8/13/23

UNINVITED

Pt. 2

"Oh, man, Matt, I wish you could see this," Foggy said, "This house is amazing! It's limestone with stained glass and it's huge… Almost looks like a church. You'd like it. I can't believe we get to live here for two months."

Matt gave a vague nod. While he couldn't truly see the house, he could perceive it and to him it appeared as a hulking, shadowy thing, a huge, bloated spider squatting in its web, waiting for two bumbling flies to wander into its trap… Where the hell did that image come from? He gave his head a slight shake and gave the bridge of his nose a pinch over the top of his dark glasses. He hadn't slept well the night before and now he had a pounding headache.

"Hey, man, you okay?" Foggy asked.

"Yeah, it's just a headache."

"Well, let's go inside and get settled in, then you can take a nap… Okay, there's a wrought-iron gate here and then some steps going up…"

Matt had his cane, but he still took Foggy's elbow and allowed his friend to lead him to the front door. As they approached, it was opened by a tall, thin woman in her late-forties, wearing expensive, designer jeans and a pink, silk blouse. Her brown hair was swept up in an elaborately "messy" updo. Foggy thought she was a very attractive woman, if a bit overly made-up. She smiled at them in greeting.

"Ah, you must be the boys from the university. Come in, come in," she said warmly, opening the door wider and ushering them inside. Foggy noticed that her smile faltered slightly as her eyes fell on Matt's cane.

The foyer they stepped into was formal and obviously professionally decorated, as was the rest of the large house. The woman led them to a comfortable sitting room with a long, cream-colored couch with perfectly positioned "throw" pillows. A middle-aged man with a head of thick gray hair, in an unseasonable light-colored suit was seated in a matching overstuffed armchair, but stood as the three entered.

"Ah, gentlemen, welcome to my home. I'm Peter Forrester. I don't know if my wife introduced herself yet or not, but this is Sylvia Forrester. And you boys are…?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm Foggy Nelson and this is Matt Murdock."

"'Foggy'?" Sylvia asked.

"Yeah, it's short for Franklin."

"It is?"

"Well, it is according to my weird brother. He gave me the nickname when we were kids. It sort of stuck."

Peter chuckled at this and said, "Please, boys, set your things down."

Each of the young men had a large duffle back slung over one shoulder containing clothes and other sundries. They each also had a backpack stuffed with books, papers, laptops, and in Matt's case, his voice/braille screen translator which allowed him to use his laptop and access the internet. They gratefully let these heavy items slide off their shoulders to the floor.

After an awkward moment of silence, Sylvia turned to face Matt. "So, Matt, you're … blind…" she said, stating the obvious. "Are you completely blind or do you have some sight?"

"Uh, no ma'am, I'm completely blind. Is that going to be a problem?" Matt was accustomed to this kind of reaction to his disability and knew that the best thing was to deal with it head on.

She gave a light, false laugh and turned to her husband. "Peter, can you help me with my last bag, here in the other room?"

"I thought I'd loaded everything in the car already."

"Peter…"

"Right." He turned back to the two younger men and he said, "Uh, excuse us for a moment…"

As the couple moved to another room, Foggy wandered off to gaze around, giving Matt a running commentary about what he was seeing. But Matt wasn't paying attention to his friend. His attention was focused on listening to the couple in the other room.

"Peter, you know that I have never been comfortable with this whole situation, us leaving these young men in this house without any explanation of what to expect, but I've gone along with it because you keep telling me that everything will be fine, but that boy is blind. He'll be helpless! I will never forgive myself, or you, if something happens to him. Ugh, I can't believe Martin recommended him for this."

"Relax, Sylvia, no one has ever gotten hurt and I'm sure Martin wouldn't have recommended him if he weren't a capable young man."

"Oh, no, no one's gotten hurt physically..."

"And maybe the fact that he's blind, will be to his advantage, he won't see anything," Peter continued, as if she hadn't interrupted him.

"That's an advantage?"

"Well, if he can't see anything, maybe it won't affect him."

"And his friend?"

"Will have as much chance as all the other boys, who have all been fine… just scared."

"Mmm, what about the Handford boy? He was institutionalized."

"Temporarily, and that was only because his therapist was an alarmist. I've spoken with his parents. He's doing much better now."

