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CLINTON - THE HALLOWEEN STORY
Current mood: CREEPY
Category: CREEPY Writing and Poetry
THE HALLOWEEN STORY
Hello all - firstly I would like to apologise for not being in touch; my internet has been out of action since Friday. However, the nice people at The Garryvoe Hotel have let me access their network on the laptop. I hope to get up and running properly within the next few days.
Anyway, the sob story aside - I have a wee chiller for you on this best-est of days - so Happy Halloween and I hope you enjoy it:-
CLINTON
For the briefest moment, she felt no fear. Walking up the hill, she could see the golden hue of leaves, piled up along the battered whitewashed walls like drifts of snow. A cushioned bed of auburn that lay, like a red carpet to invite her further and a wispy fog that hung in the air, just at the top of the roofless walls like bunting - to welcome her home. For that briefest moment, she thought everything would be alright.
But, when she finally reached the front street, her initial emotion and attraction quickly washed away. In the drab autumn evening, the house looked dank and dour; the whitewash was mostly peeled away to yellow stale fungus, the cold grey stones pushed out as if reclaiming their birthright and an ugly smear of green mould stained the bottom of the walls. An oak tree that, from a distance had looked somewhat romantic, now just looked creepy; like an old man in rags - his sparse limbs reaching out - his arms laying claim to all that lay below. It made Susan shiver.
Coming up the hill her mind had been a conflict of emotions; the excitement of a new start, the apprehension of an unknown present and the debilitating fear for the future. A deep down terrifying fear; fear of being a stranger, fear of being far from home, fear of poverty and, most of all, the fear of being so very much alone.
Of course she had Eugene and without him, she was pretty sure she couldn't have gotten through the last eight months but Eugene, was still only a boy and, if truth be told, a strain; on both pocket and emotion. Now standing here on the derelict square acre of the only worldly thing she owned, Susan felt the universe collapse around her. There would be no reprieve and no deliverance.
More than once she'd thought of going home but, with the Depression drawing towards its second year, she was sure they'd be having their own problems. The last letter she'd received - four months ago - told of how they'd lost the house in Boston; how her father had gone across state looking for work and how her mother was now washing laundry for the rent on one room in a house she shared with five other families. The last thing they needed was to worry about their daughter who was half way across the world - not that she'd even have the ticket money anyway. She relieved herself with the thought that - thank God - at least the boys had all gone their own way.
For Susan, this was it. With Aidan gone, this was all she had; herself, Eugene and these derelict, roofless walls. The sum total of Aidan's inheritance, one acre of overgrown, weed-filled garden and a house (some would call it a cottage; standing here now, Susan somehow deemed the title unworthy) that would need a miracle of God.
Eight years ago, when they'd arrived back from America, life had been good. With independence finally here, Aidan had felt it his duty to return home; to work and live in the fledgling Free State. So, with rebellion a thing of the past and while others around him struggled to make ends meet, Aidan got himself a job bussing tables in The Shelbourne Hotel; his experience 'State-side' had helped him land that one. Not long after that he was upgraded to waiter and by the time Susan was pregnant with Eugene, life was good in Dublin.
They'd moved into a reasonably pleasant tenement flat, which was nothing like her home in Boston but nevertheless was comfortable and she liked her neighbours; who mostly called her 'Yankee Sue'.
They were relatively well off; apart from heating and feeding themselves, they always had a bit extra, some of which Aidan put away, 'In case the wind turns its' stick', he would say - and a bit for minor pleasures. Beef on every forth Sunday, the get-together down the pub the evening after and her monthly shopping trip to Arnotts which, unlike other men, Aidan fully supported. 'What's the point in living, if you can't blow out now and again,' he would say.
All this and the stuff Aidan brought home from the hotel - fancy food that was due to be put out - made life very pleasurable indeed. And, above all else, above all the comfort, the nice petticoats and fancy prawns, above it all - she had Aidan.
