Charnel House (24 page)

There was only silence from under the house.

He waited another moment, watching the tree through the broken window and wishing he were out there in its shade instead of listening for ghosts in the charnel house. Still nothing. Bobby slowly climbed to his feet. A sheath of dust clung to the knees of his jeans and he brushed it off, then wiped his cheek and ear clean.
Had
he heard something? Maybe. Maybe not. The only thing he knew for sure was that when he was actually listening for it, he heard nothing. He wasn’t ready to write it off as just imagination—that’s what teenagers and grownups did in scary movies, and look how well
that
worked out for them—but he didn’t think there were any ghosts creeping around under the floor, either. Most likely it had been an animal, more scared of him than he was of it. A house this old was probably chock full of possums, raccoons, and any number of critters.

As he worked this conclusion out in his head his eyes fell on the wall to the right of the arched doorway, where a small section of wallpaper still hung whole among the tatters. It had once been cream-colored, he thought, but time had yellowed it.

Centered almost perfectly on it was a brown handprint.

The fingers were splayed apart, as if Jeremiah’s wife had been trying to swat a fly, and a clean spot in the middle of the palm gave it the appearance of having a hole through it.
Just like Jesus
. Bobby walked across the sagging floor to the wall, the pit of his stomach light and fluttery like he’d swallowed a handful of moths and they were now trying to find their way out, blindly batting their wings and bumping around inside him.

Up close he could see more details, loops and whorls in the fingers and lines criss-crossing the palm like so many roads. Where the dried blood was thicker it had crazed, and made him think of the old ceramic candy dish his Grandma Rose kept on the end table in her front room. A darker line across the fourth finger marked where the wedding band had hit the wall. Had she known it was coming, or was it all a surprise to her? His mental projector started up and he saw a woman stagger through the arch, blood streaming down her face from a horrendous wound in her head, soaking into her dress. Behind her, a crazed Jeremiah Barlowe crossed the kitchen, the bloodied claw hammer gripped in one hand. As Bobby watched, he brought the hammer up, his features twisting into a furious grimace, and then down, sinking it to the haft in her skull. Blood spattered the wall and Jeremiah, and Bobby even imagined he felt it stippling his face in a hot spray. Mrs. Barlowe continued forward for another step, not realizing she was dead, and when she began to pitch forward she reached out to the wall for balance, leaving her final mark.
Nobody even remembers her name
. That was somehow the worst part.

Bobby tried to imagine what it would be like if his father snapped the way Jeremiah Barlowe had, but couldn’t. How could he kill his wife and children? A man was supposed to
protect
his family, not hurt it. Not kill it. Brother Peavey used the word
blasphemy
a lot in his sermons—usually for such sins as taking the Lord’s name in vain or being an idolatrous Catholic—but what Jeremiah Barlowe did was even worse than that. It was a betrayal to the people who trusted him the most. He became aware that he had unconsciously wrapped his arms around himself. The house seemed colder now. It was time to get out of here; he’d seen what he came to see. But first...

Bobby stretched out his hand and placed it over the handprint on the wall. The bloody stamp was bigger, but only by a little. He expected it to feel different somehow (though if pressed he wouldn’t have been able to explain
how
he thought it would feel), but it just felt like wallpaper with a layer of paint on it. For an instant the scene with Jeremiah Barlowe and his wife flashed in his head again, the rise of the hammer, the sickening crackle-crunch of shattering bone. This time, however, the image—the
flashback
, his mind argued—was different. There was more detail. More color, almost to the point of being surreal. Everything stood out in bright sharp relief, except one thing.

The other person in the room he hadn’t noticed before.

