Darker Than Night Read online

  He stepped across the threshold and swept the beam of his flashlight from left to right, illuminating the foyer, hallway, staircase, and part of the living room. The house was still furnished, everything as it had been when his grandmother was still alive.

  Exactly as it had been.

  More memories unfolded as he gazed upon the littered disarray of boxes, stacks of old newspapers and magazines, and plastic trash bags filled with everything from old clothes to bits of twine and yarn. Nearly every available space within the house was filled, stacked high with junk and garbage, leaving only narrow pathways to navigate from one room to another.

  His grandmother had been a packrat, never throwing away anything she thought to be even remotely valuable. Items considered to be junk by others were all treasures to her. It was a phobia born during the lean days of the Depression when she and her family were often forced to live without the basic necessities of life.

  Locating a light switch just inside the doorway, Mike flipped on the lights. He had arranged for the electricity to be turned on prior to their arrival, but the lights did little to push back the darkness. The fixtures were caked with years of accumulated dirt and grime. Cobwebs hung from many of them like gossamer chandeliers.

  Kicking a bag of newspapers to the side, he pushed the front door all the way open. His family remained standing on the porch, staring past him with mixed expressions of awe and outright horror.

  "You guys going to stay out there all night, or are you coming in?"

  "I'm staying here," Megan said.

  "Me too," Tommy added.

  Mike forced a smile. "There's nothing to be afraid of. It's just a big old house, that's all. A little dirty, but dirt never hurt anyone."

  "Spiders," Megan said.

  "What about them?" Mike asked.

  "There's spiders in there."

  Tommy nodded. "Big ones I bet. Maybe tarantulas."

  "And cockroaches," Megan added.

  "And big mean rats with long sharp teeth." Tommy hooked the first two fingers of his right hand beneath his lips to represent the sharp teeth of rats.

  Sensing things were about to get out of hand, Holly put her arms around Megan and Tommy, giving them a reassuring hug. She sniffed loud enough to be heard. "There's not a spider, roach, or rat tough enough to survive a night with all this bug spray and mothballs. Come on, let's go in before the mosquitoes chew us up out here."

  "But..." Tommy stuttered.

  "No buts. Let's go." She herded the children inside, leaving the door open to allow the house to air out. Mike smiled, impressed at his wife's ability to put down a potential uprising. Still he noticed Holly's mask of confidence slip a little as she looked around and saw just how big a mess they faced. A mountain of cleaning awaited the four of them. It would take days, maybe weeks, to make the house livable.

  "I guess I should have warned you about the mess," he said. "If you want we can drive back into town, try to find a hotel to spend the night."

  Holly shook her head. "I didn't see a hotel when we passed through town. And the children are tired, and hungry. Me too. We'll finish the grand tour and decide where to sleep: the house, or in the van. I'll bring in some of the supplies to make sandwiches, and soup." She smiled. "Things always look better on a full stomach."

  "I hope so," Mike whispered under his breath, looking around at the endless mess.

  The house was big, with five bedrooms and two bathrooms. The master bedroom was on the second floor, along with two other bedrooms and one of the bathrooms. The other two bedrooms were located on the lower level, at the beginning of the stairs, on opposite sides of the hallway. One of them connected to the library, so Mike claimed it as his future office. Holly claimed the other bedroom, opposite, as a studio for her artwork. Once a commercial artist, she now devoted her time to oils and acrylics of a more personal nature.

  Since the bedrooms on the second floor were much bigger than those on the first level, the children had no objection to choosing rooms on the same level as the master bedroom. Megan picked the bedroom closest to the stairs, on the same side of the hall as the master bedroom. Tommy chose the back bedroom, which was closer to the bathroom and had a view of the barn, orchard, and forest. It also had two built-in cedar chests in front of the windows, perfect for storing his collection of Star Wars figures.

  As they explored the house, Mike's grandmother's insanity became even more obvious. With the exception of the library, which had dark paneling, all of the rooms on the bottom level had been painted a hideous dark green. Floors, ceilings, and walls. Even the tiles on the kitchen floor had been painted a green so dark they were almost black. The color gave the impression that the rooms were covered with a layer of thick algae, like the slimy walls of an underwater cavern.

  The hallway leading to the stairs was also painted green, the paint spread thick over peeling wallpaper. Dozens of holes had been knocked in the wall, as though someone had repeatedly struck it with a hammer. Holly stopped and fingered one of the holes, frowning.

  "Maybe we have termites," Mike joked, smiling. She looked at him, but did not return his smile.

  Following a narrow pathway between garbage bags and boxes, they entered the living room and then the library. A single wooden shelf ran along the walls in both of the rooms. Displayed upon the shelf were hundreds of carved wooden statues, dressed in feathers and brightly colored bits of cloth.

  From past research on Native American cultures, Mike knew the wooden figures were statues of Hopi kachinas. The Hopi Indians believed the kachinas to be supernatural spirits and gods which inhabited the mountains of the American Southwest. During ceremonial dances these gods were supposed to leave their mountain homes and visit the different villages. Male dancers selected and trained for the task donned wooden masks and elaborate costumes to portray the visiting spirits.

