Screamscapes: Tales of Terror (26 page)

He didn’t want to get up and instead covered his eyes with his arm and groaned. He felt like he hadn’t slept a bit. The mattress was hard as a rock and he was freezing cold.

He tugged at the thin blanket to try and better cover himself, but it was stuck. He grudgingly opened his eyes to the bright sunlight and sat up to face the day.

As his sleepy eyes began to focus, a woozy feeling of disorientation washed over him. He was in the tower room, the bottom edge of a long curtain draped across him. His mind reeled as he tried to imagine how he could have gotten there in his sleep. He clearly remembered falling asleep in the bedroom downstairs the night before.

Claire called again. He tossed the curtain aside and got to his feet.

“I’m upstairs,” he called back. Within seconds she was making her way up the iron staircase, her footsteps clanging loudly with each step.

James quickly started opening the windows, as though that was what he had been doing all along.

Claire took one look at his puffy face and wrinkled clothes and frowned.

“You look like hell. What are you doing?”

“Cleaning up from last night,” he lied. “I’m going to take a shower and go pick up some things for the house. You okay by yourself for a little while?”

Claire shrugged.

“The next door neighbor stopped by. She said the ‘welcoming committee’ is coming by to get acquainted.”

“You want me here for that?” James asked.

“Seriously? If I were you, I’d get out of the hen house fast. Neighborhood gossip, nosy housewives poking through our house looking for hidden dark secrets,” she laughed. “Why would you want to miss that?”

An hour later, Claire was sitting in the kitchen surrounded by a dozen women, the assortment of baked goods they’d brought spread out before her. A peace offering from the natives, she thought, as she eyed them warily. She had never trusted women that ran in packs.

“I can’t believe the Hills actually sold this house and moved out,” said a plump lady, with a nest of bleached blonde hair and a questionable sense of fashion to match. “I always figured they would die here and nobody would find their bodies until months later.”

“I know!” chimed in another woman with knee-high leather boots and earrings so long they touched her shoulders. “They were so weird!” she exclaimed, touching Claire on the thigh.

“Honestly, I don’t know them at all,” Claire said. “They called James out of the blue and asked if he wanted to buy their house. I don’t think he had spoken to them since he was a boy. He used to live in the house across the street, you know.”

“How strange!” the women grew hushed and leaned in to learn more.

“James always loved this house when he was a kid, but never dreamed he would be able to buy it someday. But they made him an offer he just couldn’t refuse,” Claire continued.

“Why did they want him to have the house? I’m sure they could have sold this place for a mint,” blonde fashion disaster said.

A lady decked out in a hot pink spandex workout suit with black stripes spoke up. “I saw the old curtains still up in the tower,” she said. “Are you planning to change them?”

Claire gave her a look.

“It’s funny that you ask. That was the one condition made when we bought the house, to agree never to take down those curtains,” she said. “They’re actually paying someone to check up on us to make sure we don’t take them down? It’s bizarre.”

The lady with the boots seemed excited to have an excuse to put her hand on Claire’s leg again, and she took full advantage of it.

“Nobody told you?” she said sympathetically, as she stroked Claire’s knee.

“Told me what?” Claire asked as she tried to scoot away.

“About those curtains…and the little girl,” Touchy Boots said and gave Pink Spandex a knowing look. “Should I tell her, or do you want to?”

“You tell her,” Pink Spandex said.

A hush fell over the room as the women leaned forward to watch Claire’s expression as she heard the tale.

“All right, I’ll tell you what I know,” said Touchy Boots mysteriously. She rubbed Claire’s inner thigh reassuringly, until Claire scooted away.

“The people that lived in this house were very successful in life and they had waited until they were fairly advanced in age to have a child, a little girl. Her name was Sophie. They cherished her. “

“I saw a photo of her,” Claire said. “James said they were friends when he was little.”

“Best friends. Inseparable,” Touchy Boots clarified. “They used to go around telling everyone they were married when they were only like in the third grade, or something.”

The women tittered as Boots announced that.

“Sophie loved to spend time up in the tower room. When I was younger, I would see her there, dancing and spinning next to the big glass windows.”

Boots paused dramatically, letting the story sink in before continuing.

“Mrs. Hill made special curtains for the tower room as a surprise for her daughter. She showed them off to everyone while she was making them.”

“So what’s the big deal about the curtains, anyway?” Claire said, eager to get to the point.

“Well, this is where the story gets weird,” Touchy Boots said. “One day, before the curtains were finished, Sophie was dancing in the tower room, spinning around. She tripped over a doll and smashed through the front window. She fell three stories to the ground. Died instantly in the front yard. There’s a rusty cross that still marks the exact spot.”

Claire shuddered. “That’s terrible,” she said. “James never told me any of this.”

“He probably thought you’d freak out and he had the deal of a lifetime on his dream house,” Fashion Disaster speculated.

Boots continued.

“You know the stained glass heart? Sophie fell through that very window,” Boots said. “After she died Mr. and Mrs. Hill became total recluses. They sat rocking in their chairs staring out that window day after day, year after year. They never got over it.”

