2017 - Halloween pt. 3 - Freakshow

Constance surprised Jeremiah by being both awake and mostly sober when he brought Michael home. She set aside her painting to help the boy out of his costume and the three of them looked through his candy together. Afterward, Mama Constance and Michael curled up together under her big fluffy throw to watch the Great Pumpkin.

It didn't take long for the pair to fall asleep and while Jeremiah could sit through cartoons with an active audience, he had no interest in watching alone. He checked the locks and dimmed the lights. He debated going to bed but it was still early by his personal standards. Eventually he let himself out and, locking the door behind him, he went next door.

Pushing past the gate, he could tell the party was still going on. He'd never seen the place so busy in the years he'd been in the neighborhood. The front door was open when the priest in shepherd's clothing arrived on the decorated porch. He considered ringing the bell but someone had taped a 'bloody' note over it that read: Ring hell's bells and die. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

He took that to mean he should let himself in. He stepped across the threshold into flickering candlelight. Candles of all sizes lined the steps between the rails, clustered in groups on the sideboard, and perched on shelves. There was a dizzying scent of cloves and allspice in the warm air.

Father Jeremiah looked through the nearest doorways and saw costumed people in both directions. He had no idea who was whom or where the home's owners might be so he struck out toward the kitchen. In the wood paneled hall he passed a woman in a Venetian masquerade outfit whose lavishly ornamented dress would have been amazing on its own without the gruesome splash of blood that stained the bodice courtesy of her slit throat.

In the kitchen he had a cup of cranberry stuff from the champagne fountain then he explored the gory appetizers. There were 'finger' sandwiches and olive 'eyes' with thin strips of wavy pepper for a realistic veined appearance. A mushroom arrangement managed to look poisonous and delicious at once. A decadent spread of cupcakes speared with 'broken glass' sugar came in plain and with bloody icing.

"Artistic flair in food," Jeremiah said appreciatively as he took one of the 'finger' sandwiches. "I love it."

"They say the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach," a woman said right behind him.

He turned and found himself just inches from a sultry young woman with head of fiery red curls. She wore a maid's outfit that made him glad he was wearing a loose shepherd's robe.

"Indeed," he smiled. He couldn't back up or he'd be sitting in the cakes. "It's a curse." He wedged his free hand between them. "Father Jeremiah."

"Moira," said the young woman.

She touched his hand and he felt a sudden and incredibly strong impulse to pull her into his arms for a deep, wet kiss. He forced himself to let go of her hand, which cut the urge in half.

"Er," he said. "Do- do you know where the bathroom is?"

A funny look flitted across the pretty woman's pale features. "There's one upstairs, third door from the landing."

He smiled and excused himself. He hardly noticed the people he brushed by on his way to the stairs. The drink he'd had was far stronger in effect than it had been in flavor. He blamed it for amplifying the effect the maid had on his libido and the way reality was beginning to blur around the edges.

It was quieter on the second floor than it had been on the first, though it was as painstakingly decorated as the downstairs. Flickering candles lined the walls, broken up with leering Jack-o-lanterns. Father Jeremiah headed down the hall.

He intended to count his way to the third door but paused at the first when, glancing in, he saw a dark-haired young woman pacing. She was holding a bundle that was wrapped in a long red shawl. The extra length of crimson fabric spilled down her side and leg in way that reminded him too much of the Venetian woman with the slit throat.

The dark-haired girl sang softly to her armful in a minor key that struck the priest as peculiar. But then everything had taken on the feel of a strange dream to him. Her dark eyes lifted and locked with his. Her gaze was eerily intense, like Ethan's.

"Say happy birthday to my baby," she said. "Her name's Shelly. I named her after the girl in the The Crow." She looked down at the bundle she held. "Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children..."

She turned away and started singing to her baby again. Jeremiah thought it best to move along.

The next two doors were shut. He moved past the first one and opened the next. If he remembered the maid's directions, he should have been at the bathroom. But the room he faced was another candle-choked room. Golden light danced over Halloween candy that was scattered everywhere. Candy covered the bed and littered the floor where two bare bodies were entwined in the heat of rough passion.

It only took a moment to identify Patrick and for a horrid instant Jeremiah thought it was Ethan he was having sex with. But the blond beneath him was older - a young man. Patrick was beyond noticing the intrusion but youth looked right at the priest and put a hand out in his direction.

Jeremiah blinked drowsily and suddenly found himself naked and caught up in the middle of the tangle of hot flesh. The orgy was so intoxicating and so real, it would have been simple bliss to let the moment carry him away. It was carnal satisfaction to a hunger the likes he'd never known. It took all his willpower to force his way out of the dream-reality.