Aidan filled her every breath, his beauty, his strength, his love; all she dreamed of, all she ever wanted and all she ever could want was in him. She would spend hours staring at him while he slept and she would pine for him when he was gone, her heart leaped when his key turned in the door. Just to see his face could light up her life like a beacon, telling her that nothing the world could throw at her would ever get her down, because she has and would always have her Aidan.
So the morning his frail and wracked body finally gave in to the consumption, her universe fell apart. The floor opened under her and she truly wished she would be swallowed up, dragged away to the dark nothingness of nowhere; away to a place that she couldn't feel the sheer debilitating pain that crushed her soul and shattered her very being. But, with Eugene, that wasn't an option. So she must live with it, live with the calm and comforting nights where, in her dreams, all was as it had been and Aidan was still with her; only to smash back into the panic of the morning and the reality that he was gone - and he would never come back.
He'd died on February 23rd, thirteen days before their anniversary - thirteen, lucky for some and, with their 'wind turns its stick' money only enough for six months rent, she found herself homeless and on a bus to a place she'd heard of only in passing. As the only remaining child of a family which was decimated by TB, it was as though, all along, the writing had been on the wall for him and his only legacy - this desolate, barren acre.
To say that she was totally alone in this place wasn't totally true - Aidan had an uncle. A spiteful, aging bachelor who wholly resented a bedraggled woman turning up on his doorstep; laying claim to what he naturally thought was his but, because of family connections, had furnished her with a couch to lie on. His coldness and the strangeness of the place would reduce Susan to nights dominated with heartbreak and downright destitution. It was only through her sheer will to be any other place than with that man, that she dragged herself up the hill to her new home and its desperately disenchanting promise. If it wasn't for Eugene she knew she would've taken a broken bottle to her wrist months ago and this was one more disappointment too many. She collapsed to the ground, grovelling in the dirt and prayed to God to end it all.
It had all gone painfully slow; another two months on the couch, feeding, washing, cleaning after a man whose foul manners and violent mood swings brought her even closer to the unholy business of putting an end to it all. But then, when Eugene looked up at her with Aidan's eyes, she would put those thoughts aside and bear it out.
Now a tin roof was on the house (she'd been smart enough to keep some money aside), the window frames mended and the glass replaced, along with a new half door. An old range, miraculously donated by Aidan's uncle, graced the kitchen wall and a table, two chairs and a bed dressed the stone floor. The upper room would have to be cleaned out before the bed could go in. But, at least she was in and away from the tortuous days with a man, who had only raised his hand once but who she knew was capable of very much more.
Eugene was out, sock-soles - running around through the gravel on the front street. She told him to get himself inside before the cold of the December ground gave him chilblains. As with all boys his age, the instruction was but a passing noise, like the squawk of a bird - she was sure he'd heard it but it didn't register. If she was to remind him about it later, his memory would come flooding back. Anyway, if the freezing ground couldn't penetrate his will, nothing would - she left him alone. She knew that, for him, this dismal place was a complex of sheer wonderment: Towering walls that looked like gateways to the castles of his bedtime stories. Cascading fields that laid a path to glens and woods like the mysteries of the enchanted forest. And an enormous, colossal tree, right outside the house, its roots thick as walls; great limbs that thrust outward, begging him to approach, begging him to investigate - begging him to climb. She eyed the tree with cautious reticence.
'Don't be long out there,' she said, then stopped to watch him from the door; Eugene her only child and with Aidan's eyes, her only hope.
She watched him as he moved closer, gazing up at leafless branches reaching out above him; his eyes wide in abject concentration. The wind blew and the tree seemed to yawn, he stepped back, his enquiring face seemed to be transfixed on the tree that towered over him. It made him appear so small - not small like how he was with Dad but tiny - like he was nothing - that, at any minute, it would grab him in those huge branches and carry him away to the land where the giants live. And, although she knew it was foolish, she couldn't help but feel a little anxious as he just stood there staring at the gnarled and twisted trunk, glowering down at him. And she just stood there watching him as the light faded and murky, tenebrous clouds rolled over in the sky, plunging him and the tree into near darkness. She looked up and pulling her cardigan around her shoulders, said, 'Come on in now Genie.' Genie - the name Aidan called him; her heart jumped at its sound. But he didn't move, just stood there, gazing at the tree. 'Eugene - would you come on.'
