A House Divided
2003-10-30, at 9:54 p.m.
It's Halloween, boys and girls! Do you have your costumes ready? Are you going Trick-or-Treating?
I promised a while back, to have a story ready for Halloween. It is ready, and I bring it to you now. Enjoy!
Oh, and also...Happy Halloween!!!
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The story you are about to read was inspired in part by the writings of Squirrel X, also known as Xtine. Since her birthday is today, I would like to dedicate this story to her...and to wish her a happy birthday, and a Happy Halloween as well. Thanks, Xtine...without you, I never would have made it to Diaryland!
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Prologue
"But Dad, everybody's going to be there!"
"Well, not everybody...you're not going to be there."
"That isn't fair!", she said, stamping her foot.
"Well, kiddo, life isn't fair," he replied. "It wasn't fair that the last time you got to go to a party, you got stoned. It wasn't fair that we had to come looking for you, and find you passed out on someone's lawn. And it really isn't fair to have this discussion. You're grounded. Case closed."
She tried her last weapon. "Well, I can see you don't care. Why don't I just go upstairs and kill myself."
"Yeah, why don't you," he said, absently turning back to the TV. "Gun's in the closet, bullets are in the nightstand. Just don't make a mess, or your mother will kill you."
She stared at him, not believing that he had said it. So that was how he felt, was it? He didn't think she would do it. Well, she'd show him.
She left him there, watching some stupid cop show. She climbed the stairs, and went down the hallway to her parents' bedroom. She found the gun on the shelf in the closet, just as he had told her. And look here, in the nightstand...the bullets.
Off to her bedroom, where she closed the door and sat on the bed. She stared at the gun for a little while. It can't be all that complicated to load, she thought - after all, HE does it all the time when he goes to the target range. Finally, she found the little catch to release the cylinder.
Should I load it all the way? she thought. Do guns work better that way?
In the end, she just loaded one bullet into the cylinder of the pistol. She checked to see if the cylinder would turn when she pulled the trigger. It would, so she turned the cylinder so that the bullet would fall under the hammer when it turned.
Then she went to the door of her room.
It was decision time.
Am I really going to do it? Or just get his attention? Should I be loud and obvious about what I'm doing? Or sneak down to the bathroom and just do it?
She had decided to do it - whatever IT finally turned out to be - in the bathroom. She had seen on TV, how people always seemed to kill themselves in the bathroom. Besides, if she froze and couldn't do it, someone would be sure to find her in there. And if she could, they wouldn't just be able to close the door and pretend it didn't happen, like they probably would if they found her dead in her room.
So she opened her door, stepped into the hallway, and slammed the door behind her. She stomped down the hall, making as much noise as possible. When she got to the bathroom, she went in and slammed that door, too.
Now was the moment of truth. Let's see what happens, she thought. If I'm meant to live, someone will come. If not...
She put the barrel of the pistol into her mouth. The barrel was cold, and tasted oily. Her dad kept the pistol well oiled, for his frequent shooting competitions. She put her thumb on the trigger, and closed her eyes. Then...she squeezed.
The click of the hammer cocking was deafening. It sounded louder than she imagined a gunshot would. The second click came, fully cocking the gun and advancing the cylinder.
And then the shot sounded. Downstairs, her dad heard it. But she didn't.
A House Divided
"Do you guys believe in ghosts?"
Big John asked the question in a voice unlike his usual confident rumble. Instead, he asked it almost timidly. Eldon, Mikey and Little John stopped playing pool and turned to him.
"Why do you ask, Pop?" Little John asked. Little John loved his father, but hated being named after him. Growing up, he had loathed being called 'Johnny'. But the 'Big John' and 'Little John' nicknames had evolved over time, and that was okay. Little John was five feet, six inches tall, and slender...almost skinny. By contrast, his father towered over him at six feet seven inches tall, and weighed in at close to three hundred pounds. No one had ever seen Big John afraid of anything.
