The Haunting of Beacon Hill Page 12

  Sadie wasn't willing to risk her safety attempting an ascent, but she reached out and touched the dust-heavy bannister and even leaned on the bottom-most step while trying to look into the level above. She craned her slight neck, looked up into the sunlit craters in the roof and watched as dust motes circulated in the feeble golden glow. The steps were many, and half-way up there seemed to be a landing, but it was difficult to make out much more from her present position. After a brief hesitation, she climbed another step, clinging to the grime-slick bannister and straining her gaze upward.

  “Sadie, I wouldn't keep going if I were you,” warned August. “Those steps might not be safe. And the floor up there—”

  She shushed him with an outstretched hand and climbed the third step, bracing herself against a solid bit of wall. She was, she hoped, the lighter of the two of them, and some degree of exploration was necessary to ensure Ophelia hadn't gone up there. Perched carefully on this third step, scanning the upper level as best she could, she called out for the girl in a weak, wavering voice. “Ophelia? Y-You up there?” By the frail daylight issuing from above, Sadie studied the next few steps. If the girl had gone up to the second story then surely she'd have left some trace—footprints, breaks in the dust—behind. As best she could tell, no such signs existed. She looked back up again, standing nearly on tip-toe, and prepared to call out one last time.

  She stopped short, however. From the upper level, she found her gaze reciprocated.

  From a bleak recess several feet above, something leered back down at her from within the shadows. A pale, ovoid countenance descended from a muddled, inky physique that blended in effortlessly with the shadows of this upper story nook. As though it were a living mold using the house for a substrate, thick, ropey tendrils of blackness had taken root throughout the crumbling walls and from this quivering heap the face drooped—waggled—downward in a slug-like inspection of the newcomer. Thin, black slits for eyes were thrust open; lips were parted to reveal an open, circular mouth. Nothing filled these open spaces in the milk-white face that could answer for organs of sight or taste, though. Only a swarming, jittering and buzzing lived there, as of ten thousand black flies crammed into the dimensions of a human skull.

  Sadie lost her footing and slipped, landing on her knees. The stairwell seized and squealed beneath her. She lurched back to her feet, holding onto the bannister with such tightness that it shifted slightly out of place, and looked once more to the dim upper story.

  Thin bands of sunlight wormed their way through the cracks in the walls and ceiling. Circular water stains marred large portions of the remaining plaster and a lonesome spider idled on its thread, legs twitching. The thing—if it had been there at all—was gone.

  “You OK?” asked August, taking hold of her arm and leading her down the stairs.

  She pulled away from him, smoothed her hair back a few times. “I'm fine,” she choked out, though there was no hiding the terror in her eyes, nor the paleness of her face. She stood at the foot of the stairs, pawing at her forearms.

  “Did... did something happen?” August stepped gingerly onto the bottom step and waved the light around.

  “I don't think it was Ophelia that I saw in the window,” was all she managed before retreating a few paces from the stairwell.

  “You saw... something else, then?” He stepped back down, canvassing the steps for a moment. “There's no sign that anyone's used these steps in awhile, so I doubt she's up there. Let's hurry through the rest of the ground floor and then get the hell out of here, yeah?” He signaled the way forward with a nudge of the flashlight. “Let's keep down this hall and then we can back-track, search the rooms down the other side of the fork. Sound good?”

  Nothing about this visit struck her as particularly good. There was something in this house—something malevolent. From afar it had stirred in one of the windows innocently enough, beckoning from within the darkness at her. A lure had thus been cast and she and August had been stupid enough to take the bait. The thing in this house—whatever name it might go by—wasn't like the others she'd seen throughout her life. It was more repellant somehow, more viscerally frightening and plainly malefic. And like a fool, she'd stepped onto its turf.

  The terminus of the long hall delivered the pair into another massive room, and like the first the dimensions were a tricky thing to pin down in the thick darkness. The scent of decay was more profound here than in previous sections of the house, and an unsettling rustle, as of vermin in flight, broke out the moment they set foot in it. Here and there the floors sagged beneath their feet precariously, the planks bowing and springing in their timeworn placements. Their steps became slower, more cautious.

