Life in a Haunted House Read online

  The youngest daughter misses her siblings terribly, and one night she hears tapping against her bedroom window. The dry scratch of branches against glass. Whispered voices say, Let me in.

  Grandmother? the girl says as she gets out of bed and wanders to the curtained windows. Kenneth? Is there someone else with you? I think I hear someone else.

  “Go ahead,” Melissa says. “Take the picture.”

  She stands next to the tree, the face in the trunk nearly parallel with her own. I pull back, trying to get as much of the tree into the shot as I can, then snap the picture. “One more,” I say, catching the photo as it whirs out of the Instamatic. Before that picture has a chance to develop, I move closer and kneel to the ground.

  I’m trying the technique I learned from the Monster Project article, where unusual camera angles add atmosphere to the composition. The viewfinder frames Melissa and the tree from below. I tilt the camera slightly to the side, adding an additional distortion.

  “Make your face match the one in the tree,” I suggest.

  Melissa widens her eyes, opens her mouth in a combination snarl and scream.

  The camera clicks, then whirs out another square of paper.

  I won’t let her see either picture until they’ve fully developed. I flap them in the open air as the images fade into permanence.

  The long shot is fine, capturing a good mix of colors. Melissa stands perfectly straight beside the tree.

  “Here’s a good picture of you, finally.” I hand her the close-up with the distorted angles, and her face screwed up in a grimace.

  “I look horrible,” Melissa says, and laughs.

  #

  We don’t go back inside, since it’s too close to the time I’m supposed to leave. Although a chill remains after the day’s earlier storm, the sun makes the temperature bearable. The ground is too damp to sit on, but Melissa takes me further from the house, to a line of trees at the outskirts of the family property. A section of rock juts from the ground, forming a rough surface that approximates a bench.

  A few pockets of water sit in the natural indentations, but they are easy enough to avoid. The rock feels cool and hard where I sit, but it’s mostly dry.

  I put the photographs and camera in my pack to keep them safe. The haunted tree seems ordinary from this distance, but the movie studio behind the house looks even more like a crashed spaceship.

  Melissa doesn’t speak. It’s a spot of contemplation for her, I realize, which suggests how different we are. For me, it would be better to spend spare hours in the movie studio—a much better place to daydream than an outdoor spot, no matter how scenic.

  “I never really knew my father.” Her voice seems loud after the extended silence, but she actually speaks softly. The tone of sharing a secret. “I wish I had more stories to tell about him, but he died when I was still a baby.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t want to bring up sad memories.”

  “I don’t have any memories at all.”

  You have all the movies, I want to tell her. You should treasure them the way I do.

  As curious as I’ve been, until now I’ve avoided asking personal questions about her father. I talked about his movies, certainly, but not him as a man.

  He seems bigger than life to me. A filmmaker, and not some girl’s father.

  “Does your mom ever mention him?”

  “Oh sure.” A half-smile. “Not things I’d repeat in polite company.”

  “My mom never says anything negative about my dad. But once they separated, they were really separate. In different states, but they might as well be on different planets. Universes, even.”

  She nods, but I feel like I’ve said the wrong thing. My father’s on another planet, metaphorically, yet I can still reach him by phone. Her father’s in a grave.

  No new subject occurs to me. The rock feels tough beneath me, and as I reposition myself, I accidently put my hand in one of the indentations filled with water.

  The silence extends, and now a change in topic would seem forced. Hey, have you done your math homework?

  Or, worse, to suddenly realize it’s getting late. Oops, gotta go! Bailing out, just as the conversation gets awkward.

  Despite Melissa’s hesitance to talk about her family, this might be the right moment for it. There are things you won’t say about your parents at school, and it’s wrong to say them in the home they’ve made for you, too. Even when her mom’s at work and can’t overhear, maybe unkind words can seep into the walls, to be triggered later during a heated argument or whispered out in those weak-willed moments before sleep.

