Chapter Seven
Pumpkin House
Gregory sighed and rested his chin in his palm. He heard a loud sound from his right, as the Kings wall clock, which was covered in a number of unnecessary things, marked the hour. He was in Justin's living room, waiting for him to return from a phone call from one of his relatives. Currently he found himself sitting in a couch that looked quite expensive, but was as ugly as sin…as many really expensive things usually are.
Gregory was getting extremely bored, and quite impatient. After the first ten minutes he had tried to entertain himself by tapping his fingers on the glass coffee table in several rhythms and tunes…this hadn't kept him busy for long.
He then pulled out the photo of his parents and him. He found himself carrying it around with him wherever he went now. He just couldn't seem to find a good place to put it after losing his box. He had tried to leave it on his shelf or in his wardrobe…or perhaps even in a shoe box, but every time he thought he had found some place to put it he would get paranoid about losing it again. It was, now, the only truly emotional thing he had left from his mom and dad. He cursed Edward and Violet under his breath.
"Okay," Justin said as he walked in the room. "Sorry about that, Stan and George, cousins on my moms side. They were going to come down in a couple of weeks, but decided on maybe coming a bit sooner. Which actually works pretty great for us. If this plan of mine doesn't work, I guarantee you that one of them could give those rotten brats a serious beating." Gregory nodded. He really couldn't care less how big Justin's cousins were. After he had cooled down he decided that he'd rather not take the violent course of action when dealing with the Wayward kids. He wanted to hurt them where they hurt him…or as close as one could get when dealing with two children who don't seam to have a conscience or any human emotions. They took away something that meant a lot to him…so he'd take away something that meant a lot to them…in this case…their pride, reputation, and perhaps their nerve.
"We'll only do that if the plan fails miserably of course." Justin said, perhaps after seeing Gregory's less then enthusiastic attitude at the idea of beating Edward and Violet senseless.
"Yeah…" Gregory said. "So…how are we going to go about this?" He asked curiously. Justin had gone over his plan with him the night before. He had felt a little wary about it at the time…but in the end decided his fear was quite irrational. There were…after all, no such thing as Haunted Houses.
Besides, it was a good a plan. Him and Justin were both technically outsiders to the town. Neither of them really believed in all of the superstitious nonsense that the rest of the towns residents seamed to live by. In this aspect the whole plan made perfect sense. Justin had found the thing that the two monstrous children were afraid of, why not run with it.
"Simple." Justin began. "We just need to lure Edward and Violet into the house…then scare the crap out of them, it shouldn't be too hard…if we get them good enough they'll run away screaming. We spread it around school, they lose their reputation, and from then on…who knows."
"Ok," Said Gregory. "I get that part…what I mean is…How are we going to get into the house?"
Justin gave him a weary look.
"Oh please, that shouldn't be too hard, we'll just pick the lock…you know…break in." Gregory looked at him uncertainly.
"But…what about the owner?" He asked.
"Oh, he won't be a problem. I saw him leave again this morning, and he is almost never around. It'll be months before he returns." Gregory nodded. He sighed and searched his brain for any other possible things that could go wrong.
"Ok, but what happens if any of the rest of the town sees us?" Justin was ready for him.
"Oh, you don't have to worry about that. No ones lived near that house in twelve years…well…there's that Stiltz guy…but people think he's crazy…anything else?"
"Yeah," Gregory said quietly. "Are you sure this is going to work…I mean, you know…Edward and Violet won't…like come after us and beat the crap out of us…I mean…this will hurt them right?" Justin smiled knowingly. Gregory found this quite irritating for some reason, but decided that if they were going to work together that he should probably at least try to like Justin…or at least try to stand him.
"Gregory, let me ask you something, let's say you have a man who, oh, say, works his whole life to make as much money as he possibly can."
"Ok…" Gregory said, raising his eye brow. He hated it when people answered questions without actually answering them.
"And lets say this man ends up having a lot of money."
"Yeah…" Gregory said dully.
"Well, this guy lives only for his money. It's all he knows…he hasn't got a clue how to live any other way."
"Is this some kind of metaphor or something?" Gregory asked. "Because I'm not to great with metaphors." Justin ignored him.
"Well what happens when the man goes bankrupt?" Justin asked. He stared at Gregory for a moment who shrugged.
"He'd be upset…I guess."
"Yes, He wouldn't know what to do with himself! Edward and Violet are like that…except…with causing pain and anguish and stupid senseless violence." Justin finished the last line rather quickly.
Gregory nodded, trying to hide his impatience.
