Eximere (The River Book 4) (2 page)

They drove a hundred feet down the road where they came to a
chain stretched across the roadway. On the chain was another sign, warning
people away. Percival stopped the van and hopped out of the driver’s seat to
remove the chain, then got back in and drove ten feet. He hopped back out to
replace the chain behind them.

As he walked past the van’s windows, Steven got a good look
at him. He was wearing a plaid beret and under it he had mousy brown hair that
was cut short. His eyes looked a little panicked, and Steven thought he walked
a little too fast, in a way that suggested his moves weren’t just to be quick.
He didn’t glance into the van as he passed. In fact, Steven realized he’d yet
to make eye contact with him.
Perhaps at dinner
, he thought.

Another fifty feet and a left turn in the road later, they
came to the main gates of the estate. The ironwork stood ten feet tall with
impressive brick structures to hold the gate’s hinges. The iron fence extended
to the right and left of them, the top edge of the fence curved outward with
sharp ornamental points on the end.

Once again Percival left the van. He unlocked the gates and
pushed the large iron doors back wide enough for the van to get through. Then
he drove the van through and into a large round parking area. He hopped out of
the van and walked back to the iron gates to shut and lock them.

Jonathan opened the van’s side door for the occupants to
disgorge. They spilled out one by one onto the gravel, looking around to orient
themselves.

As Percival returned from the gate he said to the group,
“Harold Unser, who built this estate, had a great dislike of automobiles. Visitors
were required to park down here, surrounded by these trees, so he couldn’t see
them from any of the windows in the main house. Why he just didn’t build a
garage in the back I don’t know. There’s a path over here where we’ll make our
way up.” Percival went to the back of the van and retrieved two brown paper
bags that were filled with boxes, then led them to the path.

The path was bricked and about six feet wide. After they
walked another fifty feet the trees opened up and the lawn of the estate spread
out in front of them. The effect was dramatic. The lawn was regularly
interrupted by large trees, bushes, and rock outcroppings. As they continued to
walk the path, they rose in elevation and the house came into view.

It was a grand craftsman house, with some gothic elements.
There were two oversized stories, with large windows covering most of the side
facing them, some made of stained glass. The roof overhangs extended
dramatically from the sides and front, casting huge shadows into the yard.
Steven stopped for a moment to try and take in the façade.
It just goes on
and on
, he thought.

The path lead up to the main entryway of the house, and
branched off to side doors. Percival led them to one of the side doors,
producing a key ring. “The main doors have been locked for years ever since the
tours stopped,” he said. “We only go in and out through this side entrance.
It’s a little less dramatic, but it’s less to take care of.” He pushed the door
open, grabbed his brown paper bags, and proceeded into the house. The rest
followed.

Percival led them through an entryway, an adjacent anteroom,
and into a small kitchen, where he placed the bags on a table covered with a
butcher block.

“Is this the kitchen?” asked Marilyn, her dog shaking in her
arms as though it was freezing.
The house isn’t cold,
Steven thought.
The
dog is scared. Or maybe it’s so small it can’t handle being outside.

“No, the kitchen is next door,” he said. “Come through.” He
grabbed the bags off the butcher block and walked over to an open archway at
the far end of the room.

The group followed, and the archway opened into the largest
kitchen Steven had ever seen. It seemed to him that it was as large as his
entire house. It was painted off-white.
I’ve never seen a kitchen with crown
molding before
, he thought.

“Wow,” Eliza said. “Why so big?”

“Mr. Unser loved to host parties,” Percival said. “But the
house was so remote, he had to throw extremely expensive and outrageous events
in order to lure people to visit. People knew they could come here, spend a
week, have plenty of room, food, and drink, and then make the long trip back to
Seattle or wherever.”

“How did Mr. Unser make his fortune?” Kenneth asked.

“Tell you what,” Jonathan said. “Let’s have that discussion
over dinner. Kent?”

“Yes,” Percival said. “I’ve brought box dinners for everyone.
There’s no staff here at the moment. There used to be, when the house was open
for tours, but it’s been empty and closed up for a while now. Please grab a box
and follow me through to the dining hall.”

The boxes had been labeled with the type of meals that were
inside. They sorted through them all, looking for what appealed to them.

“Is there a gluten free box?” Marilyn asked. “I can’t have
any gluten.”

“Yes, Marilyn,” Jonathan said. “There’s one that’s for you.
Everyone, check your box to make sure you don’t have Marilyn’s box.”

Russell handed the box he’d selected over to Marilyn, and
took the last remaining box, rolling his eyes.

They passed through another anteroom and into the main dining
hall. Steven guessed the ceiling was at least thirty feet high, and two large
chandeliers hung over a long table that would easily seat two dozen people. Percival
walked to the end of the table and sat, and the others joined him.

Steven unwrapped his box dinner and glanced around the room.
Large paintings and sets of antlers filled the walls, still lit by late
afternoon sunlight streaming in from the huge windows at the far end of the
hall. It was winter, and it’d be dark soon. He noticed that things didn’t
appear dusty or dirty; Percival must have had the place cleaned prior to this
visit. There was a large fireplace at the end of the hall opposite the windows,
but it was empty. It was tall enough to walk into.

“Thank you all for coming,” Jonathan said. “I know it’s a big
sacrifice for all of you, and this place, as magnificent as it is, isn’t easy
to get to. So you have my appreciation.”

“What are we dealing with, Jonathan?” asked the stout and
serious woman as she plowed through her food.

“Well, Myrna, I think Kent here would be the best to explain
it. He’s the one who approached me about a month ago, and then I put this all
together with you. Kent, would you like to tell the story?”

