Billy Redmond had copied the street address out of the phonebook. Transposing the last two numbers shouldn’t have been a big deal, but for Billy and his partner, Eddie Johnson, it would turn out to be a very big deal.
“It’s 10:30; the funeral started at 10:00, so they should all be there. We’ve got at least a half hour to get what we can get.”
Billy and Eddie were two small-time dirtballs who supplemented their income from the service sector jobs they both hated with a little burglary.
Billy had heard that sometimes the homes of the deceased were easy pickings while everyone was attending the funeral.
“It’ll be a piece of cake,” Billy had told Eddie.
The house was probably almost a hundred years old, built in the early twenties, but was very well maintained. It was two stories with what looked to be a walk-in attic.
“Looks like my grandma’s house,” Eddie said. “I used to go there when my folks were drunk and fightin’.”
They parked a block away and entered by breaking a window pane on the back porch door.
Standing in the kitchen, they listened for the sound of a dog. They knew from experience a dog could definitely cause a problem.
Billy had brought a quarter pound of raw hamburger in a zip lock bag just in case.
He gave a shrill whistle into the quiet downstairs.
“Nope, no dog,” said Billy. “Let’s get started.”
They each had a duffel bag and methodically went through the living room and dining room. The knickknacks and framed pictures were definitely more unusual than Billy and Eddie found in most houses, but still nothing much that could be turned into any real money.
“Let’s try upstairs,” said Eddie. “There’s nothin’ but weird junk down here.”
They were halfway up the stairs when a man in dark suit appeared at the top landing.
Billy pulled out the .22 caliber pistol he always carried “just in case.”
“Why ain’t you at the funeral?” he asked in an irritated tone.
The man, dressed like a 19th century butler, gave them a thin smile. “Funeral? I don’t know of any funeral I should be attending.”
“Let’s get outta here, Billy,” said Eddie. “We don’t need this.”
“Not until I see if there’s anything to grab upstairs,” said Billy.
Motioning with his gun, Billy said, “You there, back up against that wall. If ya don’t do anything stupid, ya won’t get hurt.”
The man didn’t move. “The “good stuff” is actually kept in the attic,” he said.
He then turned and walked a short distance down the hallway. “This way, please,” he said over his shoulder.
Billy looked at Eddie. “You’re right; maybe we should split. It’s gettin’ a little creepy.”
“Here are the stairs to the attic,” the man in black said, standing in front of an open doorway. “I’m Jarvis.”
Billy and Eddie climbed the rest of the stairs and started down the hall.
“The obits in the paper said somebody named Zander at this address was havin’ a funeral,” said Billy. “And even if we’re wrong about that, how come you’re helpin’ us rob the place?”
“No Zander has ever lived here,” said Jarvis. “This is my house and I’ve lived here for over eighty years. As to why I’m helping you, it’s because you have a pistol pointed at me.”
Billy and Eddie looked into the doorway and up the stairs leading to the attic.
“Go ahead up and take a few things,” said Jarvis. “I have more than I need. In fact, I was just preparing to ship a few things to…to another property of mine.”
“Take a few things? Now that’s just nuts,” said Eddie. “This isn’t Trick or Treat; we’re robbin’ you, ya dope.”
Billy took a few steps up the stairs, but stopped. “It’s dark up there; where’s the light switch?”
“At the top of the stairs there’s a bare light bulb with a pull string,” said Jarvis. “I can see it from here.”
“Well, I can’t,” said Billy. “How about you goin’ up and gettin’ us some light?”
“Certainly,” said Jarvis, starting up the stairs.
“Let’s go,” whispered Eddie.
“Not yet,” said Billy. “I ain’t leavin’ with nothin’.”
The light came on upstairs. It wasn’t all that bright, but they could see Jarvis at the top of the stairs looking down at them.
“Come up, boys,” he said. “Have a look around.”
As Billy and Edie climbed the stairs, the door from below slammed shut. Eddie gave a little shriek and Billy pulled his pistol.
“Just the wind,” said Jarvis. “Just the wind.”
“Ya got an awfully windy house here, Jarvis,” said Billy, trying to sound more confident than he felt.
When they got to the top, Billy noticed a wet stain on the floor.
“That looks like it could be blood,” he said. “I thought you said nobody died here.”
“What I said was that I didn’t know of any funeral I should be attending,” said Jarvis. “And that is blood; blood from the body that was placed in this trunk.”
Jarvis gave the large ornate trunk a kick and something inside it growled. Jarvis laughed and kicked the trunk again.
“Sounds like what ya put in the trunk wasn’t quite dead,” said Eddie.
“Oh, what I put in the trunk was quite dead; what you heard is what was already in the trunk.”
“Why are we still here, Billy?” asked Eddie, inching his way back toward the stairs.
Billy shook his head as if coming out of a dream. “My buddy’s right. Thanks for the tour, Jarvis, but we’re gonna head out now.”
As Billy and Eddie moved to take the first steps down they were stopped in their tracks by Jarvis who had materialized in front of them.
Eddie made as if to shove Jarvis out of the way and wound up tumbling down the stairs as he had pushed right through the Jarvis specter. When he landed at the bottom, a loud crunching sound came from his neck as his head collided with the closed door.
The Jarvis apparition disappeared and Billy turned away from the stairs to face the physical Jarvis. “How’d you do that?” he asked.
