Table of Contents
Floor Plan
The
wallpaper separated from the plaster, pieces dangled along the wall in curled
strips. Archer Ryan inspected a large piece at the top of the third floor stairs.
With a gentle tug, he pulled the section away from the wall. The yellowed
flower print disintegrated in his hands.
Archer
shook his head. A shock of bright red hair dropped across his eyes. With an unconscious
flick of the wrist, he brushed the strands aside. With the same hand, the
iPhone slipped from his grasp and clattered to the ground.
A small muffled voice emerged from the fallen mobile
device. “Archer, what’s going on?”
Archer retrieved the phone and looked into the camera.
“Sorry, Jules,” he said. “Just like the house, I’m falling apart. I guess when
you buy a hundred year old house; problems are bound to arise, both with the
house and the owner.”
“What did you expect?” Jules said with her round face
visible on the small screen.
“You’re right, for the price I paid, I should be happy
anything is still standing.”
Archer
changed the view to look out and held out the camera in front of him so Jules saw
what he did. He stepped off the stairway into the third floor library and
strolled down the row of shelves, panning the camera while he ran his finger
down the spines of the books, creating a cloud of dust. Each book appeared in an
advanced state of decay.
“It looks like many of these books are first editions
from the 1950’s,” he said. “The Wall by John Hersey, Steamboat Gothic by Frances Parkinson Keyes, and This I Believe by Edward R. Murrow. They
should be valuable. However, with their condition in such poor shape, the books
are probably worthless. I think the only future for the books will be for
kindle in the fireplace for heat when I’m broke and cold in the winter.”
“You
won’t be broke. I’m sure you will invent some new software app and get rich all
over again. And besides, you could keep these book and actually read them, you
geek,” Jules said. “Put down your Kindle for a minute and look at three
dimensional books.”
“Keep
them, oh no,” he said. “Besides print being dead, the castle is already enough
of a firetrap. I read that last winter some homeless man was cooking rat downstairs
and nearly burned the place down with all the papers in here.”
“That’s
a pleasant image,” Jules said. “Are you turned off by the concept of antique
home ownership yet?”
“No,
Jules,” he said. “I will not let this spoil the reveling in my conquest. This
is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. I wish you could be here for the celebration
rather than working out in the Valley.”
“You
have the next best thing. You should invite your mother to join you.”
Archer
laughed. “Oh, no, my mother will not be here for this. My whole family thinks
I’m quite demented for buying this house.”
“This
place just reeks of nineteenth century opulent traditional style. So stuffy. So
bourgeoisie. So unlike you,” she said.
“What
do you mean it is unlike me? I love every part of this old house,” Archer said.
“Oh,
yeah, that bright red hair is so nineteenth century,” Jules said. “Speaking of
which, it still looks pink after Antwan botched your dye job last week. Are you
ever going to fix it? You should sue over that.”
“I
thought it looked pretty good,” Archer said. “I like how it clashes with my
yellow checked pants and red tennis shoes.” Archer panned the camera down at
his pants and shoes.
“You
look like you’re wearing clothes that even Goodwill rejected,” Jules said.
Archer
panned the camera around the hall of books. The north side of the library, beyond
the stairs, opened into a large hallway that lead to two rear bedrooms and a bath.
“The
built-in bookshelves look beautiful,” Jules said.
“It
breaks my heart to know that behind the shelves lay patches of rotted
wallboards,” Archer said. “I’m afraid all these shelves will come down with the
walls. On the surface, this place doesn’t look too bad and it is functioning.
Move my furniture in, and I should be able to live with the renovation crew.”
Archer
continued with the tour. “Set in the west wall in the middle of the books is a remarkably
preserved functioning stone fireplace.”
“Perfect
to burn all the worthless books in,” Jules commented. “I can’t believe I’m
actually encouraging someone to burn books. You know, now that you have a
stately mansion, you must adopt a fake British accent.”
Archer
laughed and intoned in his best English inflection. “The south wall contains a
large picture window with an expansive view of Franklin Boulevard,” Archer started to
laugh. “I can’t do the accent. My father would turn in his grave knowing that a
third generation Irishman does anything British.”
