Authors: Joe Hart
Excitement buzzed in Lance’s stomach as he followed Carrie out into the wide expanse of the dining/living room. Details were starting to appear. It was always the first sign of a story taking shape. He would see something in his mind or imagine it happening in the world around him, and it was only when he noticed a detail within the imaginations that he realized there was something worth writing there.
“To me, this is the best part of the house. The atrium was added just before the previous owners bought it. It’s the best view of
Lake Superior
I’ve ever seen.” Lance stepped out into the glass room and couldn’t help but agree. The panoramic view floated before them, unobstructed by walls or doors. The contractor who had built the vestibule was talented and had the foresight not to install wide supports that would have cut up the observatory like a tic-tac-toe board.
“I could write here, I think,” Lance murmured, mostly to himself, but the Realtor perked up instantly.
“You’re a writer?” she said with what seemed to be polite interest, but after a moment Lance could almost see the gears turning and lights flipping on in the control rooms behind her eyes.
“Oh my God!
You’re Lance Metzger! Wow! I’ve read some of your books! I didn’t put two and two together until now. God I’m so dumb!” Carrie issued a high, annoying titter that made Lance’s teeth grate against one another, but he smiled nonetheless and nodded as Carrie’s face flushed in the light thrown by the afternoon sun. “So, you’re coming here to write a novel?” For the first time the Realtor seemed genuinely interested in Lance and what he had to say.
“Possibly, if everything works out.
I do really like the place so far, but I’d love to see the rest of it.” He hoped that the gentle redirection wouldn’t hurt the woman’s feelings, and he was grateful when she smiled and continued walking through the living room.
“This is such a nice room—the bay windows looking out over the lake and the high ceilings.
Just a really great room to mingle or have a little get-together in.”
Carrie nodded while pulling her overly red lips into a grin that any clown would have envied. She turned and began to make her way across the living room, to the stairway that undoubtedly led up to the bedrooms on the second floor. Lance trailed after her, his eyes looking for another piece of the story to jump out at him when they landed on a darkly stained door set off to the north side of the room. The door looked odd to Lance, set in a recessed frame, uncharacteristic of the other remodeling the house had undergone.
So flat and smooth.
He strained to see a gap at any of the sides of the entrance. An oblong cast-iron door handle protruded from a steel plate, seamlessly fastened in the wood.
“What’s in there?” Lance asked, and Carrie paused, two stairs up from the main floor.
“Oh, that? That’s storage. I think the prior owner may have had some of his cooking equipment in there before moving. It’s locked. I have the key somewhere in my office, I believe.” Without hesitating, she turned and made her way farther up the wooden stairway to the second floor.
Instead of following, Lance walked toward the door and examined it further. It was even darker than he had initially thought and coated with an enormous amount of lacquer. The depth of the grain pattern in the wood was intricately layered and almost mesmerizing. His hand reached out to the doorknob. Could he feel cold coming off the iron, or was it his imagination? His fingers stretched out, a few inches from the black of the handle.
Closer.
There was definitely a chill coming off the knob. His hand circled to grasp it.
Lance.
The whisper came from the door. His hand froze over the knob and he looked back and forth to see if perhaps John had entered behind them without him noticing. The house remained silent around him, and he could no longer see Carrie at the top of the stairs.
Lance.
It came again, and this time there was no denying it. The sound had issued from behind the door. Lance knelt before the handle and peered into the small black keyhole below the knob. There was only darkness there; no windows seemed to grace the room inside. He leaned farther in. A soft stream of cold air filtered out of the hole, making his eye begin to water. He peered closer, straining to make out any features of the room beyond.
The darkness on the other side of the keyhole moved.
“Lance?”
He flew back from the door, scrambling to remain on his feet. A wood pillar rammed firmly into his shoulder blades, pain blooming there and halting his backward motion. He could feel his eyes bulging in their sockets and it seemed that his scalp had been drawn into a thousand tight points. Carrie stood at the top of the stairs, a fist held tightly to her chest, as if she were grabbing at her heart. Even from where he stood leaning against the support, Lance could see the furrows of worry on her brow.