The wind picked up, a bolt of lightening cracked the sky and the black clouds dropped their contents in a sudden deluge. The rain slammed against the tree, which twisted and strained in defiance of its tormenter. Another bolt split the sky and lit up the tree - like a camera flash - fixing its image on her retina; she called again but still Eugene just stood there. She ran out, scooped him up in her arms and darted back into the house.
'Why didn't you come when I called?'
'I was trying to talk to the woman,' he replied; quite matter of fact.
'What woman?' Susan asked; twigging her curiosity and apprehension
'The woman by the great big tree - out there' he said; pointing out through the window.
'What in the name of God are you talking about Eugene?' He said nothing more. Truth be told, Eugene spoke hardly at all these days.
He was still a smiley boy but it was as though, suddenly stripped of the love of his father, he just didn't really see the point any more. He would spend hours deep inside himself, playing with the imaginary people and creatures he'd invented to take away the pain of his loss and she assumed it worked, because he continued. She knew that he loved her but she believed that, in his own way, he could read every second of her own agony and that he didn't want to contribute to that. So he just stayed as quiet as he could for her and then he could disappear in to his cocoon; where Dad was still here and everything was alright.
Unsure, she peered into his face; he just sat there cheerfully swinging his feet - she didn't ask again. She walked over to the window and looked out through the torrent that battered the side of the little house, and pounded the metal roof like an incessant drum roll. The tree just stood there, staring back at her, in timeless strength, its boughs defiant in the storm that raged against it. Just a tree but ominous, harsh and dominant. A wave of foreboding washed over her, the tree - just a tree - terrified her and she felt as though the tree knew it too. A flash lit up the sky and below the tree stood the shadow of a woman; another flash and the shadow was gone.
The weeks went by and Christmas came and went, and thanks to one lucky break, she'd been working up at the Big House since mid-December. A circumspect enquiry had coincided with a sudden death and she was taken on as a cleaner. She didn't know much about them, only that they were Earls or Dukes or something, from England. All she needed to know was that she could make enough to get by and that they didn't mind Eugene coming with her - just so long as he didn't get in anybody's way or drift into the parts of the house reserved for the family.
Because of the job, she'd managed to get a few slices of bacon for Christmas day, some colouring-in pencils, a book and an orange for Eugene. It wasn't the best Christmas she'd ever had but it's the great ability of a mother to make the best of a miserable lot and they shared the day together, warm in front of the range, as she sang songs and read stories out of a book she'd kept from Dublin. It was only that night that she felt so alone. Aidan was gone, his smiling happy face was gone and the panic attacks would not - could not - let up.
The work was hard; her skin cracked open at the knuckles, her kneecaps were scraped, red and swollen with long hours scrubbing paved floors until they glowed. But that was how things were and how they would be. Here too, she was all alone; her job to get in the kitchens, clean and scrub, then get out again before dawn. With the kitchen work done, she was to wash the windows on the ground floor, daily - before the family rose and could accidentally lay eyes on her. Finally, when the doorsteps, front first - service entrances after, were of a standard approved by the governess, she could start the two hour walk back to her tin-roofed house and her loneliness. It wasn't all so bad though; for a deduction in wages she was able to buy food from the household and that negated the need to walk into the village for groceries. But it also meant that, apart from Eugene, the once daily approval from the governess was her only interaction with another living soul. She was alone out here, secluded in her castle on the hill; abandoned with her son and her memories of a future that until last year had looked so perfectly wonderful.
Once or twice she'd toyed with the idea of going to Mass but, deep down she knew - and God knew - that her praying was done. For countless nights she'd implored the Almighty to deliver her up, to ease her pain, to ease the torture in her heart; but it never came and, truth be told, no miracle in the world would ever deliver the only thing she prayed for.
