THE DEAD MAN'S HOUSE

Part Two: An Entrance No One should make

This large dark house was painted a very dim blue, and at nighttime the outside looked black. No lights were left on, it was quite dark and eerily quiet, of course, since the sole occupant had just died a few days before. What a lonely life he must have lived, that was my sole thought at the time, little realizing that my life would be far sorrier than his ever was, someday in my future.

Arty unlocked the large dark wood and glass door, it had two stained glass slim panels on either side, quite stylish actually. He swung the door inward, and our senses were immediately assaulted. A strong cloying smell and taste in the air washed over us before we could enter the house.

It hit us like a noxious wave, probably Tucker and myself far more than Arty. After all, my grandfather was a lifelong pipe smoker. I’m sure the effect was very much lessened for him; But Tucker and I were both non-smokers, and it was a powerful smell, like the air itself was actually tainted with the strongest cigar smell, and the rest was like a fungus, a strong sickening effect. Since I had my mouth open in shock, sadly I tasted it as well. If darkness and despair had a taste, that was surely it. I watched Tucker start gagging in front of me, and Arty grimaced, but that was it.

The effect lessened finally, and we all entered regardless, as noxious as it was. We left the front door wide open as we walked in, none of us wished to be closed in there. There was an entryway, with an honest to goodness wooden cigar indian standing there (probably used as a coat rack), but it was almost black, the wood had been somehow stained long ago. Immediately I got a strange chill, and had a full body shudder, not from the cold, but just randomly. Tucker also reactly strangely as well, with a quick pull back from the doorway, purely instinct. He shook his head, looked at me inquiringly, as if to ask “did that happen to both of us?”. Arty just shrugged at us both, and we all went further in

We moved into the main living room, and Arty found the light switch. Luckily for us, the power bill was still paid, so lights still worked. The overhead light was dead, but a small yellow lamp provided a dirty looking illumination over the room. Up to this time, I had never seen such clutter, and this seemed almost inhuman.

Back then, in 1982, the TV show “hoarders” didn’t exist of course, but if it had, they could have done an entire season on this house alone. First of all, besides the combined stench of cigars, various pipe tobaccos, ,and a dark mustiness, there was a deep smoky haze on the very air itself. Like an indoor fog. I had never seen this before.

I almost felt like I could get lung cancer just standing there, this haze was that strong, and I volunteered to open a window or two while we were there. Get a cross draft going maybe. I headed to the back of the house to look for another door to the outside. The backdoor was through a very disgusting kitchen, but Tucker discovered something strange, all the windows in the living front room were nailed solidly shut, and couldn’t be opened. If ever I wished to question a dead man, I sincerely wished I could ask him why?

Being dead, no answer would be forthcoming, so we received none, we just dealt with the stench. After both doors were open, and a light breeze established, we explored in earnest. The living room was a hodgepodge of endless shelves, with papers galore scattered everywhere.

There were shelves upon shelves around us, lined with small cubby holes, and even ratholes, all stuffed with papers and junkmail. We also noticed something strange and notable, every wall we saw was possibly painted dark brown(or possibly very dingy dark blue, sometimes they were both indistinguishable). Not a very aesthetically appealing color choice, but there it was.

I picked up a grey letter opener, and threw it down immediately; It was kind of slimy, and greasy to my brief touch. There were two very dirty dark couches, and a single reclining chair, which none of us were willing to try out, plus a small coffee table,also full of papers and more junk mail, I checked.

Every single small shelf was stuffed with worthless papers, junk mail, local advertisements, and overdue bills of course. We moved on to the next room past the large staircase that started in front of the main open door.

There was an amazingly dirty and dark kitchen there, and the sink was filled with moldy dishes, very nasty; It was in need of a damned good cleaning and disinfecting, and possibly a burning. Walls were still black here in this kitchen, like the other rooms.The only light that worked was the oven light above the burners, and it was also yellow and dingy. It cast more of a pall over the entire horrible picture in the sink, and it might have been far better as something unseen anyway. Some horrible sights aren’t meant to be viewed after all.

We decided to head upstairs. Another interesting thing about this trip is we were all from completely different generations. Arty was quite old, Tucker was middle aged, and I was too damned young, yet none of us were comfortable wandering by ourselves in that strange lonely house. We could all somehow sense something was completely off, darkness and decay prevailed in every corner inside that strange house. I suppose fear runs deep in us all, and it doesn’t know such a thing as age.

From the impression I received to that point, I could have been paid 500 bucks, I’d never spend a single night in that house alone, and I suspect both my Uncle Tucker and my grandpa Arty would have both agreed on this. There was an atmosphere there, a horrible miasma that I couldn’t define, and we all felt it, but we were there, so we had to go on after all.

We ventured upstairs, and Tucker tried the old wooden bannister, which was probably there since the house was built over 100 years ago.

It shook like a helpless palsy victim, unsteady, and completely unreliable. If one longs for a broken neck, certainly they are welcome to rely on it. Tucker let go pretty quick, and we all slowly ascended the creaky stairs, Arty first, my uncle followed, then myself.

There was no lighting on these stairs, so we proceeded slowly, and oh so carefully, considering the sad state of the bannister. We crept up the stairs, dark as it was, We heard the wind whistling through the front and back doors,and little else. We reached the top, and strange as it was, none of us continued without the others right there. Turns out we were all equally hesitant. It made zero difference whether we were 12, 35, or 65 years old, creepy is always creepy.

We all got to the top, and Arty found the first room, a large bathroom. He flicked the switch, and a single overhead light came on, strangely still yellow like the others. What it illuminated, we didn’t really want to see.

