Beloved Evangeline (26 page)

On a hunch, I exhaled deeply. My breath was clearly visible, just as I imagined it would be. Sitting there in the eerie light and freezing cold, my imagination began to race. Memories of every horror novel or movie I’d ever come across began to intermingle with my private horror stories, forming new stories of the unbelievably grotesque. The feeling of menace was stronger than ever. If I ran from the room, and this house, as fast as I could, perhaps there was a chance of escaping from this. I jumped up to make a run for it, as there was no sense in waiting, but in doing so, tripped over the enormous pile of books I had left on the floor. My body hurtled head first into the opposing wall, my head connecting with the glass of the picture frame hanging on it with an enormous crunch. The picture tumbled down with a loud crash just as my own body hit the floor.

Something shiny gleamed at me from the site of the destruction. The moonlight illuminated the object in such a way that it appeared to glow. I began inching toward it, willing myself forward, reminding myself there are no such thing as ghosts. I should know—I never found any.

No matter how hard I tried to convince myself, however, my thoughts were preoccupied, overtaken, really, by the idea that something,
someone
I could not see, was in the room with me. I was gripped by an unsolicited and very unwanted mental image that this someone was crouching, lying in wait, for its opportunity to assault me. I had a strange sense that this something was here for a purpose, that purpose being to guard this necklace. Funny how those thoughts enter your mind sometimes, seemingly out of nowhere, and simply will not leave you once they’ve stuck, no matter had much you try to shake them off. Need I remind myself that this is exactly what paranoia sounds like?

Ridiculous
. There was nothing supernatural here. Anyway, I’m not afraid of anything that might be in this house. I didn’t need to be. I had real horrors in my life, no need to go inventing any. So, despite my premonition, I reached into the back of the broken picture frame, my hand trembling despite my best efforts, and pulled out the necklace.

I held my breath. Nothing happened, of course
.

Whew, that wasn’t so bad
. I really need to stop getting myself all worked up over nothing. This is all probably going to be fairly easy, once I get the hang of things.

Wait, why do I suddenly feel so cold?

Out of nowhere, my chest seemed to seize up, like it was freezing, from the inside.

I closed my eyes, counting to ten instinctively.

On eight my eyes flew open as I exhaled involuntarily, the air expelling from my lungs forcefully, like I had accidentally plunged into icy water, with no foreknowledge of what would happen the moment I touched that necklace. The wind had been knocked out of me, and now the ice seemed to be crystallizing in my chest. Slowly, my feet lifted until I was several feet off the ground.

My eyes were wide with panic. I could not move of my own volition. My entire body trembled with cold and...
fear
. Once my body reached the ceiling, it was pulled slowly backward, and then, with the all the force of being thrown from a speeding car, I hurtled forward, crashing into a wall. Through the haze and confusion, the pain and panic, the knowledge that something had lifted me, then literally reared back, and, with purpose, flung me into the wall, was flitting at the edge of my consciousness, obviously trying to get my full attention. I scrambled to try to get to my feet, completely seized by terror, though my hand was still locked around that necklace. My other arm pressed to my chest, which pulsed with the pain of slowly defrosting and trying to return to life.

All of this will have been for nothing if I can’t get out of here with this
, I tried to remind myself.

The terrifying part was that nothing actually touched me
physically
. Physically there was no one there. An unseen forced reached in and clutched my soul before flinging me into the wall. This knowledge inspired in me an acute, wide-eyed panic, different from any fear I had ever known. How do you fend off something that isn’t there? Ironically, this was exactly what I had always hoped for, though clearly not the way I imagined.

With the necklace in hand, I bounded down the stairs. After a few steps I was shoved from behind. I tried to maintain balance but instead sort of stumbled and then tumbled my way down. I was back in the portrait room, and I was not alone. Whatever it was, whatever had grabbed and thrown me, was here. I could feel it. This was no bright, happy spirit. This was something dark, ugly, and it meant to do me harm. As I tried to sort this out, liquid began trickling into my right eye, burning. I tried wiping the blood away but it was pouring out too quickly now. I wiped my forehead, trying to determine the source of the blood, but I felt no specific source of pain in my head, with all the focus on things like my freezing chest and whatever might be coming for me next. In the midst of this confusion and panic, I was stricken from behind, and the eerie moonlight was fully obscured.

