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FOUNDERS' DAY
“Far, far away,
O'er the thunderous sea,
Find love for a day,
And then you'll hear from me.”
I. The Bereaved of Parthenon
“Dead!” the man cried out. “She’s hanged herself!”
“Lord help us all,” muttered a woman who’d been standing near at hand.
“What am I to do?” the speaker was apparently the husband, and he went to his knees, right there on the wet planks on the narrow strand of town where the fishing boats were all moored. People began to gather around him as they waited for the authorities.
For my part, I stood watching, from the small foot bridge that crossed what had once been a tributary. Before the outburst from the man, I’d been in a rush, for I was on my way to telling my friend the good news about the upcoming event. In the wake of the declaration, I almost forgot.
When I did get in motion again, heading towards the weather beaten houses that faced out at the sound, I chanced to run into the same friend.
“What’s happened, Roy?” he asked me, and it seemed then that the bad feeling was contagious, for it had passed to me and now I gave it to him. “I’ve never seen you look so down in the mouth.”
“Oh, just something that happened along the way, Herbert, don’t worry about that. I’m fine, really.”
“You telephoned you’d come by, and I started to worry myself. Don’t get upset about it, you were the one who entrusted me with your good behavior.”
I nodded, and laughed sadly at myself: “That I did.” I’d been back from the hospital for only two weeks at that time, and I was just glad to be back home in Parthenon. “I suppose I didn’t know what I was asking… say, why are we talking like this? I was bringing you good news.”
“You were? On the phone you made a mystery of it.”
“Herbert, they said yes. They want you and the boys to play at the event.”
“Really? They want us for the music on Founder’s Day?”
“Didn’t I say so? I took it upon myself to sneak certain folks into your last gig, and they raved about you to the selection committee.” I had to pat myself on the back for that. Herbert Gable and his Vagabonds had been toiling in obscurity since even before I’d had my breakdown, and now I’d helped to give them a break. He wrote me while I was in the sanitarium, and he talked about their playing at retirement homes as though it were starring in their own opera. It was so sad it probably convinced me that I wasn’t the one who should be depressed.
Herbert was jubilant and we walked along the docks and talked, when a woman in a veil appeared, as slow and quiet as we’d been loud and fast. Perhaps that’s why she brought my friend to a stop, or so I thought, but then I realized he knew her.
“Alison!” he said, “Alison, I say, have you ever met my friend here?”
“I don’t believe I’ve…” she started to say.
“This is Roy Bolton, Roy, meet Alison Dent! She’s home from university in New York, of all places. Roy’s been away too, but you know what he’s done, Alison? He went and got the Vagabonds a gig for Founder’s Day!”
She’d looked somewhat stunned and put off by his exuberance, but when she heard the news she perked up, and I couldn’t miss the smile through her veil: “Well, that is something! I must say, it’s high time someone took notice of some real hard working musicians.”
“Just my thought on it,” Herbert laughed. “You know, most years I’d just assume miss Founders’ Day, but I think this year will really be the one.”
“It’ll be something,” Alison remarked. “They’ll be lighting the rock up for it, and I think someone said they’ll be launching fireworks out the back of it. Even those who miss it won’t get any rest.”
“I’ve heard the same,” I said, “people are raving it’s sure to put Parthenon on the map.”
“Sure, if it isn’t blown right back off it.”
Our queer little town on the Nisqually delta was an oddity to be sure, even moreso when the city council had approved funds to carve out a great rock that formed an island. Taking its pattern from the temple of Abu Simbel in Egypt, it had been sculpted with the shapes of four seated men, the four founders of Parthenon.
These, of course, were Samuel Tremblehill, Zebulon Burke, Henry Lee Taylor, and Travis Rovenheath.
I can only imagine what a sight this made for ships steaming westward towards Olympia, for the rock came up out of the mist, with the four faces glaring out from it, with a few modest trees clinging to the beach at its base.
When I was young the rock had just been a rock, and boys my age would even row out to it to play at being pirates hiding treasure. Now it was a landmark and the symbol of prosperity for a city that had been built up from the mud of the river. For my part, I was just saddened to see how things had changed since my time, as though time were moving on without me.
“You’re coming, aren’t you, Roy?” Herbert asked me.
“Naturally,” I said, “I wouldn’t miss you at your big debut.”
“That’s fine. What are you doing today?”
“Oh, Patrick and I were going to go up to the old house and sort through mother’s things. You know how it is, so many loose ends.”
