in the 1920s. If he had, we could use it to find out what’s up with the woman haunting your house.”

    
Edison’s spirit communication apparatus?
As he lay still, Ian searched his mind and couldn’t recall ever hearing anything about it before Toby mentioned it.

     Toby's rhythmic breathing against the back of his neck, told him his friend had quickly fallen asleep again. Ian laid there, eyes closed, for some odd reason thinking about the scene from an episode of
The Muppet Show
where Vincent Price was the special guest talking with Kermit the Frog about vampires—the one where Kermit grows fangs and bites into Price's throat.

     Ian played it over and over in his head until he forgot about being in the arms of Toby and slipped back into those of Morpheus.             

Eighteen

     The heating and air conditioner guy had come and gone, having reached the conclusion there was nothing wrong with the furnace, the blower, or the ducts, and it was working properly now. Ian chalked it up to ghostly intervention, wrote the guy a check for the service call, and walked him out.

     Exploring the basement might not have been the best idea Ian ever had, but he wanted to see where those doors over on the other side led. There was no better time than the present.

     There was electricity down there; however; the murky atmosphere of the basement seemed to suck the light out of existence. Ian was glad he'd brought down the big red LED flashlight. Even the light coming in through the couple windows looked dim.

     Two tall wood doors in the far wall of the basement securely locked in place by two big deadbolts, mutely beckoned Ian. He sprayed the deadbolts liberally with Locksmith Lubricant—advertised as a locksmith's best friend—and wrestled the bolts open.

     Stairs led down further into darkness. Into the earth. Right into a catacomb.

     And cobwebs. At least, he hoped they were only cobwebs and not the work of spiders, venomous spiders who'd spent hours spinning webs in the darkness. Skin crawling, Ian took a slow step forward. Just knowing there might be black widows or brown recluses scuttling in the shadows, made him want to turn around and run.

     Shining the light around as soon as he reached the bottom of the steps, Ian knew exactly what kind of cavern he stood in: a catacomb. The dried bodies lay in their final resting spots, placed there soon after they died.

     “Who else has a private burial ground under their house?” he whispered as he fought back the fear of seeing one of the old corpses move.

     As soon as he thought it, he wished it had never occurred to him.

     When the dead rose, it wasn’t like in any of the zombie films he’d ever seen. They made no guttural sounds, no hissing, no moaning of the damned, no hungry sucking noises. It was mostly silent, save for the sounds their bodies made, like the sound of their dried flesh scraping stone as they eased out of the alcoves in which they’d been interred. And came for him.

     The first—a woman with long, limp hair draped over what remained of her face—slid from the ledge and reached for Ian. Her left leg buckled beneath her and she fell; he heard the crack when the bone broke as she hit the floor. He kept the beam of light on her. She dragged herself forward with her desiccated arms, fragile fingers snapping off, getting closer and closer to where Ian stood watching in disgust.

     A man rose next. Ian swung the flashlight beam in his direction. The man’s papier-mâché-like skin stretched across his skull and twisted what remained of his lips into an abortion of a smile, exposing the ruins of his teeth. His dried eyelids opened, exposing empty sockets—both eyes long shriveled and turned to dust. One socket wasn’t quite empty. Movement inside the optical cavern. A spider emerged and dropped from the man’s cheekbone. The man did not stumble or fumble; instead, he moved cautiously, as if emulating a jaguar stalking its prey.

     Rustling sounds echoed softly.

     Slight shifts.

     More of the corpses moved, vacating their resting places. Pointing the flashlight, he saw men and woman, some leathery, dry, and obviously long-dead, others decades dead but still retaining semblances of life. Ian pointed the beam of the flashlight back to the first woman, using arms now worn down to the wrists, to drag herself across the stone floor.

     Ian heard her voice in his head.
My protectors
, she said.
They failed to save me the night of my murder, but I am able to control them better now, and they shall serve me again.

     He wouldn’t stand a chance if they swarmed him. Sheer numbers would overwhelm him. Men and women who should have been resting peacefully in cemeteries, were instead forced into servitude, placed in a catacomb beneath the family home after…being sacrificed in an ancient rite?

     “You said your family never spilled blood!” he screamed.

    
No.
Her voice again.
Not sacrifices. An honor. They were rewarded for loyalty, for special service to the family in life. The honor was placed upon them to continue serving us in death.

     “Some reward,” he said.

    
And now they serve me again. Resurrected in the name of vengeance.

     His eyes searched for an opening. If he could go back the way he came, he’d be able to barricade the door in the basement that led to the catacomb. He needed a weapon. The weight of the big red flashlight in his hand registered with him. It was heavy and might do the trick. Adrenaline surged and he swung the flashlight, smashing it into the face of the man. The weak bone collapsed under the blow and the man spun sideways. Ian pushed past him, fled from the catacomb, and climbed the stairs.

     Back in the basement proper, and fueled by adrenaline, he put the flashlight on the floor and strong-armed the big doors shut and shot the deadbolts into place—thankful they slid smoothly now. No telling what would have happened if he'd gotten caught by the hungry horde.

     Leaning against the locked doors, the adrenaline started to ebb. His heart thundered in his chest, nearly drowning out any other noise. Scratching. On the other side of the door. Ian turned and pressed himself against the wood. The doors were thick and heavy, but the sound of scratching vibrated through. The reanimated remains had followed him.

     Ian thought of the dozens of alcoves he’d seen in the catacomb and wondered how many of the loyal minions had been reanimated. Would they possess enough strength to break down the doors or would the more fragile ones break apart themselves?

     He backed away from the doors, grateful to be some place wired for electricity. The light looked brighter now and made him feel better, more centered.

     And he was very thankful to be out of reach of the resurrected dead.

