The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories (Mammoth Books) (13 page)

I’m glad I’ve got you to talk to, listeners, but I wish you could answer back. I’m beginning to dislike the sound of my own voice. After a time, if you’ve been talking in a room alone, you get fanciful. Have you ever noticed that? You sort of think you can hear someone talking back –

There! – No, of course you couldn’t have heard it, because it wasn’t there, of course. Just in my head. Just subjective, that’s the word. That’s the word. Very odd. That
was
me laughing, of course. I’m saying “of course” a lot. Of course I am. Well, listeners, I’m afraid this is awfully dull for you. Not for me, though, not for me! No ghosts so far, unless the professor is having better luck –

There! You must have heard that! What a crack that panelling makes! Well, you must have heard that, listeners – better than nothing! Ha, ha! Professor! Professor! Phew, what an echo!

Now, listeners, I’m going to stop talking for a moment. I don’t suppose you’ll mind. Let’s see if we can hear anything –

Did you hear it? I’m not exactly sure what it was. Not sure. I wonder if you heard it? Not exactly, but the house shook a little and the windows rattled. I don’t think we’ll do that again. I’ll go on talking. I wonder how long one could endure the atmosphere of this place. It certainly is inclined to get one down.

Gosh, that stain has grown – the one on the ceiling. It’s actually started to drip. I mean form bubbles – they’ll start dropping soon. Colored bubbles, apparently. I wonder if the professor is okay? I mean he might have shut himself up in a powder closet or something, and the powder closets in this house aren’t particularly – well, you never know, do you?

Now I should have said that shadow had moved. No, I suppose I put the lamp down in a slightly different position. Shadows do make odd patterns, you must have noticed that. This one might be a body lying on its face with its arms stretched out. Cheerful, aren’t I? An aunt of mine gassed herself, as a matter of fact – well, I don’t know why I told you that. Not quite in the script.

Professor! Professor! Where is that old fuzzy-whiskers? I shall certainly advise the owner to have this place pulled down. Emphatically. Then where’ll
you
go! I must go upstairs in a minute or two and see what’s happened to the professor. Well, I was telling you about auntie –

D’you know, listeners, I really believe I’d go completely crackers if I stayed here much longer – more or less, anyway, and quite soon, quite soon, quite soon. Absolutely stark, staring! It wears you down. That’s exactly it, it wears you down. I can quite understand – well, I won’t say all that again. I’m afraid this is all awfully dull for you, listeners. I should switch it off if I were you –

I
should!
What’s on the other program? I mean it – switch off! There, what did I tell you – that stain’s started to drip drops, drip drops, drip drops, drip drops! I’ll go and catch one on my hand –

Good God!

Professor! Professor! Professor! Now up those stairs! Which room would it be? Left or right? Left, right, left, right – left has it. In we go –

Well, gentlemen, good evening! What have you done with the professor? I know he’s dead – see his blood on my hand? What have you done with him? Make way, please, gentlemen. What have you done with him? D’you want me to sing it – tra-la-la –

Switch off, you fools!

Well, if this isn’t too darned funny – ha, ha, ha, ha! Hear me laughing, listeners –

Switch off, you fools!

That can’t be him lying there – he hadn’t a
red
beard! Don’t crowd round me, gentlemen. Don’t crowd me, I tell you!

What do you want me to do? You want me to go to the river, don’t you? Ha, ha! Now? Will you come with me? Come on, then! To the river! To the river!

Dark Winner

William F. Nolan

NOTE:
The following is an edited transcript of a taped conversation between Mrs. Franklin Evans, resident of Woodland Hills, California, and Lt. Harry W. Lyle of the Kansas City Police Department. Transcript is dated 12 July 1984. K.C. Missouri.

MRS. EVANS
: We just got in this morning. A stopover on our trip from New York back to California. We were at the airport when Frank suddenly got this idea about his past.

LYLE
: What idea?

MRS. E
: About visiting his old neighborhood . . . the school he went to . . . the house where he grew up . . . He hadn’t been back here in twenty-five years.

LYLE
: So you and your husband planned this . . . nostalgic tour?

MRS. E
: Not
planned
. It was very abrupt . . . Frank seemed . . . suddenly . . .
possessed
by the idea.

LYLE
: So what happened?

