In the Memory House, a new supernatural thriller, is now available at
Amazon.com,
Amazon UK, and
Smashwords with other formats (including print) to follow...
From In the Memory House:
They never planned to enter the house.
They never knew the house existed.
If not for the snowstorm, they would have never found the house—or, more
accurately, the house would have never found them. As it was, five friends stood on the concrete
slab porch while wind whipped snow in small eddies around them Johnny, tall and
angular in a light jacket, rapped his knuckles on the door. The two girls—Kelsey with her dark, ropey
curls tucked under an ivory stocking cap and Sarah, blonde and pale and pretty and
wearing pink—huddled together against the siding. Ben, soft and thick with a lingering layer of
childhood fat, leaned against the railing, staring across the white field.
“Nobody’s home,” Jared said. He
wasn’t wearing a proper coat. As they
scrambled from the ditch, Kelsey had looked at his grey sweatshirt and jeans
and had said he would freeze. Jared, his
brown eyes dark enough to challenge a moonless night, had smiled and said,
“I’ll be fine.” On the porch, he didn’t
even shiver. “Doesn’t look like we’re getting in. We should head down the road,
see if we can find someplace, any place to ride out the storm. Nobody has any cell service, so we can’t call
snow-plows-r-us.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “We’d be
fine if dipshit hadn’t landed us in the ditch.”
Johnny wheeled from the door. His blue eyes sparked. His fists clenched
and unclenched. “Dipshit? I didn’t see
you volunteer to drive. Damn SUV needs
new tires. They’re as bald as Sarah’s dad.”
“Hey,” Sarah said.
Kelsey squeezed her arm. “He’s right.
Your dad is pretty shiny upstairs.
But I’m freezing. Right. Now. Can we just break in or something? I’m sure Farmer Bob or whoever owns this place
would rather have a broken window than five humansicles in his field.”
“Farmer Bob?” Jared poked his head out from under the porch roof. “Damn
place is brick. Three stories. How do you figure a farmer lives here?”
Kelsey shrugged and went back to shivering. “Out in the middle of
nowhere, that’s how.”
“It’s an old lock. We can pick
it rather than break a window.” Johnny knelt in front of the door and squinted
through the key hole. “Does anybody have
a hair pin? Sarah? Kels?”
“Hairpin?” Sarah screwed up her face. “Are you nuts?”
“I dunno. Seems like it should
work. They do it in all those old crusty
movies J-rod watches.”
“Those are classics,” Jared said. “God… No taste. Have you even tried
the door?”
“What do you think he’s been doing?” Ben boxed Jared on the
shoulder. “Knock-knock, who’s there?”
Johnny stretched to his full six foot, two inch height, placed one hand
on the doorknob, but yanked it away.
“What’s wrong?” Kelsey asked.
“I dunno. It’s cold.”
“Of course it’s cold, numb-nuts.
It’s freezing. Have you seen the snow?” Ben waved across the field.
“Your hand’s turning blue, too.”
Johnny rubbed his fingers. “No.
It was a different kind of cold.”
“Here,” Jared said, stepping forward. He wrapped his fingers around the
knob and twisted. The door held for a moment, but then gave with a pop and
creak. “I see what you mean cold. But here we are, folks. No broken windows, no picked locks, no frozen
twenty-two-year-olds on the porch. It
wasn’t locked. Looks like the innkeeper doesn’t mind trusting his neighbors.
Our sanctuary.” He stepped aside so the others could enter.
Warmer air greeted them—not exactly warm
air, but not as biting as the frigid exterior. A smell hung in the air, too,
just like every house has its own odor. This smell was different, cold and
sterile and clean, without the expected hint of dust and mold which an older
house should have.
“Hello?” Jared called into the house. No answer came.
“It’s dark,” Kelsey said. “And it smells funny, too.”
Ben sniffed. “Smells fine to me. Smells pretty clean.”
“Yes… That’s what I mean,” Sarah said. “I mean it smells funny because
it’s clean. I expected old person smell.
Or dirt. Something musty and earthy. Farmer smell.”
“Maybe Farmer Bob likes to take care of his stuff.” Ben strode through
the foyer, past the dark wooden staircase and matching banister, and turned
right into what appeared to be a living room.
A couch and two matched chairs were arranged on an ornate rug, the couch
in the middle with the chairs facing each other on either side. Each was lined
with deep red upholstery. The rug and furniture shared a subtle paisley
pattern, and in the dim light appeared to be an even darker red design on the
burgundy fabric. A subtle, tan wallpaper covered the open stretches of wall.
