Echoes of the Dead (12 page)

Ben nodded as he walked toward the parlor. “It’s in excellent shape. Opposite the entrance, you’ll find a similar room to the one in which we find ourselves. Not an exact mirror image, but close enough. Both rooms have the same dark woodwork and original crown molding. I believe it’s plaster, like the walls. It should be plaster. Anyway, the other room leads, through a post and lintel opening, to the kitchen. On—”

“What?” Johnny asked, interrupting. “A door on
this
side?”

Ben nodded. “Yes. There are two interior entrances to the kitchen.”

Johnny looked at Kelsey. She shook her head slightly. There’d been one doorway five years ago, hadn’t there? She was almost positive—and Johnny thought so, too.

“As I was saying,” Ben continued, “on this side, you’ll find the dining room and back hallway.  The dining room leads to the kitchen on the other side, and the back hallway opens to a bathroom. I know several of you showered down here this morning.”

“Funny to have a full bath on the first floor of a Victorian house, isn’t it?” Johnny asked. “You know, funny for a place which might not have had running water when it was built.”

Ben looked to the hallway and back. “Yes, yes I suppose it is. And you’re right—there wouldn’t have been any indoor plumbing when the house was built. But it’s there, John. You are free to utilize its services any time you need. Anyway, there’s a small room adjacent to the bathroom, maybe a linen room or maid’s quarters or—”

“Maid’s quarters on the first floor?” Johnny asked, interrupting again, this time with a sideways grin. “Sounds a little fishy, too.  Are you sure you know what the hell you’re talking about?”

A camera hummed and shifted focus.

Ben flushed, straightened his back, and regained his composure. His eyes hardened toward Johnny. “Like I said, John, I’m no architect. This is all just speculation. The original house deed had been lost and no records of an owner—”

“But an unidentified suicide with impeccable cleanliness,” Johnny interrupted.

“No records of an original owner could be found. If you ask around Muskotah, nobody remembers who built the place. Nobody knows who used to own it. It’s always just been here, according to anyone who bothered to speak with us.” Ben continued as though Johnny hadn’t interrupted him. “We estimated the age based on the floor plan.”

“Late 19th century.” Johnny leaned close to a wall and ran his forefinger across the surface. “Feels like plaster, but damn it’s in good shape.  Funny to find a wall in such good shape after all these years, isn’t it? Especially an old lath and plaster wall?”

Ben’s gaze flicked toward the nearest camera. He forced a smile and replied, “I suppose it is. Now if we can continue? Good. The maid’s quarters will be a sort of base of operations for the crew—when they’re not in the RV, that is. As I said last night, no part of the house is off limits—”

“Except the second floor bathroom,” Erin said.

Ben nodded. “Yes. Except the bathroom on the second floor. No other part is off limits, even the crew’s base here on the first floor.” He waved for the others to follow as he stepped into the hallway. A light switch clicked and the small, darkly painted hall glowed with blue light reflected from the walls. The strange light played with each of their faces, making skin seem pale and cold as though it had been frozen. Ben grinned, and even his too-white teeth took on a blue tint. Kelsey looked over a shoulder, coming face to lens with a camera.

“To the left is the bath. On the right you’ll find the door to the maid’s quarters. It’s shut now, but unlocked. I’m sure the rest of you—especially those on second floor—have found the bathroom useful.”

“Yes of course. But what about the top floor? Are you saying there’s a bathroom on the third floor?” Erin asked.

“Yep. That’s what Mr. Wormsley is saying. I used it myself this morning.” Johnny pantomimed a man in the shower. “Funny having plumbing on the third floor of a Victorian era building, isn’t it? In what looks like a converted attic?”

“You’ve established that already, John.” Ben’s lips pursed into a thin line.

