When Hinges Creak In Doorless Chambers…

Holly takes one look up and down all those steps, and swallows. This isn’t fear, it’s — something else. Fear would be not showing up at all and staying home to watch reruns of The Waltons. Fear would be whatever’s happening to Janet right now, going into silent convulsions with a hand clapped over her mouth to stifle scared noises, or Jessica hanging on to her softball bat with a white-knuckle grip. (Why did she even bring that? They’re investigating the scene of a crime, not knocking over mailboxes. They even left the ouija board in the backseat.)

It’s not that the structure itself is particularly intimidating; there’s plenty like it in the neighborhood, maybe with some of the architecture mixed-up to look new, or fluffy curtains in the windows. It’s just healthy trepidation. People died here.

Up the steps, one by one. They’re not here to trespass inside the actual house, just to see what there is to see Holly March knows laws about trespassing in the State of California six ways from Sunday, mostly because dad’s had a couple of them dangled over his head by folks who didn’t like him digging too deep in their goings-on. He probably even broke a few. They’d toured a couple places like this after the fire, before dad got his shit together and sprang for the first place that had a pool. But that was all aspirational — mom came to California looking for a nice big mansion, that’s what she always said. They didn’t have anything to put in half those rooms.

This place definitely qualifies as a mansion. It’s not even the only place like it in the neighborhood — they’d asked some guys for directions to the murder mansion and got asked *which one?*There’s a tile roof and a big backyard. Through the window you can see stacks of boxes, like moving boxes, and the tiny dark shape of an old television set.

People died here. New Year’s Eve, 1965, and you can still see the moldy cocktail glasses with little sword toothpicks and the paper hats and maybe — if you squint — paper confetti stuck to the table top like silt under a velvet layer of dust. There’s no bloodstains on the floor or police tape or chalk outlines on the floor. Just dust and cobwebs.

Shady stuff hasn’t quit happening since ‘65. Somebody at school swears they saw a drug deal go down in the backyard, or that a gang of high-class call girls used the mansion as a base of operations before the creepy stuff drove them out. Nobody says “haunted”. That part is understood.

But they do say “multiple murder”, and “bloodbath”, and “murder house”. It was a drug heist that went wrong, or a cult thing, some kind of break-in. Some movie star Holly’s never heard of lived here back in the 50s, but moved out within a year, and the cachet left with her.

“Go touch it,” Janet blurts, prompting Jessica to turn and shush her with all the vehemence of somebody waving around an aluminum bat. But Holly locks eyes with her and nods. The camera hanging around her neck makes her acutely aware of her beating heart.

The poured concrete is slippery beneath her shoes. The air itself is kind of wet, the only breeze buffeting her hair against her cheek like a damp tendril, and suddenly it’s cold, like it hadn’t been earlier. She hadn’t even worn a jacket.

The doorknob rattles, and rattles again. Either it’s locked or it’s so rusty it’s stuck in place, and she doesn’t want to risk it with a kick that might leave a mark. You’re supposed to knock three times and the door pops open, and then something bad gets you. Holly knocks three times and all it does is hurt her knuckles. The sound rings out like a gunshot: once, twice, three times.

The whole cul-de-sac is creepily quiet for Halloween night, any costumed kids who made the trip have long since gone home, the lights are out —

The lights are out. Somewhere inside the house, through the smudged twin windows set into the front door, Holly sees a thin yellow beam spilling out from another room. A reflection, maybe. Holly clicks off her flashlight and stuffs it in the pocket of her overalls.

People can die anywhere. People die in their own houses all the time. People kick the bucket in laundromats and grocery stores but you never hear about a haunted grocery store, do you? She can’t be scared of this stuff after facing down a shit-scary living breathing hitman with a gun. But that is definitely a light on somewhere on the second floor — not steady but flickering, like something’s moving in front of it to cast a shadow.

The arching second-floor windows look just like teeth. Holly’s stomach ties itself slowly but steadily into another knot.

Janet’s hands are on her hips, but otherwise she couldn’t look any less sure of herself; her teeth are practically chattering and her grip on the rickety handrail is white-knuckle. “You know what, let’s just go back to the house — if we turn around now there’s still plenty of time to get home—”

Jessica vehemently shushes her, but Holly doesn’t see either of them turning tail either.

If they go now, there’s pizzas and punch and the rest of the girls are waiting for them, fooling with the spirit board or painting their nails. But if Dad really wanted something that was on the other side of this window — not move-in boxes and cocktail glasses and New Year’s paraphernalia — he’d break the glass.

The windows have been nailed shut for years, but somebody else has pried it open before Holly even got here and the nails rest loosely in their holes. Holly clambers up on the iron hand rail and gives the window a shove. It shifts back a little in the frame, filling her with sudden enthusiasm-dampening terror that the heel of her hand will punch right through, but the pane slides up easily enough and there’s more than enough space for a medium-sized girl to slip through unimpeded — apart from the cobwebs, which come apart in strings when she waves her hand. No yellow police tape on the ground floor, which means all the bad shit happened upstairs.

There’s music coming from inside. Not pop music coming out of a radio but thready strains seeping down from above, like a record turntable on its last legs.

Holly motions with her head for the other two girls to follow her lead, and hoists up on the iron railing. She can just about swing a leg over without bumping into the table, camera dangling around her neck and with her hands wadded in her sleeves to minimize fingerprints. The air is stale, with a faint weedy smell that supports the idea that somebody has been here before, but not for a long time. Something smells like gardenias. Someone’s been here before her and disturbed one of the cocktail glasses on the table. There’s a dark ring on the dusty tabletop, shining through from underneath.

The floorboards are solid under her sneakers, no creaking and no wobbling, but that’s not as reassuring as it could be. There’s a long dark smudge on the floor, out of the parlor and around the corner, down the hall — wiped clean down to the varnished boards. Like something heavy got dragged.

Holly raises the viewfinder to her eye and starts snapping shots.