"You see, All Edward and Violet have is being violent and stupid. It's all they do. When they don't have anyone else to beat on…they beat on each other…the only respect they get is caused by the fear they ensue in people. And that, along with their image, is exactly what we're trying to damage. If we take away the only thing they have…they won't know what to do with themselves. I'm quite looking forward to seeing them suffer, personally."
Gregory watched him for a moment. Throughout his speech two thoughts that could seriously ruin their partnership entered his mind. One was that Justin was probably a total psychopath. The other, the one that Gregory was far less fond of was that he had actually felt a twinge of pity for the Wayward kids, that was, if what Justin was saying was really true. If it wasn't, then he'd go back to not caring…but if Edward and Violet had nothing except what he was aiming to take away from them…well…that was kind of sad.
Gregory decided that he wouldn't let any amount of pity, whether it was right to feel or not, ruin his plans in any way. He was still angry at Violet for throwing his box into the lake, and he decided that since these were probably not the sort of bullies one could just pay off…he'd have to pay them off in a different sort of way. He didn't want to spend any longer in Pumpkin Town with a shadow as great as the Wayward kids hanging over him the entire time.
"Hello Gregory…" He was snapped out of his thoughts as one of Justin's small and…somewhat feminine hands passed in front of his face.
"Huh…what?" Gregory asked.
"I just asked you if you understood what I meant." He said, a little irritatingly.
"Wha? Oh, yeah! I got it…right." He said quickly, mostly to avoid hearing the metaphor again.
"Alright then. So...lets get going." Gregory snapped his head up curiously.
"Go where?" Justin sighed.
"To the Pumpkin House!"
"Now?" Gregory asked wildly.
"Yes now! It's the weekend, we're not doing anything, I'll grab a couple tools to get into the house and we'll check it out…you know…feel out our battle field and all that stuff." He nodded to himself and then left the room. Gregory watched him go.
He wished very much that there was another way to do this.
"Oh well." He said quietly to himself before getting up off the couch.
It was a rather warm day for the month of October. Gregory walked a little ways ahead of Justin who was walking at what Gregory thought was a prissily slow speed. He felt a warm breeze rustle through his untidy hair, and smiled a little, thinking vaguely that it was a shame he didn't have any friends. Today would have been a terrific day for hanging out.
"Wait up Greg." Came Justin's voice from behind. He sounded irritated. Gregory stopped and waited for him to catch up.
"Hurry up." He said, impatience playing into his voice. Justin gave him a dark look that he seamed to try to hide quickly with a terribly false looking smile.
They walked on like that for a bit until they reached the end of town. Then both of them slowed down considerably. And upon trying not to look culpable, the guilt began to show on their faces. Gregory started to wonder what sort of trouble he might get in if he was caught trying to break into someone's house. Especially if that house had once belonged to the towns beloved owner. After a while he tried not to think about it.
When they reached the end of the road, and the Pumpkin House began to tower above them Gregory caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned quickly, and jumped when his gaze met with a man who was sitting on his front porch, sipping at Iced tea. The man lowered his glass and watched the boys suspiciously.
"Justin?" Gregory whispered.
"What?" Justin said while looking at him oddly for lowering his voice.
"Someone's watching us." Justin looked startled for a moment then followed Gregory's gaze to the older man.
"Oh." He said. "Don't worry about him, that's just Mr. Stiltz. He's the one off his nut…remember?" Gregory nodded, remembering what Justin had said just a half an hour before.
"Just ignore him." Justin added before continuing to walk.
"Alright…" Gregory said hesitantly before following him.
The man watched them as they went. He emptied his glass of iced tea then slowly stood from his rocking chair.
"Foolish kids." He whispered as he went inside, closing his screen door behind him.
The Pumpkin House had looked big to Gregory on the bridge over Skeleton lake, but now that he was there, entering the gate to the front yard, he saw that it was not so big at all…it was enormous. The house was made mostly of brick, which had once been black but had faded over the years to a dark gray. The whole face was covered in windows that made Gregory thing about the sort of castles one found in a Dracula movie. At the very top on one side of the house the windows became cathedral style. And to top the whole thing off the roof was made of deathly black shingle and all sides of it came to a point giving the house a top one could cut one's finger on. .
Gregory followed Justin down the front walk, which was buried under a crimson wave of autumn leaves.
"Wow." He whispered breathlessly. To Justin, the sight appeared to have been wasted. He gave the house a quick look, then turned his gaze off to the side somewhere. Gregory had taken it for boredom at first. But when he actually looked at Justin what he saw was unease.
"Let's go around." Justin said. "You know…to the back…" Gregory nodded. He wasn't too thrilled at the idea of breaking into the house period, but if he was going to do it…he'd prefer it be from the back, instead from the front where anyone could see them. This was, after all, common sense.