  “Is it tough for you,” I finally say. “Living with just your mom?”

  “We’re fine. I get a lot of time to myself, which I like.”

  “Exactly!” The agreement comes out a little strong, and I tone down the rest of my reaction. “That’s how I feel, too. Gives me a lot of independence.”

  “My father, though…” Melissa lowers her gaze, as if avoiding the house and the studio that battens on the back of it. She avoids me also, speaking only to the ground. “I don’t know what my life would be like if he was still here. I’d always assumed it would be worse.”

  “From what your mom says?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  I think about the life of a temperamental genius, underappreciated by the public, his films underfunded and poorly reviewed. His wife couldn’t make up for that neglect. After a while, she’d probably stop trying.

  “He was my father.” Melissa lifts her head and turns slightly toward me. “I’ve never met anyone who wanted me to like him.”

  “Oh.”

  She caught me off guard. Such a nice thing for her to say, with genuine appreciation in her expression. The conversation had grown so serious, almost intimate. And it occurred to me that I’d also asked to take her photograph—another moment that signals a big step forward in a friendship. A relationship.

  “Your dad’s movies are really special to me,” I say. “Maybe you’d like to see some of the magazine articles I’ve collected about him? I could bring a few to school. Or here.”

  She nods. Says yeah. Sure.

  I can’t stop myself from thinking of her as this young girl with a legendary father. She has to appreciate him, because she’s literally spent her life in a haunted house—haunted in the most magical, cinematic sense, the way only a movie nerd like me can honestly appreciate. At the same time I worry that, in the process of idolizing her father and his films, I’m losing sight of Melissa as a friend.

  In my defense, I’m not used to long-term friends. My mom’s job moved me from town to town, school to school. For me, relationships didn’t last; it was only the movies that remained constant.

  “You better go.” Melissa seems distant now, like she wants to be alone, but maybe I’m reading too much into her words. She’s simply offered a gentle reminder that I’ve got a long walk ahead of me.

  #

  I’m late getting home, and Mom greets me at the door like she’s stood there waiting the whole time.

  “You should always let me know where you are, Brendan. Give me your friend’s phone number, so I can call if I have to.”

  I think fast. “I wasn’t with Geoff. I went to the County Library after school, to get some stuff for a research project.” I heft my backpack, still heavy with the camera and flashlight, knowing it will look like it’s full of library books. I’m safe, as long as Mom doesn’t call my bluff and check inside. “It’s due tomorrow, or I would have waited.”

  “When did you get the assignment?” she asks.

  My answer needs to be bad enough to trigger one of her automatic lectures. “Two weeks ago.”

  “You know better than that. I’ve told you, if you do a little bit each day, those big assignments are much easier. When I get an important project at work, I set small deadlines for myself along the way, and make steady progress.”

  Good. She’s distracted, and forgot about my being late.
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br />   “I’ll get it done,” I tell her. “I just need time alone.”

  Before I head up to my room to work on my non-existent research paper, I see several white cartons on the kitchen table. Chinese take-out, which Mom knows is my favorite. Maybe she has good news to share. Maybe she’s just being nice.

  “Thanks, Mom.” I pile generous portions of fried rice and Hunan Chicken on a paper plate. She gives me a quick hug, then tells me it’s okay to eat in my room, which makes me feel even more guilty.

  #

  Instead of the non-existent research paper, I write a few more pages of my movie script.

  Again, I know the film will never get made. Still, to keep the illusion alive, I confine myself to available materials.

  Just as Melissa is the only person who could play the film’s heroine, I have to cast myself as the male lead. The house’s owner, perhaps. A creepy butler, or nephew to the mad scientist. I figure it out as I write:

  VOICE (off screen): Yes. I’m here.

  MELISSA jumps in fright. She drops the picture frame, and the glass shatters.

  MELISSA: Oh, I’m so sorry. I’ll clean it up.