In the shadowy far corner of the kitchen in his mind, a still slumped figure looked on as Jeremiah Barlowe brought the hammer down. Only
looked
might not be the right word, Bobby thought, because the guy (
was it a guy?
his inner voice murmured) didn’t have eyes, just big black holes on either side of its slitted nostrils.
Like the sockets in a skull.
Its mouth was an obsidian gash in the sallow skin, curved into a sickle of a smile. Like it was
pleased
with what it saw. The hair on the back of Bobby’s neck lifted, and the handful of moths he felt in his belly seemed to have grown into birds, flitting and zooming and beating their wings against his insides. He pulled his hand away from the mark and the image in his head winked out.

Not real.

A phantom voice between his ears whispered
bringing ’em down here was the only way I could make it stop.
Tanner had said the mayor swore Jeremiah Barlowe didn’t have a face when he first looked up, that there’d just been holes where his eyes should have been. Was that thing what he’d seen? Maybe it took over Jeremiah, had possessed him, like Bobby had thought earlier. Brother Peavey would know. Tomorrow morning when the church service was over he could track the minister down and—

“Jeremiah Barlowe get you?” Joey bellowed from outside, and Bobby almost screamed. An instant before he soaked his underwear a second time he managed to grab himself, pinching his penis between his finger and thumb to stop the flow rushing for the exit. A burning line of fire etched a path deep inside him and he grimaced from the pain.
Asshole
. The word rose up in his thoughts before he could stop it.

Maybe it’s not a bad word if it’s true.

“What’s the matter, being so close to the house got you scared?” he called back through gritted teeth. Then, for good measure, “Chicken!”

“Hurry up,” Tanner said. “We’re getting tired of waiting. You proved your point.”

Magic words.

Bobby took one last look at the handprint on the wall, then turned and walked back into the entryway. The pain in his ankle was fading to a dim memory, and by the time he clomped down the porch stairs to the grass, the fear had left him as well. The other boys were chickens—nay,
pussies—
and he was the bravest one. The thought buoyed his steps. If only Amy Carmichael could have been here to see him in his finest moment!
She’d probably throw her arms around my neck and plant a big wet kiss right on my lips.
A delicious shiver ran through him.

A moment later, he was through the privet and crossing the yard to where Tanner and Joey waited. They still looked scared, he thought. Ready to bolt at the slightest sign of a ghostly presence. Good. It served them right, for being such jerks earlier.

“Who’s the chicken?” he crowed, unable to wipe the gloating grin off his face. He deserved it.

Joey hung his head. “You win.”

“Say it.”

Tanner stepped between them.
“He said you won.”

“He has to admit he’s a chicken,” Bobby said. “That was the bet.”

Joey mumbled something.

“What’s that?”

“He said it,” Tanner said. “Now let’s just drop it and get back home. We’re going to be late.”

“I didn’t
hear
it,” Bobby said. “I did what I said I would. It’s only fair that he keep his end of the deal.”

“I said you win. I’m a chicken,” Joey said. His eyes flashed with sudden anger. “But at least I didn’t piss my pants over a
story
.”

“There’s still time for you to go inside,” Bobby said. “If a pants-pisser like me can do it, it shouldn’t be any problem for you.”

“Jesus Christ, Bobby, give it a rest,” his cousin said. “You’re acting like you stood up to the devil himself instead of just going into an old house in the middle of the day.”

“A house you two are too chicken to go into.”

“If you’re such a hot shit, squirt,” Joey said, raising his hand to point behind Bobby, “why don’t you go in
there
?”

Bobby turned, his heart dropping down to somewhere near his knees, because he knew what Joey was pointing at even before he laid eyes on the dark open maw under the porch. Jeremiah Barlowe’s feeding spot.

Bringing ’em down here was the only way I could make it stop.

His guts felt loose and watery, like he was about to let go with a burbling flood of diarrhea in his pants. Talk about your wet stains.
Wouldn’t
that
be a hoot?
All the spit fled his mouth.

“I’m good,” he said. His voice sounded weak to him. Girlish.

“What’s the matter, big man?” Joey taunted. “Not so tough now, are you? Maybe your name should be Baby
instead of Bobby.”

“We need to get going,” Tanner said. “We’re going to be late.”