Deep hardwood molding surrounded everything.
“Find a light switch,” Johnny said.
“Here.” Jared punched a black button. “Old school switch.” A simple
brass chandelier flickered above their heads.
Weak, yellow light washed over the room. “At least we have power.”
“Not much of an improvement, if you ask me.” Ben walked around the
couch and plopped in a seat. He crossed
his boots on one armrest. “Farm Bob has some wickedly Victorian taste in
furniture.”
“Ben—get your wet feet off the…” Kelsey’s mouth hung open as she
scanned the floor. “It’s dry. Your feet
are dry.”
“See. No problem.” Ben grinned. “I must have knocked all the
snow off before coming in.”
Kelsey backed toward the door. “I don’t like it in here. I don’t like
this house.”
“Shhhhh.” Ben pressed a finger against his lips. “It might here you.”
He wagged his eyebrows.
“God, Ben. You and Kels sound like a B horror flick. First hairpins,
now the house is alive.” Sarah rolled her eyes. “Shouldn’t we call somebody?”
Johnny nodded. “I’ll see if there’s a phone around here. Maybe in the kitchen or hallway. In this black hole, Farmer Bob must have a
line to the outside world.”
Sarah grabbed Johnny’s arm. “I’ll go with you.”
Kelsey’s eyes moved from Ben’s boots, to the floor and back to the
boots. “I think I’ll go with you guys.
Ben? Jared?”
Ben closed his eyes. Jared shook his head. “I’m going to chill right
here. No pun intended, of course.”
Johnny, Sarah, and Kelsey circled through the living room, past an
opening for a hallway, and into the dining room. Their footsteps on the hardwood floor were
tiny things, whispers in a monstrous cave’s mouth. When they walked on the rug in the living
room, they didn’t make a sound. A large wooden block table with a set of four
chairs sat in the middle of the dining room.
The table top, a dark, polished walnut finish, was clean. A point of
light from the window reflected in the middle. Kelsey walked to the table and
rubbed a fingertip across the surface. Her skin squeaked against the wood.
Johnny joined her at the side of the table. “Farmer Bob sure keeps this
place clean, doesn’t he? Kind of a funny
house—not as big on the inside as I expected. I guess it does have the third
floor windows. Maybe somebody bound and
gagged—”
“Stop it, Johnny. You’re
starting to sound a little like Ben,” Sarah said. “Creepy-deepy Ben.”
“You invited him on this trip.” Johnny leaned over one of the chairs.
“I didn’t.”
Sarah shot Kelsey a glare. “Kels opened her big mouth and Ben asked if
he could go. What was I going to say?”
“No.” Johnny smiled. “Fifth
wheel and all.”
“He paid for a fifth of the cabin and bought us a lot of booze.” Sarah
twirled a finger through a strand of hair. “That part wasn’t so bad.”
Kelsey’s chest tightened. For a
moment, she couldn’t catch her breath.
She fell back against the table and touched her neck with one hand.
“What’s wrong?” Johnny asked.
Kelsey shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. I just felt sort of, weird. Like asthma when
I was a little girl. It’s nothing
really. Just a little adrenaline from the wreck. I’m just feeling a little shaken.” She didn’t
want to mention the cave, how she’d gotten lost on a tour as a girl and left in
pure darkness. She didn’t want to mention how she’d just felt a twinge of the
same, all-encompassing fear.
Sarah rolled her eyes and mouthed the word “drama” toward Kelsey.
“Let’s get out, then. All of
us.” Johnny strode across the room and through a small archway. “Bingo.”
Kelsey closed her eyes against the harsh daggers in Sarah’s icy blue
stare. It was Johnny. Kelsey knew it as sure as she knew her name. Jared was a
great guy, a solid friend, but they both wanted Johnny and Sarah sharpened her
knives. Kelsey chewed her lip and shifted away.
“Let’s see what he found,” Sarah said. She turned and ducked through
the archway without another glance at Kelsey.
Johnny stood in the middle of a bright kitchen with an avocado green
phone receiver in one hand. A looping phone cord, matching the phone’s green,
dangled to the floor. Johnny’s face was turned down in a frown.
“What?” Sarah asked.
“Dead.”
Kelsey felt a shiver at the word as though Johnny’s voice had become an
ice block and rubbed over her back.