My eyes opened to the sight of a strangely colored flashing light. I lifted myself off the floor, wincing at the throbbing in my head. The sound of a radio crackled in my ear.

“
Whoa
. Don’t try to get up, ma’am.” A man’s voice ordered.

An EMT was leaning over me. “I’m George, and my partner’s gone to get the stretcher, so hang in there. The police are en route and will probably want to talk to you when we get to the hospital.”

“
No.” I shook my head, standing up abruptly. “I’m not going to any
hospital
.” Though I was sure he probably heard that often, in my case, I really,
really
meant it.

“
That’s a doozy of a bump you got on the back of your head—and that cut on your eye—I think you want to get it looked at.”

I shook my head in willful defiance.

“
Easy,” he responded, holding out his hands in surrender, “It’s your right to refuse medical—your call. Can you just tell me what you’re doing by yourself out at this friggin’ scary old place?” He shuddered. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard we had a call out here.”

“
Why? Where’s my grandfather?” Didn’t people who lived in haunted mansions occasionally need to call for help, too?

“
The last call ever out here was because some old guy hanged himself in that bedroom at the top of the stairs...” he gestured with his hand toward that bedroom, but I didn’t need to follow it. I already knew the one he meant. “I don’t know about your grandfather... did he come with you? Didn’t see anyone else around when I got here. This place just feels creepy, you know?”

My mind worked furiously. I studied my surroundings. In this new context, the home didn’t even look lived in. That would explain the quiet, and the dust. With the change in my perspective, I was able to view the home with fresh eyes. What had seemed sinister and suspect now just appeared run down and dilapidated. Funny how I hadn’t made the connection between dilapidated and abandoned sooner, but then, given my own home furnishings, I hadn’t recognized any of this as being abnormal.

“
You’re sure there was no one else? I mean, how did you find me?” I asked in a monotone, just because they seemed like the type of sensible questions that needed to be asked. I was still lost in thought.

“
I’m sure, hon. It was just you lying here, out cold, with this book next to ya.” He pointed to a large hardcover book lying next to me, a collection of gothic novels, in which I had been perusing
Nightmare Abbey
by Thomas Love Peacock just before I fell asleep. Coincidental? Or did the undead have a sense of humor?

George the EMT continued, though I was barely listening, “We got a 911 call about someone being hurt. Strange, because the house used to be boarded up. We were kind of wondering how you even got in...” he trailed off. “Hey, are you alright?”

Having finally connected all the dots, my attention was focused at the top of the stairs. I turned from George and bounded up them.

“
Hey, wait!” He called after me.

I threw open the door of my grandfather’s bedroom. It looked as though no one hand been in the room in years. The bed was made, its covers thinning, aged,
disintegrating
.

The EMT came up behind me, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Let’s get you outside, hon,”

I nodded, staring at the dusty, deteriorating room all the way out.

Once we were outside, I felt like I could breathe again. “How long ago was it when... the man hung himself here?”

“
Oh gosh... it’s been maybe 20 years now. The house was abandoned after that. I guess, the family didn’t want to live in it after something like that...”

I can’t imagine why.

I unfurled my hand slowly, examining the necklace that I’d stubbornly wound around my wrist, refusing to let go no matter what. It was the loveliest, most unusual antique silver filigree necklace I had ever seen.

20.

The entire next day was spent holed up in my house, researching my mother’s side of the family online. I was curious to determine whether the EMT had been wrong, or if I was the one who had seen something that wasn’t there. According to the Social Security Death Index, Heinrich Von Olnheisen passed away nearly 20 years ago. My grandfather
was
dead.

I longed for one of my famous dinner of chips and homemade salsa, but I was out of chips. Salsa in a pita pocket turned out not to be as good.

When I was able to continue, I learned that the Von Olnheisens’ had occupied that estate for almost 200 years. No genealogies had ever been formally organized, though, so there were surprisingly few other details that I was able to dredge up. None of them were particularly interesting, and I found no information on my grandmother, not even her name. It seemed probable that she had died young. I needed the entire day to process and contemplate the possible meaning of the information I gathered.