With a gasp Jeremiah found himself back in the doorway, his heart hammering and body reacting to the strong signals the vision had sent. The young man on the floor was still reaching for him only his face had changed. A menacing skull of black ink stained his features.

Jeremiah fled.

He thought he had doubled back but he couldn't find the stairs. The house seemed to be stretching before him, growing rooms and turns and losing others. The faces of the Jack-o-lanterns grew creepier, more sinister and suggestive. White candles dripped red wax that pooled and ran in bloody rivulets down the surfaces they'd been left on.

The disoriented man found his way to a landing where an elderly gentleman in a maroon coat sat smoking a long, thin pipe. His eyes were like opals. A table beside him was covered with all sorts of unusual liquors, most of the bottles dusty with age. A tarnished silver absinthe carafe nestled in the center. The man said something to Jeremiah but the priest couldn't hear what he was saying. He couldn't focus on anything but the man's weird milky-white eyes.

The world rushed forward and blurred into so many colors and intensity of sound, smell and perception that he couldn't keep up with it. Everything went black.

When he woke, Jeremiah was safe at Constance's home, in his bed. He had a slight headache and a vague recollection of a really intense party but there were no details to the memory. Despite the lack - or because of it - he said a few additional prayers that day. But it didn't ease the tainted feeling that haunted the fringes of his thoughts.

...

2018 - morning after the earthquake

The waking world came slowly to Father Jeremiah, against his will. He had been up until the wee hours of the morning sitting at the hospital with Michael, waiting to find out what would happen next. The doctor had called the time of death shortly after the arrival of Constance's body but it still took several hours of processing and paperwork and just plain waiting before they had been able to return home. Jeremiah had put Michael to bed and fallen asleep on the couch shortly after.

Only four hours had passed since he'd crashed out but the smell of coffee was so strong, he couldn't help wondering where it was coming from. He hadn't put any on. The mystery wouldn't let him drift off again but it was the sound of dishes rattling that really brought him around.

"Michael?" he grunted, sitting up. He swiped sleep from his eyes and blinked in the direction of the kitchen.

"Of course it isn't Michael, silly," Constance chided in good humor from the doorway. She had a plate of raw bacon in her hand. "Do you want toast?"

Jeremiah blinked dumbly at her a few times. Then he rubbed his eyes furiously. When he looked at the doorway she was gone. He shook his head. The smell of coffee was still strong. He got up and went to the kitchen. Looking in, he saw Constance at the stove, laying strips of bacon in a preheated pan. Fresh coffee was percolating.

"Constance?" Father Jeremiah asked. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

She flashed a quick smile at him. "What's the matter with you? You aren't comin' down with somethin', are you?"

Jeremiah rubbed his forehead. His head hurt. "Er. I'm not... sure."

He thought back over recent events. He remembered the eternal sitting in the hospital waiting room with Michael's head on his lap. He remembered waiting by Constance's body on the sitting room couch before the ambulance came. He remembered fetching her out of the house next door.

He remembered her dying.

But here she was, plain as the morning, making bacon and toast. She looked fine; better than usual, in fact.

"You might want to lay back down," she advised in her mother-knows-best tone. "If you're comin' down with something, we don't want you spreadin' it around."

Jeremiah was tempted to follow her advice. If he lay back down and woke up again, perhaps the world would start making sense again. But he couldn't. If Michael woke and found his dead godmother serving breakfast... it just wasn't something Jeremiah could risk sleeping through.

"Uh, Constance," he said. "Do... you remember anything from last night?"

"Just that nasty storm," she said. She put the last of the bacon in the pan and set the plate in the sink. "Took out the power. But they got it fixed right quick, didn't they?"

"Do you remember going next door?"

Constance paused and looked at him. "Next door? No. Why would I do that?"

Jeremiah wasn't sure how to answer that. "You were checking to make sure they were okay. There... there was an earthquake."

The verbal prompt didn't seem to jog her memory.

"You don't remember the quake?" said Jeremiah.

She shook her head and smiled. "I honestly don't."

He returned the smile with a fake one but she was already back to her cooking. He had no idea what to do. He had seen many unusual things in his time and had thought himself prepared for just about anything when he took this assignment but this was beyond his personal scope. Terra incognita.

"Constance," he tried again. "There was an earthquake last night. A pretty serious one."

She turned the bacon and checked on the toast. "Can't have been too bad. We have power."

"It went out last night," Jeremiah said. "There was- we thought there might have been an ambulance next door so you went over to check on the neighbors. Do you remember that?"

"I already told you I don't," said Constance. "Why is it so important? Are you tryin' to get me off the sauce again? Because I didn't have hardly anythin' to drink last night."

"No," Jeremiah said emphatically. "Constance, you got hurt."

