William Gresham - Nightmare Alley

Besides, this had been Caroline’s home when they all had been alive- in earth life , she corrected herself. They had bought this house when Caroline was three. Just before Christmas it was. And she had had her Christmas tree in the niche where Miss Cahill always sat at the séances. Addie took a chiffon handkerchief from her belt and blew her nose. It was awful that all this had to start just when Caroline had begun to come through so wonderfully.

The armchair was still in the niche and Addie sat down in it gingerly. That corner was really Miss Cahill’s now; she had sanctified it by her sacrifices and her suffering just to enable Caroline to speak to them and appear in full form. Addie sank deeper into the chair, trying to reason away the feeling that somehow this wasn’t her home any more. She tried thinking back to Caroline’s third Christmas and the gifts. There was a little wooden telephone, she remembered, and Caroline had spent all Christmas Day “calling up” people.

Now the house wasn’t like home any longer-it belonged to a terrifying stranger. A stupid, jealous boor of a spirit that broke things and rapped on windowpanes until Addie thought she would lose her mind. It was everywhere; there was no escaping it. Even when she went shopping or took in a movie she seemed to feel things crawling under her skin. She had tried to tell herself it was just nerves but Mr. Carlisle had once mentioned a case he had helped to exorcise-where the poltergeist actually haunted a man’s skin. And now she was positive of it. She broke into a fit of sobbing which made her sides ache. But it was a relief. You just couldn’t feel any more miserable and that was a relief in a way.

The house was silent but on the long journey upstairs she felt herself watched. It was not by anything that had eyes, just an evil intelligence that saw without any eyes.

Addie Peabody braided her hair hastily and threw some water on her face, rubbing it a couple of times with a towel.

In bed, she tried to read one of the books the Rev. Carlisle had given her on Ramakrishna and the Yoga of Love but the words jumbled up and she found herself reading the same sentence over and over, hoping that the raps would not start again. They were only taps on her windowpane and the first time they came she had run to the window and opened it, thinking boys were throwing pebbles. But no one was there; the rooming houses across the street were all dark and asleep with their windows as black as caverns and the dingy lace curtains of one or two blowing out on the night wind. That was nearly a week ago.

Tap!

Addie jumped and looked at the bed-table clock. Ten minutes after one. She turned off the reading light and left on the night lamp in its opaque shade with the light glowing through the delicate cut-out letters: “God is Love.”

Tap!

Addie switched on the light and looked at the clock. One-twenty. She gripped the leather traveling clock in her hands, straining her eyes until she could see the minute hand actually moving, slowly and inevitably, like life itself going by. She put the clock down and clutched the spread tightly with both hands and waited. It was one-thirty. Maybe it wouldn’t come again. Oh, please, God, I have faith; indeed I do. Don’t let it-

Tap!

She threw on her robe and hurried downstairs, snapping on the lights as she went. Then the emptiness of the illumined house made her flesh creep. She put out the upstairs lights by the hall switch and the blackness up the staircase seemed to smother her.

In the kitchen Addie filled a kettle, spilling water down her sleeve, and set it on the stove for tea. A crash from the pantry made her grab the robe together at her throat.

“Dear-” She addressed the air, hoping, willing to make it hear her. “I don’t know who you are, dear, but you must be a little boy. A mischievous little boy. I-I wouldn’t want to punish you, dear. God-God is love.”

A crash from the cellar shook the floor under her feet. She was too frightened to go down to see but she knew that the big shovel by the furnace had fallen over. Then, through the still house, standing with its lights on in the midst of the sleeping city, she heard another sound from below, a sound which made her cover her ears and run back upstairs leaving the kettle humming on the stove.

From the cellar had come the metallic rasp of the coal shovel, creeping over the concrete in little jumps as if it had sprouted legs like a crab. An inch at a time. Scrape. Scrape.

This time she picked up the telephone and managed to dial a number. The voice which answered was muffled and indistinct but it was like a warm shawl thrown over her shoulders.

“I am sorry to hear it, Mrs. Peabody. I shall start an intensive meditation at once, spending the night in mental prayer, holding the thought. I don’t believe that the phenomena will trouble you further. Or, at least, not tonight.”

Addie fell asleep as soon as she got back in bed. She had made herself a cup of tea, and once she fancied she heard a sound from the cellar but even if she had she would not have been afraid, for the Rev. Carlisle was with her now, in spirit. If only she could persuade him to stay over for a few days at the house. She must ask him again.

The old gray stone house was dark and as silent as its neighbors. A milkman, driving on his lonely route, saw a man in a dark overcoat pulling what looked like a length of heavy fish-line out of a cellar window. He wondered if he oughtn’t to tell the cops but the guy was probably a wack. There were a lot of ’em in this territory.

Light was beginning to show at the window when Molly Cahill turned over and found Stan slipping into bed beside her. She buried her face in the hollow of his throat for a moment and then turned back and fell asleep. You can always smell perfume on them if they’ve been with another woman. That was what people said.

Addie Peabody got up late and called the Rev. Carlisle but there was no answer. She had the oddest feeling that the ringing she heard in her own telephone also came from one of the rooming houses across the street but she put it down to her nerves. Anyhow, nobody answered.

A little later when she opened the medicine cabinet to get the toothpaste one of those big brown roaches, about three inches long, was in there and flew out at her. She was sure the poltergeist had put it in there just to devil her.

And at breakfast the milk tasted like garlic and that she knew was the poltergeist because they always sour milk or make the cows’ milk taste of garlic. And it was certified milk from the best company. She dressed hurriedly and went out. In the beauty parlor the chatter of Miss Greenspan and the heat of the dryer were restful and reassuring. Addie treated herself to a facial and a manicure, and felt better. She did some shopping and saw part of a movie before she got so restless she had to leave.

It was late afternoon when she returned. She had hardly taken off her things when she smelled smoke. For a moment she was paralyzed, not knowing whether to go and find out what was burning or call the fire department and she stood between the two ideas for several seconds while the smell got stronger. Then she saw that something was burning in the umbrella stand in the hall-evil-smelling and smoky. It wasn’t doing any damage, just smoking and Addie carried the brass stand out in the back yard. The odor was like old-fashioned phosphorous matches. That was why the ancients always said the Evil One appeared in a burst of fire and brimstone-poltergeist fires smelled like phosphorus.

Minute by minute the evening drew on. The fire had set all her nerves on edge again; she had always been deathly afraid of fires. And then the raps started at the windows and even on the fan-light above the front door.