Archer
tried to wipe his sleeve on the glass. “If you could actually see Franklin Boulevard through
the streaks of age and grime on the glass pane, you’d see a small park across
the street.”
“I’ll
take your word for it,” Jules said.
Archer
turned around and bumped into a pile of broken furniture. He fell forward and
the mobile phone slipped from his hand and slid across the floor.
“You’ve
got to stop doing that to me,” Jules shouted.
“Sorry,
dear,” Archer said as retrieved the phone.
He
walked through a door in the east wall.
“This
is my favorite room in the house. This will be my master bedroom,” Archer said.
“And it’s a good thing that you can’t smell the rotten smell coming out of this
room. A little Listerine and we’ll be much better for a while.”
Archer
swept the camera around the room. The unique bedroom served as the rounded
turret on the front corner of the house. The circular wall consisted of five windows,
each six-foot tall and rose from the wainscoting. Archer arched the camera view
to the ceiling turret where it formed a steeple above the bed. Visible wooden
support beams converged at the top to support the point. The evening sky peeked
in through several absent boards.
“This will be an incredible room when finished,”
Archer said.
A
fancy chandelier hung from center of the turret. He flicked the light switch
and expected that the fixture to brighten the room. Disappointed, Archer found only
a dim beam of light from a single functioning bulb creeping across the ceiling.
Even the halogen light that filtered in the windows from the streetlamp
provided more illumination.
“Now
the part you’ve been waiting for,” Archer said. He set the phone on a shelf
between the windows at an angle where Jules would see him clearly. Archer laid
a folder and a shopping bag on the table next to the window. He opened the
manila folder revealed various closing documents related to this house, which
Archer signed a little more than an hour ago at the attorney’s office. A
newspaper clipping attached to the front of the folder displayed the title: “House
of Evil.”
Archer
held the article up to the phone and read the first few paragraphs of the text
to Jules. He stopped on a line near the bottom of the first paragraph.
“No one can live in this house,” he finished. “So, Jules,
with that ominous note, we shall proceed with our inaugural house warming
festivities.”
He moved
a decrepit wooden straight-back chair to the table and sat down. His gaunt lean
frame made the chair groan. Archer opened the shopping bag and removed a
rectangle box labeled Parker Brother’s Ouija
Board. Archer purchased the glow-in-the-dark
model at Target on the way to the house. He ripped open the box like a kid on
Christmas morning. Without taking time to read the instructions, Archer set the
board on the table. The cardboard square depicted the alphabet in two curved
rows followed by a row of numbers from one to nine followed by zero. The words
“Yes”, in the top left corner, and “No” in the right corner. The bottom of the
board read “Good Bye”.
Archer
tore open a plastic bag and removed a white, heart-shaped object called the planchette.
It contained a plastic window on the narrow end to see the numbers and letters
below. The concept is that a ghost will move the planchette around the board,
spelling words and answering questions. He dropped the object on the board, and
lightly touched both index fingers to the planchette.
“Now
let’s see if there are really any ghosts here like they say,” he said aloud.
Archer
sat immobile at the table. His hands lingered on the planchette, in anticipation
of something happening.
From
above him, Archer heard a clink. He looked up and saw the dingy chandelier sway
in a slight circle.
Archer
furrowed his brow. “I’m seeing the chandelier move, Jules,” he said. “I don’t
know how this is possible since there is no air conditioning and I can’t feel
any draught up here.”
The
hairs on the back of Archer’s neck rose. “Something is in here,” he said. “Are
you hearing any voices, Jules?”
“I’m
hearing some background sounds,” she said. “I can’t tell what they are.”
“Maybe
there are some kids outside.” He stood and peered out the window. The road and
park were empty. “Not coming from outside. The sounds seem to be all around me.
It sounds like children. It is getting louder. Do you hear it?”
“I
hear something now,” Jules said. “It’s children.”
Archer
felt panic rise in him. “I’m touching the spirit world, Jules,” he said. “This
is freaking me out.” He started to rise from the chair, but stopped and took a deep breath.
“No, I am
going to get through this,” he said. “This is the reason I am here. I bought
this house because of its haunted history.”