She looked at him quizzically. "Don't be silly. I feel fine."

"I saw you get crushed by part of the house," said Jeremiah.

She frowned at him like he'd gone crazy. "I think you had yourself a really bad dream, sweetheart. Go lay down on the couch. I'll bring the thermometer in after I finish cookin'. I've still got Addie's doctor's number... He makes house calls."

"I don't need a doctor," Jeremiah insisted. He was beginning to feel a bit crazy though. Could he be mistaken? He decided to fall back and rethink his approach. "I think I will lay down. Just... Yeah."

He left the kitchen but he headed upstairs, to Michael's room. He peeked into the dark room but the boy was still asleep. Jeremiah hesitated to wake him. If he remembered Constance dying, then he would likely be an emotional tangle already. If he didn't and Constance's death was just a bizarrely realistic dream of Jeremiah's, he didn't want to upset the boy with it.

He shut the bedroom door and sat down beside it to wait for Michael to wake on his own.

...

The earthquake had left a dislodged beam in the foyer of Murder House and a sinkhole in the back yard. The sinkhole wasn't spreading so the city simply inspected the nearby pipes and cordoned off the hole. Then they left it for the property manager to deal with.

The fallen beam in the foyer eventually attracted Nora. She, like the other souls in the house, had been occupied the night the earthquake felled the beam but now its presence bothered her to no end. She wasn't strong enough to move the thing. Fixing it was beyond her scope of imagining. So she circled it repeatedly, patting the wood occasionally, and muttering to herself about it.

"Mrs. Montgomery," said Hayden impatiently. She'd called the woman's name four times and only now seemed to be registering. "Mrs. Montgomery! It's your turn to watch the babies!"

Nora glanced over at the impertinent young serving girl. "How dare you take such a tone with me," she scolded. But the wooden beam was distracting, keeping her from injecting much acid in her words. "You were hired to watch my baby. If you didn't like the terms, you shouldn't have taken the job."

Hayden rolled her eyes in disgust. As long as the foyer was a mess, she'd get no help from the blond woman. "Gah!" she exclaimed and stomped out of the room.

She would have to wrangle both of the little monsters herself. Again.

They were easy to find. They loved the basement as much as Charles did. She could always count on finding Shelly in the mustiest, most disgusting crevice and she was usually there with Thaddeus. They chewed on one another as often as they got along but the damage, while disgusting to see, didn't seem to bother either infant for long. But the noise they made could get nerve-wracking.

Hayden found Shelly and dug her out of a pile of mildewed rags. At nearly a year old, she was amazingly lifelike and passably close to what a human baby should be. Her skin was too pale and had a bluish pallor thanks to gray veins that lay just beneath her thin paper-white skin. Her black hair was patchy but many babies had patchy hair. It was her sightless white eyes and her brackish hole of a mouth that really set her apart. But she was, in Hayden's eyes, far more beautiful than any living baby. To her, the child was perfection. Perfection coated in mildew from the rags.

"If you could stop sucking gas," she snapped at Charles as she stalked away from the screeching lump that was Thaddeus. "Your son wants you."

The doctor waved her away from his worktable. He didn't lower the inhalation mask.

Of course Thaddeus didn't take the removal of his playmate well. He latched onto Hayden's leg and delivered a sharp bite. She yelped and kicked the little brute off. Shelly laughed.

"Dammit!" Hayden swore. She looked around for the infantata but he had hidden himself among the jarred specimens. "You want to 'go away', Thaddeus? Keep biting me and see what happens."

As she took her baby upstairs she heard Thaddeus mewling but she pretended not to hear. Then at the top step she paused to say, "Maybe next time you won't bite me. Only good babies get held."

...

Violet got an email from Billie Dean the day after the earthquake. While it confirmed her general impression that the world favored tragedy, Violet was glad to hear back from the psychic. In her email Billie Dean said she had seen the ghost hunters' feed as well as the news about the earthquake and that she would be coming to California that Thursday. She would be at the house in two days.

Violet was elated. She'd always felt Billie Dean had understood her better than anyone, with the exception of Tate. She could surely help her make sense of things now. The teen re-read the email a few times before setting to answering. She wanted to convey a sense of gratitude without being all smarmy about it. It took her nine tries but she finally had something she was happy with and sent it off.

Two days. Two days and the world would change.

...


Author's Note:

Shelly is A) the name of a murdered woman in the comic book The Crow by J. O'Barr as well as the name of the little girl in the movie adaptation; B) the name of a famous poet who is often attached to "Byron and..."; C) the last name of Mary, who wrote Frankenstein. She is now also D) Hayden's little monster.

Halloween's over. Time to get back to the routine. Next chapter: Therapy!