“A fine start he made on it, I mean, leaving you to catch up with him when he might have been doing it all along.”
“I suppose he’s had things to do as well. I’ll meet you later at Wrong Trawler.”
“Alright, but don’t wear yourself out too badly.”
It was some time making my way up the hill. Along the way I passed people already abuzz for the upcoming celebration, many of them already armed with noisemakers. The lampposts had American flags draped from them, and some people had put up wooden cutouts on their front lawns, some of Founders’ Rock, and others of the Statue of Liberty.
Once I crested the steps and came onto the higher street, I could already see Patrick’s automobile pitched part on the curb in front of the old house.
I went up the walk, past the stump of the old tree, and went up onto the deck towards the front door. I was just about to knock, when the door sprung open.
Patrick appeared and his eyes went wide and he took a step back.
“Patrick!” I said, “I’m sorry, I thought you might be toiling upstairs, I was going to knock.”
“You’re here…” he said, at first, his eyes unblinking, before he slowly nodded. “I suppose I could use the help. If… if you look here in the parlor you will see what a poor start I made.”
“Well, that’s fine so far, I’m sure. I see you’re sorting things into crates.”
“I brought some of that up from the cellar. She’d started in on it herself, it seems.”
I shut the door and went a little further into the room. The curtains were off all of the windows, and there was no electricity running anywhere.
“You’re looking well,” I told him. “It seems you came through that case of pneumonia well enough.”
“Yes, yes, Marybeth said you’d say that.”
“Marybeth? Oh! The woman you write to back east.”
“She’s more than that, Roy, she’s my fiancee. We have it all planned, we even have a date set.”
“Oh? Where will the wedding be? Over here, or back there?”
“No, neither place, if you must know. We… we have settled on a place in Mexico. It’s on a mountaintop. I don’t expect you’d understand.”
“Well, congratulations. Where should I start?”
Patrick Bolton, my little brother, had always been like that. He’d been the serious one. Mother used to say that he challenged people, which I suppose is the only way a mother could put it.
He’d written about a year before and started to mention this person, Marybeth, someone who had apparently been a part of a chain of correspondence, although I can’t quite claim to understand what the group was or what they all had in common.
I knew only the first name, Marybeth, that she lived in Connecticut, in a village with 300 years of history, and that she cared for two elderly aunts and that she was a crackshot with a pistol. I’m not sure why anyone in Connecticut would need a pistol, much less to be a crackshot, but there it was.
That day I worked in the basement, with the back door to it propped open to let in more light. Mostly I went about sorting stacks of milk crates which housed canisters which were empty, but which looked to be caked with some variety of filth from long ago.
“I can’t imagine what she wanted with all of this,” I said, setting aside more of it to be thrown away.
“You didn’t understand her,” Patrick said, for he’d just come down the inner stair. “she was a brilliant woman, really. We lose too many of those.”
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “You look… look like something has happened.”
His eyes wavered, looking out into the distance.
“Mrs. Faraday is dead,” he said simply. “Just this morning.”
II. The Turn of an Angry Tide
“I’m sorry. I’m not sure I remember her.”
“She and her husband lived by the waterfront. She hanged herself today, Roy.”
“Oh… I happened to be by there when he came out and said so,” I recalled, remembering the crowd. “I didn’t know at the time who they were. I assume they were friends of yours.”
He nodded slightly: “She was a very special person. She… she decided to start it this way.”
“When will the services…?”
“She’ll have no funeral,” he turned to face me, his eyes issuing the same old challenge. “She wasn’t some hypocrite who believed in making strangers look at her dead body and lie about how they knew her.”
“I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
“I don’t want you to. Do not pretend about it, that’s the point. I’m sorry if I sound harsh, I just don’t think you’d understand.”
Doom and gloom, which was also how it had always been. I always thought of myself as looking on the other side of things, perhaps that’s why I had my breakdown.
When his fury had subsided and we broke for food, I got him talking on the subject of the upcoming celebration and how I’d secured the spot for my friend and his band.
“Not ragtime?” he asked, sounding upset again. “Can it be?”
“Herbert plays what they call ‘stride’, only he has a full band. It’s like ragtime, only it’s…”
“Shouldn’t the music be more traditional? There were no such sounds when the town was founded.”
“There also weren't motorcars are electricity most places, but we have them now. Parthenon even has two houses for cinema shows.”