“Maybe they were just ahead for their time,” Sarah said. Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

Kelsey had yet to step fully into the hallway. It looked rather crowded, and the light bothered her. Why was it blue? Why were all their faces covered in a thin sheet of blue? It was strange, like they’d been caught underwater too long or had slipped through a thin veil. The door to the first floor bathroom—the only one she’d used so far—was open, waiting. Her gaze followed the wall to the hallway ceiling. The walls, like the hallway and bedrooms upstairs, were papered. The other bathroom would be overhead, wouldn’t it? The locked bathroom.

“If you’ll follow me, we’re taking a different route to the second floor.”  Ben moved through the small throng. His eyes caught Kelsey’s as he passed, and his arm brushed her shoulder. She flinched. “There’s another set of stairs leading to the second floor. We discovered them two nights ago.”

“A hidden staircase?” Erin asked.

“No.” Ben paused, but didn’t turn around. “We hadn’t spent much time digging around, to tell the truth. This one isn’t a secret passage.”

They came to a door at the end of the small, first floor hallway. Kelsey held back and lingered at the rear. She looked over her shoulder. A window marked the hallway’s far end. The blue light hummed. Small, abstract shapes in the wallpaper looked like they moved. The thing which whispered to her last night had been following her. It was there, in the hall. Kelsey stepped closer to the group. Ben’s voice rose and fell—she couldn’t tell what he was saying. The wallpaper things started toward her. Coming closer. She could almost hear the minute skittering of their little insect feet. Patterns shifted and changed. Her head swum, spinning as though passing into a troubled sleep—

A hand caught her arm.

“Kels?”

Johnny rested his hand on her shoulder. He smiled. “You all right?”

“Just spacing out a little.” She shuddered and offered a sheepish look. “I’m not being very brave, am I?”

Johnny shrugged. “Ben’s really amping up the spook factor. He’s trying to scare us with all the Victorian mysterious second staircase business. I bet this house was slapped together after World War II.”

“Really? Bricks like this?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. Yeah, it seems a bit out of time, but think about how clean it is, how well built.” He ran a hand over the wall. The little black shapes didn’t move. The wallpaper steadied itself. “I wouldn’t even be surprised if it was newer.  Maybe an old frame gutted and rebuilt. It is awfully damn big, though.”

The others began filing into the doorway at the end of the hall. Sarah paused and glared over her shoulder. She was still jealous, still protective of Johnny.

“The others are going,” Kelsey said. “We should—”

“We should what?” Johnny smiled. “We’re never alone with our friend the camera.” He waved.

Kelsey spun, surprised to see the thin, mousy cameraman standing behind her in the hall. The black-eyed lens watched them. “He wasn’t there a minute ago,” Kelsey said.

“You have to be on your toes, I guess. C’mon, Kels. Let’s catch the rest of the tour. See if Wormsley offers any more
Looney Tunes
descriptions of this place. We don’t need his imagination to think terrible thoughts, do we? At least we aren’t doing it alone.”

The warm press of Johnny’s hand on her shoulder disappeared. Kelsey pulled her attention away from the camera and followed. The back staircase was narrow with each step less than a foot deep.  She leaned on the wall and tilted each foot to fit the slender steps.  The staircase wound twice at ninety degree angles until opening into a second floor room, bigger than the yellow bedroom by at least half and covered with a sleepy, almost blue-grey wallpaper dotted with tiny flowers. It may have been a bedroom, too, but now they found it empty save for a few trunks pushed to one side. Two doors waited on adjacent walls.

“Does anyone want to guess where we are, relative to the rest of the house, of course.” Ben pushed his smile around the room, pausing for the cameras. “Any takers?”

“Well, duh. The second floor.” Sarah rolled her eyes.

“Obviously,” said Ben. “But where on the second floor?”

“In a room,” Sarah said. “Near our bedroom. The yellow room.”

Ben shook his head. “Afraid not.”

Johnny knocked a fist against one wall with a door. “I’d say the end of the hall to the right of the stairs.”

“You’re right. So this door leads—”

“Okay. I get it now.” Sarah turned the knob and yanked the door open. “To the hall.  The yellow bedroom is the first door past the stairs on your left. Kels and I are going to eat Lorna Doones and tell ghost stories after dinner. Everyone’s invited.”

