Kill Creek Page 10

  Wainwright had his dog-eared copy of Adudel’s book clutched in his hands like a Bible. “A settler named Joshua Goodman built it in the 1850s. With his bare hands. Drove every nail, raised every wall.”

  “How is that possible?” Sam asked. It seemed that no man, no matter how determined, could construct such an edifice all by himself. That was what it was, not a house but an edifice. Its very existence seemed impossible without the help of the supernatural.

  “I doubt anyone had the chance to ask him. Goodman was murdered in 1863, the same night Quantrill and his men torched Lawrence.”

  Daniel took a few heavy steps forward, his eyes never leaving the house. “It wasn’t just Goodman who died,” Daniel explained. His voice was not distant. It was steady, authoritative, much like Sam’s own voice during one of his lectures. “A freed slave named Alma Reed was also killed that night.” Daniel motioned to that hideous tree in the front yard. “They strung her body up from one of those branches.”

  Sebastian and Moore stood side by side and stared up at the twisted beech tree. The two couldn’t have looked more different: a bulky wool coat draped over Sebastian’s tall, frail body; tight black jeans and an even tighter long-sleeve tee with a lace-up front clung to Moore, barely containing her breasts. Together they were the reluctant intersection of Elegance and Rebellion.

  Nearby, at the edge of the high tallgrass, Kate was capturing the moment, the camera gripped in her hands as she monitored the shot on a flip-out LCD screen.

  Sam looked straight into the camera lens for no good reason, simply because it was there. He was not aware of making any particular expression, but Kate lowered the camera and stared at him peculiarly, her face suddenly grave. Sam watched as she leaned over to Wainwright and whispered something in his ear. Wainwright placed a hand lightly on Kate’s waist and spoke to her in a low voice. Whatever Wainwright said, it had the desired effect. Kate’s stark expression softened, and she nodded obediently, agreeing to some unknown pact.

  They’re up to something, Sam thought. Both of them.

  From his right pocket, Wainwright produced a single key on a metal ring. He dangled it between two fingers. To the rest of the group, he said, “Well then . . . shall we?”

  The others followed Wainwright toward the front steps. But Sam did not move.

  “After you,” Kate said, motioning for him to go before her. He studied her face for a moment, but she offered nothing more than a pleasant smile.

  “Please,” she said.

  Sam fell in line. He noticed the Adudel book now tucked into Wainwright’s back pocket. Every few seconds, Wainwright reached back and touched it, just to make sure it was still there.

  They mounted the stairs to the porch. Thick, furry vines curled around the edges of the steps, twisting up the rickety balustrades of the porch’s railing.

  Crossing to the front door, Wainwright tore away a tentacle-like length of vine that had wound its way up the doorframe and around the tarnished knob. He slid the key into the lock, paused briefly for dramatic effect, then gave it a hard turn.

  The bolt withdrew with a reverberating thunk.

  What happened next was too brief for any of them to mention.

  The house seemed to ripple from foundation to roof.

  For a split second, the tallgrass surrounding the structure appeared to bow, and then it rose back up, tall and straight, like hundreds of thousands of obedient soldiers.

  A shudder ran through Sam, through Sebastian, through every single one of them.

  Wainwright put his hand on the doorknob. He paused again, turning back to the group. One by one, he met their gazes, the light catching in those slivers of purple in his irises.

  “So. Over the threshold we go,” he said.

  He turned the knob.

  The door swung slowly open, and Sam watched as Wainwright backed into the house, shadows enveloping him, that knowing smile stretching across his masklike face.

  He wanted them to follow.

  PART TWO

  A WHISPER THROUGH THE WALL

  October 31 to November 1

  Upon first entering the house, I found there was one thing for which I was profoundly unprepared—an overwhelming silence. Nary a sound filled my ears. No clocks ticked. No boards creaked. Only the faint whisper of my own breath and that of Rachel at my side.

  “Is it always this quiet?” I asked her.