We were out on the front porch and the noise from a tugboat on the water below sounded, in time with him shaking his head while he finished chewing. Something was brewing.
When he opened his mouth again, it was to laugh, and to tell me: “Those are all temporary things, Roy. Don’t be like all of these young fools who think that now is forever and that the past is dead.”
“I’d never say a thing like.”
“No? You sound like it sometimes. What’s the matter with writing with a quill pen by candlelight?”
“Not much, I suppose. Might be bad for the eyes. But you can’t fault others for doing the things they want to. Besides, music is a living thing, it has always changed.”
“When one finds perfection he doesn’t cast it aside. Mark me, Roy! Soon all the movie houses and fast piano spots will be swept away. There are forces in the world which are older and more vital than these distractions of the moment. The real America is the one that was forged with the colonies, that was the real sense of this country.”
“I take it, then, that you won’t be coming to the celebration.”
“Oh, I’ll come,” he said with a calm I found disquieting. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
When night had fallen, I went into the tavern, The Wrong Trawler, and took a seat at one of the tables. The place had been a favorite for my friends and I before I went away, and it still had much of its old charm. It was a building almost as old as the first churches of the town, and some of the men I saw drinking were the same that had drank there when it was first opened.
To my surprise, it wasn’t Herbert who approached the table, but Alison Dent.
“Herbert will be right along,” she told me. “We were around the corner and he sent me to let you know he’d be along in a minute. He didn’t want you to worry.”
“Oh, thank you. You’ve known him for a while?”
“I lose track, but I think he knew my sister first. Our evil old uncle owns as much of the city as he can get his hands on, so we’ve a marked interest in the place and the people.”
“I think I know who you mean. My family have been around here a while too. My brother and I have just been sorting through the house my mother kept until she passed.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Well, it’s been six months. I’d have done something about it sooner, but I was away.”
“Herbert mentioned something about that, you know how he is, he can be so evasive,” her eyes began to wander to the seasoned old decor and she remarked: “Well! The place has its share of character, doesn’t it?”
“Oh yes, we loved this place when we were back in school. I remember once Herbert had a motorcar and we were heading here in the pouring rain when it blew a tire. We tried to fix it, but gave up and walked, then we drank until we were warm again. It wasn’t just us two, there were Derek and Clyde along in those days. I fear they’ve both moved away.”
“People do that,” she shrugged. “I think the town has picked up something of a stigma, although you only ever hear it whispered about. I’m in no position to speak on it, I pass half my time in New York. Parthenon is still a far away place for most.”
“And they say the only frontier left is in Alaska.”
“Oh no no no, don’t let me even think of that place.”
“No?”
“It’s all dirty miners and Eskimos! I think I’d go crazy if I spent even one night.”
There are a few things I could have said, but, after all, I knew just how easy it was to go crazy. People think of themselves as hale and hearty, and try to keep from admitting how soft we are in the end. Probably like all the rough and tumble miners up north who swung picks all day and drank all night, just trying to pretend that pain didn’t hurt them and there was nothing in their pasts that didn’t sit well.
“How is it down in your hole?” Herbert asked as he came up to the table. “Sorry to be so long.”
“It’s alright,” I said, “but what kept you?”
“Haggling. It’s a piano tuner around the bend here on Wilke's Street and I had to convince him to come at short notice.”
“It’s silly,” Alison said, “men in your profession should be able to do that yourselves, like a motor man with his car.”
“The car is no issue, my lady, the piano is more delicate.”
“Heaven help us, a delicate musician.”
We drank for an hour or so, talking of old times. Alison only stayed for the first drink.
Afterwards we walked along the waterfront and found a large crowd gathered near the memorial anchor mounted in the rock on the promenade.
“What’s all this?” Herbert asked.
“Didn’t ya hear?” a woman holding her infant replied. “They’re lighting the Founders’ Rock tonight! It’s been all day getting the wires strung together, and tonight they’ll finally be lighting it up.”
“Well, what do you think of that?” I asked Herbert.
“I suppose it’s an excuse to rest our feet for another moment.”
“Yes, it wouldn’t do to walk quickly right now.”
There was a sound from across the water, out in the dark. I suppose it was the workmen shouting all clear to one another so that none got a shock.
We could hear the noises of the machinery going to work, and then the lights blinked on, one by one, yellow orange spotlights that started to sculpt the great rock out of the darkness.
