The Un-Haunted House

The noise again.

Means Jennifer has to leave the security hut and venture onto the mansion’s grounds. Great. She puts her book aside, grabs the flashlight, and exits. She flicks on the light but it barely makes a difference, just dimly illuminating the empty lawn a few feet ahead. Piece of shit. Couldn’t Mr. Franks have shelled out for a better quality one? What is she supposed to do now?

She’s the guard, though, and the paycheck, well, nothing to complain about there: it’s just one Friday evening of work, yet still triple digits. Will singlehandedly fund her semester at the community college. She’s not ready to sacrifice the job for a little fear. Forward then.

Her footsteps are quiet; the trees are filled with dead leaves, but it seems like none dared fall to the lawn. A soft wind makes the leaves rustle, but even that is little more than a whisper. Had they, too, heard the noise?

What a ridiculous thought.

No movement in the bushes, nothing crawling through the trees. This leaves only the mansion itself, which waits for her in the center of the grounds. She shines her light across the steps leading up to it, scans the porch. The rocking chairs move but it has to be just the breeze, no? She scans with her light once more, but slower. Not because she’s afraid of missing something but because she’s afraid of seeing something. What if her light illuminates someone hunkered down on the porch, glaring out at her?

She comes close to gagging just at the thought.

The noise again. And not just a thunk. There’s a wetness to it too. God help her, it almost reminds her of a slurp. She walks backwards, away from the godforsaken house. She’s not cut out for this, no way. She’ll go home. Quit the job, no problem. Well, yeah, there’d be a problem but fuck it, right?

It is at that point, though, that someone in the house calls out, “Help.”

The voice sounds young. Her age, maybe. Not a child, God, please not that. If it’s a child she has to go in there, and going into the mansion is, of course, strictly forbidden, and absolutely the last place in the world she wants to be right now.

“Help!”

A decision, then. And what’s the point of living if you can’t live with yourself?

So she enters the mansion.

There’s light inside, although Jennifer remains unsure where it comes from. Somewhere deeper in the house for sure, as the entryway is still mostly dark, but there’s a hint of illumination ahead, almost a purple glow. She shines the light on the nearby floor, looking for obstacles in the foyer, but there’s nothing. No chairs, no tables, nothing hanging on the walls. To the right, there’s a bare kitchen; to the left, there’s a room that could be a den of some sort, but it, too, is vacant. Her mind tries to fill in details of what could be in the corners.

If there’s someone in need of help, then they must be ahead. Well, here’s hoping the violet light is something positive then.

She moves forward, slow but steady, moving the light back and forth. The lack of furnishings helps her navigation, but it’s unnerving, as if the house has been stripped of character, maybe even of its life.

The foyer leads to another near-vacant room, this one windowless, but a lone wooden table sits in its center. Newspapers litter its surface along with intricate drawings. Jennifer needs to keep moving, see if there really is someone here in need of assistance, but she cannot help but be called to the table. Why have so empty a mansion and then a cluttered table?

Year-old headlines alert the reader to Bush’s invasion of Iraq while others talk about the Enron scandal and Afghanistan. The drawings are even more alarming, crude but detailed. Most of them are of a mouth in the middle of a room, but in one drawing a person’s head hangs out of the mouth while in another picture two legs droop from the lips.

A final drawing captures her attention. A sketch, really. Something drawn in haste, as if done while someone tried to get across as many details as possible. A woman looks up at a black sun, while others sleep, or are dead, at her feet.

Towards the very end of the table is a lone black-and-white photograph that shows people running forwards in a street, some glancing behind them, their eyes wide with fright. No. Not fright. Total terror. She’s not sure where they are, but it’s daytime, and the trees on the side of the road are in full bloom. What they’re running from is in the center of the picture, but it’s impossible to make out, as the person (or is it something else?) has been…burnt out? But there’s no hole in the photo. It’s as if the photo itself refused to capture the entity (where did that word come from?), substituting in a negative space.

“Help!”

Jennifer almost gasps but stifles herself. She crosses to the room’s exit, a narrow doorway, which only leads into yet another dark room. But this one has a half-closed door at the other end from which the purple light emits. It’s an unnatural light. And not one that’s man-made, no. This light is something else entirely, a light that should not shine in this house. How does she know this? How could she not?

Does she still go forward? This might be the last chance to turn around. The person calling for help might be trying to trick her. Maybe the thing to do, the smart thing to do, is to just bolt and never look back. Never return to this stupid job. If that’s the wrong decision, then so what? She’s made plenty of wrong decisions. It’s how she bombed out of her first semester of private college.

Perhaps there’s a compromise to be had. “Is someone in there?” She speaks far softer than she means to. “Are you okay?”