She'd even met the priest, Father McCarthy, a few times on the way back from work - her route took them straight past the chapel crossroads. He was a nice man, who told her that he would be out sometime to bless the house and, if she came one Sunday, she would receive a warm welcome. But also said that he knew how grief keeps its own time and just to come when she was good and ready. After the meeting she was warming to the idea but knew that the wagging tongues and the accusing eyes would lash her for having neglected her child's immortal soul for so long. She just wasn't ready to face that yet.
So, with the New Year firmly in she went about her business; her only aim in life to make sure that Eugene could grow and, someday, not need her anymore. Then it would be over. Then she would be free.
It was nearing dusk when she returned from the Big House. Eugene seemed distant. She'd been up since what most people would consider their bedtime and she was sure that the whole shift in waking hours was taking its toll on him too. Pretty soon she would be able get Eugene off to school and some kind of normality. Father McCarthy had arranged it but that meant a change in her hours and she didn't know if such a request would cost her the job. Father McCarthy - seemingly desperate to make her a new addition to his all too familiar flock - said he would try to work something out for her.
She lit the fire and pulling a kettle of water from a bucket by the door, she placed in on the top of the range for tea. As luck would have it, the people up at the house had left a few slices of beef for her. A few slices of beef and three chocolate biscuits. She didn't know who, just a note on a paper bag saying, 'For Susan - a present for the boy'. But Eugene seemed so distant, she decided to keep it for later and her heart filled once again, as she watched him waddle up to the top room.
Since the job, she'd managed to get the room cleaned, even cadged a wardrobe and a little table that were due for dumping along with an armchair that sat by the range in the other room. She'd also managed to get all her other stuff sent up from Dublin. One of her old neighbours, Mrs. Larkin, had kept them for her and her son had loaned the works van and brought it out to her. So now she had their clothes, her other bits and ornaments, the mantle-clock and the all too important alarm-clock; getting up on a wing and a prayer would fail her one day and the loss of that job would be the loss of everything - again.
Nevertheless, it had been great to see her own things in the house and, unpacking the couple of boxes, she was filled with thoughts of comforting familiarity. However, when she'd got to Aidan's things, it was as though she'd been punched in the heart. It had been months but now, holding his razor in her hand, her grief was overwhelming. She felt shattered by loss, crushed with hopelessness; lost in a confusing world of devastating need and longing - and she'd spent most of that day in the armchair, clutching the razor to her breast, her face black with tears. When she did muster the courage to face life again - as though she needed to punish herself for letting her memory of him lapse - she set it by the sink, where he would've put it - so she would never forget again.
Eugene peered up at her from the bed and then rolled into a ball; she smiled at him and went back to the armchair. She unfurled an old newspaper she'd salvaged from window-cleaning and with the light of a tilly-lamp settled down for another lonely few hours before she too would turn in. Outside, a heavy January wind rattled the metal roof and whistled through the gaps in the masonry. In some ways, that soothed her.
A loud thump woke her from her doze and she rushed to the room to find Eugene still rolled in the ball she'd left him in. With the wind outside and the ticking of the clocks, she just put it down to the sheer depth of her tiredness and returned to the armchair, checking the clock - five past ten. In only a couple of hours they would both be back up and readying for the walk to work; she would spend the rest of her sleep in the armchair. She sat down again, pulling around her the woollen throw-over that Eugene called 'Blanky'. The second thump startled her to her feet.
She stood in the dimly lit room as another thump rocked the top part of the door and resonated around the house, causing a small saucepan to drop from the end of the table. Cautious - scared - she walked over to the door. Another thump - then another. Quicker, faster, louder - until it was pounding on the door; flexing the wood, straining the hinges.
'Just a minute,' she shouted, hoping there'd be an answer; but not expecting one.
She moved closer, carefully choosing her steps, watching the door flex like paper with each clout. She took hold of the metal latch, with each blow it jerked in her hand; timorously she squeezed.
