The Haunting of Pitmon House (10 page)

“Maybe,” Eliza said. “Maybe not. You’ll be killing my brother
if you don’t; that’s a definite. He will die if I don’t do something.”

“How do you know that?” Donette said. “Maybe it’s clinical.
Maybe it’ll pass.”

“We’re not getting anywhere,” Eliza said, becoming
frustrated, turning to Robert, who was seated next to her. She felt Robert’s
hand under the table, taking hers, giving her a squeeze. She knew it was
intended to calm her, but she felt anything but calm.

“So you’d deny us the opportunity to save Eliza’s brother,”
Granger said, “because you think we can’t handle it? Is that it? Or is it
something else, Donette? Is it really just your anger with Nick, and his
failure to communicate with you? I think that because we’re gifted, like Nick,
you feel you should punish us. None of what Nick did, Donette, was my fault. Or
yours.” He pointed at Eliza. “And especially not hers. Or her brother’s.”

Donette lifted her glass and finished off the last inch of
wine. After she swallowed, she slowly replaced the glass next to her plate and
took a big sigh, as though expelling the air was somehow purging herself. “No,”
she said calmly. “Not her brother’s.”

She rose from the table. Eliza felt panic, worried that their
source for information was about to walk out the door. Instead, Donette walked
to the chair where she’d dropped her bag, and brought it back to the table.
Once she was seated again, she opened the purse in her lap and removed a black
Moleskine journal. She set it down next to her wine glass and closed her purse.
Then she looked up at Eliza.

“Please, tell me I’m doing the right thing.”

“You are,” Eliza said.

Donette slid the small book toward Eliza. “That’s it. That
was the journal he was using when he died. There are others, and I suppose we
could talk about them if necessary, but everything about Pitmon House should be
in that one. The first date in it is well before he started on it.”

“Do you know how he became involved with it?” Eliza asked as
she reached for the book.

“He didn’t say,” Donette replied, “and of course I’ve never
read it. Couldn’t make out anything beyond the date.”

Eliza slipped the elastic from the journal and opened it. On
the first page at the top was 9/14/87, and as she glanced down the page she
could tell that Nick’s penmanship was going to present a challenge. She wanted
to jump in and begin reading immediately, but the first couple of sentences
didn’t make much sense.

“Thank you,” Eliza said, replacing the elastic and setting it
down. “I’ll make sure you get it back.”

“I’d much rather you promise me you’ll deliver it in person,”
Donette replied. “That way I know you’ll have to stay alive to keep your
promise.”

“In person, then,” Eliza said.

“We’ll make sure that happens,” Robert said.

“You better believe it,” Granger added.

Donette shook her head. “Words,” she muttered. “Nick left me
with only words. Make sure you don’t.”

●

“Phenomenal,” Granger said, looking over Eliza’s shoulder as
she examined Nick’s journal. The dinner had finished and Donette had left over
an hour earlier. Since then, they’d all crammed around Eliza as she perused the
book, everyone trying to get a glance. Most of it was in Nick’s hard to read
handwriting, fairly dense. Eliza complained about not being able to make sense
of most of Nick’s scrawls, but Granger seemed able to comprehend a good deal of
it. When Eliza turned a page revealing a rough schematic of the house, it
elicited gasps from the entire group.

“This is incredible!” Granger said. “Look, he’s laid out the entire
house.”

“Not the entire house,” Robert corrected. “Just the ground
floor.”

“Yeah,” Eliza said, closest to the pages and best able to
read Nick’s writing. She pointed to a note written next to Nick’s rendition of
a staircase. “Do not go past the landing,” she read. “Surprised I can read it! Does
that mean he didn’t go upstairs?”

“Sounds like a warning,” Rachel said.

“I think we’d need to read the entire text to know how to
interpret this drawing correctly,” Granger said. “It was probably meant to augment
what he wrote, not the other way around.”

As Eliza looked at Nick’s sketch, she began to feel anxious.
At first she thought it might be her desire to get started with the house, to
discover what the journal could illuminate and get going, but the longer she
looked at the schematic of the ground floor the more she realized her anxiety
was because of what it lacked; the sense of incompleteness gnawed at her. It
didn’t help that she couldn’t understand many of the sentences.

“It’s missing so much,” she said, turning the pages to see if
more drawings were in the book. There were no other attempts to illustrate the
layout of the house. “That house is much bigger than this.”