“Where am I?”

There’s a quiver of fear in the tone that cannot be faked. Forward then. Don’t think. Just go.

She comes into a library, a scent of must hitting her. Bookshelves line the walls, some books appearing recent and others over a century old, maybe more. A closed door across the room has no doorknob. A room to the right has no door. An end table next to the entryway harbors a telephone. Two aged leather chairs sit in the library’s middle. If one were to sit in them, they’d have a prime view of the person sprawled on the floor and the purple vortex in the air.

Vortex. The word pops into her mind with confidence. The vortex forms a shape of a mouth at times; other times, it appears like crisscrossing lines of pure energy. She stares at it. What else is there to do? It’s otherworldly; what’s the accepted reaction to such a sight?

“Where am I?”

The person on the floor. Right. A young man, maybe fifteen or sixteen. He looks up at her with wide eyes infected with desperation.

“What happened?” she asks. She crouches to get a better look at him, but she’s not yet ready to come closer.

“I wanted to go someplace else,” he says. He tries to push himself up but fails. “He told me I would end up—”

A door slams shut. The front door. Someone is coming.

She wonders if she should drag the teenager out of sight. No time, though. The footfalls are loud; the newcomer is running. She flees into the dark room with no door until she hits a wall in it. Bites down a curse. Turns around and watches, waiting to see who enters. She wants to vanish further into this room, but there’s something terrifying about not having the library in sight. She needs to know who’s coming and what they want to do.

Mr. Franks enters the library, the purple light reflecting in his moon-shaped glasses. He wears a suit that’s too loose, like he’s only recently lost substantial weight. “Fucking daylight saving time,” he mutters. He doesn’t look in her direction, so she keeps her breaths soft.

He walks forward, out of sight, and she next hears an awful crack. A broken neck. God. Mr. Franks broke the young man’s neck, didn’t he? He did. He did. God. And what did she do? Nothing. But what could she do?

“Jennifer,” Mr. Franks calls. “I know you’re in here. I am not going to hurt you, but we need to talk.”

She retreats further into the dark room. An awful feeling grows in her, though: there might be no other way out of here. This mansion might be unfinished, the library the only “real” room in it. But that can’t be. There must be another way out. There must be.

Mr. Franks steps into the room as she reaches its rear, her back against the wall.

“You must think this is the most haunted house in the world,” Mr. Franks says. His glasses still shine thanks to the violet light slipping in from the library. “In reality, there’s no place less haunted.” He appears taller than when he interviewed her, both frail and powerfully alien.

Jennifer nods, realizes he can’t see that, and says, “Okay.” She keeps her back against the wall as she moves toward the right. There must be a doorknob. There must be an exit. Can this room really be a dead end?

“I’m not sure what you saw,” Mr. Franks continues. “Probably enough.”

Her right shoulder hits a wall: this is the corner. That’s it then. No way out. Other than past him, that is.

“I didn’t want to kill that fellow. And I certainly never wanted you here for it, to be involved in this debacle.” He laughs a laugh of the morbid. “Unfortunately, while you and I might observe daylight saving time, the vortex in there doesn’t turn back the clock. It plops people in here at 10:30 on the dot. Well, 9:30 now. I, uh, forgot to take that into account and had to rush over. I’d have changed your hours otherwise.”

He’s probably five feet in front of the entry. Plenty of room on either side of him. She just needs to get a little closer without him reacting, then she can bolt and he won’t be able to catch her. It can work. If only her hands, her legs, everything would stop shaking.

“I will explain it all to you, I promise. You won’t believe me, not right away. But I had no choice but to kill him. He knew how to do something, how to go somewhere, and that’s knowledge that cannot spread. So I had to cauterize the problem.”

“What knowledge?” she asks, hoping he’ll concentrate more on his explanation and not on the fact that she’s taking a few cautious steps forward.

“There’s a world that sits against our own. Not a nice place. If our world finds it easy to go there, then those in that world will find it easier and easier to come here. It’s happened before. Some… individual, so to speak, came over. He’s telling people how to cross. I’m trying to stop him.”

If she gets through the entry (no, when not if), she’ll have to veer left, and then go through those dark rooms. The first one will have the table in it. Will have to skirt to either side in that case. Or was it the second room that had the table? Three rooms to the foyer, though, she’s mostly sure of that. Will the entryway be locked? No, Mr. Franks did not have time, couldn’t have. He came right to the library to do what he did. When she gets to the front door, she’ll be fine. She’ll be free.