  Rachel smirked. “No,” was all she said. And so began my tour of the house on Kill Creek.

  —Dr. Malcolm Adudel

  Phantoms of the Prairie

  TEN

  12:54 p.m.

  THE FOUR AUTHORS, Wainwright, and Kate all stood one step inside the front foyer, listening to the house and the air drifting invisibly through it.

  There was nothing particularly odd about entering the house, no drop in temperature, no feelings of being watched, no sudden sense of dread. There was only the slightest sensation of a change in barometric pressure, a fullness in their ears. It was so subtle, none of them mentioned it. And in less than a minute, it passed.

  For Daniel Slaughter, the most surprising thing about the house on Kill Creek was the warmth it exuded. The floor, planed and varnished by hand over a century ago, was an inconsistent pattern of maple and black walnut planks, some lighter, some darker, a collision of grains, of knots and rings, of varying lengths and widths. Yet the imperfections only added to the homey charm of the structure. And by the time the boards met the beautifully carved molding along each wall, everything was flush, everything was right.

  A wide federal staircase was set against the west wall, leading up to the second floor. With its square newel post and rounded balusters, the staircase was deceptively simple. But upon closer inspection, each newel featured meticulously carved notches, each baluster adorned with a tightly etched spiral.

  Some boards were cracked, some paint had peeled, and a fine layer of dust had settled over every surface. Still, the craftsmanship on display eclipsed any flaws. Joshua Goodman had made sure that every inch was a simple yet elegant labor of love.

  The sunlight drifting in through archways to the right and left was not so much reflected as it was absorbed by the wood and then projected out again in a brilliant golden glow. Daniel followed the sunlight across the room to a far wall on which a crucifix hung crookedly. It was simple, made from the same wood as the floor, no doubt carved by Goodman.

  Daniel crossed the foyer and adjusted the crucifix twenty or so degrees clockwise.

  There we go.

  He heard Moore chortle, and he closed his eyes.

  “‘From the hill there came a loud rumble. They turned to see the devil above them. The ancient one peered into their souls and learned their secrets. It would be back for them. Their lust would be their downfall.’”

  “Lemme guess. The Gospel of Paul?” she asked.

  “Actually that’s from the Book of Daniel,” he corrected with a wink as he moved past her. Daniel noticed smiles on the faces of Sam and the frail Sebastian. He smiled himself. “It’s okay, Moore, I have enough faith for the both of us.”

  Daniel glanced over and saw that Kate’s camera was up. She had captured the exchange.

  Great, just what they want for their big show, Daniel thought.

  Wainwright swiveled on worn black work boots to face the group. “Welcome to the house on Kill Creek. What do you say we have a look around?”

  Daniel Slaughter took in the house once more. He did not think it was a bad house. In fact, in that moment, he was sure that it welcomed him.

  They moved through the front foyer, passing beneath the arched doorway at their left.

  Ah, Sebastian thought. Now this is a room after my own heart.

  They were in a study. Large, dirty windows lined the west wall. Their smudged panes let in enough light, however, to make the room feel cheerful and inviting, despite the gloom of the overcast day. Two mahogany chairs sat at an angle, an ornate table between them. Built-in bookshelves, pack
ed with books, lined the wall directly ahead.

  “All of the furniture belonged to the Finch sisters,” Wainwright explained. He carried his well-used copy of Phantoms of the Prairie in his right hand. “In their will, they stated that, even in the possession of the county, everything in the house was to remain as they left it. Untouched.”

  Sebastian ran a finger over the spines of the books on the shelf. It did not matter to him what the titles were. They were books. They were filled with thoughts. Their relevance was debatable; he was sure some were exceptional while others were the works of lesser minds. He was not above calling a book unreadable. But their literary merit wasn’t important at this moment. They were words strung together to represent the firing of neurons and the transferring of information through synapses. They were human minds set into paper, and Sebastian loved every single one of them, even the ones he found disposable.

  Like that blasted Adudel book, he thought.