The woman didn't seem to have anything to say to that and after a moment, the man continued, "Look, all I know, is that I don't want to be in this house after January 10th and I'm pretty sure you don't either, so let's just get the hell out of here."

Hearing their footsteps approaching, Matt quickly turned and pretended to be listening to Foggy's prattle.

"Well, gentlemen," Peter said, his voice now bright and cheery. "The fridge and the pantry are fully stocked and you're welcome to help yourself to anything you find. We have a grocery delivery service that comes every other Sunday. The web address for the service is posted on the fridge if you want to add anything to the standing order… Oh, there's also a case of beer in the fridge, although I'm not sure that it'll be your preferred brand."

"What a coincidence, free is my preferred brand," Foggy said with a wide grin.

"Excellent! Well, if you have any issues while we're gone, you can contact Martin Graves. He can get ahold of us, but I don't imagine that will be necessary. There's another list on the fridge that has some other pertinent information you'll need, such as the security code, the password for the wifi, etc. So, unless you have any questions for us, we have a plane to catch."

"No, I think I'm all set," Foggy said, then turned toward his friend. "Matt, you got anything?"

"No, I'm good."

"Alright then, we'll leave you boys to it. Enjoy yourselves, but do remember to get some studying done," Peter said playfully.

"Oh, we will," Matt said firmly. "Won't we, Foggy?"

"Yes, we will," the other young man said, with a sigh of long suffering.

Once the Forresters were gone, the two young men went about settling in to their new, temporary home. Upstairs, they found that there were two guest rooms in addition to the master suite and they each claimed one. After depositing their belongings, they set about exploring the house. Foggy led the way, describing each room as they went.

While, with his heighted senses, Matt could have navigated the house easily by himself, he couldn't truly see it. He saw only outlines of objects and felt only vague impressions of the various spaces, so it helped him solidify these images in his mind to have Foggy describe each room's function and décor.

"And here we are, back where we started," Foggy said, after they finished touring the large house. They were back on the second floor, standing in front of the doors to their side-by-side guest rooms. "Oh, wait, there's another door at the end of the hall. I guess I didn't see it before. Let's check it out."

They walked to the end of the hall, away from all the bedrooms, to a plain, closed door. Foggy tried the handle. "Hmm, it's locked," he reported. "That's odd, none of the other doors in the house have been locked."

"Well, that's probably where they keep the dead bodies," Matt said casually.

"Yeah, you're probably right. I mean, you can't have a haunted house without dead bodies. So, we probably shouldn't disturb them."

"Good call."

"Okay, I'm gonna go down to the kitchen and check out the fridge. Wanna come?"

"No, thanks, I think I'm gonna take some aspirin and lay down for a bit."

"Head still hurts?"

"Yeah," Matt said, rubbing the spot between his eyes where the pain was the worst.

"Okay, well, you take it easy, while I investigate the food situation."

"Good idea, we want to make sure we're well prepared. I mean, who knows, there could be a zombie apocalypse tomorrow."

"Exactly! You get it…"

Still smiling and shaking his head slightly at his friend, Matt turned to head into his chosen room, but paused. He was facing toward the locked door at the end of the hall. For some reason his attention was snagged by that door. He hadn't even been aware of its existence until a moment ago, but now he couldn't seem to turn away from it. Slowly, with a caution he couldn't account for, he moved to stand in front of the door.

Reaching out with his right hand, he let his palm hover millimeters away from the wood. Was that his imagination or could he feel cold emanating from the wood? With the lightest of touches, he pressed his fingertips to the door. Yes, the wood was distinctly cold. Why? Was there some opening to the outside? A broken window, maybe? Was this something they should be concerned about?

Following the thought about what they should be concerned about, Matt wondered if he should tell Foggy about the conversation he had overheard between the Forresters. But how would he explain how he'd overheard? The Forresters had seemed confident that they were in no physical danger, but Mrs. Forrester had certainly been convinced there was a danger of some sort in the house. But so far, they'd encountered nothing, just a big, old, somewhat creepy house. Mr. Forrester had said something about Jan. 10. Was that when the strangeness would begin? If so, how did he know? Was this some sort of annual thing, an anniversary? Of what? Well, he guessed they would find out in five days.

With a troubled sigh, Matt headed back to his room to see if he'd remembered to pack some aspirin. He really hoped so.

To be continued…