The Haunted

Sixteen

They weren’t saying anything to Megan or James. Julian was adamant about that. They didn’t know what was really going on here, he argued, and he didn’t want to frighten the kids needlessly.

Though initially reluctant, Claire finally agreed. “But we do know what’s going on here,” she told him pointedly. “Our house is haunted. We saw a ghost. We all saw a ghost.”

“Not necessarily,” he argued. “There were a lot of people, some of them who weren’t invited. You caught that man in James’s room. This guy might’ve been a party crasher, too. Everyone had had a little too much to drink; those lights were flickering. We might not’ve seen what we thought we saw. And when the lights went out, he might’ve just gone out the back door.”

“Come on! This wasn’t some teenage keg party. Guys from other neighborhoods weren’t sneaking into our house to meet chicks and score free booze. This was a housewarming party with a countable number of people attending. And just because I didn’t recognize that man in James’s room doesn’t mean you didn’t invite him. I’m pretty sure he’s a neighbor. But that ghost …” She glared at him. “Cole said it was a man who died in our house. You didn’t even tell me about that.”

“I didn’t know,” he lied.

“Right.”

“I didn’t.”

“I don’t care right now. But I do think Cole’s right. I think we should sell the house.”

Julian sighed. “We just bought it. We can’t—”

“We can’t what? Sell it? Of course we can. We’ll find another house.”

“We can’t afford it.”

“Our house is haunted! What part of that don’t you understand?”

“Even if it is haunted,” he told her, “and I’m not saying it is, a ghost can’t hurt anyone. They might frighten people, but they can’t physically harm a person.”

“Fear can cause heart attacks. And ghosts can make people trip and fall if they startle them. If they can also play records and move laundry baskets …” She exhaled heavily, disgusted. “I’m not going to argue with you about the physical properties of ghosts. What I’m saying is, I’m not going to live in a haunted house.”

“You’re going to have to. Look, I don’t have any jobs lined up after this one. And the town of Jardine is not exactly a hotbed of legal activity, so your phone’s not ringing off the hook, either. We have to be realistic. If we were in California, we might both have enough business that we could afford a do-over. But right now, that’s not an option. We have enough money coming in, and in the bank, to make our house payments and pay our monthly bills, with a little bit left over. But that’s it. The down payment for this place pretty much cleaned us out. We can’t afford to do it again. Or pay all those points and fees. Even if we did qualify for another loan. So we can’t just pull up stakes and move. It’s financially impossible.”

He could tell from the expression on her face that he’d gotten through to her, but she wasn’t going to simply give up. “Contracts are made to be broken,” she said. “I should know. I’m a lawyer.”

“And you can somehow weasel us out of those hundreds of pages of rules and obligations that we signed? That you signed? Face it, unless we win the lottery, or Bill Gates hires you as his personal attorney and hires me to completely revamp Microsoft’s Web presence, we’re stuck here. At least for now.”

“Fine,” she said. “But we need to come up with a plan. I don’t feel safe here. And even if we don’t tell the kids anything—yet—they need to be protected.”

“Agreed.”

“So … ?”

“So we keep our eyes open. We try to find out ourselves exactly what’s going on, research the house, the neighborhood, whatever, and we make sure that Megan and James are never in the house alone, especially at night.”

“That’s about the lamest plan I ever heard,” Claire said. But she didn’t have anything better, and, for the moment at least, they seemed to have called a truce.

It was daytime, though. Morning. Tonight would be a different story, and he had no doubt that, mentally and psychologically, they would each end up facing once again what had happened. Megan and James would be home as well, and as he thought about it now, it seemed to him that their bedrooms upstairs were much too far away from the master bedroom.

He wasn’t about to mention that, however. He might be just as frightened as Claire, but it was his job to be strong, not only for her but for the whole family, and he needed to put a good face on everything, needed to pretend this was no big deal.