A large woman in beige pants and a golf shirt, who had sat in silence until now, decided to chime in.

“I don’t think they ever accepted the fact that their little girl was dead,” she said. “I used to see Mr. Hill carrying toys into the house from time to time.”

“What does any of this have to do with the curtains?” Claire asked impatiently.

“Oh yeah, the curtains - that’s where the story goes from weird to downright bizarre,” Boots replied. “Mrs. Hill kept working on those curtains after Sophie died, adding on to them, making them longer, more ornate. A lot of rumors are floating around about those curtains, but nobody knows for sure what’s true or not.”

“Like what?” Claire asked.

“Well,” Boots continued, “I heard that Mrs. Hill used cloth from the dress Sophie died in to make them, for one thing.”

“I heard that Sophie’s head was shaved before the burial and Mrs. Hill braided her hair into the trimming,” Pink Spandex said.

Fashion Disaster perked up, eager to add to the tale. “I heard Mrs. Hill had the funeral home pull off Sophie’s fingernails and toenails and save them for her. She polished them up and used them as mother-of-pearl inlay on one of the curtains.”

Claire gave everyone a skeptical look, then burst out laughing.

“You guys had me going for a minute,” she laughed, looking around the room hopefully, for signs of jest. “You don’t believe any of that stuff, do you?” she laughed.

But the women only stared back at her in solemn silence.

“Honestly - you ladies really believe those stories?” Claire said. “I’m sorry, but to me it sounds like an absurd urban legend, foisted on two old people who led a very tragic life.”

“I hope you’re right,” Touchy Boots said as she gave Claire’s leg a final squeeze.

“Come on ladies, we’ve wasted enough of Claire’s time with our silly stories. I’m sure you need to get back to your unpacking, dear. If you need anything –
anything
,” she said with a knowing wink, “Please let
me
be the first to know.”

When James got back from the store, Claire was waiting for him on the front porch, arms crossed. She glared at him while he retrieved the groceries from the back seat.

“You weren’t going to tell me?” she said, following him as he carried the bags into the kitchen.

“Tell you what?”

“That a little girl
died
in this house
?”

James sighed with relief.

“Claire, that was a long time ago - and it wasn’t
inside
the house,” he protested.

“It wasn’t fair, not to tell me,” she insisted. “It made me feel like an idiot having to learn about it from the neighbors. You could have told me last night, when the picture of the little girl who died fell off the wall. That would have been the perfect opportunity, don’t you think?”

He placed the bags on the counter and walked over to her, taking her into his arms. She pulled away from him.

“I’m sorry. I just didn’t think it was a big deal,” he said with remorse. “It’s not like there was a mass murder in this house or something - a little girl had an accident and died, a very long time ago. It’s sad, but it happens. Forgive me?”

She turned and looked at him with hurt filled eyes.

“Done. Forgiven,” she said and kissed him quickly on the lips. “Are you absolutely sure there are no more secrets? I was kind of rushed into moving in here with you, you know - and I hate surprises.”

“Really?” James said as he walked over to the counter and reached into a bag. “Because I do have one more little surprise. But if you hate surprises, it can wait.”

He paused, keeping his hand in the bag, a playful spark twinkled in his eye.

“You’ve got a surprise in
that
bag?
For me
?” Claire asked, smiling slyly. “Yeah, right. What is it, a big cucumber?”

James pulled his hand slowly from the paper grocery bag. In it he held a small velvet box.

“I’ve been waiting for the right time to ask you this, but the more I think about it the only time that seems like the right time is right now,” he said and got down on one knee in front of her.

“Claire Sheppard, I can’t live another day without knowing that the rest of my life will be by your side. Will you marry me?” he asked, eyes eager and full of love.

“You big dummy,” she said, and hit him playfully on the top of his head. “Yes, of course I’ll marry you! But our gossipy neighbors will be disappointed to learn that we’ve quit shacking up.”

James was awakened by a whisper in his ear as he slept beside his new fiancé later that night.

“
What?
” he asked Claire, irritated at being woken up, but she was sound asleep. He sat up and squinted at the alarm clock on the dresser across the room. It was two o’clock in the morning, the middle of the night.

Something moved at the edge of his vision, in the dark hallway just outside the bedroom door – not much more than a flicker of static in the shadows. He figured the dim light was playing tricks on his tired eyes, ignored it, and lay back down.

He closed his eyes but heard a whisper again, calling his name softly from somewhere outside the room.

James slipped quietly out of bed, careful not to wake Claire. He padded to the doorway and stuck his head into the hall, listening.

Then he heard it again, a singsong voice calling, clearer this time.

I need you, Jamie, I’m so lonely.

A soft breeze blew through the hallway, carrying the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle, intoxicating.

Words floated in the gentle wind, plaintive, wretchedly sorrowful.

Come to me, Jamie.

James followed the voice down the hall to the alcove. He began to slowly ascend the circular iron steps, afraid of what he might find, but unable to resist the urge to know.

He stepped into the darkness of the tower room. Every window was open wide, even though James knew he had locked them, had double-checked them. The five curtains writhed in the balmy breeze, illuminated by the light of the moon.