“Dead?”
“Dead-dead. No signal. No buzz. No nothing.” Johnny waved the receiver toward the windows,
a solid bank of which filled the wall behind the kitchen sink and between the
cabinets. Yellow and white gingham
curtains hung open revealing a blinding field of snow and small shed behind the
house. The cabinets had been painted white with yellow highlights to match the
curtains. “Must be the snow.”
“But the house has power,” Sarah said. “If the power—”
“It doesn’t work that way, Sarah.
Electricity and phone are on separate lines. I figured most phone lines
were buried out here, though.” Johnny
dropped the receiver on its wall cradle.
Plastic clicked against plastic. “We better get back to the others and
figure out what the hell we’re going to do.”
Kelsey started back through the archway, but paused. “Couldn’t we go
the other way?”
“What do you mean?” Sarah asked.
“Well, we passed the stairwell when we came in, walked through the
couch room—the parlor, past the one hallway, and through the dining room. Another living room or parlor or whatever
should be the other way. Just on the
other side of the wall.”
Johnny shrugged. “Makes sense. But
there’s only the one entrance to the kitchen. Not to mention the screwy décor
for a house—or inn or whatever—of this age. Avocado green is so ‘70s.” He
gestured to the phone.
“When I see him, I’ll tell Farmer Bob you don’t approve,” Sarah said. “Let’s just go, okay?”
“I thought Farmer Bob was creepy-deepy Ben’s name for our dear host.”
Sarah scowled at Kelsey and walked through the arch. The three returned they way they’d come,
passing the massive table, the small hallway and into the room with a couch and
two chairs, the parlor to the right of the big staircase. Ben was on the couch,
feet still propped high. He’d folded his hands behind his head and appeared to
be sleeping.
“Where’s Jared?” Johnny asked.
Ben’s eyes flickered open.
“Huh?”
Sarah sat on the edge of a chair with her back arched as though she
wasn’t comfortable coming in contact with the house in any way. “Jared. Where is he?
He was with you, in here, when we went on the phone hunt.”
The tightening came back to Kelsey, pressing against her lungs from all
sides. She felt a tingling, hot braid of nerves climb her back and flush her
face. She looked from Ben to Sarah and
Johnny. The chandelier flickered, darkening the room. But it hadn’t actually
flickered, had it? Her eyes tricked her, of course...
“Dunno,” Ben said. “I guess he
just went exploring.”
“Exploring? Here?” Sarah scooted closer to the chair’s edge. “What the
hell for?”
“Architecture. Jared’s major,
Sarah. Maybe he’s been inspired by this
place. Weren’t you just saying something
about the kitchen?”
Sarah glanced toward Kelsey. “That was Kels.”
Ben stood from the couch, stretching for the ceiling. “How big do you
think this place is, anyway? I mean,
from the outside, it looked massive. Like an old castle even, all that
limestone around the foundation.”
“It could have been an inn or hotel, I guess.” Johnny shook his head.
“I don’t know. But we should find Jared.”
He walked to the stairs and cupped a hand against his face. “Jared?”
“What made you Captain Responsibility all of a sudden? I’m sure Jared’s around here somewhere.”
Jared’s gone. The thought came to Kelsey as her breath came back to her
lungs. She leaned against a wall, trying to steady her wobbly nerves. Jared’s
gone, and he won’t be coming back. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the
unwelcome thought, but its roots had grown deep quickly.
“And we need to find him.”
Johnny pointed at Ben. “We can split up and stick together. I’ll take
upstairs with—”
“Wait. Whoa. Slow down there,
Johnny.” Ben waved his hands. “Who appointed you Fred of this Scooby Doo crew?”
Johnny’s hand clamped on the stair railing. His knuckles began to
whiten. “Just bad vibes about this
place.” He peeled his hand away from the
rail and looked at it. “Just bad vibes.”
Kelsey rubbed her shoulders. “I felt it when we came in. I feel it now. Maybe it’s just because of the wreck. I don’t
know. But I don’t like it here. It’s too clean. It’s too—”
Wood groaned from the floor above them and caught Kelsey’s words in her
mouth and sprinkled her with a wave of chills.
“That’s probably our intrepid architect now.” Ben smiled. “I’ll go and
check.”
“We don’t go alone.” Johnny glanced at Kelsey and then his eyes rested
on Sarah.
Sarah rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll go with you Benny-boy.” She glared
at Kelsey as she crossed the room.
