Crack. A muffled scream. Whack. Another scream. Silence.
How could Jackson concentrate on his latest book, The Brantford Chronicles II, with such strange noises distracting him? Jackson rose from his straight-back chair and stared out the curtainless window. Withered weeds covered the ground for close to half a mile, from the ancient family burial ground, across fields which had not seen a plow in decades, to the edge of the woods, where leafless second-growth tree branches stretched upward against a gray, featureless layer of cloud, as if some threatening force had yelled, "Reach for the sky." Nothing moved. There was no wind. The noises could not have been caused by the wind, by branches rubbing on the roof, or anything like that.
Jackson went back to his laptop word processor. He was working in the old kitchen. He planned to sleep there, too, for the rest of the house was cold, bare, unfurnished, a wreck of a place with peeling wall paper, falling ceilings, creaking floors, musty smells, no electricity or running water. That's why the place was vacant; it would never pass a building inspection. Still, it would keep out the weather, and there was an old, cast iron hand pump which, with generous priming, would lift clear, cold water from the well.
A kerosene heater was next to his chair, and he wore a sweater, with a sweatshirt over it, so it didn't matter to Jackson that the place was cold. What mattered was that he could work undisturbed. His cash was running low. He really needed to finish a book and get an advance. He doubted he could even get a job at McDonald's, the way things were, so hunger was a real threat.
Once more, Jackson placed his hands on the keyboard. "All right, Brantford," he wrote, "drop the gun and raise your hands. Don't make any sudden..." There it was again, a whimpering, pleading noise, almost like the squealing brakes of his VW Bug. Maybe he could sell his Bug, which was hidden in the sagging old barn. No, he needed the Bug to visit his mother, in her nursing home, and pick up freshly recharged batteries for his laptop. "Moves," he typed. There was another high-pitched "Ahh!"
Disgusted, Jackson pushed the keyboard away and listened intently. Silence. He waited. More silence. He pulled the keyboard to him and, as soon as he hit tab for a new paragraph, he heard a new noise, a low, muffled sound, followed by a piercing shriek which chilled him like fingernails on a blackboard.
He went to the door to the front of the house, cracked it open, and listened. Nothing. He waited. "Ahhhh," he heard, faintly, no louder than before. He went to the back stairs, opened the door, and climbed a few steps into the gloomy, unlit stairwell. It was cold and dank and smelled of rot. He waited, for what seemed a long time. Thud. Ah-ieee. The sound seemed not so loud, this time. He backed out and closed the door, standing in the kitchen, puzzled.
Jackson sat down once more, noting that the battery saving feature had blanked his screen. He hit enter, to bring it to life, but as soon as it had restored his words, he heard the noises again. He flashed on a scene he had planned for Chapter Ten. Brantford would be imprisoned by the KGB and would be forced to listen to the muffled sounds of other prisoners being tortured. Jackson imagined it would sound like what he was hearing now. It certainly was unnerving.
He wondered if he was crazy, trying to make a living as a writer, based on one sale of an adventure thriller. If it didn't sell well, Brantford II might be a waste of time, anyway. What could he do, if he couldn't write? The thought was too depressing.
"So, Markov," Brantford hissed, "it was you who assassinated Brewster." Jackson stared at the screen, waiting for the next scream. How could he concentrate, with those strange noises?
The sun was setting, the light failing. Jackson went to his box of kitchen matches, struck one on the rusty top of the old stove, and lighted his kerosene lantern. He had come prepared, with air mattress, sleeping bag, lantern, camp stove, a box of canned goods, spaghetti, rice, five gallons of kerosene, all he needed to camp here and write that book. But he couldn't bring peace and quiet. He knew it would be useless to try to write, until he had discovered what made those noises.
There it was, again. Jackson rose and paced the floor. Again he heard the sounds, something like a blow and a scream, but louder, perhaps. He looked down and realized he was standing on a metal grate. Yes, the house had once had heat, an old coal furnace, and the grate probably covered a return-air duct. Jackson got down on his knees, put his ear to the grate and listened, intently. The cold, hard floor punished him through his worn jeans. He thought he heard a muffled voice, and complaining cries. They could be coming from the cellar.
Jackson's character, Brantford, would fearlessly investigate. Jackson wasn't quite the heroic equal of his character, but he knew he couldn't work, or sleep, until he had an explanation for those strange noises. He would have to check out the cellar.
Finding an entrance was a bit of a chore. In the back stair well, there was a door which might have opened on cellar stairs, but it was nailed shut and boarded over. He had not brought a crowbar. He thought of the furnace. There would be a coal chute. He went outside and started to circle the house.
For a moment, he was distracted by the old burial ground. Leaning stones marked the resting places of people dead two hundred years and more. Some of the stones had readable inscriptions: "Sacred to the Memory of Elisa Jane Bolt, died June 5, 1803, aged two years, three months, four days." "Prudence Felicity, beloved wife of Garth Arundel Hawthorne..." The rest was unreadable. The house seemed to have had several owners, judging by the grave markers. They cast long shadows in the weeds, for the sun was very low.
A muffled scream reminded Jackson that he must find an entrance to the cellar. Yes, someone had knocked a hole in the ancient stone foundation, probably for a coal chute, but it was boarded up, also.
Jackson put down the lantern and gave the boards a kick. His hiking boot had a visible effect. The boards were old, half rotted. With a dozen more hard kicks, he succeeded in clearing away the obstruction. He put his head through the opening and listened. Silence. Then, quiet clearly, whimpering pleas for mercy, followed by a drawn out cry of anguish.
As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, Jackson could see the rough walls of a coal bin; there was still coal on the floor. It might come in handy, some cold night. He took his lantern in one hand and lowered himself through the opening, wriggling on his belly, feet first, feeling for a foothold. Safely down, he kicked open the old door to the coal bin.
The ancient cellar, by the light of his lantern, was a strange and scary place. Big iron pipes hung from the ceiling, growing out of an antique coal furnace like octopus tentacles. The ceiling was hand-hewn boards over barkless tree trunk beams, and the floor was packed dirt. The walls, of course, were rough, uncut stone, laid with a minimum of mortar.
Jackson advanced into the cellar, stooping to avoid the pipes, listening for the source of the noise. Could it be some animal, trapped in the cellar?
"Please, Master," he heard quite clearly. "I did not take your shilling."
There, behind the furnace, was a girl, a teenager, stripped naked and hanging by her wrists, which were bound to a rusty hook in an overhead beam. Her body, front and back, from knees to shoulders, was covered with red welts and bluish bruises, the colors unreal in the lantern light. More unreal was the fact that Jackson could see right through her, see the rough stones behind her, upon which she cast no shadow.
"Who are you?" he asked, unable to believe he was seeing a ghost.
"My name is Rebecca Steele."
"How do you come to be here?"
"I was stolen in Bristol, and sent to the colonies as an indentured servant."
"But why are you here, tied to a hook?"
"My master believes I stole a shilling, and he vows I will tell him where it is hidden if he has to beat me every night, forever. I didn't take it. I cannot tell him where it is."
Jackson put down the lantern and went to her, thinking he need only lift her to free her bound wrists from the hook. When he tried lift her, his hands grasped air. She was as insubstantial as smoke, though he could see and hear her plainly.
"I would free you, if I could."
"I would be eternally grateful, good sir, but I fear you cannot free me. My bones lie beneath this floor. I was never given a Christian burial, so my spirit is imprisoned here, where I was murdered."
Jackson tried once more, reaching upward, right through the bound girl's arms, determined to see if he could pull the rusty hook free of the beam, but it was as insubstantial as the girl was, the original long gone.
"Sir, you cannot free me from my prison, but as long as you are here, with me, I am at least freed of my torment. Please, do not go, for if you do, I am doomed forever to be beaten to death, over and over again."
"There must be a solution, Rebecca. Suppose I dug up your bones and had them properly buried, in a church yard."
"One of the previous owners of the house tried that. He could not find more than tiny fragments. Even bones, it seems, eventually turn to dust. Unable to abide my screams, he sold the house, just as the others did."
"Then what can I do, Rebecca? I can't bear the thought of your being beaten to death through all eternity."
"You must stay with me, sir. Talk with me. My master beats me only when no other can see."
Jackson shuddered in the chill dampness of the gloomy cellar. My mind, he thought, is playing tricks on me. This is a dream or hallucination. Ghosts don't really exist, except in the imagination. He picked up his lantern, and returned to the coal bin. As he started to climb out the opening, he heard, louder than ever, a loud whack and a soul piercing scream of anguish. He froze, unable to lift himself further. "Sir," he heard quite clearly, "in the name of God, don't leave me!"
Jackson realized then that he could not leave her. Her cries would haunt him forever, if he did.
It was about two years later that "Jason Wind" finally agreed to be interviewed, by telephone, for a nationally syndicated radio talk show. "Tell our audience, Jason, how it is that you have been so very successful -- four books this year, with two of them on the Times Best Sellers list right now."
"Well, the secret was finding my genre. I was starving writing adventure novels, but historical romances sell pretty well these days."
"They certainly do, Jason. They say the new popularity of the genre is due to your books, so realistic, so meticulously accurate in every historical detail. Historians say you must be one of the country's foremost experts on colonial history, yet you are barely twenty-one and have never been to college. How do you do it?"
"Research. I go back to contemporary sources."
"Where do you find them? Your publisher tells me you have imprisoned yourself in an old house in New England, that you never leave it."
"That's true. I can't. But I've fixed it up very nicely, with an office in the basement, where I keep my most valuable source materials. Seems I'm there all the time, working. The isolation keeps me going."
"And where is this old house, Jason?"
"That's my secret. I must have my privacy."
Jason hurried the interview to a conclusion, anxious to hang up. "Aaaahhh!" he heard distinctly, the sound making him shudder.
"OK, Rebecca! I'm coming."
--END--