He had expected Claire to get up from the couch and leave, to get a drink or go to the bathroom or start doing the breakfast dishes or do whatever it was she would usually do when a conversation was over. But she remained in place, and there was a look on her face that he didn’t trust. He knew even before she spoke that he was not going to like what she was about to say, a feeling that intensified when she met his gaze, then immediately looked away. “You know,” she said, “I thought for a while that it might be Miles. Obviously, it’s not,” she added quickly. “But …” She let the thought dangle.

Julian didn’t trust himself to speak.

“I’ve thought I’ve felt him before. Not just here and not just on Farris Street, but back in California, in our old house.” She spoke rapidly, as though afraid he might cut her off. “I’ve never seen him, but there’ve been signs. Little indications that he was around, watching over us. I know you’ve seen them, too. Or heard them. Or felt them. And that last time? I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I just … I just wanted to tell you. I guess I wanted to know if you were thinking the same thing.”

She looked at him hopefully, but he turned away, unable to face her. Of course he’d thought the same thing, but he’d never allowed himself to dwell on it, and he would never admit it to her. Even now, the tears were close, and he forced his mind to change the subject, think about something else, before his eyes overflowed and he started to cry and he found himself unable to stop.

He stood.

Claire reached for his hand. “Julian? It’s all right. We can talk about it.”

He shook his head, unable to speak for fear that emotion might overwhelm him, and she let go of his hand, nodded. “Okay,” she said.

He was the one who went into the kitchen to get a drink, and he picked up his orange juice glass from the counter, rinsed it out in the sink, filled it with water and drank it down as he stared out at the backyard.

Some feelings never went away.

Claire came in to do the dishes, and he went back out to the living room to read the newspaper, both of them pretending this was an ordinary morning and nothing unusual had happened.

He finished the paper while she was still working in the kitchen, and he called out that he was going upstairs to work, could she answer the phone if it rang. He had always been able to lose himself in a project, and today was no exception. Nearly two hours passed before Claire came upstairs and he finally looked up from his computer monitor.

He stood, stretching, and glanced down at the lower right corner of his screen. It was almost time to pick up the kids. The phone must have rung without his hearing it, because Claire said her parents had invited them over for a barbecue lunch. Luckily, Julian was behind in his work and nearing another deadline, so he had a legitimate reason not to go.

“I’ll give them your regrets,” Claire said dryly.

“Do that. Let them know I wish I could be there; I really do.”

“You don’t have to be such a jerk about it.”

“Okay,” he apologized, but inside he was smiling.

She walked over to his desk and gave him a kiss, a real kiss, and he understood that there was no lingering resentment from their earlier discussion; everything was all right between them. It made him feel good, and he realized how lucky he was to have Claire. He vowed to spend the afternoon researching the history of the house, as he said he would. He should have done so already, but he really did have an impending deadline, and, as usual, he’d been laser-focused on his work to the exclusion of everything else.

Claire said good-bye and was getting ready to leave when she paused in the doorway. “Do you really feel safe staying here?” she asked. “All alone?”

He didn’t, but he wasn’t about to admit that, so he lied, nodding. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

As soon as she was gone, however, he became acutely aware of the fact that he was the only one home. The house seemed unnaturally quiet, and he could not help thinking of that shambling figure from the night before, imagining it shuffling slowly up the stairs, moving inexorably down the short hall to his office.

A car honked outside, and Julian jumped in his seat.

He wanted to laugh at himself for being so jittery but couldn’t. He had legitimate reason to be nervous, and he saved what was on his screen and went through the house room by room, checking to make sure he really was alone here. He even inspected the basement, not going into it but standing at the top of the stairs, turning on the lights and looking down, although just being this close to the room made him uneasy.

As far as he could tell, the house was clean (as the psychic in Poltergeist so confidently and incorrectly stated), and back upstairs, he put on a record, something happy—Beat Crazy by Joe Jackson—cranking it up to drown out any creaking or settling sounds the building might make. Sinking into his seat, he stared for several moments at his computer screen, wondering how he should start his research. Gillette, the realtor, sure didn’t want to talk to him again, and the previous owners had done everything in their power to make themselves untraceable. But if he could get a list of previous owners, maybe he could wrangle some information out of them.