  MEDIUM SHOT, LOW TO THE GROUND as MELISSA kneels to gather the broken fragments. The MAN’s feet and legs are visible in the shot, where he stands behind her.

  MELISSA POINT OF VIEW as she lifts the picture frame. She’s stacked the shards of glass over the photograph, and moves the pieces gently down to uncover the picture. It’s not a portrait of a spider, as she earlier thought, but of an old man in a lab coat.

  MELISSA [wondering if she’d hallucinated]: That’s not what I saw…

  MAN: I wish I could help you. I’ve been in an accident.

  OVER THE MAN’S SHOULDER. He wears a robe or smoking jacket, and his hands are in the pockets. MELISSA turns her head towards him.

  MELISSA POV, from the ground looking up at the MAN. He slowly removes the right hand from his pocket.

  MAN: My name’s BRENDAN VERLOCK. Forgive me if we don’t shake hands. [His hand is wrapped in a thick bandage that goes all the way up his arm and disappears beneath the robe sleeve.]

  MELISSA [standing; quickly explaining herself]: I didn’t break in. The door was open. Somethi— (correcting herself) someone was chasing me. At least, I thought so…

  BRENDAN: I’m glad my home can offer you shelter.

  MELISSA: Oh, what you must think of me. [She straightens her hair, smoothes the front of her blouse.] I show up out of nowhere, and then break the first thing I touch. [She offers the broken picture frame, then realizes he can’t take it from her—because his left hand is also heavily bandaged. She sets the picture on an end table.]

  BRENDAN: That’s my uncle in the photograph. If he were here, he’d welcome you warmly. So I try to follow his example.

  SPECIAL EFFECTS SHOT: A close up of the damaged photograph, and the UNCLE’s impassive face, which then DISSOLVES TO: his nephew BRENDAN’s younger but similar face, which attempts a weak smile.

  BRENDAN: You may stay here tonight, if you like. But there are rules to this house. There are places where you cannot go. Understood?

  #

  My castle-in-the-sky movie idea would begin with the dining room and fireplace area, and maybe the living room set as well, but the MELISSA character would be forbidden to visit the upstairs rooms or, especially, the basement.

  I could use the Polaroid to take a picture of myself. Wear old-age makeup or a paint a beard onto the photo to turn me into the character’s uncle.

  I set the script aside for a while, finish a bit more of the fried rice remaining on my plate, then I write a brief letter to my dad: A quick hello from your favorite and only son. Enclosed please find the evidence, since you didn’t believe me.

  I put three photographs into the envelope.

  #

  A Shocking Twist

  Today, I anticipate a shocking twist.

  The kind of thing where the poster would announce in bold yellow letters: Do NOT Tell Your Friends about this Film’s ELECTRIFYING SECRET!

  Now we are taking a bus to the next town. Melissa has promised me a surprise. She won’t tell me anything about our destination, but I know it will be good.

  She is pleased with me. I shared the recent pages from my script, which she has begun to refer to as “our movie.” On two more occasions, I’ve visited her house and movie studio—this time aided by an electronic lantern I bought at the local Music/Pawn Shop. The battery on the lantern was an enormous 6-volt cube that helped produce an impressive spread of light.

  During one of the visits, I placed the lantern on the tabletop of the Séance Room, then pointed out some of the “occult” items in the shelf behind where Madame Olga sat. I assumed her thick Hungarian accent and borrowed some of the film’s dialogue.

  Sit, child. Do not tamper with the special ingredients in these jars. (Here, I waved at the various dusty containers, some filled with ordinary kitchen spices, others with plastic plants that had been painted or cut into small pieces so they’d resemble exotic herbs). Some could make you fall in love. Some could make you commit murder. One mixture might restore your youth, where another might transform you into a withered hag. Only I know the beneficial combinations, and I am not inclined to share them with you now. You seek knowledge, do you not? (I nodded expectantly at Melissa, prompting her to speak, but she didn’t have a response ready). Oh, a shy one, are we? Well, place your fingertips against the crystal. Close your eyes, and I will attempt to discern your question. Now remember, I cannot make any promises. The spirits do not always cooperate. Either way, my fee is still the same.