  August groped about the new room for a time and then halted. “Damn it, this was a bad idea. We should have brought a brighter light. It's so dark—and this place is so huge—we might be overlooking all kinds of rooms or hiding places. We need a lot more light and a friggin' map in order to search this place properly.”

  A low, slow creak sounded in the room and a barely-perceptible vibration traveled through the floor as someone took a measured step.

  Someone yet buried in this endless mire of shadow.

  August stood fully upright, whipping the flashlight all around him. “D-Did you hear that?” he asked Sadie under his breath.

  Indeed she had heard; the disembodied step had registered from somewhere close-by. She had felt the board beneath her very foot swell with added tension at the sound of it. Sadie leaned closer to him, her green eyes shaking in their sockets as they fought to analyze the darkness. Maybe it's her. Maybe it's Ophelia, she thought. “Ophelia?” She paused and sucked in a hasty breath. “Is... is that you?”

  What came next, August was fortunate enough not to hear. The reply that floated in from the surrounding darkness—from very near indeed—was Sadie's burden alone to bear, and the fact that August remained oblivious told her at once who that voice was coming from.

  A throaty groan was its opening syllable—a pained noise whose tortured transit from the gut was felt almost as much as it was heard. Still another sound of this kind followed it, and another, like links in a chain, punctuated only by the crackling wheeze of rickety lungs. Sadie was hearing a species of low, infernal laughter, and it grew more delirious and forceful with every mocking peal. Ah-ah-ah-AH-AH-AH! From nearby there came the scent and weight of gangrenous breath, puffing out from unseen lips with each glottal guffaw.

  “It's not her,” spat Sadie, taking up a fistful of August's shirt. She shook him and took a step back. Like a noxious gas, the laughter rose up and filled the empty space with a cacophony of jagged echoes. “It's not her!” she repeated, tugging him in the direction of the hall.

  “Huh?” August nearly tripped over his own feet in trying to balance himself. “W-What's the matter?”

  She gave him a shove and began searching desperately for the hall. The wild, sucking laughter didn't cease, didn't slow. It filled Sadie's ears till she felt its every note ricocheting through the hollows of her skull. Half-blind, she ran over the rumbling floors, hands out in front of her, and tried to find the entrance to the hallway. She succeeded only when the far-off sun-dappled shape of the stairwell flickered into view in the distance. August was trailing some steps behind her, flashing the light in hysterical ellipses and attempting to figure out what had sent her running.

  No sooner had the duo burst back into the hall did the vast room to their back return to silence. The racket dropped off instantaneously, and however frightening the laughter had been, its sudden cessation proved somehow more unnatural and terrifying. Sadie gasped and coughed in the dusty corridor, galloped across the quivering boards and reached the foot of the stairs with a loud thump. August crashed into her and the two of them flopped across the lower steps, twitching like animals caught in a snare.

  “Sadie, what the hell is going on?” August regained his feet, canvassing both ends of the hall with the flashlight and then glaring down at her expect
antly. “Did you see something in there? Come on, talk to me!”

  She proffered her mealy-mouthed explanation when she'd finally drawn in sufficient breath. “There's something in this house,” she panted, red in the face.

  “Yeah?” replied August. “What is it?” He did another sweep of the hall and tossed his shoulders. “I can't see it, help me out here.”

  Sadie slowly rose to her haunches, then, shuddering violently, stood to her full height. “It isn't Ophelia. It's... It's...” She inhaled through her nose, rubbing at her face and leaving streaks of dust behind on her ruddy cheeks. “We need to leave. Whatever it is, it's...” Rather than stand and lecture on the nature of the thing, she took off from the stairwell and hooked a tight right, starting back the way they'd initially entered.