“Well, yes,” Robert said. “There’s a second story, at least.
Right, Dad?”

“Might be three,” Granger replied. “And a basement too, I’d
guess.”

“No, I mean he knew more than he drew,” Eliza said, trying to
identify the feelings inside her head. “He deliberately didn’t draw the other
areas of the house. He knew more than he drew here.”

“You don’t know for sure,” Rachel said.

“No, I know,” Eliza said. “Can’t you sense it?” She looked up
to see the others exchanging glances, wondering what she meant. “He knew what
the other floors were like. He chose not to draw them. You can feel it. I do,
at least.” She tried to pin down where the feelings were coming from, and felt
a wave of emotion pass over her. It was fear — pure, unadulterated fear.

“It needs to be read,” Granger said. “Not skimmed like this.”

“I agree,” Eliza said, closing the book. “It’ll have to be
you, Granger. I can’t make out more than a word here or there.”

“That’s because of your inexperience in the River,” Granger
replied. “Once you’ve got more history under you, a lot more of this will make
sense.”

“You were his friend,” Eliza said. “You’ll understand where
he was coming from. Once you’re done, you can tell us what you found out.”

“Alright,” Granger replied, more than happy to take on the
task. Eliza passed it over her head to where Granger was standing behind her,
and he took it from her.

“I’ll go through it tonight and tomorrow,” Granger said. “Why
don’t you plan on coming back tomorrow night, and I’ll share with you
everything I can extract from it.”

Eliza felt Robert’s arm go around her shoulder to deliver a
supportive hug. She instantly appreciated the gesture. The feeling of his
muscles gently pulling her toward him felt reassuring. She allowed herself to tilt
a couple of inches until she was resting on his body.

“We’ll go through it all,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

He knows,
she thought.
He could sense the fear, too.

“It’s late,” Eliza said, pulling herself from Robert and
standing up. “We’ve got shifts tomorrow, Rachel.”

“Yeah, guess we’d better head out,” Rachel replied.

Eliza and Rachel thanked Granger for the meal, and they discussed
plans to return the following night. They said their goodbyes and walked to the
car.

“You good to drive?” Rachel asked.

“I’m fine,” Eliza said. “I only had a glass. You, on the
other hand…”

“Me?”

“You had at least three. You don’t look the slightest bit fazed.”

“I can hold my liquor better than most people,” Rachel
replied. “Years of bar practice.”

An hour later after dropping Rachel off, Eliza arrived at
home. Walking in through the front door always left her feeling a little melancholy;
it was so silent without Shane around, she was even beginning to miss the
messes he’d leave in the kitchen. Everything sat exactly the way she’d left it,
as though the house had been in suspended animation since she was last there.
It wasn’t how she knew the place to be; it had always hummed with some kind of life
and activity.

She turned on the TV but found nothing that engaged her. She
went to her father’s old study and flipped on the computer; while it booted up
she went to the kitchen and put a pot of water on to boil. Sponge was
immediately at her feet, and she reached down to scratch his head. “In a
second, buddy,” she said, but he was having none of it; he meowed insistently
as she walked back to the computer and launched AOL. The modem hissed and
screeched, and she walked back to the kitchen to feed the cat while it
connected.

All of her email was lame, but the tea was good, and she
found herself turning off the computer quickly, deciding to walk up to her
bedroom with the hot mug. It was dark, but she resisted the temptation to turn
on the lights. Instead, she walked to the window, looking down into the yard as
she sipped on the hot tea, its steam rising into her face. The moon was already
out, and she glanced to the barn, wondering if its ghost would be active
tonight.

Ghost,
she thought.
That’s what it is, right? A ghost.

There was no movement in the barn windows, and she wondered
if she was too early for it. She glanced over the rest of the yard, the
moonlight casting odd shadows here and there. The trees that lined the driveway
were budding, but she could still see through their branches to the ground
below. The moon made things on the ground look very cold, with hues of silver
and grey.

One shadow caught her eye, and she studied it closely. It
looked like the shadow of a person, and if she was calculating it right, the
person would be standing behind one of the trees, hiding from her view. She
knew it was probably her imagination running wild, but she entertained herself
by looking at it, waiting for it to move.

It did, and she stepped back from the window, startled.

When she reapproached the window the shadow was still there.
She kept watching, and it moved again. Someone was there, hiding behind the
tree.