He stretched his jaw and it clicked loudly, echoing off the flat surfaces of the nearly empty house. His mouth was full of syrupy spit and his heart felt as if it had somehow learned to double-beat within the last minute or so. Something had moved behind the door, he was sure of it. It wasn’t the twisting of nothingness the eye sometimes saw in the complete lack of light. The darkness itself had shifted. Had he really heard his name, or was it just the apprehension he had felt at the sight of the door? Trying to regain his composure, he stood without the help of the log behind him and aimed a tight smile up the stairs.
“Sorry, just stumbled. Knocked the wind out of me, I think.” Lance saw the Realtor’s face relax, but unease remained just below the surface. Lance breathed in and out several times as he began to climb the stairs. “Let’s see the bedrooms,” he said as he neared the woman on the landing, and kept the smile frozen in place like the mask that it was.
“So, what do you think?” Carrie asked as she shut the front door behind them, and walked down to where Lance stood by the now-vacant bench. Her enthusiasm, which had been dampened by Lance’s odd behavior, returned as she led him through the two spare rooms along with the enormous master bedroom, complete with a full attached bath.
Lance stood looking out across the open grounds toward the shoreline beyond the house. He could see the outline of the old caretaker there, now seated in a lawn-chair beside the large three-season gazebo.
“It’s great, really spacious, which I like. Would it be okay if I took a turn around the outside and get a feel for it?”
“By all means.
I’ll just be in my car if you have any questions.” Carrie began to turn away when Lance stopped her.
“Why didn’t John come inside with us?”
Carrie smiled as she stepped closer to him and lowered her voice conspiratorially, as if to keep the breeze that blew between them from carrying her words across the yard like fallen leaves.
“John’s been the caretaker here for close to fifty years. He’s seen owners come and go. I think he feels quite an attachment to the place and he might be a bit upset seeing it change hands again.”
“How many times has the house been sold?” The Realtor’s makeup-caked face took on an almost
cartoonish
thoughtful expression.
“The same owners have been trying to sell it since I became a Realtor two years ago. Beyond that, I’m not really sure. John would be able to tell you, though; he’s been knocking around this part of the world for a long time. He might’ve even known the person who built the place.” Carrie laughed while Lance nodded and thanked her before turning to walk through the ankle-length grass.
Lance noticed the wind had picked up, and the waves on the lake reflected it. Whitecaps were beginning to form every so often in the distance, like the backs of whales surfacing for air. He counted at least a dozen submerged boulders poking their heads out of the water within the bay directly in front of the house. He wondered absently how many boats had been damaged or sunk just a few hundred yards from shore and if their skeletons were still there like bones of ancient aquatic creatures, waiting in the shallows.
Lance stopped and stood still as he came abreast of the caretaker, who sat motionless in the plastic chair. John’s eyes were narrowed, studying the bay. He didn’t acknowledge Lance’s presence, so instead of breaking the silence first, Lance sat on the lawn nearby, his arms resting on the tops of his knees. Waves continued to crash on the shore, marking off the seconds and minutes that passed by, their insatiable thirst for erosion unquenchable.
“You’re pretty good at being quiet,” John said. Lance turned his head and studied the old man’s profile. It was worn and tired, like a statue made of materials unintended for rain and wind. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”
John lifted his chin in acknowledgement. “You
gonna
buy the old place?”
“The thought crossed my mind.” John nodded again. A lone seagull coasted overhead, the wind fueling its flight without the beat of its wings. It looked down on them for a moment, its black beady eyes there and gone as it glided away in search of food.
“You’re a writer.” The words were a statement, not a question.
“Yeah, have you read my books?”
“No, knew your name, though. You’re alongside Patterson sometimes when I buy his latest. I like Patterson.” Lance smiled and looked back out across the expanse of water. “What’s a writer want with a place like this?”
Lance pulled a strand of grass from the ground beside him and began to tie it in knots. “It seems like a good place to think.
Calm, quiet.”
John finally turned his head and examined Lance. He could feel the caretaker’s eyes running over the surface of his face like the fingers of a blind person. Eventually, John turned back to the lake and sighed. If Lance hadn’t been listening closely it could have been misconstrued as the breath of the wind.
“Don’t buy this place. There’s nothing for you here.”