Jarvis smiled. “Go down and drag your friend up here. Now!”
Billy started walking down the stairs before he had a chance to think about it. The “Now!” had been said with such command that resisting it would have been impossible.
When he looked at Eddie piled up against the closed door Billy had a moment of sadness. Eddie hadn’t been the sharpest knife in the drawer but he had been a good friend.
“Sorry, buddy,” he said as he lifted Eddie from the floor.
When he reached the top of the stairs he laid Eddie out next to the trunk.
Jarvis took a spray canister from his jacket pocket. He pointed the nozzle into a hole in the top of the trunk and released a long spray.
Whatever was in the trunk reacted violently to the spray, and for a few seconds the trunk rocked back and forth on the attic floor.
Then all was quiet. Jarvis kicked the trunk and when nothing happened, he reached down to undo the latch.
Billy almost fainted when he saw the inside of the trunk. The bottom, top, and all four sides were splattered with blood and gore. There were dozens of pieces of broken bones mixed in with what seemed to be a cocker spaniel-sized ball of fur.
Billy couldn’t make out the front or back of the fur ball as there were long sharp teeth and claws protruding from the entire mess.
“What in the hell…?” he whispered.
“You are closer than you could imagine,” said Jarvis. “Hell is where this one was spawned.”
Jarvis bent down to pick up Eddie’s lifeless body. Billy figured out what was going to happen next and decided he wasn’t going to let it.
Acting quickly, he pulled his pistol and shot Jarvis three times in the back of the head. He pushed him into the trunk, threw down the cover, and drew a deep breath. This was much more than the usual petty larceny he pulled.
“Think! Think!” he yelled at the ceiling.
He knew Jarvis had unusual powers from watching the trick he pulled causing Eddie to fall down the stairs. What he didn’t know was if three shots to the head from a small .22 caliber pistol would kill Jarvis, or if it did, would it keep him dead. And that thing with the teeth and claws in the trunk with Jarvis…
“Fire,” Billy mumbled to himself. “That’s what they always do in the horror movies. Fire always takes care of everything.”
He picked up Eddie and carried him down the attic stairs. He went into the first bedroom he came to and laid him out on the bed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you when you first said we should leave,” he said, standing by the bed and looking over Eddie. “You were always the careful one.”
He then went down to the basement to see if there was anything he could use to start the fire. There wasn’t much, just a small can of what appeared to be gasoline, but it would be enough to get things going.
His plan was to splash a little in the attic, the upstairs, and the downstairs, but when he started up the attic stairs, he heard the trunk start bouncing around.
What sounded like an incantation coupled with the growling sounds he had heard earlier caused him to just quickly spill some on the attic stairs, then down the hall, and onto the stairs to the first floor. He emptied the can in the living room, dousing the furniture and drapes.
The sounds from the attic were getting louder as he tossed a match on the floor and made for the back door. Moving through the kitchen, he stopped to throw the gas can down the basement stairs.
Billy ran back to his car and got in. He could see the house from this spot and after he was sure the fire was burning well, he dialed 911. He wanted to wait to be sure the fire burned whatever was in the attic and making the call would give him an alibi for being at the scene.
“911. What is your emergency?”
“I’m over here on the 700 block of Fairchild Street,” Billy told the operator. “I was drivin’ past this old house and saw smoke comin’ from a window and now there’s flames shootin’ up through the roof.”
“Please stay back from the fire and give the firefighters room to work when they arrive,” said the operator.
“I’ll wait here, but I’ll keep out of the way,” said Billy.
The old house burned quickly. Billy watched as part of the roof collapsed into the rest of the inferno. As it collapsed, however, he saw three fireballs shoot from the fire into the sky.
The largest fireball was golden, the next in size was a bloody crimson, and the third, the smallest of the trio, was a pale yellow.
There was a wailing sound that seemed to be coming from inside Billy’s head rather than from his ears.
“BILL – EEEEE!!!”
It was Eddie’s voice and it sounded as if he was screaming like he was on carnival ride rather than because he was hurtling through space toward who knew what kind of horrible destination.
A police officer rapped on Billy’s driver’s side window. “Do you have business here?” he asked when Billy lowered the window.
“I’m the guy who called it in,” he answered. “No business here; I was just drivin’ past.”
“Well, just be sure you don’t get any closer,” said the officer. “The firefighters don’t like it when civilians get in the way.”
Billy nodded and the officer walked back to the lines that had been drawn on the sidewalk.
When Billy looked up into the sky again the fireballs were no longer visible. They had either burned out or were continuing into the heavens.
He could no longer hear Eddie’s wailing and for that he was grateful.
#
Billy had done his best to kill some things that maybe could not be killed. He had angered some very powerful beings and would be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life.
He decided he would never go into an attic again, even if that was where the “good stuff” was kept.
—
Roy Dorman is retired from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Benefits Office and has been a voracious reader for over 65 years. At the prompting of an old high school friend, himself a retired English teacher, Roy is now a voracious writer. He has had flash fiction and poetry published recently in Black Petals, Yellow Mama, Theme of Absence, Dark Dossier, Near To the Knuckle, Bewildering Stories, Shotgun Honey, and a number of other online and print journals.
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Good horror story, Roy. The opening paragraph hooked me, and the action pulled me right along!
Thanks, David. Glad you liked it.