The back of the house wasn't quite as impressive as the front, but it still made any other place Gregory had ever seen look dull by comparison. It was covered in leaves and several tree's which twisted and winded with each other. The fence stood tall and was covered in ivy. In the corner Gregory saw a very old sort of well, which induced in him a shiver, well's were always the worst sort of thing one could find at a haunted house, what with their seemingly endless drop down into the still darkness. Gregory looked away when he began to get nervous, and focused on the back door instead. It was entirely glass, and had an odd and intriguing design on it that made one think of broken mirrors, or cracked windows. Justin looked at it tastelessly.
"Why can't people just have a proper door?" He said mostly to himself. Gregory, who was admiring the door gave him a tired look.
"Not everyone wants to be like you Justin." He said before stepping onto the small porch the door was on. He felt Justin's gaze burning into the back of his neck.
"You know, if your going to side with this town and their completely obsessive need to be opposite of ever thing or behavior that is normal, you can just go home now." He said coldly. Gregory gave Justin a peculiar look.
"Relax, I wasn't aware that this had anything at all to do with the town." He said, his voice edging with sarcasm. Justin's lips seamed to tighten. Then, he seamed to realize where he was, and what he was doing and he calmed down a bit.
"Sorry," He said. Which actually did catch Gregory off guard. "I'm just sort of tired of people ragging on me because I'm not into all of this Pumpkin stuff." Gregory nodded uncomfortably before turning back to the door.
"No problem." He said quietly. "It isn't like I am…so…how are we going to get in here?" He asked. Justin stepped up beside him and opened the tool box he had brought with him.
"Easy…" he said, before getting to work.
He began pulling things from his tool box that Gregory had never seen. He brought them up to the door and tried a number of things that were suppose to open it. After a while Gregory began to suspect he had no idea what he was doing.
"Uh, Justin…where did you learn how to do this?" He asked curiously.
"Huh? Oh, one of my cousins taught me. Sorry it's taking so long, I'm a little rusty." Gregory nodded. He decided he didn't ever want to meet Justin's cousins. Something about the way he described them made them sound sort of like convicts or something.
"Did your cousins give you the case too?" Justin shook his head as a piece of his tool broke off in his hand. He cursed.
"No, I swiped this from Edward when he was in detention." He said.
"Oh." Gregory said quietly before looking away and examining the yard again. By the time Justin finally got the lock he had gotten rather sick of it.
"Alright! Got it! Ok, you go ahead." He said, while pulling open the glass door.
"Why do I have to go in first?" He asked quickly. Justin's lips tightened.
"Because, someone has to go inside, that's you, and someone has to stay out here and keep watch, that'll be me. I'll give you a signal or something if I see someone." Gregory looked at him for a moment in disbelief.
"You not coming too?" He asked wildly.
"No, we can't both go in, someone has to make sure no one's going to catch us." Gregory stood on the front walk for a moment, wishing, not for the first time that his aunt wouldn't have brought him to this town…nothing good was seaming to come of it.
"Fine!" He said grudgingly, before stepping into the house.
"Remember, just find things that'll be useful when we get Edward and Violet!" Gregory waved a hand back at him in an aggravated gesture before he retreated deeper into the darkness of the Pumpkin House.
Outside, Justin closed the door. He smiled to himself. So far things were going very well. The tough part, of course, would be luring Edward and Violet into the house, but he thought when the time came that they could do it with fairly no oversights.
Gregory was making an excellent pawn. After he did the stuff that Justin couldn't, he planned on dropping him. It should be easy. Then he would take the whole thing from there and things between him and the Wayward kids would end. He had said he wanted to scare them but he wanted much more then that…he decided that they would pay for all of the agony they put him through and that meant that he needed to do more then humiliate them a little….much much more. Justin laughed softly to himself.
Tick Tock Tick Tock. The black stillness of what Gregory assumed was the kitchen was being broken by the sound of a large grandfather clock. Gregory looked at it uneasily as he walked past it, his eyes fell to the small glass door on it's base. Behind it were the chains one needed to pull in order to keep it winded and the pendulum moving. What sort of man who was never around kept his clock winded? Gregory shrugged and kept moving throughout the kitchen nervously.
On every side of him pieces of furniture rose up looking very foreign in the darkness, as they glittered lightly in the light that was cast from the door to the backyard. Gregory looked about for a light switch and was devastated when he couldn't find one. Alright, Gregory thought to himself, what sort of man kept his clock running when he wasn't around AND didn't have any lights in the house. He frowned and decided to just keep moving, he could at least get to a room with more windows.