Without another word, John rose and retreated to the driveway, where he climbed into the rusted Ranger, gunned the engine to life, and left dual plumes of dust behind in the wake of the truck.
Lance watched as the vehicle disappeared behind the thick row of trees lining the driveway before turning back to the choppy lake. Instead of trying to interpret the old man’s cryptic words, Lance brushed them off as sentimental remnants from a time before him. No matter how promising or bright the future sometimes seemed to be, the past had its own way of holding onto people, at times letting out some slack for them to run, but always making sure they knew that they were tethered.
Lance gazed at the horizon and tried to make out the distant shore he knew was there but couldn’t see. Words began to form in his mind and a corner of the veil was lifted slightly. A shape beneath tried to show itself. It was as if the story wanted him to find it but was limited, chained just beyond the reach of his imagination. Nonetheless, he seized the moment and formed the words into a sentence.
His eyes searched for them, but his heart knew better. The waking hours were the worst, the moments when he would drift up from sleep and reach for her or listen for the sounds of laughter. Instead, there was silence, a vacuum, and then the crashing slam of reality settling down on him.
“They’re dead, but he’s still there,” Lance said to the water. It lapped at the shore but said nothing back. Lance
stood,
his back cracking as he turned and walked across the yard to where Carrie waited near the rear end of her Tahoe. Lance noticed that she was smiling her too-large smile again, but in spite of himself, he felt his own face reflect her expression as he stopped a few feet away.
“I’ll take it.”
“What need I fear of thee?
But yet I’ll make assurance double sure,
And take a bond of fate: thou
shalt
not live;
That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies,
And sleep in spite of thunder.”
—William Shakespeare
“Where the hell is the tinfoil?” Lance said to the empty kitchen. He tore through the last grocery bag on the floor, and when the oblong box didn’t present itself, he stood up in exasperation. He knew he had purchased it earlier on his trip into town. He remembered putting it in the cart. Hell, he remembered seeing it in the back of the car when he loaded the groceries. So where was it?
He turned in a slow circle, observing the rest of the kitchen as he searched for a place the foil could have concealed itself. There were still several boxes stacked in one corner marked
Kitchen
that he hadn’t gotten unpacked yet; although, for only officially moving in the day before, he felt quite happy with the progress.
The prior two weeks had been a whirlwind of activity. From making an offer to the seller—who had immediately accepted it despite it being well below market value for a property on Superior—to assuring Andy that everything would work out for the best to finally closing and the subsequent unpacking of the necessities. Lance felt as if his body and mind had been stretched, taken apart, and re-formed without all the pieces. He mentally made a note to himself never to move again, no matter how terrible the writer’s block.
A corner of the blue-and-silver tinfoil box peeked from behind a gallon of milk on the floor as Lance bent to retrieve a bag of potatoes.
“Gotcha,
ya
bastard,” Lance said as he grabbed the end of the box and pulled it from its hiding space. The sun had begun to set behind the trees on the west side of the house, and the red light threw long shadows across the floor of the kitchen.
Lance prepared a celebratory dinner of fresh grilled salmon, baby red potatoes, and asparagus. A bottle of wine sat open on the counter, from which he poured and refilled several glasses as his dinner came together. He began to hum a song he had heard earlier under his breath as he cooked. By the time he took his food onto the patio overlooking the lake, his head was pleasantly light from the Merlot. He watched as the light suffused onto the calm water within the bay and stained it a shimmering red. The rocks that poked from the surface of the water were ringed in shadow, and a large ship moved without sound toward a port, half a mile out from shore. Lance searched his memories for another view that rivaled this moment and could find none.
As the sun finally relinquished its hold on the day and slipped fully below the horizon, the bay became a charcoal painting of what it looked like only minutes before. Lance sat back from the table and his now-empty plate to sip the last vestiges of his wine. He considered for a moment opening the other bottle he had bought in town, but dismissed it almost immediately. He couldn’t be hung-over tomorrow. Tomorrow he would begin to write. He already had a small table positioned in the glass alcove, his computer screen set up on top and the tower below on the floor. In the morning he would rise, eat a quick breakfast, and sit down to begin carving out the idea that still hovered at the back of his mind.