Which is what bothered Little John now. His father, asking such an absurd question, had sounded almost scared. To Little John, that was unthinkable.
"Well, fellas, you're not going to believe this," Big John began.
"Oh Lord, here it comes," Eldon laughed. He opened the mini-fridge which sat on the counter Big John had built into the rec room, and grabbed another Coors. "Big John's seein' haints!"
"Throw me one of them, and close the hole under your nose," Big John said. "Seriously, you fellas may have a hard time believing this. I think I did see something the other night."
"What did you see, Big John?" Mikey asked. Mikey normally wouldn't say shit if he had some in his shoes, but he was interested now.
"Well, it was just the other night. I thought I saw somebody standing out there on the deck." Big John pointed to the sliding glass doors, which led outside to the second floor deck. He had done a lot of remodeling over the past year, since he had bought the house. The deck had once been an upstairs bedroom, and so had the rec room which housed the pool table.
"Who was it?" asked Eldon, forgetting for once to be smartass. "Was it someone you know?"
"No, I'd never seen her before. She just stood there for a while, and when I went to the door to ask her what the hell she was doing on my house, she just upped and disappeared," Big John looked too shaken for them not to believe him. "I thought she might have jumped off the roof, or maybe climbed down my ladder. But when I checked the next day, the ladder was in the garage."
"Did she have big hooters, John?" Eldon asked. Little John absently reached over and punched him on the shoulder. He knew the story wasn't over.
"The next night," Big John continued, absently opening his beer, "I saw her again. I actually got to the doors this time, and hollered at her. She looked at me." His voice had been growing smaller and smaller, and now it cracked. "She looked like the side of her head had been blown off. You could see brains, and everything."
The three buddies gaped at Big John. The big man was so scared he almost couldn't talk.
"So, why did you wait till now to tell us this, Pop?" Little John asked.
"Well," Big John said, "she shows up almost every night at midnight now. And since it's almost midnight, I thought you boys ought to know."
"Do you think she'll show up tonight?" asked Eldon.
"Like I said, almost every night."
The three friends and the big man waited patiently. No one thought of pool now. And, like they always do when you are waiting for something, the minutes ticked slowly by.
At midnight, Mikey got up and went to the glass doors. He peered out into the dark. Then he turned to Big John. "No one there, John. You think she took a night off?"
"Umm...Mikey...", Little John said, "look behind you."
Mikey turned back to the glass...and jumped backward. His butt made a very solid thump when it hit the pool table, but he never noticed.
There, on the deck which Big John had so lovingly crafted, was a girl. She must have been about sixteen. She was just standing there, looking out into the night.
Both Johns approached the doors. They were spellbound, looking at the girl.
Eldon nudged Mikey, who had recovered his composure...a little. But when Eldon nudged him, he jumped.
"Watch this," Eldon whispered. "Those two are trying to put some kind of stunt over on us, and I'm about to prove it." He grabbed the cue ball off the table, and approached the door.
"Lemme see, boys." Eldon slowly reached for the door, keeping the cue ball hidden in his other hand.
Eldon opened the door, and looked out. So far, the girl hadn't moved. Big John was looking at her in stark terror; Little John in pure fascination.
Eldon got the door opened...and then reared back and hurled the cue ball at the girl like the former high school pitcher he was. The ball went straight and true, for the girl's head.
And then went right through it.
The girl turned and saw them. She looked straight at them. Each of them could see that half of her skull had been blown away by some kind of firearm.
And then...she disappeared.
"What...the hell...was that?" Eldon exclaimed.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you boys about." Big John seemed a little less nervous, now that the girl was gone. "She shows up here every night about this time. But this is the first time she's got something thrown at her."
"Maybe it will scare her away," Little John said.
"Not likely," replied Big John. "I talked to the people who owned the house before us. They told me who she is."
"Who is she? Tell us!" said Eldon.
