Back then, I was lying to him. I was lying to myself, too. I always thought that things might turn around any second. In reality, my career had been over for a while. I never thought that Uncle Walt would die. He was always the strongest person I knew.
I wonder if that’s how Amber thinks of Mr. Engel.
Of course, as soon as his name pops into my head, I remember the hook and eye. That cellar door refused to stay shut. It must have been something odd about the framing of the house. There’s probably a twist in the doorframe that puts pressure on the door and makes the hook wander out of the eye.
Yes, I know. These are the kind of things that one tells oneself at 3am. In a movie, this type of denial inevitably leads to death. But what’s the alternative? Even if I admit that there might have been a murderer down in the cellar, how would they have unlatched the hook from the eye from the other side of the door? To do something like that, they would have to be a supernatural murderer. If something like that exists, then there’s no sense in fearing it.
Hear me out.
It makes sense to fear and take precautions against an axe murderer or a serial killer because those are the types of threats that someone might defeat. But if there really are vampires down in Mr. Engel’s cellar, and they really can unhook latches from the wrong side of the cellar door, then what’s the point in fearing them? How can I survive a monster who possesses telekinesis? Being afraid of vampires is like being afraid of asteroids. You’re going to die whether or not you acknowledge their existence, but at least ignorance is blissful.
Unless.
Unless vampires are very territorial and I could just move away.
My original plan was to clean out Uncle Walt’s place and then sell it. It’s only the last day or two that I’ve considered maybe moving here permanently.
Perhaps that’s the decision I have to make.
If I want to stay, then I should deal with the vampires.
If I decide to move, then the vampires can be a problem for the next owners.
I laugh in the darkness and get out of bed.
I need one of the downstairs fans.
(I guess I always liked the strangeness.)
I guess I always liked the strangeness.
One thing I always hated when I was a kid was how my mom was always telling me that I was wrong. It’s like with the neighbor and the trashcans—even after Matt and I brought home the foot, she never really apologized even though I had been right all along.
She said something like, “You could have been seriously hurt. Don’t you dare do anything like that again.”
He was a murderer living right across the alley.
“That’s a matter for the police. You shouldn’t have gotten involved.”
But she wouldn’t believe me when I tried to tell her. How were the police supposed to get involved when my own mother wouldn’t listen?
“Listen,” she said, “Am I glad that he has been apprehended? Yes. Am I glad that you involved yourself? No! Next time, no sneaking.”
We never saw eye to eye about that incident. Not once.
For me, the world was full of ghosts, strange phenomena, killers, and UFOs. From my mother’s point of view, I had an overactive imagination and a lot to learn about the world.
It wasn’t like that at Uncle Walt’s place. He knew that the world was a strange place and he didn’t shy away from any part of it.
One time, my mom and I were visiting him in the winter. It was between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Mom got us really cheap plane tickets somehow and we had used them for a mini-vacation. Sitting around the little table in the kitchen one night, the light above the table had flickered.
“Something wrong with your bulb, Walt?” Mom asked.
He put a finger to his lips and pointed at the light over the sink. This time, the light over the table stayed constant but the light over the sink flickered. It was the same pattern—blink, blink, pause, blink. Next, he pointed at the lights in the living room. My chair legs squeaked on the floor when I whipped my body around to watch. The lights in the living room flickered in exactly the same way.
“For heaven’s sake, Walt, your wiring is so bad that this place is going to burn down one day.”
Uncle Walt waited for the light show to finish before he responded.
“After it’s done in the den, it moves upstairs. I’ve chased it a few times,” he said. He took a sip of his hot chocolate. He made it from scratch with real cream. It was as addictive as heroin.
“Get a qualified electrician out here,” Mom said.
Uncle Walt shook his head. “I haven’t decided if it’s fairies, sprites, or maybe aliens. It’s some kind of visitor and it seems to be harmless enough.”
He pointed to me. “Just remember, foreign and hostile are not synonymous. Don’t judge before you know a thing’s nature. Stay vigilant, but don’t be xenophobic.”
“What’s xenophobic?” I asked.
“Fear of the unknown,” Uncle Walt said. “Some people will simplify it down to fear of foreigners, but it’s actually fear of the foreign. That’s more than just people from another country.”
“It’s an electrical problem, Walt. Stop messing with my son.”
Walt shook his head. “I’m not messing with anyone. If it happens again, I’ll prove it to you.”
I forgot all about the flickering lights until the last night of our mini-vacation. We were going to leave for the airport in the morning and Mom was sweating out a looming storm. She was afraid that our flight would be cancelled and we would be stranded in Maine. Uncle Walt was completely calm. He said that the weather report was always wrong in the beginning of December.
“They’ve figured out a lot of things, but December weather in Maine will always be a
