Malefic Read online

  So involved were we in a discussion about local fishing that I nearly overlooked an interesting landmark that popped up on my return journey. Smack-dab between a number of houses on Morgan Road was a small and ancient-looking graveyard. It sat only a short walk from Joseph's place. “Say,” I asked the driver, “what's the story there?”

  “Oh, the graveyard?” he asked, clearing his throat. “It's real old. I don't think anyone's been buried there since before I was born. Surprised the grass has been mowed—in the days before this neighborhood got fixed up, it looked like a real mess over there.”

  “I see. Tell me more about this street. I understand it was pretty sparse for awhile? That most of the houses were falling apart and abandoned?”

  “That's right.” Larry cracked his window for a bit of fresh air. “It looks nice now, but for twenty or thirty years this spot was pretty much a no man's land. I remember taking this street as a shortcut in the 90's—when I was a teenager with a newly-minted license, and I tell ya, it was spooky. Crack houses, illegal parties, you name it. A real dive. They did a good thing when they came through and started building, though. These new houses are a little bland for my taste, but at least the meth labs are gone.”

  I couldn't argue with that. Larry dropped me off at the curb and I set him up with a good tip. I appreciated our chat all the more because I knew precisely what awaited me inside the house.

  The moment I passed through the door with my armful of groceries I was reacquainted with that maddening silence.

  It's nonsensical to talk of a house in this way—and considering the nature of my work there, probably irresponsible—but I got the impression that the building was holding its breath. The air was unsettled, unnaturally tense. Imagine walking into a house where friends have gathered to throw you a surprise birthday party. The atmosphere was similarly weighted with expectancy, but as yet the celebrants were still lying in wait.

  I crept into the living room as though it were a lion's den. Every corner was inspected for misshapen shadows. I made certain every piece of furniture was in its proper place. too. Finding nothing awry, I finally lowered my guard and shuffled to the kitchen to begin shelving my purchases.

  Something was going to happen in this house, I could feel it in the air.

  But it wasn't going to happen yet.

  The house wouldn't tip its hand until after dark. Of that I felt confident.

  It was early, too early for a respectable person to start drinking, but I eyed the newly-purchased bottles of wine anyhow. My afternoon was likely to entail a lot of sitting, waiting and listening for aberrancy, and I could think of nothing better to break up the monotony of such a day than a touch of vino. I had to wait also for Constance to get back to me. Finding a solution to any potential haunting hinged on her intel. Though, by the look of things, I'd be waiting awhile.

  Before treating myself to a glass of wine, I hiked upstairs and checked on my notebook. I flipped through the thing hopefully, in search of fresh correspondence.

  There were no new messages, though.

  Deflated, I went looking for a corkscrew.

  Eight

  Stretched out on the sofa, I listened for sounds outside of the norm. There was no throaty moaning, no rattling of chains to be heard however; just me, a half-empty bottle of sauvignon blanc and a gibbering television.

  When Joseph and I had first spoken, I'd gotten the impression that this was a veritable house of horrors—that a heart-stopping fright lurked around every corner. The fact that it was a rather ordinary house was almost disappointing.

  There was one thing that did unnerve me, though—a thing which I repeatedly scolded myself for fixating on.

  In the wall to the right of me was the hole Megan had made the night before with her hammer blows. It was small, an inch or so in diameter, and almost perfectly round. When glimpsed in my periphery, I couldn't help thinking it a dark eye embedded directly into the drywall. And then, whenever I stared into the little peephole, I'd find myself picturing the dark recess behind, and my mind would populate the inner wall with all kinds of vague horrors. The more I paid attention to the hole, the more I wondered whether I was being watched through it. This was ludicrous, clearly. A man of my age should have been ashamed at such imaginings.

  Such was my discomfort that I considered patching it up myself, however. I wondered if Joseph had a jar of spackling paste tucked away somewhere and went so far as to rummage around in the downstairs closets in search of some. Coming up empty-handed, I decided to leave the living room altogether.