“Oooh, I know,” Joey said, chuckling. “
Barbie
Frank. It has a ring to it, doesn’t it?”

Tanner mustered up a half-smile. “Yeah, yeah, funny stuff. Can we go now?”

Dimly, Bobby was aware that his cousin was trying to help him out by changing the subject. Maybe there was some truth to that old saying about blood being thicker than water. Joey seemed to loom over him now, the same way the house had earlier. Something glittered in his eyes, some inner light that hadn’t been there before.
Crazy. He looks as crazy as an outhouse rat.

“We’re not going anywhere just yet. Not until he”—Joey poked Bobby in the chest, hard enough to hurt this time—“goes under there.” He pointed once more at the opening under the front porch.

“C’mon, man, knock it off,” Tanner said. “He went in the house, you said you were chicken. It’s over.”

“Ain’t over yet. I’m tired of him strutting around here like some little banty rooster, thinking he’s smarter than you and me.”

But I
am
smarter than you. Braver, too.

And being smart, Bobby kept his mouth shut.

“This is over when he goes in there where they found Jeremiah Barlowe, and brings something back out for me.” The glittery gaze fell on Bobby again and Joey grinned, hard and humorless. “Maybe you’ll even find a bone from one of those little kids.”

Bobby’s stomach rolled over in a lazy flop, and he wondered if he was going to throw up at the same time he filled his pants. “Let’s just call it even and—”

“I’ll make his easy for you,” Joey said. “You go under there and bring me back a souvenir, or I’m going to stomp the shit out of you. Clear enough?”

How had things gone south so quickly? Sure, Joey had taken their bet a little too seriously earlier, but now he’d gone off the deep end. Bobby harbored no doubt that Joey was as good as his word in the matter of stomping the snot out of him; the look in his eyes said that not only would he do it, he’d have a gay-o time of it. Maybe Joey was just as possessed as old Jeremiah Barlowe had been.

Bringing ’em down here was the only way I could make it stop.

Tanner put hand on Joey’s shoulder and opened his mouth to say something—
knock it off, buddy, and let’s get out of here
, maybe—but before he uttered a word Joey spun and shoved him away. Tanner stumbled backwards, his arms pinwheeling, and tripped over his own feet. He dropped into the tall grass, rolling onto his back, and when he sprang back up there was high color in his cheeks.

But, just like Bobby had, he kept his mouth shut. Perhaps the blood wasn’t
that
thick.

Joey turned his attention back to Bobby. “I said, is that clear enough?”

Could I take him in a fight?

The older boy was bigger and heavier and stronger, but he was also slower. Bobby was sure of it. The problem was, Bobby hadn’t ever been in a real fight—one two-minute shoving match in the fifth grade over a piece of peppermint candy had been his only experience—and didn’t know what he should do. If he threw a punch and missed or didn’t knock the fight out of Joey, it would all be over. He really would get the snot stomped out of him.

If you stand up to a bully, they’ll back down.
That’s what Brother Peavey had said one morning when he was guest-teaching Sunday School. He had done a whole lesson on bullying, and the way the devil tried to bully Christians.
That’s just a modern version of the word of God
, he had told them.
Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

But Bobby wondered if Brother Peavey had ever dealt with someone like Joey Garraty.

“I’ll go,” he said. “There’s nothing under there that can hurt me.”

If only he believed that. Not five minutes ago he’d been down on the floor in the house, one ear pressed to the wood, listening for something he’d heard in that creepy crawlspace. And now he was about to go in there.
You don’t know if you really heard anything. Even if you did, it was probably an animal.
Brother Peavey always said that the Bible taught that it was appointed for man to die once, and then came the judgment of God. That meant things like ghosts didn’t exist.
Couldn’t
exist, not if you believed the Bible, and Bobby sure did. God wasn’t a liar. If you went straight to judgment and then heaven or hell, there wasn’t any time to hang around under an old house trying to scare people.