She considered going for the gun, but then decided to take
advantage of the River. She placed the mug on her nightstand and laid down on
the bed, allowing herself to jump into the flow the moment her head hit the
pillow. She felt herself rising up, and she went back to the window. The shadow
was still there. She pressed forward through the wall, feeling the odd
sensation of passing through it, and descended to ground level, moving quickly
over the rocky driveway toward the tree that concealed the figure.

She gave it a wide berth, keeping plenty of distance. When
she passed beyond the tree and could see its backside, she discovered that no
one was there.

Carefully she drifted closer, looking for the shadow. It was still
there on the ground, just as she’d seen it earlier. She waited for it to move,
and after a few moments it shifted.

Nothing is casting it,
she thought.
There’s nothing there.

She moved even closer, and as she came within an arm’s length
of the tree she felt an alarm go off in her body; it felt as though every hair
stood up on her arms and the back of her neck. Although she couldn’t see
anything there, she could feel it. She had surprised whatever it was, and it
was reacting to her presence.

The shadow began to dissipate, and within seconds it was
gone.

She felt her heart racing.
What just happened?
she
wondered.
Did I scare it away?

She turned to look at the house and considered returning to
her body, but she caught sight of the barn, and curiosity got the better of
her. She drifted over the ground until she came to the same window she’d seen
movement in the nights before. She looked inside; it seemed quiet and still.

If I’m going to take on something like Pitmon House,
she thought,
I’ve got to get this
down. No better place to start than with the ghost on my own property.

She passed through the walls of the barn and found herself
near the plastic tubs she’d perforated with the shotgun, still tumbled over.
Immediately she turned to look at the mower, where she’d seen the figure
before, but nothing was there.

I’m in the River,
she thought.
I should be able to see it, if it’s here.

A thump from her right caused her to turn, and she saw
movement near a corner. It was very dark, but she could make out the back of a
man, hunched over, facing away from her, as though he was dealing with something
on the ground.

She approached apprehensively, wanting to understand what she
was seeing, but still scared and unsure of her gift. When she was within a few
feet of the man, he suddenly whirled around and looked up at her. She stepped
back in fright.

He rose to his full height, just over six feet. His face was
twisted and his hair seemed to be matted down with dark matter — dirt, or
blood. He raised a hand opening his palm. Inside it was the tiny face of a
child; its eyes opened, glowing yellow, and when its mouth parted, it exposed
rows of rotted teeth.

Stay out,
the man spoke,
or I’ll release them into your house!
He extended
his arm to give Eliza a better look at the face, which now seemed less like a
child and more like a doll. A green gas slipped from between its lips, filling
the air with a stench Eliza remembered from a childhood encounter with a dog’s
corpse on their property — the smell of death and rotting flesh. She found
herself moving backward in horror, wanting to get away from the rancid smell.
The man took a step toward her, chasing her. Within seconds she found herself
passing back-first through the barn’s wall and into the yard. She continued
until she was ten feet from it, glancing at the window. Its face appeared
there, looking for her, and she felt a chill go up her spine as its yellow eyes
landed on her, recognizing her. It pressed its face up against the glass; part
of its nose turned to mush and smeared on the pane.

She dropped from the River, finding herself back in bed, a
stabbing pain at the base of her skull. She was aware of her heart beating
loudly, pumping blood rapidly through her body, and she could feel the
adrenaline that had been released while she was in the flow, amping her up and
making every sense feel as if it were maxed out. As she rose from the bed and
reached to rub at her neck, she walked to the window, wanting to look down into
the yard once again, determined to not let whatever she’d seen scare her from
her own window.

The face was no longer at the barn’s window, but she thought
she could see the smear it had left.
Could be a reflection,
she thought.
I could go down and check.

She looked over at the tree. The shadow was still gone.

I’m not scared of you,
she thought, turning her gaze back to the garage, trying to
replace her fear with courage.
Whatever you are.

As she took off her clothes and sipped more tea before
slipping into bed, she hoped that the figure in the barn had been able to hear
her thoughts. Then she remembered the face in the figure’s palm, and she
wondered what it meant by its threat —
what exactly had he threatened to
release into the house? What would it do?

Stink up the place,
she thought, and laughed to herself, continuing to try and
diminish the fear she felt. For a moment she imagined those tiny faces roaming
through the house as she slept, perhaps hovering over her in her bedroom. She
pushed the thought from her mind, realizing she was making things worse by
speculating.