“Sure,” Percival said, placing his fork down and taking a
gulp of water from a small plastic bottle included in the box.  “Well, as you
know, this is the Unser estate. Harold Unser built it in 1915 with money he
made in the lumber industry. Although Harold was a social man who loved meeting
people and parties, his wife, Anita, was the opposite, and when he decided to
build a house that would act as a monument to his life, it was Anita who
convinced him to build it out here, in the middle of nowhere. For the first few
years Harold enticed people out with lavish weekends, but as time went on
Anita’s preference for solitude won out and Harold became as much of a recluse
as she.

“They had a son who was named James. He fought in World War
II, and is believed to have died in the war. I say ‘believed’ because his body
was never recovered.

 “Harold died soon after, leaving Anita alone in the house.
She ran it for several years more, by all accounts never seeing anyone but the
servants. She passed away in 1956. She was found dead in her room upstairs.

“Since then, the house sat empty. Harold’s estate kept an
endowment to care for the house and the property, and it’s administered by the
estate’s executor, a law firm in Tacoma. There’s enough money to keep the place
going for another hundred years I’m afraid.”

“Afraid?” asked Myrna. “You’d rather this place be sold?”

“Well, yes,” Percival replied. “I’m a realtor, and I’d love
to sell this property of course, but that’s not the real issue.”

“I’m sure this house would make you millions in commission,”
Russell said, “if you could ever find a buyer.”

“Maybe,” Percival said, “but we’ll never know. Not as things
stand right now. This house isn’t sellable, the executors won’t sell it. I’ve
tried.”

“What’s the problem then?” Myrna asked impatiently. “Why are
we here?”

“He’s getting to that,” Jonathan said, raising his hand. A
toothpick was back in his mouth, dangling. “Let him finish.”

“It’s not this house I’d like to be able to sell,” Percival
said. “It’s the rest of the town.  I’m sure you saw it as you arrived.”

“Easy to miss,” Marilyn said, taking a small nibble from a
piece of chicken stabbed on the end of her fork, and giving the rest of the
piece to her dog.

“It makes no sense that the town doesn’t thrive,” Percival
said. “We’ve got a major historical home as a tourist draw, you’d think the
town could grow and survive off that. I’d be happy with just the commissions
from normal house sales, but there isn’t enough activity. We tried to change
that. We convinced the law firm to let us conduct tours of the house, open it
up to the public. They were fine with the idea as long as it was revenue
positive. We outfitted the place, dumped some money into it. You’ll notice
plastic runners in some of the hallways where the tours went, for example.
People from the town were hired as tour guides. We marketed it all over the
state. But it didn’t work, we hardly got any visitors. The law firm forced us
to stop.

“The town is dying. Most of the families have lived here
their entire lives, but they’ll be gone soon too, if we don’t do something. I’m
convinced this house is the reason the town is suffering. There’s something
here, something that is sucking the life from the town. It’s the reason people
didn’t want to visit here, and it’s the reason our town is nearly dead. Let me
show you something.”

Percival rose from the table and walked over to the wall of
the dining hall. “I’ve been convinced that this place is cursed for a long time
now,” he said, taking a small bottle from his jacket pocket. He removed the
cap, and began squirting the liquid on a wood panel of the wall. “I’ll ask you
all to please keep what I’m about to tell you in confidence. One day, in
desperation, I decided to burn the place down. I figured the place would go up
like a matchstick, all this old wood. Then it’d be gone, and the town could
begin to get back on its feet.”

Steven wondered if Percival was a little unhinged, and became
even more concerned about being there. He resolved to not involve himself in
things without a lot more info going in.

Percival stopped squirting the wall and showed the group the
bottle. “Lighter fluid,” he said, placing it on the table. Myrna immediately
grabbed the bottle and sniffed it. “It is,” she said.

Percival pulled a matchbox from his jacket pocket, stuck a
match against it, and flung the match towards the wood panel. Eliza gasped, and
Steven and Roy shot to their feet.

The match hit the wall and fell to the floor. It burned for a
few seconds, then the flame shrunk and the match extinguished itself.

“Won’t burn,” Percival said. “I’ve tried it all over the
house. I can burn up a drape, or a piece of paper, or whatever. But the house
itself won’t burn, no matter what you try.”

“Incredible!” Kenneth said.

“Treated wood?” Roy asked.

“A hundred years ago, maybe,” Percival replied, “but normally
you wouldn’t use treated wood in the interior of a house, it would smell so bad
you couldn’t live in it. This wood should be flammable. But it’s not the wood,
really. I tried a bulldozer, too.”

Percival returned to the table. Roy kept an eye on the burnt
match, still expecting it to burst into flames.

“Rented a bulldozer in Aberdeen,” Percival continued, “had it
trucked to my home. One night I drove it up here. I was going to drive it right
up the brick path and see what damage I could do. As soon as I drove it onto
the path, it stalled and wouldn’t move. Could barely keep it running. If I
turned it around and went the other direction it ran fine. I tried a dozen
times before I gave up and drove it back to town.”

“So the house is protected somehow?” Eliza asked.

“Is that what it is?” Percival asked. “I don’t know. All I
know is that the house is a malignancy that is ruining our town, our ability to
make a go of things and live our lives. The longer you’re near it, the more you
feel it. Can’t you feel it now?”

“I can,” said Russell. “Very evil.”

“Honestly, I don’t feel anything,” Eliza said. “Maybe we
haven’t been here long enough.”

“I don’t feel anything either,” Roy said.

“You might not be as in tune as I am,” Russell said, turning
away from Roy. “I felt if from the moment we entered.”

Steven watched Roy. It was clear Roy was developing a dislike
of Russell.

“What is it you’ve brought us here to do?” Myrna asked.

“What Kent asked me,” Jonathan said, his toothpick bobbing as
he spoke, “was if we could eradicate whatever’s here. Eliminate whatever is
sucking the life from the town.”