“When people perform their ritual to go from our world to the other one, they get intercepted and placed right here in this house. One or two might have managed to slip through to the other side, but not many. And if what I do to those I capture seems drastic, consider what you’d do: a couple people dead, or risk our world becoming a shrine to horrors?”

Fuck it. She’s running. Now. She bolts, telling herself the doorway is not too far, that, in the grand scheme of things, when you consider how large the whole planet is, it’s no distance at all.

Sadly, Mr. Franks seems to feel the same way. He does not walk nor run to grab her; he seems to glide across the floor, easily snatching her by the arm and pulling her off the floor. And he’s so tall now! When did he get so tall? He wasn’t this tall when he hired her. He didn’t even seem this tall a few minutes ago.

He carries her with one arm as she struggles. The ease with which he keeps her in the air is awful in its own way. So much power must reside in him. It weakens Jennifer’s stomach.

He brings her back into the library, placing her in a leather chair. “Stay there,” he orders. He takes the chair next to her. The violet vortex swirls in front of them both. “Don’t try to flee again,” he adds. “If you do, I’ll have to tie you down.”

Tie her down. God, it’s a comment that makes her horrified and furious all at once.

He removes his glasses, cleans them with his tie. “I am sorry. Although that probably doesn’t mean much to you right now.”

“Are you going to kill me?” A blunt question but so what? Better to know.

“I’m not a killer,” he says. He clears his throat. “Maybe I shouldn’t kid myself. I don’t want to hurt you, but I also don’t want you running off to the police. They won’t be able to catch me, but I’d lose this house, which would be a shame. It’s a place of protection.”

“From whom?” The longer he talks, the longer he stays where he is. Or is it that the more he explains, the more he’ll need to kill her?

“The man who isn’t a man. The one who came here from the other world. He’s out there, walking around. He fits in when he wants to. He stands out when he wants to. He came over around the start of our new millennium. He was summoned by some fool. Now he’s teaching others how to do the summoning, how to break the walls between his world and ours. I’m the only one who can stop him. And, yes, I realize this sounds so insane to you the more I say it. That’s fine. I have concrete proof.”

Proof? Now what on Earth could that be? Another vortex? More bodies? Whatever the proof was, the fact that he meant to show it to her means he won’t kill her just yet.

“We just have to wait for the call,” he adds.

“The call?”

“Yes. On the phone. Ring ring.”

Fine. She can sit in this chair and wait. So long as she sits here and he sits over there, then she’s safe. Safe from him. Safe from the vortex. Let’s just keep it like this. It’s okay like this. She’s okay. She’s okay. She won’t look at the body of the teenager.

“Should be soon,” Mr. Franks mutters. “He always calls.”

There’s no question in her mind that Mr. Franks believes this man from some other world will call. Absurd. The vortex, which must have an explanation, and the photograph, which could easily be doctored, are strange, but that doesn’t mean she has to believe what Mr. Franks says about this man calling. And when the call inevitably doesn’t happen, then what will he do? Let her go? Not likely. He said this would be proof that would keep her quiet. Well, what will his next move be to keep her quiet? Will he—

The phone rings. The shrill tone pierces her ear. She grimaces while looking to Mr. Franks.

“Answer it,” he says. “Go on.”

She goes to the phone. As she reaches for its handle, it rings again, and she pulls back. After a moment’s pause, she picks it up. “Hello?”

“Sam? No, this isn’t Sam.” The voice is harsh, gleeful.

“Who is this?” she asks.

“I was calling for Sam. He’s there, isn’t he? It’s fine, though. I can talk with you.” There’s the slightest hint of an echo. Is he in a large empty room? An empty landscape? An empty world? No, not the latter. She can’t let Mr. Franks’ delusions affect her.

She’s not sure what to say.

“You’re nervous. There’s no reason to be scared. I’m just someone on the telephone.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m sure Sam has told you, no?”

Mr. Franks stands now, arms crossed. What does he want her to do here? “A little,” she says.

There’s what might be a howl in the background. “Oh, I’m sure he has told some tales.”

“Are they true?”

“Probably. You think he’s crazy? He is. He’s a crazy, dangerous man. He’d have to be to do what he does.” The words sound not so much louder but closer, as if he’s coming toward her or she’s coming toward him.

And she is. She sees him. She’s still in the library, sure, but this is another way of seeing. She sees him and the place he came from all at once.

The man holds a wireless phone while standing in… where? A desert? Maybe. But it’s not sand he’s standing on, is it? No. No, it’s beige cement, a foundation that extends all the way to the horizon. Splotches stain the cement on occasion, splotches of a brownish red. Wild dogs eat a corpse. Black birds that aren’t birds fly upside-down in the sky. And the sky? It’s violet but a darker violet than the vortex. A black sun hangs in its center.