"Well, as it turns out," Big John said, going into storyteller mode, "the girl was their daughter. She wanted to go to some teenage party, and they told her no. So, she blew her head off with her daddy's pistol. They couldn't live in the house after that.
"Especially when they started seeing her in her room, with half her head blown off."
Little John was excited. "Do you know what this means, Pop? We're gonna be famous!"
"I already thought of that," Big John said sadly. "Her folks did too. Turns out, she won't show up if you arrange to have somebody there to see her. She knows, some way or other. Like tonight, I had to wait till almost midnight to tell you boys about her. If I had told you sooner, she wouldn't have been there."
The boys were awestruck. They all drank another beer without speaking, and then they all went home.
A few days later, Little John came home from work. Big John was waiting for him.
"The girl hasn't been outside at midnight since your buddy threw the pool ball at her," Big John told him. "Maybe you were right...maybe he did scare her off."
"I wouldn't count on it, Pop. I did some reading about ghosts and such. They usually don't scare off. They most often come in another form or way."
"Well, let's hope not," Big John said, opening a beer.
Three nights later, though, Big John's hopes were dashed.
It was almost midnight...also known as the witching hour. Everybody in the house was awakened by the sound of a door slamming upstairs. Which was strange, considering everyone was in bed and accounted for...and all the bedrooms were now on the ground floor.
They all heard that first door slam...and then they heard footsteps, stomping down the hallway. They heard the bathroom door open...and then slam shut.
And then...silence. For at least a count of ten, there was nothing.
And THEN...click. Click. BANG!
No one slept that night. They all lay, half awake, listening for any other sounds. But none came.
The next morning, Little John was up early. When his father came to the breakfast table, Little John asked him, "What was all that noise last night?"
"I wanted to know the same thing," said Little John's stepmother, Francie. "But your father won't tell me."
"Let's talk about it later, boy," Big John said.
That evening, Little John found his dad in the garage, tinkering with a lawnmower. "Pop," he said, "what the hell were those sounds last night? Was it the girl?"
Big John put down his wrench. "I think it was. I talked to her folks, and they said it happened just like we heard it. First she marched down the hall...after slamming the door to her room. Then she went into the bathroom...the same one that's still upstairs. And then she slammed that door."
Big John looked scared and sad. "And then...she put the gun in her mouth, and pulled the trigger."
"So what are we gonna do, Dad?" Little John asked.
"Live with it, I guess." The big man turned back to his mower.
A month later...they were still living with it.
Every night, they heard the girl slam her bedroom door. Every night they heard her stomp down the hall. And every night they heard the bathroom door slam.
And every night, they heard her die.
One day Big John came to Little John's room. "I need you to help me with something, boy," he said.
"What's that, Pop?" Little John asked.
"Well," the big man said, acting almost embarrassed, "I need you to help me take the door off the bathroom."
"Why's that?"
"Because," Big John said, shame-faced, "I got a feeling that if she can't slam the bathroom door, she won't do any of the rest of it. And then maybe we won't have to listen to her killing herself every night."
"I never would have thought of that," Little John got up from his bed. "Let's do it."
They took the bathroom door off of its hinges, and took it downstairs to the basement.
And then they waited.
Little John lasted until almost 11:30. He fell asleep on the couch.
Big John waited patiently. Midnight came and went...and he heaved a sigh of relief.
It was 12:07 by the VCR clock, when he heard the "bedroom" door slam.
It was 12:08 when he heard the feet stomping down the hall.
It was 12:09 when he heard the bathroom door slam...the bathroom door WHICH WAS NO LONGER THERE.
It was 12:10 when the big man jumped up and ran upstairs.
And it was 12:11 when Little John was awakened by the sound of a raised voice.
"No...NO!" he heard his father yell. "You can't do this anymore!"
And then he heard the sound of a gunshot.
He jumped off the couch and raced up the stairs.
Little John found his father in the bathroom, lying on the floor. He knelt down beside his father...and saw that Big John was gasping weakly.
"Pop...what happened?" he asked, cradling Big John's head.