There was a large old fashioned bathtub, claw-footed, and dirty beyond description, dark grey and dingy on the outside, and almost black with unknown stains on the inside. Almost no white porcelain was visible at all. Apparently Arty’s old friend didn’t care much about cleanliness, neither with himself, nor his abode.

On the sink was a dirty b****y toothbrush, a stack of dingy washcloths, and a whole lot of pill bottles scattered about. I cannot imagine how many medical issues he had, but the evidence was quite clear. He lived a very lonely life, and probably a very painful one; He suffered before his end, no doubt. This bathroom was the dirtiest and most disgusting I’ve ever seen to this point, and nothing worth keeping, we all moved on.

As we walked into the master bedroom, a door slammed downstairs, and all three of us visibly jumped, and immediately laughed afterwards. Of course it was the back door, left open for airflow, undoubtedly. Although the funny part was the airflow continued, and we moved into the next room anyway.

Arty hit the light, and wished he hadn’t. There were black bookshelves on two sides, and a large bed in the middle:unmade of course, and the sheets and blankets were stained brownished with dried blood.

It was almost like a scene from a horror movie, minus the actual gore stained body. It smelled bad as well, and the dim lighting didn’t help, or maybe it did, since none of us wanted to see much of this.

Tucker ran past me, gagging, to the bathroom, and stood over the disgusting toilet dry heaving for a few minutes. I suppose Arty and I were of sterner stuff, were we of the same blood after all; and we stood there, noticing all the horrible details.

Both my grandfather and I stood there in silence for at least a few minutes, drinking it all in, while Tucker retched in the bathroom. The dirty white sheet and the tan blanket both had extensive blood stains on them. I finally asked Arty whether his friend had actually died here, at home, and all I got was a grunt, as was his way. It could have been either a positive, or negative answer, I never found out. My whole life, Arty never spoke very much to me at all. Not to my memory, my grandmother did all the talking usually.

In fact, looking back, I can’t remember a single long conversation Arty ever had with me beyond possibly two sentences. We had a strange relationship, my grandfather and myself. It never changed, neither for the better or worse.

Arty grunted, pointed, and once in a while laughed, and made a short joke or two to me rarely, but that was the extent of his responses generally. A man of few words would be a complete understatement in his case. Often, he merely nodded, but mostly smoked his flavored pipes in utter silence. I never quite understood him, but I respected him, and often just stayed out of his way.

Both Arty and I stood, looking at the blood, and the room, for at least five minutes, drinking it in, hearing Tucker being sick in the background. I never got an actual answer to my question, other than Arty’s grunt, so I carefully walked around. All the bookshelves were full, mainly books on theology, religions, and philosophy. I wondered if they were ever actually read, or just there for show, and to fill space, and yet if they were only randomly there, why were they so specific?

I remember trying to pluck one from the shelf, it felt clammy to the touch, and I immediately replaced it, somewhat disgusted at the time. I would be taking no books either it seemed. The only light was also overhead, and thankfully dim, darkness can be a good thing at times.

Neither one of us wished to look further around the b****y room,I noticed dark stains on the brown rug, I didn’t ask, Arty noticed them too, and we exchanged glances, nothing more. There were drawers to open, but we were not so inclined.

One of them could have been full of cash, or diamonds, yet neither of us really wanted to look further in that room. Wouldn’t have surprised me to open a dresser drawer and find a beating heart inside. When Tucker’s sick sounds stopped, we left the master bedroom and turned to the other one. The guest room I suppose. Although I couldn’t imagine any willing guests in that house, at any time.

We walked into a thankfully clean but bare room. There was a single dark wooden dresser, and a bed with no blankets, looking forlorn and empty in the middle of the dim space. One small lamp sat on the dresser, also giving off that same sickly yellow light. Like the illumination was somehow sick. If cancer had a color, that light defined it.

I wondered then why each and every room was dimly lit, or yellowish, with mainly only overhead lights responding to the switches. I was to find out quite soon. While we were looking around upstairs we heard a slow creaking above us, could be the house shifting, or something else, we were not really sure.

Tucker gave me a slightly worried look, and in that moment, I knew absolutely that he would have preferred to be anywhere else other than there, in that old place.

Arty gently grabbed his arm, nodded, and we continued. In the upstairs hallway there were no hanging pictures or paintings anywhere, just the dark almost slimy walls themselves. So far none of us had taken a single object for ourselves, they just didn’t seem to feel right somehow. The objects we might have actually liked felt wrong. Clamminess would be a total understatement. Even the walls were this way on every side.

There was an abhorrent type of slimy “skin” over everything in the entire house. I wasn’t the only one that felt it, twice I saw Arty pick up objects, only to put them immediately down again, and Tucker once picked up a book in the living room, only to toss it down then and there with a grunt of disgust. Combined with the dim yellow lighting over all, I wouldn’t have wanted to stay there for any lengthy period.

We left the guest room, with the slow creaking above us, and went down a short hall, and above us was a short rope, attached to an attic trap door, and the rope was slowly swinging on its own, although no breeze was actually moving it.

There was a fresh smell coming from the open doors way downstairs, but no actual breeze up here, yet the attic cord swung regardless. Like a subtle invite.

Arty looked at me, and Tucker vocalized what we were thinking. “Probably nothing up there but cobwebs and old junk, anyone really want to go up there and check?”

All three of us looked at each other, and we all shook our heads no almost in unison. We wouldn’t be exploring the attic that night, or any night ever.