Secret Basement Lab Alphabet: H is for HAUNTED HOUSE

H is for HAUNTED HOUSE

Stone, wood and mortar. Martin kept repeating the ingredients that made up the old house over to himself in his head. If the old Victorian home wasn’t built with a ghost to begin with, it was added as a garnish afterwards, and most garnishes wound up in the garbage with the steak rinds and the potato skins.

It was a small comfort, however. He was certain the veils of cobweb that draped from all of the ancient wall fixtures, and the heavy talc-like coating of dust that made the parlor look as if it had been situated downwind of a forest fire for the last century, weren’t present when old (then young) Redmond Rafkin carried his blushing bride over the newly-built threshold either.

Still…for all the hubbub about spooks haunting the place, Martin hadn’t seen hide or hair of one over the last three hours. To be honest, it was a bit of a letdown. Here he was, trying to exploit the adventure and romance of being a supernatural investigator, and so far all he’d gotten for his efforts was a cough.  It wasn’t like the movies had portrayed it at all.  The warped old grandfather clock in the hallway hadn’t chimed ominously at midnight; the thing was a junker that had wound down decades ago and would probably cost the city money to have some antique dealer come truck it away. There had been no mysterious voices, no thumping or the rattling of chains from the attic or cellar. Aside from the occasional skitter of an indigent mouse, or the warm summer breath of the July breeze down the old fireplace, there wasn’t a sound to be heard in the old place.

He’d made up his mind. As soon as the sun rose and he sauntered out of the place, he was going to draft up a lawsuit to the estate of James Whale for pushing propaganda. That and he was going to phone up his half-interested contact at the Lake Cove Daily News and give him the whole spiel; obviously bolstering his bravery for undertaking (pun intended) such a dangerous assignment as spending the night in the old Rafkin place, and adding a hint of ambiguity about what exactly he experienced, so as not to so bluntly have to admit it was a dud.

He twisted his wrist towards the moonlight coming through the parlor window. It was quarter-past two. Sunrise still a little over three hours away. Surely he could keep himself amused until then.

Already Martin had wandered around the place; the tracks of his bored pacing were clearly visible on the dust-coated floors of every room. And not a single thing to hold his interest. No creepy dolls, no moody portraits in oils with the eyes cut out, not even a suspiciously sacrilegious book title on the bookshelves in the library. Still, there was an air of creepy about the place, even if it was all psychosomatic.

He exhaled heavily and paced around the parlor some more. Casually his attention flittered from the same dull objects and shadow-basted furniture that he’d come to know by heart.

Would sunrise hurry, already? If only to save him from dying of boredom?

He paced back to the window, looked at the face of his watch.

2:15am.

Surely that wasn’t correct. He put his ear to his watch. Great. Nothing. Not a tick. What a time for the battery to give out. Now he can’t even while away the time listening to the seconds of his life tick away.

Actually, he thought, who’s to know if I sneak out now anyways? He was here of his own volition. There weren’t any ghost groupies camped out on the front lawn, there were no cops standing around at the front gate in case he started wailing for help. He could, theoretically, just step out the back door, maybe find some food and a magazine, and make his way back for whoever might be around to see him leave properly through the front door first thing after sunup.

Marty my boy, he said to himself, you are a clever devil.

Moving carefully so as to avoid jamming his hipbone or shins into any countertops or furniture in the darkness, Martin made his way through the parlor, through the dining room, and into the kitchen. He pulled the filthy, sun-faded curtain away from the window on the back door, and threw a glance around the back yard, making sure no one was keeping tabs on him or waiting to shout “a-ha!” should he abandon his post.

The coast looked clear. As clear as it could look in the inky blackness of two-fifteen…er…whatever-time-it-was a.m.

He twisted the brass door knob to exit. It stuck.

“Well, of all the dumb…” He tried again. The door wouldn’t move. Not just that, but the knob wouldn’t twist.

“Twisted earlier,” he muttered to the cockroaches.

There was a cellar door, the old sloped storm door type. But those were chained up from the outside, and he didn’t have the key for the padlock. Well, he decided, might as well use the front door. Nobody was likely to see him, he mused, and if they did, he could say he was just stepping out between bouts with old man Rafkin’s specter. Really dramatize the whole thing.

Marty jogged to the front door, got a grip on the handle, and pulled.

Door wouldn’t budge.

“Well hold on now,” he drawled, irritation piquing his tone. “I came in through this door. The door was never locked after I came in. So why the heck won’t the handle even budge for me now?”

“Can’t leave ya know?”

It was as if he’d been punched, his guts wadded themselves up in his chest. His throat seemed corked tight.

Martin spun and found himself faced with an elderly man in a suit that had been strictly for stage plays and costume parties for nigh on eighty years now.