The two vanished up the stairs into the second floor’s darkness. Johnny stood with his back turned to Sarah
for a moment, a long moment in which the chill left her and she began thinking
about Johnny—his broad shoulders and lean, stone-chiseled face. Was it wrong to hope Johnny might come
around, might choose her? He’d broken up
with Sarah two months ago, making the ski trip awkward—a reason, even a small
one—to be thankful for Ben being the fifth wheel. Still, she had hoped Jared and Sarah might
hit it off, couple up, and leave Johnny for her. She looked up, caught Johnny’s eyes, and felt
a warm rush in her cheeks.
“Why didn’t you go with Ben?” she asked.
“Ben? Sometimes I really hate
that bastard. I didn’t want to punch him. I mean, how the hell can the guy fall
asleep after hitting the ditch?”
“He was asleep before hitting the ditch,” Sarah said.
Johnny nodded. “True. Besides, I
didn’t want to leave any of the women alone.”
Kelsey crossed her arms. Now wasn’t the time to show her hand. “How
chivalrous.”
“Don’t go all feminista on me.” Johnny shrugged. “We don’t even know
who lives here—hell, Farmer Bob could be asleep upstairs. Maybe he’s an ax murderer. This damn house
must be at least four or five thousand square feet. Three stories and a
basement by the looks of the foundation. Huge. Maybe he is asleep upstairs.
Maybe he knows we’re here, and the old guy’s watching.”
Kelsey shivered. “Stop playing. You’re giving me the creepy-crawlies.
Why do you call him an old guy, anyway?”
“Just a feeling.”
“Yeah. Me too. The feeling.”
Kelsey rubbed her arms. The air had dropped a few degrees, but there wasn’t a
draft. If anything the room was dead. “Maybe it’s the jitters after the
accident, but I don’t like this place.”
“Definitely has a vibe.” Johnny moved closer to Kelsey. His blue eyes
locked onto hers. He held out a hand. “We won’t be here long.”
She hesitated, her breath catching in her throat, and then took his
hand. The skin was cool and ruff, not warm like she’d expected. Maybe it was
the room. Maybe the chill was in the house itself. “We should look, too.”
Johnny turned toward the hallway. “The basement, wherever it is?”
“I don’t want to, but—”
The scream stopped Kelsey’s words before they left her mouth. Sarah’s
scream. Kelsey didn’t think again until she was, following Johnny, halfway up
the stairs. They rounded the landing, hurtled the final flight, spilling into
the darkened second story hallway. Dim,
yellowish light filtered from a window at one end. Down the other direction, a
black figure waved.
“Down here!” Ben called.
Kelsey’s eyes adjusted to the darkened hallway, but she couldn’t see
Sarah. Johnny trotted in front. He didn’t seem to be afraid—not like she was.
Why was her heart rattling in her chest?
Why did she feel like she couldn’t breathe? Ben moved back, further into
the hallway. Johnny stepped through the doorway to which Ben had been
pointing. He wheeled and tried to grab
Kelsey, but too late.
She gasped. “Oh my God.” Her
hands covered her mouth, but she couldn’t shut her eyes.
A man lay in a half-filled bathtub. His near-white hair clung close to
his pinkish scalp, but was not wet. Although his hair showed old age’s silver-grey,
the lack of lines on his face told a much younger story. His dead eyes stared
at them, almost as though he’d been watching the door when he died. Almost as
though he’d been waiting for them. In his left hand, draped as it was over the tub’s
edge, he held a knife, the folding type which held utility blades used in
construction. Thick gashes marred both
wrists, a disordered criss-crossing of cuts. His right arm stretched along the
far edge of the tub and wore a slash from the base of his hand to mid forearm.
The cuts on the left were much smaller.
Sarah whimpered from the corner.
Johnny stepped inside and pulled her to him, pressing her face against
his chest. “There’s no blood,” she muttered.
“Bullshit,” Ben said. He’d closed in behind Kelsey, blocking the door.
Sarah pushed away from Johnny’s chest and glared at Ben. Her voice
became firm, almost angry. “No blood. There’s no God-damned blood.”
Kelsey’s body turned to ice as she hunted—but didn’t find—a single
drop. The few inches of bathwater in the
tub were clear despite the old man being fully clothed. The linoleum floor reflected a small, sunny
patch from the window but was otherwise unmarred.
“No blood at all.”