  Yes, even the Adudel book deserved to exist, because the man himself had sat down and pounded keys until all of the clutter in his brain was carefully organized and displayed for others to experience.

  This is why we do it, Sebastian told himself as he looked down the row of leather-bound tomes.

  To live on. To exist when we stop existing.

  To be remembered.

  “It’s a beautiful room.”

  Sebastian turned away from the bookshelf.

  Daniel Slaughter was standing by one of the chairs, his hands in his pockets. He took in the space like a tourist with ten free minutes to speed-walk through Notre Dame.

  “The Finch sisters loved this house,” Wainwright said.

  His voice. I’ll never get used to that. Booming. As if it is coming from a speaker pointed directly at my ear.

  The others were talking. They were discussing the years in which Rebecca and Rachel Finch were alive, the time when both sisters roamed the rooms of this house. But Sebastian wasn’t listening to them. They were a wall of noise. He thought of millions of words he had committed to paper. He thought of the countless ideas that had flitted through his mind like hummingbirds hovering over the buds of newly opened flowers. And he blinked the fog away.

  Sam walked through the swinging door that brought them to the kitchen.

  This is nicer than my damn house, he told himself.

  It was a spacious layout, a standard L-shaped room with dark walnut cabinets lining two of the walls. An enclosed porch could be seen through the French doors to their left, a wicker couch and chair surrounded by the shriveled brown corpses of long-neglected plants. At the center of the kitchen, the modern addition of an island floated in isolation directly in front of a deep farmhouse sink. The grout between the chipped white tiles had seen better days, but otherwise the room was in fine condition. As with the furniture, the appliances were from decades past: a four-burner stainless-steel gas stove and a mismatched white 1950s-style refrigerator with a large metal handle.

  Like the foyer and library, the kitchen was bathed in warm afternoon sunlight.

  Moore stepped up next to Sam. She was still wearing her sunglasses. “It’s a little odd, right?” she asked.

  Sam shook his head, confused. “What?”

  “How nice the house is. Isn’t this place like a hundred and fifty years old?”

  She was right. With the exception of the dust and the chipped tiles and the musty hint of air trapped for too long, the house was immaculate.

  The pressure Sam had felt when they’d first entered returned, pressing into his eardrums. He pictured himself sinking deeper and deeper into an increasingly dark ocean. Above was the light. Below was the impenetrable depths of a bottomless trench.

  He glanced around the kitchen.

  He could hear his brother yelling. He could hear his mother screaming.

  The kitchen is the heart of the house, Sam thought. It is a place of gathering, of conversation, of love.

  It should be, he corrected himself.

  But this house was not a place of love. It was a place of death. Goodman’s hopes, his dreams, his love had been brutally taken from him.

  Wainwright opened the fridge door and a breath of frigid air wafted out. “Even though we’ll only be here for one night, we made sure the refrigerator was stocked,” he told the group. “Water, soda, wine, beer. Cold cuts. Vegetables. Fruit.”

  The cry of tired hinges made Moore jump. Daniel had opened the back door and was staring out at a line of stones dotting the yard.

  “What the hell, Slaughter?” Moore snapped.

  The large man motioned to the pathway that led from where he stood to a break in the trees. “Where’s that go?”

  “The well,” Wainwright said matter-of-factly, as if the path could lead only one place. “It’s pretty overgrown, so watch yourself if you go back there. They told me the well was covered years ago, but please, don’t go out for a stroll and end up at the bottom of it.”

  Sam noticed Wainwright smirk, as if the thought of one of them falling in the well amused him.

  “And this?” They all turned to find Sebastian with his hand resting lightly on a closed door several paces down from the stove. “A pantry, I presume?”

  Wainwright shook his head. “Basement. No reason to go down there. Nothing but rats and our trusty generator. Besides, the basement only runs a third of the house. The rest is crawl space.”

  “That’s odd,” Daniel said. “Why not have a full basement?”