That’s probably what it wants,
she thought.
It wants me to worry
about that little demonic face.

She thought, instead, about Shane, and how she hoped Granger
would have some news for them tomorrow. As the tea worked its way into her
system, she slowly drifted off.

●

“It’s as bad as I feared,” Granger said as they sat around
his dining table. He was glancing over a notepad where he’d jotted down his observations
from the journal. “First off, it does give us what Nick was trying to do. He’d
been approached by one of the trustees. They’d been trying to do something with
the property for years, despite some members of the family resisting any
attempt to sell or demolish it. Something always fell through; contractors got
cold feet when their equipment failed, and realtors refused the listing when
the place frightened them out of their minds. Or so Nick wrote.”

“A trustee?” Eliza asked. “The house is controlled by
trustees?”

“At least ten years ago, when Nick was involved,” Granger
replied. “After years of trying different things, one trustee named Harlan
Alexander approached Nick. Harlan’s wife was a Pitmon, and that’s how he wound
up on the board; she had no interest in the place, but they had to represent
their family ownership in it to maintain control, so he was appointed to a
trustee position. Apparently he was a believer, and suspected the problems with
the place were supernatural. He’s the one who involved Nick, hoping he could
fix whatever was wrong with it, and make it sellable.”

“I wonder how that went over with the other trustees,” Robert
said.

“He never told them,” Granger continued. “His involving of Nick
was kept secret. Nick was given keys and Harlan made sure the security that
patrolled the grounds knew he was approved to be there, but the other trustees
didn’t know anything about it.”

“This Harlan Alexander still alive?” Robert asked.

“I looked into that,” Granger replied. “His wife died five
years ago; he lives alone in Madison. He’s in his eighties. And he’s still a
trustee.”

“Can’t be a very active board,” Robert replied.

“I would expect not,” Granger said.

“If he’s still a trustee,” Eliza said, “then that’s our way
in. He can still get us onto the property, just like he did for Nick.”

“Yes, that’s an option,” Granger replied. “Although I’m not
sure you’ll want to pursue that once you hear the rest.”

“Go on,” Eliza said.

“There’s really two or three more key points in Nick’s
journal,” Granger continued. “You saw the drawing he made of the ground floor.
He wrote extensively about it, and reiterated over and over the need to avoid
the second floor. There’s a landing at the top of the stairs, and he says
that’s OK, but he warns explicitly to not go farther.”

“Why?” Rachel asked, flipping the pages of Nick’s journal.

“That’s where you get killed,” Granger said. “I suspect Nick
didn’t follow his own advice. Toward the end of the journal he suggests that
the next step in his investigation would necessitate going to the second floor.
I believe that’s where he died.”

“Does he say why he went up there?” Eliza asked.

“No,” Granger replied. “But from what I read, I think it
might have been because of things he learned from the only communicative ghost
in the house. The place was notorious for being haunted by dangerous, evil
spirits who don’t converse — with this lone exception. Reid Pitmon. His room is
on the landing.”

“If the trustee will let us onto the property,” Robert said,
“we might be able to talk to this ghost. It could fill in what Nick didn’t
relate in his journal.”

“And if it leads us to the upper floor, like it did Nick?”
Rachel asked.

“We’ll deal with that if it comes to it,” Eliza replied.

“Just so you know,” Granger said, “and I’m not telling you
this to try and dissuade you, but Nick died a gruesome death. It was a
closed-casket funeral; they told me his body was in no shape to be viewed. Nick
was no amateur. He must have severely underestimated the threat in that house.
We need to be careful and not repeat any mistakes he made.”

“We don’t even know what those mistakes were, exactly,”
Rachel said.

“That’s my point,” Eliza replied. “Until we understand why he
felt he needed to go up to the second floor, we’re flying blind. We need to
talk to Reid Pitmon, like he did.”

“It may turn out that’s as far as we can take it,” Granger
said. “You should be prepared for that.”

Eliza looked up at Granger. She knew he meant well, but he
didn’t understand what was really happening to Shane. Of all the people in the
room, only herself and Rachel had been to the hospital and had seen the toll it
was taking on his body.

“We need to find out what the connection is between Yessler
and the house,” Eliza said. “That’s different than what Nick was doing — he was
just trying to find out what made the house tick, right? I’ve got a much more
specific thing I need solved. That might cause us to look at things differently
than Nick did.”