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HIDDEN HOUSE

  By Bobby Mathews

  *****

  PUBLISHED BY

  Hidden House

  Copyright © 2012, Bobby Mathews

  *****

  As always, for Misty and Noah

  *****

  I believe in haunted houses. I guess I have to believe in them, after living next to one for so many years. Hidden House is a hulking wreck now, shrouded in weeds, kudzu, and trees that have grown up in the yard. But I remember when it haunted my dreams every night, and when the sounds of a man's screams could be heard in the eerie stillness of dusk.

  As far as I know, there has only been one murder at Hidden House. On August 9, 1979, Jerome Baxter took a shovel and caved in the back of his stepfather's head. Jerome was arrested, tried, and convicted of second-degree murder. The court shipped him off to some prison or other, and I've never been able to find out exactly what happened to him after that.

  But I know what happened to Hidden House. Two weeks after the murder, Mrs. Baxter and her other children moved out of the place. To be more accurate, they abandoned it. But I didn't find that out until later that year. I had always been afraid of Hidden House, and now that no one lived there, I was doubly so. It was a small frame house, unpainted and splintering along the wooden eaves. The windows were blank, expressionless eyes. A railed porch ran the length of the front of the house; the roof was gray shingles hung at an awkward angle. The front door was slightly askew, and it gave the place an appearance of eternal hunger. Often I rode my bicycle past Hidden House, speeding up as the watchful, restless windows came into view. None of the neighborhood kids would go inside, even though the door was unlocked.

  One morning Tim Hutcherson came by. He was one of the few kids my age in the neighborhood, and we had become close friends. "I'm going to go in there today," he said. I didn't need to ask where. Hidden House crouched low in a bend of the road, almost impossible to see from more than ten yards away -- but it seemed to send out a homing beacon: whenever I went outside I would find my gaze drawn in the direction of the ugly, graying house. Tim was wearing cutoff shorts and a t-shirt, his hair done up in exotic little corn rows held in place with beads. "You want to come?" Neither of us had ever been inside the house, even though Jerome had sometimes baby-sat for our mothers. My curiosity overpowered my sense of fear.

  "Yes," I said.

  And that was how I found myself straddling my secondhand bicycle, staring at the gaping maw of Hidden House not twenty feet away while Tim checked around to see if anyone was watching us. I dropped the kickstand on my bike and hoisted my leg over the seat as Tim came back around the house.

  "No one's around." Tim's voice was almost a whisper. "Come on." He stepped up onto the porch and rested a hand lightly on the doorknob. I stood beside my bike, one hand absently fingering the duct tape that crisscrossed the handlebars. Tim looked back at me expectantly. I joined him on the porch, the boards beneath us groaning a welcome. He pushed the door open and we got our first look at Hidden House. All was quiet and dark within. The front room had been a living room or den. A Zenith console TV sat against the far wall, its picture tube impaled by a coat rack. A love seat was overturned and the stuffing ripped out. Pictures of the Baxter family still hung crookedly on the walls. There was a bunched-up throw rug in one corner. A three-dimensional portrait of Jesus sat on the fireplace mantle. Quickly, we went through the whole house.

  In addition to the sitting room, there were three bedrooms, a bath, and a kitchen-dining room combination. The story was the same in each room. The Baxters had left everything: furniture, photos, bed linen, silverware, dishes. There were some old comic books in one of the bedrooms, and then we found Jerome's room.

  "Check this out!" Tim kept his voice low, even though there was no one around. He handed me a framed photograph. It was Jerome's senior portrait; he was good looking, his skin the same shade as a coffee bean. His tightly-curled hair was cropped close to his skull, and his smile showed prominent, even teeth.

  A bureau stood upright in one corner of Jerome's room. Tim began opening the drawers. "Don't do that," I said.

  "Why not?"

  "Jerome wouldn't like it," I said, "you looking through his stuff."

  "It doesn't matter," Tim said. "He's in jail, remember?"