  The next visit, I set the lantern on a low rectangular table with manacles attached, a winding rope winch at one end: the torture rack from The Dungeon of Count Verlock. As the Count explains: When people lie on this bed, they do not sleep so well, eh?

  In the corner, beneath another set of manacles bolted to the wall, lay a heap of plastic bones from a disassembled medical skeleton, scattered amidst scraps of clothing. I informed Melissa this dungeon was also the Death Room from The Stone Stairway, her father’s first movie.

  Don’t you remember the ending? I said. Let me help you reenact it. Take the lantern and hold it ahead of you, glancing at the walls as if searching for clues. Your husband has disappeared in the house, but you saw a sleepwalking man walking away from you. The man—or is it a ghost?—opens a secret door. He leads you through a passage then down a stone stairway to this basement room.

  Keep looking. But save that pile of bones for last. Bring the light closer. Reach out to one of the bones, pick it up, and recoil in horror as it crumbles in your hand. (Melissa did a great job miming the scene, following my directions perfectly). Now this is my cue to enter. (I step quickly off the set, then walk in slowly, assuming a somber voice:) I see you’ve found your husband. This has been a long night, hasn’t it? For him…and for you. That clothing around the bones. You recognize it. The overcoat your husband wore, the night your car broke down and you sought shelter in my mansion. Try touching that other piece of cloth. Perhaps the texture will jog your memory. It’s old and faded to rags, but it’s familiar isn’t it, Samantha Goodwin? Your nightgown, from the night you died. Exactly thirty years ago…when I killed you and your husband both. (My next cue, the character’s maniacal laugh—which I overplayed, hamming it up until it prompted a real laugh from both of us.)

  We call her home Budget House now. These were special times for me, inhabiting the sets and props from my favorite movies—an amazing museum I never expected I’d get to enter. I’m so grateful she’s allowed me to visit, and I know she appreciates how I’ve brought her closer to her past, closer to the father she never really knew. I’ve been the perfect tour guide, reenacting her family heritage for her.

  A heritage that had been so close to her, yet had remained inaccessible.

  She reveals nothing about her surprise during the bus ride. “Just wait,” she says. “You’ll like it.”

  “Bet
ter than the studio? Because I don’t see how you can top that.”

  “Different.”

  We sit together on a hard seat-bench near the middle of the bus, opposite the side exit doors. I keep looking out the windows for clues.

  “It’s a movie thing, right?” Because at the back of my mind, I half worry she’s simply taking me to a favorite ice cream parlor or pizza joint.

  “You’ll like it,” she repeats, which almost satisfies me. I mean, she knows me well enough by now—pretty much everything I like is connected with the movies.

  We pass a sign announcing the city limits to Gadsden. A cemetery becomes visible on the left.

  Maybe she’s taking me to see her father’s grave. I wonder what’s carved into his tombstone. It should include his full name and the “Budget” nickname. And beneath the dates: Filmmaker, Husband, Father. Instead of an angel or cross on the stone, a carved image of a film reel.

  Considering the negative impressions her mother has reinforced over the years, Melissa might never have visited her father’s gravesite. Now, with my encouragement, she’ll pay him proper respect. She’ll speak to the stone: Father, this is my friend Brendan. He knows a lot about your movies. He’s taught me to appreciate them, and you.

  The bus stops a short ways past the cemetery, and a few people exit. We remain seated.

  A few turns, and some people get on at the next stop.

  “A couple more blocks,” Melissa says.

  The bus soon makes a turn onto a cobbled road, driving past a guard booth and up a steep incline. We pass parking lots on either side, and a long low building looms at the top of the hill.