The glow from below almost made the figures seem like four old friends gathered at a bonfire… only it was no wholesome bonfire. I’d never quite liked the way that old Roverheath had looked at me, out across the water, not the least of which involved him being fifty feet tall when seated. The expression on the other three seemed no less menacing once the lights were on.
III. On a Lonely Hill
“It’s fabulous,” the same woman remarked. “And just think how it’ll be when the fireworks go off on Founders’ Day!”
That sentiment was echoed several times over by the crowd.
“You know,” Herbert told me, “when I was a child they always told strange stories about that old rock. Wasn’t Rovenheath supposed to have had a secret shack on it, or some such thing?”
“I don’t know where he would put it,” I said, “there’s barely room to put ashore on that. When we played hide and seek there it never took very long.”
“Still, there’s always been something about it. I think old Mrs. Faraday had taken to going there, although I’ll never know why.”
“Funny you should mention her, Patrick was saying he was a friend of hers.”
“Was?”
“Oh, you haven’t heard? She died today.”
“No one said anything to me, although, I admit, I’ve been a little distracted. I’m supposed to have a big gig in two days, remember?”
“Well, I hope Founders’ Day is a happy one. Heaven knows there’s been enough of sadness.”
“Cheer up either way, there’s always tomorrow. In fact, I think I have song about that lying around someplace.”
This, of course, was the signal for us to start for his house, and run out what was left of the night.
I was late to rise the following day, for Herbert had insisted on another drink and then another. It was a reminder of a warning my mother had once given about keeping company with musicians or anybody who worked in a traveling show. I don’t suppose she could have been wrong about everything.
When I saw the time I had to pull myself together in a hurry, for I realized I was nearly late to an appointment with the lawyer. In fact, I was sure I had bungled it all, when I caught him coming in from lunch.
At first he didn’t see me, for he was laughing and talking with another fellow, equally professional in dress.
“Ah, Mr. Bolton!” he said, showing always the same measured smile. “I was beginning to worry about you. Come along, we shall need your signature.”
“I’d be only too pleased, Mr. Antoni. I’m sorry if I’ve played havoc with your schedule.”
He hurried me past his receptionist and into his own office. He added: “No, no, don’t be silly, this is a fine time. The fellow after you is always late. Besides, some aspects of the sale of the old house may take longer.”
“Has my brother been here of late?”
“What, Patrick? I’m afraid he’s not the most cooperative. I get the impression he believes there will be no sale.”
“What?” I laughed slightly. “But how can that be? I’ve been up to the house and he’d been moving out mother’s old belongings. Why would he do that at all if there’s to be no sale?”
“Well, I can only tell what I know,” Antoni hung up his coat on the hook and found his chair. “He told me that he was looking for something of hers. I don’t believe it’s anything named in the will, but it is something he seems to think is important.”
“I haven’t any idea what that would be. From what I could tell, mother kept a lot of memories and a lot of strange ideas, but none of it was all that precious or useful.”
“Far be it for me to judge, but Patrick appears to have his own strange ideas.”
How could I argue with that?
The business took only half an hour, at the end of which the next client still hadn’t appeared and I had the impression that Mr. Antoni intended to take a second lunch. I, however, simply went for a walk.
Across the way from the office, past the road, a small eatery and a flower shop, was one of Parthenon’s graveyards. It was largely open, that is, without gates, and so I walked straight into it. In corners it was fairly choked with stones, and there was a mausoleum or two, but there were a couple of hills that rose up out of it, with benches on them, all shaded by nice full trees.
When walking the winding path up one of these, I chanced to run into Alison Dent, seated and looking out over the tombstones.
“I see death unites us all,” she said, sounding as she ever did, that is, never serious. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“Probably my head being full of drink,” I said. “I’ve been to see a lawyer and the headache is back.”
“Be careful of Herbert, he likes to win those drinking contests.”
“I think I admitted defeat well before the end. What brings you here?”
“Oh, a woman I knew is going to be buried here and I wanted to practice paying her a visit. I’m not just sure which plot it will be.”
“My mother is in here,” I said, “father too. We’re just dealing with mother’s affairs.”
“Herbert said something about that. You don’t look so old, was it natural causes?”
“She had a poor constitution, I think, always getting sick. With father it was a couple of heart attacks.”
“You seem to be at peace with it,” she observed, perhaps more coolly that I would have liked.
“I… I’ve had time to reflect on it.”
“What’s the matter with that one down there? You see, that man down among the graves?”