  More out of listlessness than proper hunger, I made myself a small lunch at around two in the afternoon. A bit of salad and a tin of sardines in olive oil went down easy alongside more wine. Unable to find anything interesting on television, I spent time leafing through my leather journal and ended up writing a note to Constance as I sometimes did when bored or lonely. Whether she was in any position to read my ramblings I couldn't say. For all I knew, the presence in the house persisted in harassing her. Nevertheless, I wrote.

  Do you remember, my love, the time we housesat for Ron and Dolores Jarvis? In Tampa? That's what this situation feels like at present. A big, empty house and nothing to do. I've been seated in the living room, anticipating aberrancy that hasn't materialized.

  That time in Tampa, on the water, you decided to try your hand at baking something new and difficult—what was it? German chocolate cake? It's been so long... At any rate, the kitchen was unfamiliar, the right ingredients were hard to come by and I recall that the thing ended up a lump of charcoal. When Ron and Dolores returned two days later they were surprised to find that the house still reeked of burnt baked goods.

  That's a stupid memory for me to waste precious ink on, isn't it?

  I chuckled in spite of myself. I hadn't noticed it in the moment, but the corners of my eyes had grown damp. I wiped at them hurriedly.

  It's during these especially quiet times that I miss you most, I think. It's hard to believe that there was a time when such silences were unknown to me. My days were filled with work. It was always the same—a blur of operations, dictation, consulting. You deserved more than I gave you—I should have been more present. I wasn't around enough, too busy chasing overtime. Maybe if I had been around, then I could have done something about—”

  I stopped myself there. I considered, too, crossing out the entire thing, or ripping the page from the book. It was a stupid note and I regretted writing it.

  Forgive me, Constance. Your husband is getting to be an old dolt. Sometimes the loneliness gets the better of me. You should have seen me last night at dinner with Joseph and his family, beating back those old nostalgic aches. I'm embarrassed. And I'm worried, too. You haven't written me back all day. I hope to hear from you soon, and pray that everything is all right. Would that you were here in more than spirit, love. I rather think you'd enjoy this sauvignon blanc.

  I decided an exploration of the neighborhood was in order. It was important that I become a bit more familiar with the area and soak up some of the local color. I took off without a destination in mind just as the sun began to dip. Having spent so much of the day inside, sitting, my legs were glad for the trek.

  My feet led me as far as the old cemetery—a thing I'd subconsciously fixated on during my ride back from the store—and I spent some time wandering between the rows of crumbling stones. Virtually none were legible, the writing long-effaced by the punishment of untold winters. A pair of neighborhood boys were seated in the grass near the entrance to the graveyard, playing with toy cars, and the two of them constituted just about the most interesting thing in sight thereabouts.

  Where memorial statues remained, age had lent them somberness. Angels, once cherubic, took on a mournful cast for the pummeling of the seasons. Carved headstones, once ornate, were reduced to blurry slabs of rock more akin to something melting in the background of a Dali painting. It was all a very sorry sight, and I wasn't far into my exploration of the spot befor
e my interest in it evaporated.

  The houses surrounding the lot of tottering monuments were all new, practically identical constructions. Recalling what the cab driver, Larry, had told me about the neighborhood's past, I tried visualizing what that very spot must have looked like twenty—or even ten—years previous.

  These meditations reminded me of Joseph's house, and of the fact that roughly a decade ago its last owner had allegedly abandoned it. Who had owned the house and why had they washed their hands of it? There was probably an easy way to figure out the who; the why was anyone's guess. Perhaps the previous owner had regretted his purchase; realized too late that the entire neighborhood was in a downturn at the time and cut his losses.

  Leaving the gravestones behind, I got to thinking about ghosts. Specifically, the ghosts that were soon to begin stirring at Joseph's.