She threw open the door and stared out - nothing but darkness. She opened the bottom half and stepped out onto the street. Nobody. Nothing. Just the silent black of the moonless night, thick like oil - even the wind had stopped. She went to step back in, glancing up towards the top room to see Eugene standing staring out the window into the darkness. His face pale and lifeless - his little body so frail and helpless. She took another brief look outside, just to check - there was nothing there and, locking the door behind her, went to put him back to bed.
A face flashed in the window and she grabbed Eugene, pulling him tight to her, moving back to the wall - then the face was gone. She just stood there for a moment or two, confused and terrified As her tension eased and she began to relax, a voice whispered in her ear: 'He belongs to us.'
As she approached, the little house seemed to glower back down at her. Gone was its dismal dreariness, replaced by an ominous portent of fear and trepidation. With every given day it seemed to wrap itself around her, pull her tighter. As she stepped through the gate, the tree seemed to groan; glad she hadn't ventured too far and glad she'd returned to her rightful place at its feet.
More than once, she'd thought of packing up and going back to Aidan's uncle, or of biting the bit, selling up for the ticket money and bringing Eugene back to the States; depression or no depression - it had to be better than this. But, deep within, she knew that the measly few quid she'd make would never be enough and that the creepy trees and secret voices were, in a way, more bearable than a man who was only two steps away from hurting one of them. She could never expose Eugene to that. No, she'd have to stay. Terrified and exhausted from lack of sleep but - for Eugene's sake - she'd have to stay.
For the most part, Eugene seemed oblivious to what was going on anyway and would content himself playing with his imaginary friends, her songs and stories. When a month past and nothing more happened, she was beginning to think that tiredness and imagination had more to do with the face at the window and the whispered voice than any other worldly explanation.
Tucking him up in the quilt, she lay on the bed beside him and told the story of Little Tiny. Sure he was asleep; she went back through to make a start on the dishes. The nights were starting to draw out but she still needed to light the lamp. It sent an ethereal glow over the whole room, picking out the shadows of inanimate objects and flickering to bring them alive; making them dance across the whitewashed walls. As she scrubbed, she stared out through the window at the fading light of dusk and a sun that set, casting crimson streaks across thick vaporous clouds. And, for one brief moment, all her grief, all her loneliness, all her fear drifted away; and she felt at peace. The shadow drifted along the back wall behind her. She didn't see it.
When the 23rd of February came around, it plunged Susan into three days of debilitating remembrance and sorrow. She'd managed to get to work, yet was all but useless. When it was noticed, she came clean and explained. They let her home early that day and permitted another, 'For the sake of the dead'; the third day was Sunday and she was free anyway.
So, when she arrived home, she sat in her armchair and burrowed deep inside herself; lonely and forsaken, while Eugene ran around in playful ignorance of her anguish. After a year of pain and suffering, it wasn't so much the loss that terrified her but the slow acceptance of her situation and, if left unchecked, that there might be a day - far ahead - when she might not think of Aidan at all. That thought terrified her the most.
It was around five in the evening when she started to come round. Sitting in the armchair, Eugene was sitting on the floor at her feet playing, and chatting away with one of his many imaginary friends. She watched him for a while, his beautiful face, his innocence; Aidan's eyes. He looked back and smiled then carried on with his game.
'Who are you playing with today?' she asked.
'The tree woman.'
A flush of deep foreboding coursed through her, flashing her mind back to the shadow at the tree and the silent voice. She stood up, her eyes scanning the room; Eugene just continued playing at her feet. She bent down to touch his shoulder; he didn't look up. She lifted him by his underarms and cradled him - like she used to when he was a baby. The temperature had suddenly plummeted; she could see her breath, misty in front of her face. She kissed his head.
