By Monica Marier
“…And then what happened?” asked Kathy.
Celia’s shoulders hunched as she stifled a full-body
shudder. With tears in her eyes and a trembling voice she looked up into the
bright lights.
“We… uh… we kept feeling a presence. An evil presence that
we knew immediately wanted us out. We… sorry…” Celia broke down and Kathy put a
comforting hand on her shoulder. Celia rocked on the snow white couch and
fanned her face.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. Then things started happening. We heard
footsteps downstairs at night, when we checked on them, everyone was still in
bed. The radio would randomly switch on and play music— it was always music
from the 30’s. We’d feel cold spots. Strange stains would appear in the
wallpaper and would be gone the next morning. Then… it started attacking the
kids.”
Celia looked away from Kathy as
she spoke, her eyes focusing on her husband standing nearby.
“My youngest would wake up with strange bruises
and scratches all over him. My husband would wake up to find me hovering over
the bed. Blood dripped down the walls… Finally we tried to leave… but it wouldn’t
let us.”
“But you’re here now.”
“Not for long anyway. We’re still prisoners of
the house to this day.”
Kathy looked away from Celia
finally and said in a cheerful clear voice.
“Celia Lintzer’s book ‘The
Ghost in an American Dream’ is on the top best-seller list for the twentieth
week, and Warner Brothers has greenlit the movie version. Are you excited?”
Celia bravely dried her
tears and nodded, seemingly recovered. “Yes, the studio has just signed Renee
Zelwiger to play my part. I think it’s slated to come out fall next year.”
“Chilling stuff,”
said Kathy with a botox-numbed mug to the camera. “Well, just for the sake of
argument, what’s your reaction to people who insist that this is all an
elaborate hoax? That there’s no evidence of your house being built over the
graves of drowned witches—
that the reported events have no eyewitness other than yourself, and that the
priest you said blessed the house and the detective you hired claim to never
have met you?”
Celia’s smile
froze a little and a mad glint sparked into her eyes, but she took a deep
breath and settled into the white chintz again. “Well, that’s simply not true. I don’t blame
the Catholic Church for wanting to cover up what proved to be a botched exorcism
rite, and our governor has made it abundantly clear that they don’t want this
event to sully the town’s reputation. We are in a housing crisis, after all. I’m
sure the price of homes would drop if any potential buyers knew…” Celia
dissolved into blubbering sobs again. “…what we went through. And then some
might simply be lying out of fear,” she added quietly.
“You’re of
course referring to the mysterious accidents that befell the psychic team that
investigated the house,” said Kathy.
“Smothered in
a fire,” said Celia Lugubriously. “Yes the house took its revenge on them.”
“Yes, but the
psychics supposedly found no paranormal activity in the house,” said Kathy
pointedly.
“They found…”
said Celia, “That the only thing to have survived the fire was a copy of my
book.”
“And then
there was the man who wrote a book exposing the house’s activity as a hoax; he
died before his book was published,” said Kathy.
“And so did
the owner executive of the publishing company,” said Celia, wiping away another
tear. “They were in the same car, when it burst into flames. And the only thing
that wasn’t destroyed in the fire…”
“…Was a copy
of your book,” finished Kathy with a showy shudder.
“I still
suffer nightmares from the whole experience, and I only pray that the house
doesn’t come for me next.” Celia shrank into a ball and Kathy dutifully
comforted her. She leant next to Celia and whispered, “You’re running us over,
shut up.”
“Well thanks
for coming on our show, Celia,” said Kathy in her stage voice. “Cathy’s book is
available in all major book retailers. We’ll be right back!”
The camera man
made a gesture and Celia got up from the couch with a cold nod to Kathy and met
her husband, Bill, near the edge of the sound stage.
“Well that
went well,” said Bill in a bored voice. “Now hurry up, we have to pack for our
flight for New York.”
“Stupid bitch,”
said Celia. “I know exactly what she was trying to do.”
“Maybe the
rumors of fire-related deaths were a bit much,” said Bill.
“You told me to say fire,” accused Celia in a
low voice. “You said the fire thing tied it altogether so nicely. Besides, no
one ever checks that crap.”
“Well Raimi
called and said he wanted to make a few artistic changes to the movie.”
“If he turns
me into a sobbing doormat, I’m going to shove that script up his ass,” said
Celia stabbing at the air with her keys.
They sat in the Lexus and exchanged a
tiny grin.
“Who could
ever think you’re a doormat, Cece?” said Bill and they exchanged a sterile
kiss.
They walked
through the wide door of the blue Dutch Colonial and checked their watches. The
kids would be at the nanny’s until she dropped them off again at 7.
“Do you want
to have sex?” asked Celia.
“Why?” asked
Bill in mild surprise. They hadn’t slept next to each other for over three
years now.
“I’m bored,”
said Kathy with a shrug.
“Sure,” said
Bill, throwing his coat on the floor. He then thought better of it and hung the
designer leather jacket up on a hanger before he joined Kathy. When he got
upstairs he saw her standing in her underwear staring at the bed. She was white
and shaking, her shirt still half-off. Bill looked where she was staring and
froze.
The bed was
bleeding.
The ground
began to tremble as the crucifix on the wall (bought shortly before the
psychics showed up, just for the look of things) rotated on its nail until it
was head down. They stepped away from the tide of blood as it approached them.
“I don’t
understand this,” said Celia in a shaking voice. “It’s not real. None of it’s
real.”
“Someone is
playing a prank on us,” said Bill in a husky voice.
A voice came
out of the heating duct that seemed to vibrate them from inside.
“I am very dissappointed,” it said.
“It can’t be
true! I don’t believe it’s true!!” shrieked Celia tearing at her hair as the
blood lapped at her toes. “Who’s doing this?”
“THE HOUSE IS
DOING IT!” cried Bill and they both knew it was true. “But that’s impossible!
It’s not haunted! It’s never been haunted! There’s no such thing!”
The radio
switched on and played Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood.”
A wave of blood washed over Bill and he was gone, there was only his white hand sinking into what seemed a bottomless sea of crimson.
“WHY?!”
shouted Celia. “Why are you doing this?” she shouted at the ceiling as the
radio rose to a deafening volume.
Celia felt a cold hand on
her shoulder and feeling numb, she turned around. She saw closet door as it
yawned open and black rotted hands, dripping with ichor dragged her into the
darkness. Before she felt her mind slipping away she felt a voice in the dark
space behind her eyeballs.
“You shouldn’t have lied,”
it said “Houses have feelings too.”