Accessing the county recorder’s Web site, he found several names and addresses, going all the way back to 1979, but when he tried to follow up, the addresses were revealed to be out-of-date, and the individuals proved impossible to track, except for one—who happened to have died.

It was after noon, and Julian was getting hungry. So he took a break and went downstairs to make himself a sandwich. Once again, the house seemed too quiet, and he turned on the television in the living room, switching the channel to CNN and boosting the volume so he could hear it in the kitchen. He’d intended to eat at the breakfast table, the way he usually did, but the closed door of the basement was in his peripheral vision, and he felt more comfortable going into the dining room. He could see the TV here as well, and watching opposing pundits, framed by red, white and blue graphics as they discussed the president’s current approval ratings, made him feel relaxed and reassured.

Biting into his sandwich, Julian pondered what his next move should be. He thought he might—

A knock on the dining room window made him jump.

Looking up, he saw a man with a knife standing in the side yard and peering into the house.

Julian jerked back from his chair as though he’d been sitting on hot coals. The man staring in at him was dressed in torn jeans and a faded Willie Nelson T-shirt, wearing a yellow baseball cap with the brim anachronistically pointed in the wrong direction. He was frowning, and under his furrowed brow, his eyes were darting back and forth, taking in everything. The long knife in his hand glinted in the midday sun.

The windows were all closed to keep the coolness in, luckily, and Julian ran to the kitchen door to make sure it was locked, then ran to the front door to do the same. He grabbed the phone to call 911.

The crazy man was still at the window. The look on his face was one of dumb fascination, like Frankenstein watching a domestic scene that he didn’t understand, but at least he wasn’t trying to break into the house.

“I’m calling the police!” Julian announced loudly, and just at that moment, a dispatcher came on the line. Julian quickly gave his name and address, and before the woman could ask what was wrong, he told her that there was a lunatic with a knife standing in his yard and spying on him through a window. The dispatcher asked him to stay on the line, but Julian ignored her. He put the phone faceup on a table so she could hear what was going on, then ran back into the kitchen, where he opened the knife drawer, trying to find his own weapon, just in case. None of their knives were big enough to ensure victory in a fight, however, and he changed his mind, hurrying over to the broom closet, where he took out both a broom and a mop. Each of them had a long handle, and while he doubted that either of them would be able to deal any lethal blows, he could use them to bat the knife out of the man’s hand, hit his head or even spear into his stomach.

Broom in his left hand, mop in his right, both of them held backward, sticks out, he hurried back into the dining room, where the man was—

Gone!

No. He had merely moved over to the other pane. He was still standing at the window. “Let me in!” he called, and his voice was neither as demanding as the request would seem to require nor as flat as the expression on his face would indicate. Indeed, the voice did not seem to match the person, and that dichotomy made the situation seem even more threatening and unnerving.

Julian remained in place, both makeshift weapons held tight.

The police arrived moments later. They came in two cars, sirens wailing, tires screeching, but nothing scared the man off. He was still there when Julian ran out the front door to meet the officers and tell them where the intruder was, and although the man did not run away, he also did not comply when a policeman, gun drawn, ordered him to drop the knife. He was still holding the weapon and staring in the window as he was subdued and the knife taken from him.

Julian had never had a reason to call the police before, and his preconceptions came entirely from movies and television shows. Although he’d expected either arrogance or hostility, he encountered neither, and he was impressed by not only the officers’ levelheaded competence but the experienced efficiency with which they handled the situation.

The intruder, who refused to give his name, was handcuffed, arrested and driven away by two of the officers, while two others remained behind to take Julian’s statement.

“How long is he going to stay in jail?” Julian asked. “You’re not just going to book him and then let him out on bail, are you? Because I’m afraid he’d come right back here. And if my wife and kids were home …” He left the thought unfinished.