A shadow burst from the spot where he'd been playing and streaked across the room. Darting first to one wall and then to the next. She watched it as it shot back and forth, her pulse racing, her blood draining, leaving her feeling empty; cold and vulnerable. It leapt to the ceiling and hung over her, a knot of sheer terror caught in her stomach like a bad meal; nauseous bile rising and stinging her throat. It stayed there for a while, hovering over her; all she could do was stare back and clutch Eugene tighter. With that the shadow rampaged wildly around the room, as if in agony. She moved back into the corner and pulled Eugene's face into her shoulder. The shadow stopped, just by the door and slowly began to take form. A dark, frightening figure, black and solid - yet half transparent - with eyes that flashed red, then green. It began to walk towards her, stalk her. With a mother's courage she shouted, 'You can't have him.' And with a burst of black vapour and a shriek that shook the house, the shadow was gone.
She didn't sleep that night; tortured by images of monsters with devouring teeth and grasping hands. Of the tree outside and its clawing branches reaching for her; to pull her down to the place of destitution and never-ending pain. Evil faces leered at her through the window and - in her mind - they taunted her: She'd never escape. The boy was theirs'. Aidan was down there with them. But she just sat there, clutching Eugene to her chest and watching them as they contorted and twisted into every conceivable evil thing she knew. And they mocked her, jibed her, goaded her; with their sick and depraved rantings. Sometimes they would dart right up to her face and she could smell their putrid breath, other times they just glared at her, their soulless red eyes tormenting her to give him up. Like the virgin mother, to give up her only son to their greedy, devouring hands. But still she just sat there, with Eugene in her arms and her memories of Aidan and Dublin and life, while the entities tortured her - for three days.
By the time Father McCarthy arrived, the police had taken her down and saved him at least that unpleasantness. He identified the body for them. They told him that - luckily or unluckily - because the house stood on the top of the hill, she had been seen hanging all the way to the valley.
They took her away. There wasn't much that Father McCarthy could do for her after she was pronounced as a suicide, and it brought back bitter memories. Just as before, he wished he'd seen the signs, read the situation better; but she'd always seemed quite upbeat, given her circumstances. But, then again, the same was true for the last girl to take herself to the top of that hill and tie a rope from that very same tree.
He knew that he should feel no remorse; he knew that he wasn't to blame but, deep within himself he wished he'd done more. Done more as a priest. Done more as a man. Done more for the tormented woman who couldn't live with the grief of losing her husband and who couldn't cope with the fact that her only child died with him.
It's said that every house has a story to tell, every home has its secret. In every brick and every timber, to the clay pot on the chimney, there is a history - a point in time where someone touched it with their presence; altered it from a state of something into an existence as something else. When a craftsman takes a piece of wood and fashions it into what he deems to be a useful item, he sets forth a sequence of events. From that time on, it has taken on new form, a new being and a new purpose and it may even undergo further and more radical changes before it finally succumbs to its preordained destiny. And, with those changes it encounters new things - it lives a new life, profoundly different from the one it was put on this earth to experience and we, the initiators, tend to stumble through our lives, unaware of the influences we project over these things; preferring to remain oblivious to the subtle, yet fundamental changes we make along the way.
A house - a home, tends to take on the persona of the people who - even only temporarily - take up residence there. It fills itself out, absorbing the smell, the sounds; the fabric of the occupants, who crash in and out, until they tire of it and idly move on to cast their substance elsewhere, unaware of the legacy they've left behind.
Eventually, it's left alone and it begins the slow and pathetic process of falling down around itself; slowly crumbling into the earth from which it came and to where it one day will return. It becomes so destitute, so shameful, that from a distance we look upon it with pity; longing for someone to come and put it out of its misery, and some say the house - the home, would appear to long for it too.
Clinton ad been looked upon in that way for many, if not most of the years it stood abandoned and forgotten on that hilltop - holding up the sky with its ragged walls; clawing to heaven for mercy - so familiar and so terrifying. A peripheral reminder of past indiscretions - blackened stone that had played witness to things best forgotten - and it was as though now, in its solitude, it relived those dark days over and over again. Slowly decomposing as it stood solitary and friendless, alone bearing the scars of an unpleasant past; with no consolation, no solace and no release.
* * *
Martin :) DARK STORIES from a TWISTED MIND -
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