  Wooden dolls representing the kachinas were used to teach the village children about the spirits and gods inhabiting their world. There were more than one hundred different kachinas, each with a name, a distinct form, and an individual type of dress. The statues were never treated as toys, or playthings. Instead they were effigies, each thought to contain a portion of the kachina spirit's power. Once the kachina statue was presented to a child, it was treated as a valued possession and hung from a beam or wall in the house, out of harm's way.

  Mike knew authentic kachina dolls were quite expensive, having priced them at several Native American gift shops back in New York City. His grandmother's collection was probably worth thousands of dollars. Oddly enough, all of the dolls in the collection were displayed facing the walls, with their backs to the occupants of the rooms.

  He crossed the room to get a closer look at the collection of statues. "I kind of like the kachinas. Wouldn't mind keeping them, if that's all right with you. A collection this size has to be worth a small fortune. It must have taken her years to collect."

  Several grotesque wooden masks also adorned one of the walls in the library. They were hideous caricatures of human faces with twisted grins, bulging eyes, and protruding tongues. They looked similar to the "False Face" masks once used by the Iroquois during healing ceremonies, but there was enough of a difference in their design to make him suspect they might actually be something altogether different.

  Perhaps they were tools once used by Indians in ancient magical ceremonies to ward off the evils of the encroaching white men, or maybe they were merely props to frighten small children into obeying their parents. Either way, they were enough to give nightmares to even the most stout of heart.

  "I'm sorry," he said, seeing the expression of disgust on Holly's face as she stared at the masks. "I didn't know things had gotten this bad with my grandmother. She was always a little strange, even when I was a boy, but nothing like this. If you want, we can get out of here tonight. I'll call a real estate agent in the morning and tell them to put this place up for sale. We can go back home."

  Her expression of disgust lasted for a few
more seconds, then she shook her head. "There's nothing for us back in New York. This is our home now." She turned to him and smiled. "It's all right; the house just needs a thorough cleaning." She pointed at the wall. "You can keep the kachinas, but those masks have got to go."

  2

  Dawn came all too quickly, shafts of golden light shining rudely through the yellowed curtains that hung over the windows in the master bedroom. They had all slept in the same bedroom on the second floor, pushing the boxes and stacks of newspaper out into the hallway to make room. The children had slept on the queen-sized bed, with Pinky the cat curled up by Tommy's feet. Holly and Mike had slept atop sleeping bags spread out over the wooden floor at the foot of the bed.

  The smell in the room had been bad at first, nearly gagging. The windows had been sealed shut with caulking and paint, but Mike managed to force them open with a screwdriver and a lot of effort. He had also switched on the antique ceiling fan. The fan squeaked loudly at first, but after a few minutes the noise died down to a barely noticeable hum.

  It had been a warm night, but there was a breeze blowing out of the northeast which helped cool the room and carry away some of the odors. Even with the fan going at full speed, and the windows open, Mike still awoke with the taste of mildew and bug spray in his mouth. A mild headache had also formed behind his eyes.

  Sitting up, he stretched and attempted to work some of the knots out of his back and shoulders. Two days' worth of steady driving, and sleeping on a hard wooden floor, had left him sorer in more places than he could count. At forty years of age he was no longer a young man, could no longer spring back from physical exertion like he once could. And though he tried to keep in shape by working out twice a week, and taking long walks whenever possible, the sedentary writing life was beginning to take its toll on him. His arms no longer had the bulging biceps he once possessed when in his twenties. His belt had also been widened a notch or two over the past ten years.

  Rubbing his neck, Mike pushed himself up off the floor. He staggered across the room to his suitcase, fishing around beneath his shirts and underwear for the aspirin bottle. Crunching two aspirins between his teeth, he dropped the bottle back in the case and turned around.

  Holly watched him through one open eye, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Slowly sitting up, she brushed a strand of reddish-blond hair out of her face and turned to look at the children. Megan and Tommy slept side by side on the bed, dead to the world. Turning back to her husband, she whispered, "Should I wake them?"

  He shook his head. "No. Let them sleep. They're tired. Besides, it's still early."

  Holly glanced out the window. "What time is it?"

  Mike checked his wristwatch. "It's a little after seven. Time to go to work."

  She groaned. "But the rooster hasn't crowed yet. This is the country, there's supposed to be a rooster."

  "Rooster? We don't need no stinking roosters. Farmers rise with the sun."

  "Farmer? Since when have you been a farmer? You couldn’t even get your Chia Pet to sprout hair."

  "Ah, but that was the old me. The new me is genuine country. I've even got dirt between my toes."

  "Dirt between your ears is more like it," she laughed. "I think you've been watching too many episodes of Green Acres."

  She stood up and stretched. Holly was three years younger than him, and in much better shape physically despite the fact that she never dieted and rarely went to the gym or worked out.

  "Okay, farmer boy," she said, pulling her hair back and tying it in a ponytail. "Let's go kill us some breakfast."