“He was captured during the commission of a crime,” said the lead officer, George Rodriguez, a stocky young man with a thick black mustache. “So no, that’s not going to happen. He might get bail, but by the looks of him, I doubt if he could make it. He also seems more than a little disturbed, so we’re going to recommend a psych evaluation, which will keep him locked up for a minimum of seventy-two hours.”

“Seventy-two hours? That’s all? And after that … ?”

“My guess is that he’ll fail the psych test,” Rodriguez said reassuringly. “And we have him dead to rights on trespassing and threatening an officer. He’s not getting out anytime soon. Don’t worry about that.”

Julian nodded, answering the rest of the questions he was asked. But he did worry, and after they were gone, after he was given a business card and a case number and told that he could pick up a copy of the report at the police station tomorrow, he stood in the front yard, looking at the house, trying to assess how secure it was against intruders, wondering whether he should keep some type of weapon handy. He wasn’t a gun guy, but having a baseball bat next to his bed or beside the front door couldn’t hurt.

Thank God Claire and the kids weren’t here.

Still, he wasn’t sure how he could keep this from them, or whether he should, and, instinctively, he glanced around. Had anyone else on the street noticed? If any of their neighbors were home, they certainly had. But it was the middle of the day and most people were at work, and the sirens and police cars hadn’t drawn any attention. He was most likely safe. Besides, after last night’s entertainment, the neighbors with whom they would have been likely to socialize were probably planning to keep a safe distance from his family and their house.

Julian walked back inside, his eyes drawn to the dining room window. Eventually, he decided, he would tell Claire. But not right away, not after what had happened last night. She needed some breathing room, some time to adjust. A one-two punch like this would just knock her flat.

He was too jittery and wound up to stay seated in front of a computer for the rest of the afternoon, and he scarfed down his sandwich, gulped down his Coke, then called Claire and told her he would be out for the next few hours, running errands. He wanted to tell her not to come home, to stay away, some primitive part of his brain believing that even with the would-be attacker arrested and in jail, their house was still not safe. But he said nothing to her about it, just said good-bye and hung up.

He actually had no errands to run, no place to go, nothing to do, so he drove over to Rick’s print shop. As he’d hoped, his friend was between jobs, sitting in the office watching TV and waiting for customers, and he looked up when the buzzer sounded over the door and Julian walked in. “Dude!”

“Hey,” Julian said, already wondering whether he’d made a mistake in coming here.

“Want me to print up some flyers for an exorcist? Friend’s discount.” He laughed, but there was an uneasiness in the laughter, and it was all Julian could do to force a smile.

Rick stood, shutting off the TV. “Seriously, is that why you’re here? Because of what happened last night?”

“No. Because of what happened today.”

Rick’s eyes widened. “Are you shittin’ me?”

Julian looked at him. “Yes. Yes, I am. I’m shitting you. You are emerging from my asshole even as we speak.”

“You know what I mean.”

“That’s such a stupid phrase.”

“Give me a break. I just wanted to know if you were bullshitting me. Is that better?”

“It is, actually.” Julian allowed himself a small smile, but it faded fast. He took a deep breath. “A guy with a knife tried to break into my house at lunch.”

“Holy fuck!”

Julian ran through the whole story. “They’ve arrested the guy. He’s in jail.”

“For how long? And what’ll he do when he gets out?” Rick leaned forward. “Do you think this is connected to the ghost?”

Julian sighed. “I don’t know. Everything’s just a big goddamn mess. I haven’t even told Claire about it yet. Not sure if I’m going to.”

“You want my advice? Don’t. She was genuinely freaked-out last night. Something like this …”

“I was thinking that, too. But she has to know. I mean, what if they release the guy and he comes back and tells her—I don’t know—that he’s a new neighbor or something. She needs to know enough to protect herself. And Megan and James.”

“You’re right, you’re right.”