  What lurked in that house, and how long had it been there? These were important questions that needed answering, and up to this point Constance had supplied me with nothing but vague, gut-clenching dread. In order for me rid the house of any phantoms, I'd have to know a thing or two about how they'd gotten there in the first place. When I'd learned that, I could find a way to cut their anchors.

  The first ghost Constance and I had ever dealt with had been the spirit of a man murdered in the early 1900s; a man who'd been buried in an unmarked grave. A strip mall had been built atop this mound of bones, and when the manager of a new cigar shop in said mall—of which I was a customer—began reporting strange apparitions, I offered to look into the matter.

  By that time, contact between Constance and myself had been normalized, and I asked for her help in resolving the haunting that so unnerved the owner of the shop. I was allowed to enter the building after dark, and utilizing Constance as a kind of bloodhound and translator, I was able to find the spirit and communicate with it. The spirit had told its tale of woe, and at discovering the whereabouts of his remains, I was able to inform the shopkeeper and arrange for a proper burial, upon which all supernatural activity promptly ceased and my lifetime cigar discount began.

  The next time I surfaced from my thoughts, I found the sky darkening and the breeze scented with night.

  It was time to head back.

  Nine

  The pager is going off again.

  A tension headache is brewing.

  Traffic is terrible.

  Another red light.

  My eyes are burning. It's been twenty-three hours since I last slept.

  No, twenty-five.

  What's it matter? It's been too damn long.

  The light's green and people are honking now. For a second there I'd drifted off.

  Now I'm turning onto my street, and I can't remember how I got there. There's a blank space between point A and point B.

  I glimpse myself in the rearview. You look awful.

  The pager chirps a second time.

  I glance down at it.

  It can wait.

  Rolling into the driveway now, throwing the car into park.

  There's a bottle of scotch waiting for me inside.

  I wonder for the first time in hours what Constance has been up to as I shove the door open.

  “It's been a hell of a day,” I mutter as I open the door. “How are things on the home front, dear?”

  And then I catch sight of her.

  She's sprawled out on the kitchen floor.

  She isn't moving; looks as though she hasn't moved in quite some time.

  Her face is whiter than the bone china she'd set out for tea.

  The kettle on the stove has run through its water and is half-way to becoming molten.

  Her eyes are glass.

  “Constance!”

  I shake her. She's limp.

  “Constance!”

  Her skin feels clammy.

  I give her another shake. “Constance!”

  She falls apart at the seams like a doll, and cotton spills from the torn edges.

  Cotton spills across the floor.

  The kettle turns black; the stove erupts.

  There's something crawling towards me from the next room.

  Blue arms and legs dangling loosely from shattered joints.

  It inches like a worm.

  It's got two holes for eyes, and when it opens its mouth to scream, a torrent of white fluff spills forth.

  Its voice is the shrill whine of a smoke detector.

  I awoke with a gasp, eyes nearly sealed shut with mist. Easing myself up from the sofa, I took to pacing around the living room, now painted heavily with night. So heavy was the pounding of my heart in my ears that I nearly missed the noisy vibrations coming from my phone. I fetched it from the kitchen counter and brought it to my ear, sounding like quite the mess. “Erm... hello?”

  “Hey, Uncle Marcel, it's me.”

  “Joseph.” I leaned against the sink and waited until I was confident the terror was gone from my voice. “H-How are things, lad?”

  “We're good,” he replied, his tone marred with concern. “What's wrong? Did something happen?”

  Finally, I exhaled and rubbed at my eyes. “No, no, all is well on the home front. Old fart that I am, I was dozing when you rang and the phone gave me a fright. Never mind that; how's the resort?”

  Joseph chuckled. “It's great. Megan and I have barely left the water park since we arrived, and Melissa took the afternoon to visit the spa. When time comes to leave I'll have to drag them out kicking and screaming.”