Over the past two weeks the story had come and gone as he traveled back and forth between
Stony
Bay
and Ardent Hills. At some moments he felt as if he could sit down and punch out the entire outline, while at others he struggled to remember the basic plot. At those times the ideas that sprang into his head seemed childish and unrefined, so unlike his regular work. As much as he hated to admit it, he could only link the story’s appearance with one thing: the house. He had even tested the unsaid theory without truly acknowledging what he was doing. As he drove away from the house one afternoon after meeting Carrie there for one last walk-through, he had tried to keep the story at the foremost of his thoughts. But slowly, as the miles stretched out behind him it dulled. Then it dimmed until it was an insubstantial idea without a purpose, like an empty plastic bag carried by a rogue wind.
Well, we find out tomorrow if this place is really my muse, or not,
Lance thought, as the last of his wine disappeared from his glass and a loon gave a melancholy cry that echoed like a question across the bay.
He placed the leftover helping of salmon in the refrigerator and stretched. His back ached from unpacking box after box throughout the house, and the wine made his eyelids feel heavy beyond their weight.
He snapped off the light, making a silent promise to do the dirty dishes on the counter in the morning. His feet shuffled across the wood floor with harsh rasping sounds. For a moment Lance had an overwhelming sense of dread settle over him, and he struggled to put his finger on the source. His left foot slid over the floor and the sound registered in his ears.
Scraping footsteps.
He picked his feet up so his socks didn’t whisper against the floor as he neared the stairway and the door at its base.
Lance stopped and stared at the door set into the wall. His eyes had flickered to it many times during the day as he moved about the house, the memory of looking through the keyhole fresh in his mind. He took a step toward it, his hand reaching out to the iron doorknob—he could already feel the coolness of it in his hand—but stopped. He let his arm fall to his side.
“Not on the first night. That’s just rude,” he said, the wine mustering levity he didn’t know he had. He turned and jogged up the stairs to the second level and got ready for bed in the small bathroom off the walkway.
He had settled into the smaller of the two guest rooms on the second floor. For some reason the master had felt too large and empty with its huge bay windows overlooking the lake. For lack of a better description, it seemed lonely. The irony wasn’t lost on him as he regarded where he was in comparison with the city he’d left.
A simple bed frame with a new mattress and fresh sheets welcomed him. His eyes wandered the dark room, trying to pick out familiar shapes—his two suitcases near the doorway, a small dresser that had yet to be filled, and the table he’d placed near the head of the bed. He lay down and listened intently for any sounds he might hear, as sleep began to pull at his mind, making his thoughts elongate and re-form like putty in the sun. Only the occasional snap of settling wood below him and the solitary drip of water in the kitchen sink met his ears.
The last thing he heard as his eyes finally shut with exhaustion was a loon—he was sure it was the same one he had heard earlier—wailing its call across the bay one last time as the moon floated, heavy and sodden with its silvery light, over the lake.
Lance awoke as if he had been shaken. His eyes blinked open and he stared at the ceiling of the bedroom. For an instant he struggled to remember where he was, his mind racing back to where he had fallen asleep, and then the realization that something had actually woken him became a certainty. His eyes shifted to the doorway.
A figure stood there, a deeper shade of darkness.
Lance sucked a breath in and blinked as he sat up in the bed. The doorway was empty, the rectangle showing him nothing more than the bare landing and the banister beyond. He listened, trying to hear over the sudden bass pounding of his heart on his eardrums. His muscles felt alive with the adrenaline that ran through them. He was about to climb out of bed when he heard what he had been listening for: the soft tread of someone stepping off the stairway and into the living room beneath him. Lance leapt off the mattress and crept to the banister overlooking the house below, crouching as he peered through the wooden railings.
Moonlight flooded the house with its gray touch. He could make out almost every surface by the light that streamed in through the
uncurtained
windows. He watched for movement and listened again as he tried to steady his breathing.