“Right. I know a few good ones, but the all have hooks in them.” Johnny said, holding up his fingers bent in a jagged curl. “How about you Kels?”

“What?” Kelsey had wandered across the room, past the dust-covered trunks. She drifted, without conscious thought, toward the other door in the room.

“So you know where this other door leads, Kelsey?” Ben stepped closer to her. “You know what’s behind this door?”

“The bathroom,” she said.

“The bathroom.” The smile flickered on Ben’s lips—flickered and almost vanished. He didn’t move for a moment. Kelsey imagined his memories brought the same images she’d remembered: the dead man, the spotless, clear water, the cold, blue look in the dead man’s glassy eyes. The bathroom. “It’s locked for now.  No reason to dredge up bad memories.” He pulled his attention away from the door and grinned at Kelsey.

She heard the word
yet
in her head as sure as Ben had said it. No reason to dredge up bad memories,
yet
.

“Then why this house?” Johnny asked. “Why play your little game for the cameras here if not for the bad memories?”

Ben glanced toward a camera. Wayne’s face was hidden, devoured by the black lens. “I got a good deal on the property. Plenty of space.  No one else around to get in the way.”

Erin chewed her lip.

Kelsey watched her. She studied the younger woman’s body language, the way she carried her body, how she shrank a little from the group. Why wasn’t she speaking up? Why didn’t she mention haunted houses? Why didn’t she mention now, in front of Ben, what she’d said earlier that morning? Then she had it. She understood.

“Memories…” Kelsey said. “Four of us—including you, Ben—have memories of this place. Awful memories.” She shuddered. The room had grown cold, frigid as the house had been five years ago. They’d stumbled across it in a time of need, lost in the snow. The cold burrowed into her bones and touched her marrow, and now,
now
they were back. She looked up, finding all eyes in the room pointed toward her.

“I don’t have any memories here. But what they told me, Mr. Wormsley… God,” Erin said.  “I can’t imagine wanting to come back.”

Ben’s dark eyes flicked toward Kelsey. “I’m sure they all had their reasons—”

“Look,” Sarah interrupted. “I’m not sure I wanted to come back, okay, but I couldn’t say no to the money. Johnny?”

He shrugged. “Agreed. I didn’t want anything to do with this damn place, but things have been rough since I got back. A medical discharge can hang over you like a cloud, a thick black smudge everyone can see. It’s not like jobs are just landing in my lap. All that stuff about veteran’s benefits? Bullshit. My savings are drying up.”

“See, Erin? I thought I could help my friends. Once I had funding for the show, I sought them out. I thought I could share a little good fortune.” Ben stepped into the hallway. “And here we are, sharing our good fortune. Let’s take a peek down the hall at the ladies’ bedrooms and then on to the third floor.”

The others followed, one after the other. Johnny paused at the door and glanced back at Kelsey. Let him go, she thought. Let them all go and wander through this horrid, horrid house. Let them play little games in the belly of this great brick and stone monster. Kelsey watched them trail down the hallway before taking a deep breath and stepping after them. She would put up her walls. She would build a safe shell and hide inside. Six more days and she could forget the house forever.

Kelsey hated the smell of nail polish, but didn’t want to be anywhere else. The yellow room was the happiest in the drab old place, better than Erin’s blue or the uninhabited purple bedroom, and even cheerier than the parlor and kitchen. The third floor, the faux attic with its sloping ceilings and dusty wood paneling, was out of the question. Clouds moved back into the area after noon, and the windows hung with the same, dull grey sky outside. She lay on her bed, propped on an elbow with a copy of Murdie’s
Principles of Learned Behavior
open to an article discussing the effects of intermittent punishment. She wasn’t reading but flipping the pages back and forth, killing time, and waiting for the days to tick from the calendar until she was free.

Sarah looked up from her toenails, a small brush in one hand. “I think you scared valley girl shitless this morning. I don’t think she was prepared for the whole dead body thing.”