The man himself smiles too wide a smile. His eyes are set deep, and his dark hair hangs to his shoulders. He wears a battered brown trenchcoat that ends at his ankles. He breathes heavily out of lust and anticipation. But lust and anticipation for what? No. She knows what. Maybe not precisely, but she doesn’t need to know the details. It’s clear now what this man is and what he wants to do.

“You see me?” he asks on the phone.

Jennifer shakes her head, reorients herself. Mr. Franks stands still, offering no respite. His glasses shine a little, thanks to the light of the slurping vortex. Has he met this thing on the phone?

“I asked you a question,” he adds.

“Yes. Where is that place you’re in?” Far away. It has to be far away. Let him say that. Let me say he’s worlds away. Galaxies away.

“You don’t recognize it?” he asks. “You will soon. Everywhere will look like this. I’d go so far as to say if you squint hard enough, it almost already does.”

What to say next? There’s nothing, is there? Nothing to do, nothing to ask. She just holds the stupid phone.

“I’ll see you when I see you,” the man states. There’s a laugh. It might be his, but it’s a little higher, like someone else is on the line now, too. An interloper. “I’m not going to threaten to kill you. That’s how your new friend Sam works. Not me. Not right away, at least. It’s no fun like that. People always think about the apocalypse like an asteroid hitting the Earth or God causing another flood. But that’s brief anarchy, the enjoyment intense but over fast. The best way to end the world is to end it slowly, so slowly people don’t realize until I’m right there beside them, hands around their throat, the world changed.”

“That’s not going to happen,” she replies. She says it so weakly, though, that she fears the statement might cause the opposite, her shallow defense inviting him in.

“Hang up,” Mr. Franks orders.

She cannot pull the phone away from her ear.

“There’s a nice smell in that library,” the man says. “A nice smell. Is the scent of your library coming to me? Or, could it be, that I’m coming to—”

Mr. Franks rips the phone from her hand and slams it down. “That was enough,” he whispers.

She looks to the slurping vortex. It’s the same size as before, but its aura is smaller. What seemed so impossible and powerful before seems so little now. Everything is little next to the man on the phone.

“So, that was him,” Mr. Franks whispers.

Jennifer realizes her breaths have been shallow, so she takes in a deep one. “I don’t know,” she whispers. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. And you’ll never again not know it. I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry for—”

The phone shrieks again. They both jump. Mr. Franks snatches it, holds it tight against his ear.

“No,” he says. “I don’t care. I won’t stop. It’s not pointless. It’s not!”

The words want to be powerful, but his voice sounds like it will break.

The vortex slurps. A black bird that isn’t a bird flies out of it. It screams as it crashes into one of the bookshelves. It twitches on the floor.

Mr. Franks slams the phone down. “A joke,” he mutters. “His idea of a joke.”

“Is he coming through next?” Jennifer asks.

“No. He can’t. We’re safe in this house.” He walks over to the bird. He stomps on it. Hard. Again and again. Mr. Franks has no real power, Jennifer realizes. Not in the way that will matter. He probably knows it too.

“But we can’t stay in this house forever,” Jennifer says.

Mr. Franks breathes heavily, puts a hand through his hair. “That’s the tragedy.”

“What am I supposed to do now?”

“Go on with life, I guess. The security job is still yours if you want it.”

She almost laughs. “Go on? You just…I found out the whole world might come to an end, that this man, this thing will make our world into something awful. And you want me to just go on with life?”

Mr. Franks shrugs. “I know. There’s nothing to do, though. Besides, you might get lucky.”

“Lucky?”

“Yes. Maybe it will take him longer to win than you’d think. Maybe you’ll live a life and get the chance to die before it becomes too bad.”

“He’s out there, though. You said it yourself. He’s out there.”

Mr. Franks rubs his right temple. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I don’t.”

She waits for more, but he doesn’t say anything else, just stares at the not-bird he’s crushed. Eventually, she leaves, but as she goes through each room, as she opens the front door, she still hopes he’ll call out, offer a glimmer of hope she can snatch.

He doesn’t.

And it’s the outside world again. Dark still. She has to walk carefully down the steps. Remember when the house seemed intimidating? Now it’s the lawn that stretches out into darkness before her that terrifies. The thing of it is, the threat doesn’t stop when the lawn ends. Something could be in the security hut where her purse is. Something could be waiting for her in her car. Something could be on the road, slithering around in anticipation of her arrival. Something could be in the bushes outside her shitty apartment building, eager to jump at her and put hands around her throat. Something could be anywhere, ready to torment her, to break her while it breaks the world.

She makes her way back to the security hut. Birds fly overhead.