I looked at where she was pointing and saw it was a lonely corner of the place where the hedges grew up high and hid it from the street. It looked like it might have been a derelict, or perhaps a confused geriatric who’d wandered down from Spyglass Hill. He moved slowly, his step uneven, as though one leg or other pained him. He was far off, perhaps a hundred yards, and yet it seemed from there that his expression never changed, almost as though he hadn’t any idea of what was going on around him.
“Perhaps he needs a doctor,” I said, “looks like he can’t get along on his own.”
“There is something wrong about him,” she said slowly, her eyes fixed and unblinking. “It’s something more than what it looks like.”
“He’s just a confused old man who has lost his walking stick. They wander down from the house on the hill sometimes.”
“No, old men tremble, they wince, they show they’ve still some life in them.”
“Should we go down to help him?”
She shook her head slowly: “My car is near here. I’d appreciate if you would walk with me to it. I’d rather not linger near that.”
IV. The Restless Dead
We hurried down the hill and found where she’d left her motor on the street. I got in and rode along with her. She put on speed until we were well away from the place.
“It frightened you. Why?”
“You may think me very silly, and I shan’t mind, for most do. I don’t think what we saw was just any old man.”
“Perhaps I won’t find it silly if you tell it.”
“I don’t know if you knew Edna Farraday, I’m told she just passed. When my sister and I were young, she would sometimes watch us, until my father found out she’d been telling us about the old religion. You see, she had a lot of time to watch children, her husband was often away at sea then. She was from a long line of wise women, and she knew of the habits of the spirits, at least that’s how she termed it. What really matters about it all is that she claimed there were ways to raise the dead. The problem about that is that the spirit flees when the flesh is cold long enough. So when one reanimates the body, it is body only.”
“A mindless thing?”
“In Haiti they called them zombies, but the concept is not only from that island. You see, a living dead thing hasn’t its own will. Left alone it is still dangerous, but even worse is when a force of evil influences it. The living dead can be made to serve unseen masters, she told us. They can be made to bring about hell on earth.”
“You’ve told me that Edna Farraday told you this. You haven’t said whether you really believe it.”
“I’m not sure I believe anything firmly, Mr. Bolton, but the sight of that moving body in the graveyard put me firmly in mind of what the old girl described.”
“I suppose I can see that. Perhaps it isn’t so alien, I think my brother believes in such things.”
“It’s the believer I would fear more.”
“Oh?”
“That’s the sort of a one who would try and lead the living dead.”
I asked Alison to drop me by my mother’s old house, since we were about to pass that way anyway. I’d half suspected that Patrick might be there, but he wasn’t, so I passed a few hours working at getting the place cleared out.
The work was far from finished when I left to go and see Herbert and his band rehearse.
They had a cellar downtown, within easy distance of the Trawler, and they played mercilessly, although they argued just as hard in between. It seemed my friend was feeling the pressure of the upcoming gig.
“I don’t know what’s come over me,” Herbert told me while he smoked in the stairwell. “It must just be the stress.”
“You’ve played events before,” I told him. “Have fun and just don’t make it so big,”
“That’s easy for you to say. I’ll tell you a little secret, Roy: even if I am having fun up there, I’m also going mad inside thinking they’ll all hate me. Everybody wants the fiddler to play, but they get pretty indignant about paying him.”
“Oh, very well, if that’s your process. Say, you haven’t seen anything of Patrick today, have you?”
“Him? I don’t think he’d talk look at me, much less talk.”
“I know he’s eccentric…”
“Might be, but he’s also crazy.”
“Herbert…”
“I don’t see you as crazy, I just think you needed a little rest. Sure, everybody gets a case of nerves, but what Patrick is… well, that’s something else. I remember once I ran into him in the library and every book he was taking out was either quack science or some kind of history on devil worship.”
“Alright, alright, perhaps eccentric is too mild. What can I do, though? He’s all the family I have left, besides Watney, and I think he’s miles high in Colorado.”
Herbert snuffed out his cigarette on the metal door frame and said: “Look, I know how it is, I’ve got family too, and they’re what you’ve got, even when they’re awful. I’m just saying, you have to make nice with him, but the rest of us are probably just well avoiding him. He doesn’t want the company anyhow.”
“Mother wasn't always a normal one either. Patrick and I might have got too much from her.”
“Don't worry about them, old boy, just focus on yourself. Isn't that what the doctors said?”
That night I might have been too focused on myself, for, when I got down to bed, the dream I had was a memory.