  August couldn't help looking over his shoulder as they back-tracked, but the frown he wore telegraphed no little annoyance. “But, I... I haven't seen anything! Are you sure it's—”

  “Yes, I'm sure,” she spat out, breaking into a jog. August was scarcely able to keep the path lit as she raced down the hall. When they reached the fork, she turned, giving the other branch of the lower level a momentary glance—and in that moment she glimpsed something that made her dig in her heels and stop.

  “Damn it, Sadie!” August only narrowly avoided bowling her over.

  This new hallway was somewhat brighter than the rest of the house; numerous rooms lined the stretch, and the windows within each chamber admitted light enough to spill out through the doorways. Though dreary, the bulk of this passage could be traveled without a flashlight.

  Something in this lit section of the house had stirred the moment she'd glanced down it—seemingly darted just out of sight into one of the many open doorways. It had seemed like a lone figure, moving with a normal stride, though she'd experienced so much in this house that she didn't feel she could trust herself. It wasn't until she heard a voice cry out from that same distant doorway that she came to believe in what she'd seen.

  “Hello? Is anyone there?” called a voice from down the hall. It was high and youthful; feminine. “Can anyone hear me?”

  Sadie's pause at the end of this unexplored hall lengthened as she dissected the voice. It sounded to her like Ophelia's, but she couldn't be certain. “August,” she whispered, “does that sound like Ophelia to you?”

  From deep in the house, the girlish voice came again—this time, tinged with panicked sobs. “Is anyone there? Please, answer me!”

  She ventured a step down the hall, looking to August. “Well? What do you think?”

  August, though, fixed her with an incredulous gaze. He frowned, eyes narrow. “Does what sound like Ophelia? What're you talking about?”

  Terror gripped her heart. Sadie surrendered her ingress down the hall and turned once more to the familiar path leading to the front entrance of the house. “Y-You can't hear it?” she asked. When August shook his head, she knew that could mean only one thing. “It's trying to lure us down there,” she muttered, resuming her trek toward the exit. August joined her, thrusting the light an arm's length ahead of him to ensure the path was clear. Finally, they entered into the great foyer and the glowing arch of the door came into view.

  The two of them wasted no time in making a mad dash for it.

  And then, within seconds, they were out in the sunshine again, back to the untamed greenery of forlorn Beacon Hill.

  Sadie started out quickly for the edge of the hill, cradling herself in her arms and grappling with the urge to look over her shoulder, to reappraise the shadow-bound house. She said nothing, but whimpers gathered in her throat as she went, fidgeting and wincing.

  August, too, was silent—except for one request as they began their descent of the hill. “Do me a favor. Pretend you're Lot's wife. Don't look back, OK?”

  She succeeded until they'd made it all the way to the foot of the hill and some yards beyond. When she finally turned to look at the house once more, it had been reduced to a curious gray smear on the horizon.

  15

  “She isn't here.” Rosie paused as if she meant to have another look around the house. “And you two didn't have any luck?”

  “No,” replied Sadie, forehead pressed to the passenger side window of August's Honda. The engine was running and outside, well into the distance, stood the dark hulk they'd escaped from a mere ten minutes before. “There was no sign of her.”

  “I see... Well, you two wanted to talk to Ophelia's friends, right? I can have Joey and Leslie come by if you're game.” She chuckled sheepishly. “I'm sorry, I know I've asked so much of you already.”

  “It's fine,” said Sadie. “We can come by. We're both off today. Talking to Ophelia's friends might clear some things up.”

  “OK, great. Do you still remember how to get here?”

  Sadie laughed. Rosie's place sat next-door to the house where she and her grandparents had lived. Though she hadn't gone for a drive through the old neighborhood in the years since they'd passed, Sadie couldn't have forgotten the way there if she'd tried. “Of course. We'll be there soon.”

