Copyright
2005
CLARK COUNTY HORROR II
ACES AND EIGHTS
So we walked the grounds. The yard was overgrown scrub and cracked bricks all around. There were a few out buildings, one that resembled a caved-in garage, along with a tool shed and a smokehouse. The backyard was more cracked bricks and a seating area with a ruined fireplace, overturned and crumbling urns filled with dust and cobwebs. The back doors were locked and barred with metal strips to keep people out… or something inside.
“Well, that settles it in my book," I said. “I think we're out of luck trying to get into this old heap.”
I was relieved. This house gave me the feeling it was sizing us up. Daring us to breech its defenses. Call its hand. I happily folded.
Rick still had his hand in though, “Hey, check over here.” He was making his way around to the side of the house, tearing his way past a thorn bush that had grown over the pathway and had tried to keep him away. “There’s one of those storm cellar doors over here on the... Shit!” The thorn bush did its best and gave Rick a deep scratch for his efforts.
I ducked under the thorns and met him. “It’s a sign, Rick. We aren’t wanted here.”
“It’s not a sign, it’s a scratch. You are one gigantic pussy, you know? I’m bleeding and this place owes me. That cellar door is unlocked and I’m going in. Now are you coming with me, or do I have to let everyone know how you pussed out on our little adventure? Besides, this is right up your alley with all the horror stories you read and all that Halloween stuff you do every year. This will be one for your memoirs.”
“You know, there’s some truth to a lot of those stories about the paranormal.”
“Yeah, yeah. One night on that Coast-to-Coast radio show you heard the story about the haunted blah, blah, blah. That stuff is all bullshit, you know.”
“Maybe it is a steaming bag of shit, but I’m telling you right now
don’t go into that cellar,” I said. “I really have a bad vibe right now.”
“OK! Tell you what, you stand out here and suck your thumb and try to channel Art Bell and I’ll wave at you from the attic window just to show you what a complete idiot you are.” Rick turned and swung open the cellar door. It rattled and creaked like a pile of bones falling out of a coffin.
Rick screamed. “Dust! And cobwebs! Oh, Jesus! A house spider! Run! Run!!”
“Fuck off.”
“That’s the spirit! Now come on!” Rick made his way down the stone steps to the cellar.
I looked up at the side of the house above the stairway. Two large windows stared out from the second floor. Eyes. A long red brick chimney ran up from the cellar to above the roof. A nose. The dark chasm of the storm cellar. The mouth.
Into the belly of the monster we went. Swallowed alive. The house won its hand, aces and eights.
It was gloomy and musty but not too dark to see. Daylight poured in from the cellar door and barred; basement windows with stained glass panes allowed multiple colors of light to enter, giving the room an almost church-like atmosphere. But this was a church of the damned.
The floor was stone. An old bicycle hung from the rafters. Wood panels were stacked against the wall along with a mantle and some oak doors. A dead coal furnace with a Medusa head of radiator pipes guarded a dark corner of the cellar. Everything was covered with dust and cobwebs.
A sturdy wooden staircase led to a doorway.
“Going up?” I asked Rick.
“I better find something to stop this bleeding." The thorn scratch was pretty deep and a line of blood dribbled down his arm and dripped onto the stone floor. The blood pooled into a seam between the floor stones. “There might be some bandages upstairs that those carpenters left,” Rick said. He headed up the stairs into the first floor.
I watched him go up the steps for a moment then looked back down at the pool of blood on the floor. The blood was gone, down into the seam in the floor. The old timbers of the house gave a satisfied creak and clouds must have moved over the sun because the whole room became much darker.
“Uhhh, Rick?”
“Shit! What? I’m bleeding like a stuck pig here!”
“What was the weather forecast for today?” I climbed the steps to meet him on the first floor landing.
“Do I look like a fucking weatherman?”
“It was mostly sunny.”
“Well, thank you for the update. What’s your point?”
He opened the first floor door and the parlor was bathed in a gloom of a heavily overcast day. Thunder rumbled loudly and the house settled again letting out a long series of creaks and groans. A gust of wind whipped around the house and the storm doors below slammed shut plunging the cellar into darkness.
“It’s a desert thunderstorm,” Rick said as he made his way into the renovation area of the parlor. “Happens all the time out here, you know that.”
Lighting flashed very close to the house and thunder cracked with a deafening crescendo. The rain started like someone turned on a faucet. I looked out the large dormer window at the front drive. The drops were heavy and small chunks of hail bounced off Rick’s parked car.
“Great. Just great,” said Rick. “I hope that hail doesn’t ding up my hood. Hey! I’m in luck.”
Rick pushed aside a painter’s drop cloth and found a serviceable first-aid kit. We opened it up, and I helped him put some hydrogen peroxide on his cut and dressed the wound with some bandages. The hail tapered off, but the rain continued along with the lightning and thunder.
“Thanks,” said Rick. “Shall we continue our tour? Next stop, second floor. Linens and kitchen wares!”
I wanted to tell him about what I saw in the cellar. I wanted to tell him that the house had consumed a piece of him. The house had gained nourishment from his blood. I wanted to tell him the house was a vampire of stone and timber and it was going to get us....
But it was silly. It sounds silly. I was a fool. The joker’s wild and the house always wins.
(Continued)
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