It was of me walking along the iron rail bridge by the narrow stretch of docks that ran between Creekside and Salish streets, on that strange part of the harbor where the creek had been widened nearly into a lake. It was just as it had been the other day, the voice called out from the small houses that lined the boardwalk, saying: “Dead! She hanged herself!”
When it had happened, all I saw was the man himself, the shocked expression on his worn face, and then the people gathering around the narrow house front wedged among so many others.
Now it was different.
The front door of the house was wide open behind him, and I could see through it, even at that distance, to where candles dripped rivers of wax down from hearth in a shadowy main room, and how an object dangled before them. Had he not mentioned hanging, I might not have known that these were legs, confined inside a long black gown. The ceiling must have been high, for they swung well above the floor.
From my vantage point on the bridge, I saw the crowd begin to gather, as they had done before, only now there was no talk of calling an ambulance. Instead they all looked at old Mr. Faraday with accusing eyes, and they slowly began to converge on him.
Before I understood what went on, they had closed in on him, and one of them threw a rope up over a beam, and they’d placed the husband’s neck in the noose. It was hardly on before they took up the other end and began to pull, lifting him upwards and slowly choking him. Mr. Faraday shook and kicked and began to convulse, and I watched every agonizing second until at last he fell limp.
A cry of terror went up from me, and, as one body, the whole crowd turned to face me.
Heavy clouds obscured the sky, and in the darkening scene, I could see that each and every member of his lynch mob had burning eyes which glowed like coals.
Then one came out from among them, and this one came around to the bridge. The being moved, yet I could see it had been long dead, for its flesh was decayed, the body hollowed out. Yet it was filled with some evil life, and it came towards me.
I woke with a start and flailed in confusion in my dark little room.
When I rubbed my eyes and got some sense back, I realized it was Founders’ Day.
Bandstands had been erected in the waterfront park, and already people were streaming in. There were clusters of balloons all around and stands opened up to sell cotton candy and other treats to the growing throngs. Above the stage was a stars and stripes banner that bent like a rainbow.
As I went along the road, I had to hurry, for the high school marching band was just making their way, blasting some patriotic standard.
“Watch yourself, young man,” a shrunken old woman on the sidewalk cautioned me. “Don’t you know today is Founders’ Day?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, trying to force a smile. “Thank you.”
V. Shut Inside
I’d missed breakfast, and lunch had been a rushed thing at one of the waterfront cafes. Soon would come the speeches and I planned to fill myself on sponge cakes or whatever was on hand.
When I came up to behind the stage, I found Herbert and his band mates, reciting the set list again.
“I take it you rehearsed?” I prodded him.
“Weren’t you meant to be here sooner?” he asked, no smile on his face. “We practiced, thank you.”
“Has Alison been here today?”
“I think I saw her. Give me a moment, Roy.”
Excitement was tuned up to a fever pitch, everybody in hysterics readying the release of balloons and the various guest speakers.
Soon I was devouring elephant ears and looking out over the crowd while the mayor rattled off the achievements of the city, saying it had become “a jewel of the northwest”, perhaps deliberately leaving out the better known settlements in the region.
I was at the back, and so I was up against a series of tall boards that had been erected with red white and blue designs painted on them. Behind this, I heard two of the men responsible for the fireworks talking to one another:
“Might rain. That’d be my luck.”
“Won’t matter if it does, it’ll go off nice as you please.”
“Worried about the works on the rock. Never had to do it like that.”
“First time for everything.”
“What about old Smitty out there? Hurt himself bad.”
“Made it to the doctor. Smitty’s all patched up.”
“Near thing. See how he bled all over?”
“Had to go somewhere.”
“Fell against the rock face, marked it all up.”
“So? It’ll wash off.”
“When?”
“When it rains tonight.”
The speeches dragged on, and then Herbert’s band started in. It was getting to be evening and crowds gathered for ferris wheels and bumper cars, and whatever other merriment had been settled on.
The lights on the rock had come on again and the forms of the founders were clearly visible across the water.
It was around then that I ran into Alison.
“Roy,” she said. “I’d been looking for you. Listen, do you know my sister?”
“I don’t believe so?”
“Her name is Bernice. There’s a slight resemblance. Someone told me she was here, you haven’t seen her, have you?”
“I’m not sure, there are so many faces.”
“Oh…” she looked once over the crowd, as to verify the idea, and then looked back at me. “You look tired.”