The next room looked like a living room…or sitting room, whichever one called it in a house that by all rights could've been a castle. It was huge. The ceiling walls rose up exceedingly. Above the living room Gregory saw a balcony that looked down at it from upstairs. The staircase that one took to get there winded about in a spiral. His eyes wiped across the room, taking it in. He took a few steps backwards, trying to get a better look at the upper floor when he heard a SWOOSH sound behind him. He spun around quickly to find a large stone fireplace behind him. The fire had lit itself. He stared at this stupidly for a moment before progressing towards it. His legs suddenly felt very heavy as he approached the hearth.
"No problem." He whispered to himself. "There's no such thing as haunted houses. There's got to be a reasonable explanation."
He leaned over cautiously, examining the flames. Underneath them a piece of wood was being eaten away. Gregory touched the stone of the fireplace. It felt cool under his fingers. It was real stone. He felt along it for a little while before feeling something on the side. Knobs or switches. He pulled on and nearly jumped out of his skin when another large Swooshing sound ensued and the orange dancing flames became a surreal bluish color. He peered slowly over to the switches he had found, and flipped another. The fire died.
"It's mechanical. Holy crap." He said softly. The awe he felt in light of his discovery died quickly when he heard another sound from behind him. There was a scraping on the floor that sounded vaguely like quiet footsteps. He turned, trying to see what it was, but couldn't make out much f anything in the darkness. The footsteps stopped. He decided it was time to find a light. If this guy had a mechanical fireplace then he had to have a light switch somewhere.
He looked about the room, on the far wall was a box that looked a little like the gray sort that one found in a basement, which ran the electricity for the whole house. Gregory crossed over to it curiously. He carefully opened the tiny door and peered in. There were hundreds of switches. He put his chubby hand to one cautiously, deciding whether or not it was a good idea to be messing with something that he was not at all familiar with. He heard another scrape and something that sounded like a low growl, and decided to take his chances with the box. He flipped the switch. Nothing happened.
Upstairs, above the winding staircase, through a long hall and a series of doors that one would find locked no matter what time a day it was or who was home, a light in a room far to the right of the house turned on. Inside the room, which looked to be a sort of office, a man was awoken from an afternoon nap, taken obviously by mistake, (Given the fact that he was sitting at a desk and still had a pencil in his hand.) by the sudden illumination. He sat up and blinked sleepily, while looking about in confusion.
Gregory shrugged and began to try some of the others, he got through five before he actually saw the result of one. An overhead light came to life above him. He sighed in relief. At the same time the growl from behind him became louder. He turned in time to be scared half to death as something jumped out at him from behind one of the couches in the center of the room.
Gregory yelled loudly before stepping to his right and tripping over a foot rest. He came crashing to the floor. When he raised his head his eyes met with that of a very small dog. He was suddenly very glad he had gone into the house by himself. The dog's growls became friendly barks as Gregory struggled to sit up. The dog peered at him curiously.
"Jeez!" Gregory whispered harshly. "Scared me half out of my mind!"
It reached about up to Gregory's knees and was almost completely white except for a ring of black around its left eye. Gregory saw a tag handing around the dogs neck. He reached out cautiously and took the tiny silver charm that hung at the end of the black collar in his hand. It was a pumpkin. He was hit by a wave of irony. He remembered what Mr. Venison had said about the guy who owned this house and the Kings. He had said even Jeff and his family were more cut out for Kingston then the new owner of the Pumpkin house, and yet he had a dog that he put a pumpkin collar on. He leaned closer to read the tiny and rather lovely print across the pumpkins surface. Zero it read.
The dog seamed rather friendly, and probably did not make the best watch dog, considering someone had just broken into his masters house and he was currently doing nothing but soaking Gregory's palm with his tongue. Zero began to bark loudly. As Gregory attempted to wipe his hand of the dogs saliva he was hit by a thought that made him uneasy.
What sort of man wound his clock up, had his fireplace turned on so it would burst into life with the first sign of movement and left his dog alone in the house…if he wasn't going to be there. A terrible realization hit Gregory even before he heard a sound come from upstairs and a man's voice drift down from the hallway.
"Zero! What are you barking about?"
Then Gregory heard footsteps.
Ah another chapter finished. Sorry about the cliffhanger, but, I needed to find a good place to end it, and this was as good of a place as any. Please review!
To Ladybirdbuzz: Thank you very much for the extremely generous review on Chapter One of The Law Of Your Anarchic Demise. I was under the impression that I had really screwed up on the first chapter after writing it. After going through it once I refused to read it again because I was afraid it sounded terrible.
