The Haunting of Romney Wood, Part Five
Achilles Heel
The moon washed down on the ruins of Black Hill, and the fire built on the site of the old Post Office burned bright, but Laurie and Lon still sat close together, shivering despite the summer warmth, and Walt felt every shadow at his back.
“So,” Lon said, “are we not going to talk about earlier?”
“Wind.” Walt replied.
“I don’t fucking think so, man.”
Walt looked over the fire at him and flashed a lopsided smile, “Come on, Lon. What do you think it was?”
“I think it was some fucked up shit.”
Walt shrugged. “A windstorm? Not fucked up at all. What, did you grow up in a bomb shelter?”
“A windstorm from nowhere, you screaming at me to point the camera down at the town… Then it stops just like that. Now maybe it’s different on your planet, but I call that weird.”
“I don’t know about the weather, but I wanted you to get everything on film. Who knows? Maybe it was a ghost.” Walt waggled his fingers and cooed.
“Nothing showed up, though.”
“We’ll fuck with it when we get home. I’m hoping for a dark hand to have been on Laurie’s shoulder the entire time.”
Laurie jerked, crossing her arms and putting her hands on her shoulders, “Dude, fuck that. If you see that on your fancy computer at home, I want you to fucking lie to me.”
“So it’s stupid for me to be spooked?” Lon asked.
Walt nodded, “Yes. Relax. And if you get spooked, just start filming. Focus on the job. That’ll take care of it.”
“So will this!” Lon said, pulling out a bottle of Jim Beam.
Walt grimaced, “Actually, that’s a great way to get hurt. Fall down and break a leg here and, what, have us drag you down a mountain for two hours in the dark, row you across the river, then drag you up to the car? You’d have better luck with the ghost.”
Lon rolled his eyes, “Father, forgive him, for he knows not what he says,” and twisted off the cap, taking a long, deep swallow before handing it to Laurie.
Walt waved the bottle away when Laurie offered it to him and stared into the fire as his friends drank into the night, eventually zipping their sleeping bags together and curling up in each others arms. He waited a moment longer, listening for their breath to even out as they fell asleep, and then stood and moved silently into the woods.
With only the moonlight as a guide, he moved cautiously to the east, towards the Witch’s house, and stopped when he came to the row of Oaks that marked the edge of her property. Her little two-story frame house stood in the center of the Oak circle, gnarled Dogwoods dotted here and there were still marked with a few bottles and caps glinting in the moonlight. The house stared back at him silently, long windows making shadows within shadows.
He stepped across the row of Oaks and immediately felt a chill run up his spine. Then, slowly, he pulled out his digital camera and snapped a photo, the flash bathing the front yard in a burst or harsh blue-white. The chill receded, and he snapped another picture to his left, then his right, then up into the crowns of the old Oaks.
The chill was gone, replaced by the summer night, and Walt looked at the house, his face breaking into a toothy grin. “Gotcha,” he whispered.
He returned to camp and climbed into his sleeping bag.
Another take at the Atherton house went off without a hitch shortly after breakfast, and Walt was reviewing the footage while Laurie and Lon poked around the old mansion. He listened to them inside, and also kept an eye on the surrounding woods. Lon stuck his head out of an upstairs window and shouted down.
“Hey, the staircase is scary!”
Walt peered up, “Be careful.”
“I’m the king of careful!” Lon shouted back, raising up and slamming the back of his head on the windowframe.
Laurie glided through the entrance and came down to stand by Walt, looking up at the window where Lon had been.
“Basement looks spooky,” she muttered.
“We’re not going to mess with the basement.”
“That warms my heart.”
“Lon!” Walt called into the house.
“He’s crazy going up that staircase.”
Walt huffed, handed the camera to Laurie, and then stalked into the house. The floor was rotten, and he immediately moved towards the walls, stepping carefully towards the right-angled grand staircase, half of which had caved in on itself. He shook his head and called up to the second floor, “Lon, get the hell back down here.”
No answer. And no sounds, either.