MRS. E
: We took a cab out to Flora Avenue . . . to 31st . . . and we visited his old grade school. St. Vincent’s Academy. The neighborhood is . . . well, I guess you know it’s a slum area now . . . and the school is closed down, locked. But Frank found an open window . . . climbed inside . . .

LYLE
: While you waited?

MRS. E
: Yes – in the cab. When Frank came out he was all . . . upset . . . Said that he . . . Well, this sounds . . .

LYLE
: Go on, please.

MRS. E
: He said he felt . . . very
close
to his childhood while he was in there. He was ashen-faced . . . his hands were trembling.

LYLE
: What did you do then?

MRS. E
: We had the cab take us up 31st to the Isis Theatre. The movie house at 31st and Troost where Frank used to attend those Saturday horror shows they had for kids. Each week a new one . . . “Frankenstein” . . . “Dracula” . . . you know the kind I mean.

LYLE
: I know.

MRS. E
: It’s a porno place now . . . but Frank bought a ticket anyway . . . went inside alone. Said he wanted to go into the balcony, find his old seat . . . see if things had changed . . .

LYLE
: And?

MRS. E
: He came out looking very shaken . . . saying it had happened again.

LYLE
:
What
had happened again?

MRS. E
: The feeling about being close to his past . . . to his childhood . . . As if he could –

LYLE
: Could what, Mrs. Evans?

MRS. E
: . . . step over the line dividing past and present . . . step back into his childhood. That’s the feeling he said he had.

LYLE
: Where did you go from the Isis?

MRS. E
: Frank paid off the cab . . . said he wanted to walk to his old block . . . the one he grew up on . . . 33rd and Forest. So we walked down Troost to 33rd . . . past strip joints and hamburger stands . . . I was nervous . . . we didn’t . . . belong here . . . Anyway, we got to 33rd and walked down the hill from Troost to Forest . . . and on the way Frank told me how much he’d hated being small, being a child . . . that he could hardly wait to grow up . . . that to him childhood was a nightmare . . .

LYLE
: Then why all the nostalgia?

MRS. E
: It wasn’t that . . . it was . . . like an
exorcism
. . . Frank said he’d been haunted by his childhood all the years we’d lived in California . . . This was an attempt to get rid of it . . . by facing it . . . seeing that it was really gone . . . that it no longer had any reality . . .

LYLE
: What happened on Forest?

MRS. E
: We walked down the street to his old address . . . which was just past the middle of the block . . . 3337 it was . . . a small, sagging wooden house . . . in terrible condition . . . but then,
all
the houses were . . . their screens full of holes . . . windows broken, trash in the yards . . . Frank stood in front of his house staring at it for a long time . . . and then he began repeating something . . . over and over.

LYLE
: And what was that?

MRS. E
: He said it . . . like a litany . . . over and over . . . “I hate you! . . . I hate you!”

LYLE
: You mean, he was saying that to
you
?

MRS. E
: Oh, no. Not to
me
. . . I asked him what he meant . . . and . . . he said he hated the child he once was, the child who had lived in that house.

LYLE
: I see. Go on, Mrs Evans.

MRS. E
: Then he said he was going inside . . . that he
had
to go inside the house . . . but that he was afraid.

LYLE
: Of what?

MRS. E
: He didn’t say of what. He just told me to wait out there on the walk. Then he went up on to the small wooden porch . . . knocked on the door. No one answered. Then Frank tried the knob . . . The door was unlocked . . .

LYLE
: House was deserted?

MRS. E
: That’s right. I guess no one had lived there for a long while . . . All the windows were boarded up . . . and the driveway was filled with weeds . . . I started to move towards the porch, but Frank waved me back. Then he kicked the door all the way open with his foot, took a half-step inside, turned . . . and looked around at me . . . There was . . . a terrible fear in his eyes. I got a cold, chilled feeling all through my body – and I started towards him again . . . but he suddenly turned his back and went inside . . . the door closed.

LYLE
: What then?

MRS. E
: Then I waited. For fifteen . . . twenty minutes . . . a half hour . . . Frank didn’t come out. So I went up to the porch and opened the door . . . called to him . . .

LYLE
: Any answer?

MRS. E
: No. The house was like . . . a hollow cave . . . there were echoes . . . but no answer . . . I went inside . . . walked all through the place . . . into every room . . . but he wasn’t there . . . Frank was gone.

LYLE
: Out the back, maybe.

MRS. E
: No. The back door was nailed shut. Rusted. It hadn’t been opened for years.