“But maybe I should wait a few days. Maybe this isn’t the right time.”

“Your call, dude.”

It was irresponsible of him to be here. He had work to do and a deadline to meet. But he did not want to go home, and he was glad he’d come to the print shop. It felt good to be hanging with Rick, relaxing, and he ended up staying for most of the afternoon.

Claire and the kids were home when Julian returned, and somehow having them in the house made everything seem more normal, made the craziness of last night and earlier today seem like they had happened in some other place at some other time. Both Megan and James were in the living room when he walked in, Megan lounging on the couch watching an obnoxious sitcom, James on the floor, playing with his DS. Claire was in the kitchen, cooking something that smelled delicious and that turned out to be jambalaya. She still looked worried, but she smiled at him when he entered the kitchen, and he gave her a quick peck. “Everything all right?”

She looked around, her gaze indicating the entire house surrounding them. “So far.”

“How’re your parents?”

“Don’t even pretend to be interested,” she told him.

He laughed, though he didn’t really feel like laughing. In an hour or so, they would be eating dinner. In the dining room.

Where that lunatic with the knife had been staring in at him.

What would happen if the man did get out on bail, if the cops couldn’t hold him, if he was let out on the streets again?

Julian didn’t want to think about it. He got himself a beer from the refrigerator and walked back out to the living room, but the homey domesticity of a few moments before had disappeared, and now he saw his children as fish in a barrel, waiting to be shot. It was all he could do to pick up a section of the newspaper that he hadn’t yet read, sit down on the chair opposite the couch and scan today’s headlines.

It was almost a normal evening. Maybe it was normal for Megan and James, but he and Claire had to work hard to maintain that surface regularity, and while several times the routine unfolded naturally enough to feel organic, by the time the kids went to bed, his muscles were tense, and he had the beginnings of a headache.

When he went into the kitchen to take an Advil, he avoided looking at the basement door.

Stress was supposed to inhibit libido, but, inexplicably, he found himself aroused, and while Claire was in the shower, Julian took off his clothes and began masturbating, stroking himself until he was hard. He thought about finishing before she came out, but then had a better idea and forced himself on her while she was brushing her teeth. She’d already showered but had not yet put on her underwear or nightgown, and when he opened the bathroom door, he saw her standing naked before the sink, her beautiful pale ass shining out at him.

Within seconds, he was across the small room and behind her, adjusting himself and shoving into the first hole available.

“Nmmmn!” she grunted through the toothpaste, trying to swat him away, but already he was thrusting, and she dropped the toothbrush in the sink, crying out, though whether from pleasure or pain he could not tell.

And did not care.

She held on to the sides of the sink with both hands to steady herself, and he plunged deep, taking her hard and fast until, finally, he exploded inside her.

Without saying a word, Claire picked up her toothbrush and resumed brushing, while he pulled a length of toilet paper from the roll and used it to wipe himself off.

Julian walked back out to the bedroom.

That definitely wasn’t normal.

He lay down on the bed. What was wrong with them? He didn’t know, but he didn’t want to think about it. All roads led back to the house, to the man’s voice in Megan’s room, to James eating dirt, to that shambling horror from the party. Whatever was haunting this house—and he agreed that something was—it did not just rattle its chains and moan, like a specter in a movie. It affected them, their dreams, their thoughts, their actions. That made it more dangerous, but also more difficult to detect, and he wondered now whether he had done or said other things not of his own volition, things he might not have noticed or recognized at the time. Had he really wanted to stay here this afternoon instead of going with Claire to her parents’ house? Had he even wanted the pancakes he’d had for breakfast? Why had he chosen the room he had for his office?

Julian forced himself to drop this line of reasoning before it headed into craziness and obsession. This was not the time to go there. He would revisit it tomorrow, when his mind was clearer. Right now, he needed to get some rest.

He thought it would be hard to fall asleep, but it wasn’t. He dozed off immediately, and was dead to the world well before Claire came out of the bathroom.

He dreamed about the house.