  “Perhaps Mr. Goodman started to dig but broke through to somewhere else.” There was a sparkle in Sebastian’s eyes. “Perhaps he realized he had opened a doorway to a dark, empty place, and so he sealed it and hoped he had caught it quickly enough. That he had stopped it before the darkness could escape.”

  Daniel nodded quickly, anxious to get in on the game. “Yeah. Yeah, like he broke through to hell, and the sins of his past were coming to drag him down.”

  “Sure, if you want to be painfully literal about it,” Sebastian said dryly.

  Moore smirked. “Or maybe—and I’m just riffing here—maybe he got sick of digging a fucking hole.”

  Sebastian smiled. “It’s a bit farfetched, but I suppose it could have happened that way.”

  “Probably a foundation thing,” Sam managed. “Being this close to the creek, they probably get quite a bit of runoff. Back when the house was built, there were no sump pumps, so unless they wanted an in-ground swimming pool beneath the house, Goodman opted to cut the basement short. I bet the house still has a problem with water getting in during a heavy rain.”

  “You read that in the Adudel book?” Daniel asked. “I thought you said you didn’t—”

  Sam shook his head. “I grew up about two hours south of here. A lot of storms in Kansas. A lot of basements. And a lot of shitty contractors who don’t build them right.”

  Light glinted off glass. Sam turned to find Kate aiming her lens right at him.

  A wave of nausea suddenly hit Sam, and he closed his eyes.

  I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be in this kitchen.

  He felt like he was losing his balance. He was going to fall.

  He quickly reached out and grabbed the edge of the counter to steady himself. The counter felt rounded and oddly cold. It was metal.

  Sam opened his eyes. He was not gripping the counter, but instead the stainless-steel stove. It looked so familiar, so much like the one in his mother’s kitchen.

  Where she kept the cast-iron skillet on the back left burner.

  Sam flinched as if he had been burned.

  “Are you all right, Sam?”

  It was Sebastian. His voice was low so as not to involve the others.

  For a moment, Sam had no idea how to answer the old man’s simple question. Then he nodded and said quietly, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “What’s the matter, McGarver? House getting to ya?” Wainwright asked with a smirk.

  Sam clenched his teeth. “Just want to keep moving.”


  Wainwright motioned through the next doorway. “Come on, then. There’s more house to explore.”

  They all shuffled forward, following.

  Sam was the first one out.

  A narrow hallway ran along the south side of the Finch House. Moore followed the group as they moved in single file past a long row of windows on their left. There were no doors off this hall, only the entrance from which they had come, an archway that opened to the back of the foyer, and a doorway at the far end.

  “Head toward that,” Wainwright told them.

  Moore thought, His voice. Everything he says sounds like a command. Not one of my favorite things.

  The doorway brought them past a quick succession of joined rooms—a bathroom, a sewing room, a den—to a surprisingly large space at the house’s west end. A colorful peacock print decorated an elegantly upholstered sofa, contrasted by the traditional plaid of two sitting chairs, all arranged around a chipped yet attractive brick fireplace. A sturdy oak table was placed near the windows at the front, providing a clear view of the porch and that hideously grotesque beech tree beyond.

  Where those bastards hung Alma Reed. She imagined she could hear the creak of the rope and the rippling of fabric as the breeze blew Alma’s dress. She could almost see the faint outline of her lifeless body, swinging gently outside the window.

  “So, here we are,” Wainwright said, clapping his hands loudly. “This is the main living room and our HQ, if you will, the place where we’ll spend the majority of our time at the Finch House. There’s a nice stack of wood out back, left by the previous occupants, thank you very much, which will provide us with a fire this evening. The house, well, it tends to be rather cold.”

  “Of course it does,” Moore said. “That’s some classic haunted house bullshit right there, Wainwright.”

  “Yes, surely you can do better than cold spots,” Sebastian added, his voice as crisp as the autumn air.

  “Just supplying the facts.” Wainwright’s tone was even and assured.