The
sound of giggles and shoes shuffling on the wood floor increased, despite the
lack of any physical form. Archer felt a tap on his left shoulder. It seemed so
real that he looked in that direction. When he did, an unseen hand tapped his
right shoulder.
“Jules, they’re playing with me!” He laughed while the
invisible children ran around his chair. “I could get used to this. I can live
with this.”
Archer
felt a shock when the planchette moved on its own under his fingers. “It’s
moving, Jules,” Archer said. “I’ve never used Ouija boards before. I thought
they were phony. But, look at this! My Halloween party this year is going to be
such a hit.”
The plastic
window on the planchette stopped over the letter “H”, next to “E”, then “L”.
The object paused for a moment before it slid to “O”.
Archer
furrowed his brow. “H-E-L-O? What does it mean?” Archer said. “Hello? Are you
saying hello?”
“Ask
them something,” Jules said.
“Are
you having fun playing today?”
The
planchette moved to the word “Yes”.
The
murmured sounds died down and the footsteps stopped. Archer experienced the
sensation of a soft touch on his shoulder that differed from the playful taps
of the children. The touch comforted him.
“What’s
going on?” He asked.
The
planchette began to move over letters. M-O-M-S-H-E-R-E.
Archer
considered the message for a moment. “Is Mom here?” He asked.
The
planchette moved to “Yes”.
Archer’s
face widened with a large, toothy smile. “I feel so many emotions. I feel love
and a giddy joy inside,” he said as giggled.
He
began to sing a song, Best of Both Worlds by
Hannah Montana. All the activity stopped in the room.
“What’s
wrong?” He asked.
“Archer,
you moron,” Jules said. “Unless these children died in the last two years,
they’re not going to know a Hannah Montana song.”
“Good
point,” Archer said.
He began
to sing London Bridge.
Soon, the spirits reacted by humming along with him. Archer swayed back and
forth to the tune.
“Why
would anyone be afraid of this house?” Archer asked. “This is going to be
great.”
“I
can’t believe what I’m seeing,” Jules said. “I wish I were there.”
“Are
you recording this?”
“Yes.”
“How
convincing of evidence do you think it is?” He asked.
“You
could probably have faked this whole thing, so by itself it doesn’t mean very
much,” Jules said.
Archer
started another song. “Ring around the roses, pocketful of posies, ashes,
ashes, we all fall—“
Like
a kill switch, the sensation changed. The warm feeling ended abruptly and a new
experience started. It began like a tickle inside, a sensation so subtle it
nearly escaped his notice. The transformation alerted no concern in Archer right
away. He experienced an imperceptible acknowledgement of something different in
the room. The pressure in the room dropped, similar to the atmospheric change before
a storm. The air contained a hint of electricity.
“Archer,
what’s going on?” Jules asked.
“Something
has changed.”
The
mood started to transform. Increased energy swept through him, he felt the movement
of the unseen children run from the room. The warm maternal hand on his
shoulder vanished. The new sensation inside his body intensified to the pit of his
stomach.
Archer
lifted his hands from the planchette and wrapped his arms around his chest. He perceived
anger and hatred becoming palpable in front of and inside of him.
The
planchette on the Ouija board began to move without Archer touching it.
“Is
it moving by itself?” Jules shouted through the phone.
The
object moved with fast and deliberate action. Dread crept though Archer’s body
while he watched the planchette.
“Who
is this?” Archer asked.
The
planchette stopped on “D”, then “E”, then “A”, before it moved across the board
to stop on “D” again.
“Dead?”
Archer whimpered. “I’m sorry.”
Archer’s
stomach churned and he vomited on the Ouija board.
The
Ouija board flew from the table, slammed against the wall, and fell to the
ground. Lying on the wood planks, the board tore into pieces.
Archer
sat for a moment in the chair, rooted to the floor, unable to move.
The
chandelier above his head swung in wide circles.
He gathered
the energy to push up from the chair and ran from the room. The door slammed
behind him. The only memory Archer retained of leaving the house was the sound
of Jules’ voice through the phone still placed in the room.
She
was calling his name.