“Door won’t work for ya, son. Not the windows, not the chimney, not even the hole in the shingles up in the attic.”

“Wha-why not? Who the hell’re you?”

“Suppose I should ask the same of yourself, you bein’ in my home and all.”

Ah, here it was. The wind up, the pitch, and he was supposed to swing for the fences. Some con this was.

“I­–uh–I suppose you’re supposed to be Redmond Rafkin. Amiright?”

“No supposin’ about it, sir. I am he. Or was he. Just as you were you. Suppose you still are, in a sense.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Martin balked.

“Why don’t ya come into the kitchen, we’ll talk all about it.”

Martin hadn’t noticed before, but the old man was standing right inside the kitchen doorway. He hadn’t been in there just a moment ago, Martin was sure of it.

“Why the kitchen?” Better to draw this out so he could think.

“Can’t really move beyond it for another half hour or so. Then, well…then my time is limited before I go away and then wind up back here in the kitchen again. Best to make use of the time.”

Martin fidgeted with the doorknob behind his back. “I don’t understand.”

“The missus, she poisoned me back some…oh…I don’t even know to think of it. Cleveland was president then. I wake up in the kitchen at three am every morning, the time she slipped me the poison in my bourbon. Got sick of my drinking, she did. In retrospect I can’t blame her. Only she gets to rest in peace. I got to hang around for the half hour it took me to die on the kitchen table. Then I’m free to wander. Then, at some point, I kind of go to sleep you might say. Wake up again the next morning at three, in the kitchen, do it all again.”

Martin’s head was swimming. Someone had taken a mallet to his bearings, and things were slow in recalibrating. “Hold on, you said I can’t use the doors anymore. Why not?”

“Dead too. I tried. Thought maybe I could walk out, find my grave and crawl inside my bones and that would be that. Not so. Unable to leave my home for as long as it stands, for all I know. Who knows, maybe even longer.”

“Well, it’s been fun, whoever the hell you are, but you’ve spun a yarn bigger than you can sew. I’m not dead. I’ve been here all night...”
            “And you got stabbed in the basement shortly after two o’clock I believe. There’s a feller who has been shacking up down there. Not a nice man. I stayed clear of him myself, didn’t want anything to do with him; way he keeps doping himself and coming back with other folks’ wallets and handbags. You’ll find yourself lying on the floor down there. He must’ve hid when he heard you come in, then cut you and fled. You’ll know soon enough. You’ll be seeing a lot of the cellar. Best get friendly with each other, ‘cause we’ll be seeing a lot of each other as well. Whether you like it or not.”

This is insane! There was an obvious play to end this whole affair, just simply go look in the cellar and point out to this madman that there was no other, more corporeal version of himself lying down there. But then again, maybe this was the junkie, hopped up and luring him downstairs for the actual kill. Or maybe this was all a big joke, and some photographer was waiting to snap a photo as soon as he stepped down into the basement, and make a laughing stock of him. One burst of a flashbulb and poof!, adios career. Not that it was much of one to begin with.

Maybe his grandfather was right. He should’ve studied business.

“And if I don’t go down and play this through?” Martin asked.

“No skin off my nose, son. You’ll wind up down there either way. Again and again and again…”

“Yeah, so you’ve said,” Martin snapped. “I think I’ll just stay here for a while. Until the sun comes up and all of those people who will be here for my exit show up and knock this door down and you’ll be arrested and…”

The old man just nodded and made a genial, resigned gesture. “Very well. I’m just going to sit quietly in here until I blink away. I won’t bother you none. See you in the morning, son.” With that he tottered to the kitchen table, withdrew a chair and sat down.

Martin tried the front door a few more times, but, sensing the futility, gave up and slid to the floor, the door against his back. He just sat and watched the old man at the kitchen table, waiting for him to move. Waiting for the need to defend himself.

It never came. He must’ve dozed off. The thought filled him with dread, but a sense of relief washed over him when, after a quick inspection, he deemed himself to be ok.

But where was he? He was no longer propped against the front door in the parlor. He stood slowly, feeling around the darkness for something to orient himself to. Wooden crates, something metal, a sheet or blanket of some kind. There was a shoestring dangling from a light fixture in the ceiling. He gave it a tug.

The planet began to speed up its rotation beneath him. At his feet, on the concrete floor of the cellar of the Rafkin house, was a thick white outline of a figure, with a large red splotch just above what would be the waist.

No. No! This was a trick! He’d been drugged, moved to the cellar. The old freak at the table and some others, taking this sick joke far too far.

“The police were here earlier. Took you away.” It was the old man. The alleged Redmond Rafkin. He was standing in the kitchen, at the top of the cellar steps. “You’ll get a sense of things like that in time: knowing things that happen here, even when you’re not.

“Why don’t you come on up, son,” he said, gesturing kindly. “We’ll talk it over.”