    
Not real
, he told himself.
Not real at all. An illusion conjured up by the lunatic bitch to mess with his mind.

     The scratching stopped.

     Even though he was one hundred percent sure it was nothing more than a trick, no way in hell was he going to open the door and check.

     Shunning the basement seemed to be an acceptable solution, as opposed to running the risk of enduring any further zombie encounters—even if they were merely mindfucks created by the bi-polar ghost. At this point, he believed there most likely wasn't even a catacomb behind the doors. She'd just made him see what she wanted him to see.

     Slipping and falling against an old set of shelves, Ian pulled himself back up as the shelving collapsed, spilling everything to the floor. A little wood box, its lid carved with imagery, caught his attention. He picked it up, opened it, and looked inside. The silver-framed mirror and the piece of crystal on a rather delicate chain inside—innocuous items in and of themselves—made him wonder why it had been basically hidden away at the back of a shelf down in the basement.

     He stared at it.

     The answer came to him and he knew what he held in his hands. He had to show it to Toby, so he headed back upstairs to find his friend.

~ ~ ~

     “Why exactly were you in the basement?” Toby asked after Ian told him what had happened.

     Ian wanted to smack his palm against his friend's forehead like people did in the
V-8
drink commercials. “Looking for answers.”

     “And you think you'll find them in the basement?”

     “If you're going to cry, do your crying in the rain,” Ian advised, and then shrugged. “I guess it makes perfect sense in a strange sort of way.”

     “Cryptic clues?”

     Ian shook his head. “In other words, hiding in plain sight. The answers are here in this house. I can almost taste them and I'm going to unearth them.”

     “Legend had it the hearth is the heart of the house. In Celtic tradition it's
ty teallach; i
n Latin it was
focus.
If you curse the hearth, you curse the whole house.” Toby ran his hand along the mantle of the fireplace. “You didn't happen to find a dried-up human heart stuck with thorns and pins in this one during the reno, did you?”

     “You made that up. You’re a fountain of info erupting at the oddest times. I've never heard it before.”

     Crossing his heart, Toby swore it was a real saying.

     “My grandmother on my father's side had all kinds of phrases from the old country.”

     Ian thought about it. “If the hearth is the heart of the house, what is its soul?”

     “Good question. I don't think my grandmother had a saying about that. You want me to go down and check out the potential zombie threat?” Toby offered. “I don't have any issue with going down there.”

     Ian shook his head. “I'm almost positive the whole thing was a mind trick.”

     “Better to be safe than sorry, as the saying goes. It'll only take me a couple minutes.”

     Knowing he wouldn't be able to talk his friend out of it, Ian gave in. “Hurry up.”

     “If you hear me scream real loud, run for your life,” Toby said in his best Rod Serling voice as he walked away.

     “Not funny,” Ian called after him.

     Ian waited in the kitchen. Toby wouldn't find anything because there wasn't anything to find. He was certain of that. After only a couple minutes, he heard Toby coming back up the stairs.

     “No zombies behind those doors. Not even a catacomb. Only some closet space. You were right—it was another one of her weird tricks,” Toby said, sounding disappointed. “I didn't find anything.”

     “But look what I found.” Ian held up the box and opened the lid. “I knew there was more to this story than meets the eye.”

     Upon seeing the old carved box with a mirror and crystal pendant inside, Toby asked, “What is it? An old coke cutting kit?”

     “It’s an antique scrying set,” Ian answered.

     “How the hell do you know that?” Toby asked. “What does scrying mean?”

     “It means '
to see
.' She must have thought she was a medium or else she was trying to contact someone on the other side,” Ian said, “and this was obviously her method of communication.

     “So you think she was into witchcraft? Practicing dark arts?”

     “Not necessarily.” Ian took the crystal pendant from the box, held it up into the light, and watched the colors dance. “There are practices a lot of people automatically assume are part of the craft, but that doesn't necessarily make it so. She could have easily been Christian and still have been part of the Spiritualist movement that began back in the late 1800s.”

     Toby's mouth gaped. “You discerned all that from one box?”

     “Giving you
what ifs
is entirely different than me knowing for real.” Ian caressed the side of the box with his left hand.

     “Everything is supposition, except for a few vague comments you got straight from her. This is driving me bat shit crazy and I haven't been dealing with it as much as you have. How sure are you we can actually do something to help her or to put an end to this?”

     “As sure as I am the Kraken is Cthulhu's pet and favorite minion,” Ian said. He tapped his temple with the forefinger of his left hand. “Think about that for a second.”

     “I think you've gone up around the bend and I'm just now noticing it,” Toby said.

     “I've always been a little off-kilter. It's part of my charm.” Ian grinned. “Maybe part of my better qualities. But seriously, this is maddening—I don't know where to get any more information. It's like whatever took place here never happened. There are no records. A dead end.”

     “Then what do you suggest we do next? If you can't find anything more online or in the courthouse, what makes you think you can learn anything more?”

     Toby's question was appropriate. “I really think she will either tell me or show me,” Ian finally answered. “I believe she is on the cusp of revealing her story to me.”

     The look Toby gave him said more than a thousand words.

     “I can't explain, other than to say it's a feeling I'm getting from her.”

     “Far be it from me to call you out on your craziness, and you know I'm here if you need me,” Toby said, “but keep your wits about you and don't be falling into the abyss of insanity. I'd hate to have to commit your ass to a lunatic asylum.”

     “You know nobody calls them that anymore.”

     “I know, and I also know why they called them that in the first place.” He stuck out his tongue at Ian in a manner reminiscent of an impudent child. Toby tapped the side of his head with a forefinger “There's all kinds of information floating around in here. You'd be surprised.”