  When Sadie had cut the line, August—having gotten the gist of their destination while listening in on the call—threw the car into drive and coasted off the gravel lot. “So, back to the old house, eh?” He scratched at his wild hair and picked a small nub of plaster from his scalp. “Before we get there, I want to apologize. We didn't plan this whole thing too well. I shouldn't have just volunteered us when Rosie asked. And you were right; it would have been safer to have the cops scope out the house instead. I don't know why I thought we could handle it with this.” He gave the little flashlight a shake and then dropped it into a cup holder. “Next time we go in there, we're going to have to be better prepared.”

  Sadie shot him a foul look. “Next time? Are you on drugs? There isn't going to be a next time, August. That place is...” She shook her head and stared up at the car ceiling. “We're out of our depth. There's nothing we can do to help the girl after all. Having gone into the house and seen what's in there...” She closed her eyes and trailed off.

  “Right, but you could see something in there. Something that I couldn't. And you heard stuff, too. It would appear you're more useful to a case like this one than the average bear, even if we don't know how to play into your strengths.” He rolled his window down all the way, patting the dust from his shirt as he approached a stop sign. “Speaking of which... what did you see? What's going on in that house that us normal folk aren't privy to?”

  She declined to answer at first, instead pretending like she hadn't heard the question. Then, looking herself over in the passenger side mirror—and palming away some of the dust she'd carried away on her sweaty brow—she summarized the horrors of Beacon Hill thusly: “Something terrible lives in that house, and it was trying to lure us.”

  “It wanted to lure us, huh?” August whistled. “What for?”

  “I don't know,” she replied. “In case you didn't notice, I wasn't exactly chatting with the thing.” She pursed her lips and tried chasing out the images parading through her mind. For a minute or two she watched the unkempt fields roll by, focused on the blue, nigh-cloudless sky. “It wasn't a ghost,” was what she eventually mustered when her thoughts had gelled. “At least, not the usual kind. And it's not the first time I've seen it.”

  He arched a brow and waited for her to continue.

  “I saw it in the hospital, while visiting Ophelia,” she said. “I don't know what it is, but it isn't like most of the other ghosts I've seen. Usually, when I see a spirit, it looks more or less like a normal person. The face might be all wrong, or the spirit might behave strangely, but... The thing in that house struck me as something altogether different. It had a face, but it wasn't just some shadowy figure standing there in the dark, waving to me. It was... distorted, seemed to be one with the darkness. Does that make sense?” She went to chew her nails but found the taste of the house still dwelt on her fingertips and she heaped her hands in her l
ap instead. “It was darker, more frightening than what I'm used to. Twisted.”

  “And you think this is what's gotten into Ophelia?” concluded August.

  She nodded. “It seems likely.”

  “Is that possible, though? Could it be inside the girl and remain in the house?”

  “You're asking questions I don't have the answers to,” replied Sadie. “Who's to say what's possible? This is uncharted territory for me.” The landscape outside her window was becoming familiar now. She recognized the bright red sign of a particular gas station, the blue and yellow roof of a video rental store she'd once patronized, the bank where she'd opened her first checking account...

  It was hard to believe that only a few years ago this stretch of road had been an almost daily sight for her. She picked out other familiar tidbits in the scenery: The rusted mailbox still sat outside the convenience store; a cluster of shabby condos still jutted out into the rear of a laundromat; another hundred feet ahead she spied the Chinese buffet where she'd first attempted to use chopsticks. She was on her way home.

  The thought made her wince. No, this wasn't home for her anymore. Everyone that had made it home was dead and gone now. Home was a stuffy one-bedroom apartment. Home was her ragged papasan chair, her stacks of half-finished books. This was just a literal stroll down memory lane.

  Sadie hadn't been prepared to turn onto South Street. August hooked a gentle right and then slowed further as he began through the quiet succession of well-kept lawns and fuel-efficient family cars. She noted the house numbers as they went; did Mr. and Mrs. Wesley still live at 844, and if so, how was their cat, Dean, doing? And what about the Robertsons at 850; had they managed to work things out or had the Chrysler in the driveway been paid for with alimony money? Children she didn't recognize ran through a sprinkler at 853; she supposed that meant old Mr. Halstead had moved on.