  Allowing the children to continue sleeping, they tiptoed out of the bedroom. They stopped at the bathroom across the hall to brush their teeth and freshen up before heading downstairs. The water that came out the tap hissed and splattered at first because of air trapped in the line, and there were tiny bits of visible sediment, but then it cleared up and settled down to a nice, steady stream. The water came a from deep well located just behind the house and had a distinct taste of minerals to it — mostly iron — but it was much more pleasant than the chemical-laced water they were used to back in New York.

  Finished in the bathroom, they crept past the open doorway of the master bedroom and descended the stairway to the lower level. Even in the daylight the bottom floor was oppressively dark, the hideous green paint making everything look like it was part of a medieval dungeon. As they zigzagged through the clutter toward the kitchen, Holly flipped on the lights, and opened the curtains in the library and living room, attempting to brighten up the interior. Her efforts were only partially successful.

  The four-burner gas stove in the kitchen was supplied by a large white propane tank located on the west side of the house. Since there was still gas in the tank, Holly was able to heat a pot of water for instant coffee. While she prepared the coffees, Mike grabbed a clean plate and arranged a breakfast of day-old doughnuts on it. Electing to escape the mess inside the house, they took the doughnuts and coffees out on the front porch. Grabbing a seat on the steps, they watched as the morning sun rose slowly above the treetops to the east.

  It was much cooler outside the house than inside. The air had a bit of a nip to it, reminding them that the official start of autumn was only a few weeks away. The air was also noticeably cleaner than what they were used to back in the city, the wind carrying the pleasant scents of pine trees and rich black soil.

  At the end of the driveway, in the shadows cast by the oak trees, a pair of rabbits frolicked in a patch of clover. The rabbits were oblivious to the red-tailed hawk circling high above them in search of a morning meal. The hawk must not have seen the rabbits, because it moved off to the south, gliding on invisible drafts of air.

  Mike watched the hawk disappear, feeling a great happiness swell in his chest at being able to observe nature in all of its simple beauty. Such sights would probably become commonplace in the days and weeks to come, but for now everything was excitingly new to him. Holly must have shared his joy for she too watched the hawk until it could no longer be seen.

  Lowering his gaze, he took a sip of coffee which had cooled enough not to burn his tongue. The coffee was wonderful, flavored with just a touch of hazelnut creamer, made all the more delightful by the sights, sounds, and smells of the country. Resting the cup on his knee, he took a glazed doughnut off the plate sitting between them. Holly selected a raspberry-filled doughnut, laughing in childish delight when a glob of gooey jelly dribbled down her chin.

  They each had two doughnuts apiece, and two cups of coffee, followed by an equal number of cigarettes to prolong the morning meal and put off going to work for just a few minutes longer. They were still very tired, and it took more than the normal amount of sugar, nicotine, and caffeine to get their motors running.

  Knowing they could no longer put off the job facing them, Mike and Holly carried their empty cups, and the plate of doughnuts, back into the kitchen and then focused their attention on the mess at hand. The clutter inside the house seemed endless, so they decided to organize a plan of attack rather than just have a go at it. They started in the hallway, just inside the front door, making their way slowly toward the kitchen and living room.

  They carried the boxes and bags outside, setting them at the side of the house. There were boxes and bags filled with old clothes, records, moldering books, magazines, and stacks of newspapers, some dating back over twenty years.

  Just inside the doorway, hidden behind a stack of rubbish, they discovered two moldy mattresses leaning against the wall. Behind the mattresses was an antique cabinet filled with broken doll parts and old phonograph records. Since the cabinet smelled as bad as the mattresses, they decided it too should be carried outside. Maybe once it aired out, and after a thorough cleaning, they would bring it back into the house, but not before then.

  It was a little after 10 a.m. when the children awoke, making their way slowly down the stairs. Neither one of them wanted to stay in the house. Grabbing doughnuts and pouring
glasses of milk from the carton in the cooler, they sat on the porch watching as their parents carried armloads of garbage past them. They stalled as long as they possibly could, or as long as Holly allowed them to. She put them to work in the living room, carrying out the smaller boxes and items that didn't smell too bad to handle.

  Shortly before noon Mike turned over the cleaning to Holly and the children. He had to make a run into Braddock to have the telephone service connected. He also needed to stop by the utilities department to request the use of a trash Dumpster. Megan and Tommy both wanted to go with him, probably to get out of work rather than to see the town in the daylight as they claimed, but he denied their requests. There was an awful lot of work to do, and it wouldn't be fair to leave it all to Holly. Ignoring their frowns and unhappy faces, he climbed into the van and started down the gravel road.

  There were no other houses along Sawmill Road

  , at least none that were occupied. Mike spotted two other farmhouses, and a small cabin, but it was obvious that they had been sitting empty for years. The farmhouses were a dull brown color, with glassless windows that watched his passing like the empty eye sockets of skulls. The cabin was also windowless, the rotting logs of its outer wall partially hidden in the shadows of pine trees. All three buildings stood abandoned and unloved, a haven for spiders, snakes, and ghostly memories.

  Sawmill Road connected to the blacktop lane of State Road

  #315, which had not been repaved in almost twenty years. Following #315 to the east, you passed through the towns of Braddock, Warrenton, and Logan, eventually connecting with Interstate #70. If you followed #315 to the west, you would probably end up lost.

  Unlike on Sawmill Road