That evening my cell phone rang, a rare occurrence lately.

“
Hello?” I answered.

“
Ms. Johnson? This is Jenny Blackwell. I’m a social worker. I was notified by the hospital about your recent accident...”

“
Uh...”

“
Well, I know this is difficult because you don’t know me, but my job is to make sure that you’re safe, that you have someone to call in case you ever get in trouble.”

“
Trouble
? What kind of trouble?”

“
Well, I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me about your accident. What happened? Did you go out to that house with a boyfriend or acquaintance of some kind?”

“
No, I went there alone. I did tell the EMT that. It was dark... I just fell and hit my head.” I realized, too late, that I’d just given
the
cliche denial response.

“
The thing is, Ms. Johnson, your injuries are inconsistent with accidental causes.” Her tone was a little too flat, sounding as though she were reading from a script. “How have you been feeling lately? Is everything in your life going alright?”

Fabulous
. Not only did I have a myriad of both natural and supernatural problems, now I was going to have some social worker hovering over me and intruding on my life? At least the tone had switched from domestic violence to suicide prevention, that topic being only slightly more painful and personal to me. I deflected her remaining questions as deftly as possible, but the process was embarrassing and exhausting. I fell asleep nearly as soon as I’d hung up the phone.

21.

When an unpleasant task lies ahead, time naturally speeds up to greet it. My life fast forwarded to the Monday morning corporate board meeting. Inexplicably, I was the only woman at the 15-foot long rectangular table—and the only one under 50. I recognized our corporate CEO, Tom McCormick, and VP, Charlie Taylor, from their pictures in the lobby. No one else was remotely familiar.

The meeting started with a synopsis of stock market reports from our subsidiaries, detailing which of the companies were succeeding, and which were floundering. Several companies were performing poorly, owing largely—I thought—to falling behind current market trends. Aviratia lacks the ability to adapt to the rapidly changing corporate landscape; we’re just too big to change directions when necessary. Momentarily forgetting myself, I could have listened to and analyzed the stock reports all day, but that wasn’t why I was here.

Too quickly, the meeting arrived at the subject of my research, my armpits and upper back already damp with nervous perspiration. Our company doesn’t tolerate mistakes. I watched them escort an accountant out of the building who’d transposed a couple of numbers—once. They tossed his belongings out into the street. Though I’ve been over and over the research, I can’t think of anything more publicly humiliating than making a mistake with the corporate folks, my recent escapades notwithstanding.

Taylor read the bottom line and my conclusion aloud, the last sentence being, “Due to the lack of accountability for perpetrators and the number of unreported claims, the future of controlling affinity scams appears equally grim.”

The research on internet predators had been particularly unpleasant, but the scams perpetrated on the elderly had been just as distressing. In some cases, even when presented with direct evidence, the victims still refused to believe they’d been swindled. The work had been heartbreaking, but… what exactly did this have to do with our corporate structure?

“
Ms…. Johnson?” Taylor began, checking his paperwork for my name. “Perhaps you’d like to tell us more about your research into this subject.”

I scanned the faces of the corporate officers for some hint as to what this was all about. All were stoic.

“
Sure. What, exactly, needs clarification?”

The next two hours were among the most harrowing of my entire life. I had been grilled over and over on all minutia of the report in excruciating detail. I don’t think I handled it well—my heart just wasn’t in it. The board was in desperate search of new revenue sources and were more than willing to exploit even the most vulnerable populations. I felt like a rabbit in a room full of hyenas.

My niche in this company suddenly became clear. I was nothing more than a puppet, the invisible kind.

When the meeting ended, I marched out of the conference room, straight to my office, without an upward glance, drenched in sweat and feeling as though I’d aged twenty years.

I lost track of the time passing by. Every day at work was like a new kind of torture. I had fibbed to the corporate board and would likely be beheaded if found out, or at the very least blacklisted from getting a job at any other business in town. And there were already no other jobs to be had in this economy, particularly with Florida having the worst unemployment rate in the country. Being a misfit trapped in a cruel, artificial existence only seemed to get more and more difficult, rather than easier.