“Yes. I had a bad rest,” I had to shout to be heard over the sounds of the crowd and the music. “Nightmares.”
“About what?”
“About the day Mrs. Faraday hanged herself.”
She looked away, nodding a little, then she looked back, stunned “What do you mean?”
“The other day, her husband said that she’d hanged herself. Why?”
“I… hadn’t heard that part.”
“Does it make a difference? Dead is dead.”
“No, Roy, this is worse. It’s worse because of what she was. This is very bad.”
The fireworks were starting off on the shore, and children were cheering. Alison walked briskly along the boardwalk and I followed: “Why? The shame of it?”
“We’re in danger,” she told me. “Trust me.”
“Alright, but what does that mean? What do we do about it?”
“Leave, for one. Go and get Herbert, tell him I’ll explain.”
Herbert and the others were on a break and I had the unpleasant task of forwarding Alison’s message. What I didn’t expect was that the fact that it came from her brought swift action. He ordered his band to get moving, and he came along with me. We met her on the edge of area that had been cordoned off for parking.
“Don’t take any more time than you need,” she shouted, for it was loud there, “I parked on the street, so we might be able to drive off without any issue.”
“Yes,” I said, “but which street?”
We ran along the boardwalk by Salish Road when there was suddenly heard loud shouts from the barge that was just off of Founder’s Rock. When we looked out across the water, we saw smoke coming from where there should have been fireworks shooting off. That’s when I noticed the change in the sculpted forms of the four founders.
“It’s starting,” Alison said, “we may not be able to get away at all.”
I looked at the rock and back at her. I asked: “But what would… what…?”
When I looked closely at the rock, I realized what was so different and it made a great sinking feeling in my chest. The eyes on all four founders glowed yellow, burning in the dark. That hadn’t been part of the festivities.
Neither was the fact that the four forms moved.
“What am I seeing?” Herbert asked. “Can they be moving?”
“Rovenheath’s hand, look!” Alison said, more frightened than before.
The stone arm on the founder’s body moved, just as though it were live. The lights were still on it, making the whole rock orange and red, the eyes blazing. The hand lifted up and made a sign in the air.
“This is something he planned from the start,” she said. “He’s completing a spell planned from before his death.”
“What spell?” I asked.
“We have to flee, quickly. We have to run.”
We did just as she said, hurrying down the empty street. Everyone was at the celebration, it seemed. We came to where the street began to curve in toward the narrowing place, and from there it was easy to see the water with the lights reflected upon it.
From the water there emerged many forms, forms shaped like men.
The forms were things that had been men, but we could already see that they were the corrupted remains that had been given an unnatural life. They climbed up to the street, the flesh dangling off their bones, shuffling in the tatters of their clothes.
They came up from the water and began to spill out onto the road, blocking the way ahead.
“Here!” someone called from a lighted warehouse door nearby. “This way and hurry!”
The dead grew closer, so we obeyed, rushing across the way to the door that the stranger held open.
He wore a sailor’s raincoat, the hood up, obscuring his face. He locked the door behind us and then pointed across the empty floor to a wall and another door: “This won’t be enough, you must barricade yourself in there.”
“What about you?” Alison asked. “Will you be there?”
“There are others waiting, ma’am, I must get my shotgun and try to fight them.”
We did as he said and went into the warehouse space, which did have two others waiting in it, the sparse lights showing onto a handful of crates in the chamber.
The door behind us slammed and we heard a cross-bar laid across it.
“Wait,” Herbert said, “has he locked us in?”
He began to pound on it, and another man ran up and started to do the same, shouting: “Hey! How are we supposed to get out when it’s all clear?”
“We're locked in,” I said, “does that make us safe?”
I was alone with Herbert, Alison, and two strangers, a man and a woman. None of them seemed to know either whether we'd be safe.
There were sounds of terror from outside, screams and other noises. The plague of dead seemed to spread.
“Perhaps we are better off,” Herbert said. “We can outlast it in here.”
“No,” Alison said. “No, we are not safe.”
Perhaps an hour went by, in alternating silence and debate as to what was to be done. We were never far from the door.
There was a small window in the door, no more than 8 inches wide, and this was opened. The person put his face in and we saw it clearly for the first time.
It was Patrick.
VI. Seven Doors of Death
“What…?” I asked. “Patrick, what do you think you are doing?”
“Aiding destiny, Roy,” he said. “This is a great day. You should know it as much as I do, for I know you have the sight, just as mother did and as I do. