I cranked up the oldies station, fuck JulianBlack, and watched the landscape fly by. I smiled when I saw the sign for theRaven’s Point trailhead. If I had found the sign that day, I wouldn’t be inthis mess. Joe Cocker was singing about friends and I thought of Jay andwondered just how much of a mess I was in. A few minutes later, I passed an oldfarmhouse that had an old grain silo that was so tilted it defied gravity. Iflashed back to that day – the day I bought the Victrola was now officiallythat day – and remembered thinking it looked like the leaning tower ofPisa. I’m close.
A few turns later, I knew I was on theright road. I slowed the car and stared at the trees on the right side, knowingthere would be a hairpin turn up ahead, then the old cape-style house. I tookthe turn, my stomach suddenly tight, and slowed the car to a crawl. The breakin the trees was just ahead, but when I reached it, something was wrong.
The house was there…but different. Whathad been a tired but livable old house was now a decrepit ruin. The front yardwas a tangled mess of overgrown weeds. The bushes closest to the housethreatened to swallow the structure, looming hungrily around it. I pulled intothe driveway and switched off the ignition. My stomach felt like someone heldit in their fist and was slowly squeezing. I got out of the car and walkedalong the road, staring into the woods, searching for evidence of the fallentree that had blocked the road. I reached the spot where I thought it should beand crashed through the undergrowth. It took a few minutes and cost me a fewnasty scratches from some thorn bushes, but I found it. I wished I hadn’t.
The tree trunk was there, but there wasno way the tree had fallen just a week earlier. There was no sign of any damageto the bushes and smaller trees that would have been crushed when the big treefell. What remained of the stump was worn by time and elements. New shoots ofwhatever kind of tree it was had sprouted and they were taller than me, theirtrunks as thick as my wrist. The grip on my stomach tightened and aninescapable feeling of dread attached to me. With a sigh, I turned back andmade my way back to the road.
I approached the house slowly, as if itwere a dog I wasn’t sure was friendly. The closer I got, the more I had thesense I was being watched. There was no breeze. In fact, it felt like the airhad been sucked out of the day and I was in a vacuum. There were no cars on theroad and none of the usual sounds of insects or birds. The quiet waspreternatural. The urge to run to my car was overwhelming, but where would Igo? Back to the Victrola?
I stood at the foot of the porch stepslooking up at the house. How could it have only been a week ago I stood in thisspot talking to an old woman about a record player? I remembered her handmoving like she was going to bless herself and telling me it wasn’t for sale.Then the screen door had opened…. I looked at the door now, hanging from onerusty hinge, the screen in tatters. It wasn’t possible.
My hands were clenched as I moved towardthe porch. The stairs were rotted, I was careful to step on the stringers on myway to the door. I pulled the handle and the remaining hinge gave way with anugly screech. The door crashed to the porch next to me. I twisted the knob ofthe interior door and pushed. The door resisted, swollen in place, thenexploded inward with a groan. The reek of stale air hit me like a warm fetidblanket and I gagged. The expulsion hinted of something worse than decay, itfelt wrong. Evil. I hesitated, licking my lips and breathing hard. Iwanted to turn and run back to my car but I knew the Victrola and Julian Blackwaited for me at home.
I stepped inside and was struck by asense of grief that made tears pool in my eyes. There was no cause for it, itwas just there. The sorrow was crippling but I felt compelled to go on. I mademy way through the ruins of the house, tears streaming down my face, lookingfor something. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was there and I wasmeant to find it.
Random images flooded my mind, aslideshow of misery. A young woman crying by the side of an empty crib. An oldman standing in the rain as a coffin is lowered into the ground. A middle-agedman kneeling by the body of a lifeless child, the boy’s bicycle a tangled messin the grill of the man’s car. The visions threatened to break me, to drive meinsane with their burden, but I continued deeper into the house.
I reached what must have been the livingroom. The shag carpet stunk of mold and the wallpaper was peeling off the wallsin skin-like strips. But it was the fireplace that drew me. I stood in front ofit, trying to ignore the hateful pictures flashing through my head. I reachedout and pulled on one of the bricks, then another. On the fifth try, I felt thebrick move at my touch. I wiggled it a few times and pulled it out, letting itdrop to the floor with a muffled thud. I reached in,