"She...shot...me..." Big John gasped. "She saw me...and then...she shot...me...."
"Hold on, Pop. I'll call 911."
Big John reached up with one huge hand and took Little John by the shoulder. "No...stay...don't want to go...alone...like her..."
Little John was crying now. "You're not going anywhere, Pop. You're the strongest man I know."
He held Big John's head and hand as he said that...and as he said it, Big John smiled.
And then he died.
The coroner said it was a massive heart attack. Which was funny, considering Big John did not smoke or eat fatty foods. He had a very low cholesterol level. But massive heart attack was what went on the death certificate.
Little John and his stepmother continued to hear the sounds of a suicide upstairs, every night. Finally, they couldn't stand it any more. So they sold the house.
They moved three cities away, to a very nice apartment. Little John, known simply as John now, got a better job. He supported them quite nicely. They tried to forget about the haunted house...but they did not succeed.
Epilogue
Everyone used to call him Little John, but now they just called him John.
He had a destination on this night in late fall. He drove his car with skill and purpose. And this night, he had a purpose.
He had kept an eye on the papers and the local news...but had seen nothing.
Word of mouth, however, was another story. There were rumors of a house over in the next county, which was haunted.
John glanced down to the paper he had printed off the internet earlier in the evening. It read, "For sale by owner; one story house, remodeled from two story. Moved from original location. Call 874-2485 for details."
He wanted details, all right...but not the ones the realtor could give him.
He pulled into the driveway at precisely 11:50. He parked under the branches of a massive oak tree. As he got out of his car, he couldn't help thinking that the house didn't look that much different, even if they had taken off the second floor.
He walked over to the front porch, which held a rocking chair...just as it always had held his stepmother's rocker. He sat down and waited.
The rumors said you could hear something at the house. They said you could hear slamming doors and footsteps.
They said you could hear a gunshot.
But what disturbed John the most, was that they said you could hear a raised voice...just before the gunshot.
He glanced at his watch. 12:09. Almost time to give up.
And then, at 12:10...he heard it.
A door slammed upstairs...only there was no upstairs.
Footsteps stamped down the upstairs hall...only there was no upstairs hall.
A bathroom door, which John was very familiar with, slammed upstairs. Only there was no upstairs, dammit!
And then...he heard it. The voice he had been waiting for.
"No...NO!" he heard his father yell. "You can't do this anymore!"
And then he heard the gunshot. And he heard a very large man's body hit a floor...which was now a roof.
And then...silence.
John listened for a while, but heard nothing else. He rocked in the rocker, and didn't even know that tears were streaming down his face. Finally, he got up and went to his car. Just before he opened the door, he took one last look back.
"I know you're in there, Pop," he said to no one. "I know you're trapped in that house with her, and I'll figure out a way to get you out."
Suddenly, John felt a hand on his shoulder. He started to spin to see who had touched him...but then he couldn't. It was as if he was held fast in a vice, like his father used to use to hold small engine parts.
"It's okay, boy," a familiar voice said in his ear. "A house divided against itself cannot stand. She's already lost half of hers."
Whatever was holding him, suddenly let go. John spun to see if it really was his father...but saw nothing but bare ground and leaves.
John took a long look back at the house with the top half gone. Finally, he smiled. "He's stronger than you, you know," he said to no one. "He'll beat you. He'll divide up your house."
No one answered him. He stood, smiling, for a few minutes.
Then he got in his car, and drove away.
--end--
%%commentscount%% comments so far
I am feeling:
Mr. Grimm's Fairy Tales
The Last Man On Earth
A Bargain In Rhymes
Desert Damnation
A Merry Little Christmas
A Commercial Message...
A House Divided
Last Five Grimmspeaks:
- - 2004-03-22
Grimm's 200th Entry - 2004-01-14
From Annie - 2003-12-08
Grimmsville Reborn - 2003-11-30
Mr. Grimm's Special Drink - 2003-11-29
