Page 14 of Eldritch

“Damn it,” she whispered as she rolled her suitcase into the room. The windows looked fairly new, and Clarice had mentioned that they replaced them last year with modern windows featuring dual panes and some sun protection. She slid the big window closed.

Before she could turn, the door slammed behind her. She yelped. Swung around.

No one was there.

Just the wind. Equalizing of pressure or whatever. Then she thought about it. When she’d been taking the video of the house earlier, the window hadn’t looked open. She took her phone out again. Flipped to the photos and videos. Nope. The window didn’t look open.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

She thought about all the weird things that had happened today. The skeptical part of her wanted to ignore the white figure in the window and the figure Maria thought she’d seen. They’d all heard the music. True, she couldn’t lump a door slamming and a window that had popped open into that realm of the unusual. After all, this was an old house. Creaks and groans wouldn’t be unusual in a structure at least one hundred and twenty years old. Drafts weren’t unexpected. Faulty window latches. You name it, it made for fun haunted house imagination shit, but it didn’t mean this house had ghosts.

Yes, it does.

The thought filled her head like a whisper. One of those things she’d noted since she was a kid that sounded like someone else. The kinds of voices that these days would find her put back on the crazy pills and into the funny farm.

She rubbed her forehead. Oh, Sybil. Maybe you are crazy. I told you that the way you think just isn’t right. It just isn’t right.

“Shut up, mother,” Sybil said, and set about unpacking.

* * *

“Well, this isn’t too bad for microwave pizza.” Maria said, as she ate the last bite of pepperoni on her plate.

A noise came from somewhere in the house. A deep, resonate groan. It echoed. Reverberated around the building obnoxiously.

“Jeebus H. Christ.” Pauline looked up from her personal-size vegan pizza. “What the hell was that?”

“Sounds mechanical. Like there’s something going on with moving parts,” Letisha said.

Sybil winced. “I’ll call Clarice tonight and ask if she knows anything about the noise. Maybe it isn’t serious.”

“So what's the plan tomorrow since today is kinda screwed?” Pauline asked, wiping her hands on a paper napkin.

Sybil took a sip of her iced tea. “We’ll tackle the first floor as per our original plan. After that, second and third floor. After that, attic and basement. Clarice already warned me that no one has cleaned out the basement and attic in about thirty years.

“Thirty years.” It didn’t come out as a question when Maria said it. “Remind me who lived here more recently. I mean, before the last renters.”

“Clarice and her parents,” Letisha said. She glanced at Sybil. “All her life and all of theirs, right?”

Sybil nodded. “Yep. Clarice moved out two years ago. She’s just now wanting it cleaned out.”

Pauline sat back in her chair. “Her health, right?”

“Yep. Her apartment in Estes Park is a lot easier upkeep. Her friends in Estes said they didn’t like her staying out here in the middle of nowhere at her age,” Sybil said.

Letisha and Pauline had heard most of this before. They’d also learned that Clarice had gotten the name of the cleaning company from Douglas MacKenzie, a man who had learned of the company through a friend of his. Word of mouth, in this case, was a good thing.

Pauline glanced at her watch. “I guess the fact Clarice’s family didn’t clean out their attic or basement for thirty years is a plus for our business.”

Letisha chuckled. “That it is.”

The clock on the dining room wall chimed the six o’clock hour.

“I’m going to tour the rest of the rooms tonight and make notes about the condition of each room,” Sybil said. “Tomorrow I’m planning on a seven o’clock start.”

Maria groaned.

“I get it,” Sybil said. “I’m not a morning person either. But I figure if we put in a nine-hour day, we should make significant progress.”

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