Walt called again, waited, listened, then cursed under his breath and climbed onto the first step, which creaked and gave slightly under his boot. He tried to spread out his weight, splaying his fingers out and crab-walking up the stairs awkwardly, until he reached the second landing, vertigo jellying his legs. He moved quickly from the edge towards the first room – once a bedroom, now a black mildewed mess with a tree branch growing through the window and up into the shattered roof.
He called for Lon once more, listened, then angrily screamed for him to stop fucking around.
Laurie’s voice, from below, startled him. “What’s wrong?”
“Walt didn’t move towards the edge of the landing, so he called out towards the steps, “Dunno. Hold on.”
The second floor was just a long hall, with rooms on either side and large, six foot windows at the end. Walt moved down the hall, sticking his head into each ruined room, calling for Lon. There was no sign and, when he finished and came back to the steps, Laurie was frantically hovering on the first stair looking up at him.
“Lon’s screwing around,” Walt said unconvincingly, carefully picking his way down the stairs along the wall.
“What? What?” Laurie moved up another step, but Walt pulled her down to the floor when he reached her.
“He’s not up there. I looked everywhere.”
“Lon!” she screamed up the stairs. When there was no reply, she backed up, then ran outside and peered up at the windows. Walt joined her, his jaw set. Then, as if fulfilling the joke from earlier, Laurie pointed Walt towards one side of the house and split off from him towards the other side. He turned and stared east, then went through the motions of searching for Lon, meeting Laurie around back. She was looking down into a hole in the ground, the debris-choked stairs to the cellar.
“He’s not down there.” Walt said.
“We have to check.”
“He’s down there in the dark? Really?”
“Maybe he fell…”
“He’s not there. He’s messing with us.”
She turned on him, “Where? Why?”
“He’s at the witch’s house.”
“The house we haven’t seen yet? We don’t even know where it is.”
“It’s half a mile that way.”
Walt didn’t wait for a response. He set off toward the house, ignoring Laurie’s protests and not looking back. After a few moments, she took off after him, running awkwardly on the rocky soil to catch up with him and glare for a moment. He didn’t notice, his eyes fixed ahead, and didn’t stop or acknowledge her until he came to the row of Oaks.
Laurie backed away instinctually, and Walt turned to watch her.
“I don’t like this place.”
Walt took out his camera and tossed it to her, then turned on Lon’s camera and panned it across the house and the yard.
“What, you’re still making the thing? Fuck that.” She screamed towards the house, “Lon!”
Walt grabbed her arm, “The camera will save you. Remember that.”
“Save me from what? What are you talking about?”
But Walt turned and moved towards the house. As he did so, Lon screamed from somewhere inside. It was a scream that gave him a moment of pause, and he shuddered slightly as he moved the camera up, filming the house. Laurie shouted and ran past him towards the house, and he lunged to stop her but missed. She was inside before he got his wits back and rushed through the open door himself.
There was no sign of Laurie.
“Of course,” Walt sighed.
He filmed the inside, carefully covering every inch and corner. The deeply stained floor seemed to burn through his shoes, and he moved towards a sitting room to the left. The house was a simple sort of T-design. A large entrance area with two rooms flanking it. Stairs led up and a narrow hallway squeezed past them to the kitchen.
Walt filmed everything for several minutes until he finally started to pull himself together. He moved freely through the ground floor, slipping past the stairs into the kitchen, filming the whole way. The kitchen floor was covered in a layer of water, a hole in the center dripping down into a cavernous, water-filled basement. He briefly fretted that Laurie had ended up down there. But figured that even she wasn’t that stupid. The sun glared through the windows, the kitchen the brightest room in the house.
He moved back to the entrance hall, standing on the wash of old blood, and called up the stairs. “I know you are not Amanda Atherton! But she died here, didn’t she?”
He listened to the silence, felt a pinprick on his arm, ignored it and continued to glare into the darkness of the second floor, faint sunlight showing from somewhere down a grim hallway.