  I nodded slowly. Somehow it did matter to me, but I didn't have the words to express that to Tim. I walked out into the hallway without saying anything else. I still had Jerome's photo in my hands. He looked so happy. Young. Free. I wished I could reach the boy that was in that photo, shake him and tell him, "This summer you're going to get into a fight with your stepdad, and you're going to do something really terrible. Whatever happens, don't pick up that shovel. You'll go to jail if you do." I hung my head and concentrated on not crying; I had liked Jerome.

  I stared at the floor for a long time before I realized what I was looking at. It was a stain on the bare wooden floor, making the boards slightly darker than the ones around them. The stain was rust-colored, and I thought I knew what it was. That's it, I thought. I'm looking at where it happened. And then a hand closed on my arm.

  I jerked my arm back and barely stifled a scream. It was Tim. "Scared you," he said. He grinned widely, his teeth very white in the gloom of the house.

  "No you didn't," I whispered hoarsely. The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck were standing on end, a million tiny lightning rods. "Look there." I pointed at the stain on the floor.

  Tim recognized what it was at once. "Blood," he said, and I nodded quickly.

  "Do you think it happened here?" He said. "Or do you think it happened in one of these rooms and they fought out here?"

  "No way to know, I guess."

  Tim looked around. "Which one was her room?"

  I pointed across the hall. "In there, I think."

  He paused, as if making up his mind. "Let's go take a closer look."

  We went into the bedroom, Tim a little ahead of me. The bed was rumpled and dusty. Rats had chewed at the stuffing, gathering materials to build a nest. In the bedroom it seemed the coppery, dank smell of blood overpowered every other sensation. There was broken glass on the floor, and the drapes had been torn down and left in a tangle on the floor. We looked around for a few minutes, and then Tim spoke.

  "Holy sh--"

  "What?" I said.

  "Look over there."

  Pushed against the far wall was a cheap pine dresser that sat low and humble, almost penitent. A mirror ran the length of the dresser and reflected the whole of the room. There was a woman lying on the bed.

  I turned and looked at the bed, its sprawled and chewed mattress hanging half off the bed. There was no one there. I looked at Tim, and he shrugged as if to say, "I don't know how it did that either, but it's there." We looked back at the mirror.

  The room was suddenly dark, and the woman on the bed was a mere shadow. Her chocolate skin melded with the shadows in a sinuous dance. Her body was Rubenesque, and she was naked. It was Jerome's mother. Dimly, I was aware of a man standing in the doorway, coming toward Mrs. Baxter. He had a thick leather belt in one hand, and he kept wrapping the belt around his fist until only about twelve inches dangled loose, the large metal buckle swaying loosely at the end.

  "Gon' git it now, bitch." His voice was slurred and sluggish, like a boxer in the twelfth round of a hard fight, and I realized he was drunk.

  Mrs. Baxter lay very still on the bed. "You don't gotta do that, baby. I'll be a good girl." It was a little girl's voice, pleading and frightened. The man came closer, and I recognized him as Jerome's stepfather.

  "Damn right you will," he said. It seemed I could smell the rancid grapes of cheap wine on his breath. Jerome's stepfather slapped the bed with the whip of belt he held in his hands. It made a fl
at whap, an understated harbinger of violence. Mrs. Baxter cringed and drew her feet tight against her body, curling into a tight ball. And then I remembered the scars on her legs. I had seen them that summer when she had come up to check on Jerome while he was playing with Tim and me. They formed an ugly zebra pattern up her calves, which I had seen beneath the floral-print housedress she always wore. The scar tissue was puckered and pink against her otherwise smooth skin. Had there been new welts on her legs when I had seen her? I believe there were.

  So this was nothing new for Mrs. Baxter, or her husband, whose name I can never remember. He started by caressing her with the edge of the leather strap. He ran it up her calves, across her thighs and belly. That's when I saw the scars patterned all over her body, even her arms. I had never noticed them there before.

  He kept on, lightly at first. A teasing smack against her rear, a little harder on her shoulders. Jerome's stepfather continued to hit Mrs. Baxter, moving the belt in time to his own private rhythm. I began to wince as the blows grew harder and harder, and still he beat her. Mrs. Baxter began to writhe against the bed, her body helplessly torn between two imperatives. She wanted to submit to her husband, and yet the need for self-preservation had taken over.