The unmistakable sounds of footsteps padded out of the kitchen to his right and headed toward the front entry. Lance stood and moved down the stairs, all the while keeping his eyes locked on the foyer, where the footsteps had gone. When he reached the bottom of the stairway, he paused and listened again for nearly a minute. The house ate up his hearing with quiet, as he made his way across the floor and began to flip switches for the chandeliers overhead. When he reached the entryway, he cautiously peered around the corner. It was deserted. Everything was just as he had left it and the heavy front door, which he expected to be wide-open, was shut.
A small fire extinguisher hung from the wall across from him. He pulled it from its hook and hefted it, trying to figure out how it could best be used to bludgeon an intruder.
He made his way through the rest of the house, checking closets and looking behind furniture. After inspecting the entryway, he flipped open both locks on the front door and opened it, revealing the shadowy yard. He watched for movement before flicking on the outdoor floodlight, bathing the surrounding vicinity in a urine-colored hue. He heard no scrambling feet or yells of alarm in the yard, and after another sweeping look, he shut the door and flipped off the light.
The rest of the house revealed nothing out of place and no shadowy figures hiding in any corners. Lance stood for a time in the kitchen, wondering if he should call the local police, but after further consideration, he decided against it. What would they do that he hadn’t just done? And since he was a newcomer to the community he didn’t want rumors flying around that the “big city” author had been scared to death on his first night away from his metropolitan life.
The thought of the small town having a laugh at his nerves presented a simple answer to the night’s events. It was a hazing. A town like the one that lay to the south was bound to be a conduit for rumors. As Lance walked back through the house flipping one light switch off after another, he became sure of it. Some locals, most likely kids, probably thought it would be funny to welcome an outsider into the fold with a little scare tactic, and he had an idea of whom he might talk to in the morning about the little visitation. A practical joke was one thing, but breaking and entering was quite another. Anger bloomed in his chest as he flipped off the last light, bathing the house in darkness once again. He breathed in and out, trying to quell the thoughts of rage that flooded his mind, and he almost didn’t notice the spot on the floor as he walked to the stairs.
It was a dull silver color and over three feet in length. It had an oblong, splattered shape, as if someone had tossed a large iridescent jellyfish over the upstairs railing and let it explode on the wooden floor. Lance knelt beside the spot and inspected it. The grain pattern in the floor beneath it was visible, and when he ran his hand over it, there was no change in texture. He looked up and stared at the moon hanging over the lake. Feeling as if he were still being
pranked
, Lance strode to the window and inspected the glass at the height and angle that the light shone through. There was no distortion or discrepancy in the glass that he could see or feel, but when he turned, he noticed his bulk was blocking out the spot on the floor. When he moved to the side, the spot returned.
Frowning in the darkness, he returned to the spot and looked closely at the stain. There were tendrils and drops of what looked like liquid extending out from the main body of the splotch toward the windows.
Lance stood and shrugged his shoulders while shaking his head, and made a mental note to examine it in the morning. When he turned toward the stairs, the dark outline of the door stood there to meet him. It was the one place he had neglected to check in his search earlier.
With resolve, he stepped to the door and grasped the cold doorknob in his right hand. Without hesitation, he twisted the handle as hard as he could. The black iron not only refused to turn but it remained completely immotile, without the slightest hint of movement. Lance grunted, anger rising like a wave inside him, as he strained against the knob. The handle dug into the palm of his hand, chilling the bones beneath the meat and skin. It was like trying to flip a train off its tracks by wrenching at its hitch.
He let go and exhaled the breath he had been holding. His hand burned and he could see the white imprint of the knob in his skin. “Fuck you,” Lance said, and walked up the stairs to his bedroom.
As he lay there in the darkness, his thoughts swirling around him, he listened for sounds throughout the house. The eastern horizon had begun to brighten when he finally shut his eyes, and below him, the stain on the floor faded from sight with the dawning of the day.
A pounding threaded its way through Lance’s ears and prodded his sleeping brain. There was a pause of silence in which he began to drift off again, thinking that the sound had been part of the sleeping world, but it was short-lived as it repeated itself, making his eyelids flutter open. For a moment his sleep-addled mind mistook the pounding for footsteps and the memory of the night before returned to him. He lifted himself onto an elbow and looked around the room. The noise from below began again, and this time he recognized the sound of a fist connecting with the front door. The blows became harder and more drawn out, as if the person attached to the fist was becoming impatient.