  “I'm glad to hear it,” I said. “I'm happy to report that things have been rather uneventful on my end. I picked up some groceries and went for a little stroll. Walked through that old graveyard. Kind of shabby-looking. They ought to relocate the bodies and pave over the thing. I'm sure it's not great for property values.”

  “Ah, yeah. I'm not a fan of that graveyard.” Joseph paused. “Sometimes, when you drive by it after dark...” He trailed off. “Never mind.”

  “What is it?” I asked. “Have you noticed anything about the graveyard?”

  “Just that it's eerie,” he replied. “I mean, sometimes, late at night, the tombstones kind of look like people. It's a reminder of just how broken down the whole neighborhood was, once upon a time. I'm with you. I wish they'd tear it down or something.”

  “Well, at any rate, I'm glad to hear you're enjoying yourselves. What were you calling about, lad? Just checking up on me?” I asked with a grin.

  “I guess you could say that. I just don't know if it's the best idea—your staying in the house. If you want, I could come back there and stay with you so you're not alone. Melissa and Megan could hang out here, and—”

  “Don't even think about it,” I shot back. “What did I tell you before you left? Have some fun with your family! I appreciate the concern, really I do, but I can take care of myself. I've got a few years before I'm due at the care home.” And anyway, I nearly added, I'm not alone here. Your Aunt Constance is with me.

  “OK... Just make sure to call if something happens. Or if you want us to come back. Please, be careful.”

  “Listen, Joey, if anything happens here, I'll update you. Scout's honor. But there's nothing to worry about. This is a field I've dabbled in for awhile now, and I've had genuine experiences with the supernatural before, so I'm not frightened.” That was a lie, but it sounded good. “Give Megan and Melissa a kiss for me, will you? And try to relax!”

  He sounded like he was going to try and argue, so I hung up before he could get a word in edgewise.

  Peering out the dining room window, I noticed that the sun was long gone.

  Whatever lurked in the house at 889 Morgan Road was soon to awaken.

  It was time for me to set up my night watch. I gathered my books and brought them downstairs, arranging them on the kitchen table. I brought the fountain pen and journal, too, and set them at the very top of the stack. “Let's see what this house is made of,” I muttered.

  Ten

  With an eye on my watch and a mug of h
ot tea in my hand, I did some reading. The television was off, and on this temperate night I'd shut down the air conditioning altogether so as to avoid its noisy interference. Only minutes remained before midnight now. I was up well past my bedtime.

  By then I had paged through the bulk of J. Kelly Thompson's Practical Ghost Hunting. I'd taken some notes, and had found several sections within that seemed to corroborate my own theories and experiences with the paranormal. There was, for instance, a section in the fourth chapter that discussed the mechanisms that kept a spirit leashed to the physical world—and following it, a suggestion for cutting that same tether in order to free them:

  A human soul that has passed from life in a fit of great emotion will often find on the other side of death a terrible confusion. There exists in the souls of the departed a sort of instinctual intelligence—a sense of what they must do when the body has breathed its last—however this innate understanding may be thrown into chaos when the soul is ejected from the body in a state of turmoil. It follows, then, that the spirits behind most episodes of haunting are often found to be victims of murder or other such crimes of passion. The soul lingers in confusion, mourns its untimely passing. The more discerning ghost will even take exception to the manner of its burial. Determining the reasons for a spirit's unrest is critical in the dissolution of any haunting. One must seek to find out what troubles a spirit, and then to ease said troubles. It is in this way that the condition known as haunting is effectively “cured”.

  I meditated on these and other passages, wondering how I might apply them to the mysterious thing—or things—that haunted this Detroit home.

  And along the way, I couldn't help wondering, too, how this might apply to the spirit of my dead wife. Why had Constance stuck around? What was keeping her tangled between two worlds, and how might I free her? I became distracted, I admit, in wondering whether I even wanted to free her. Was it sinful that I wished to keep her soul with me to the end of my days—to deny her the relief of the afterlife just so that I could enjoy her company?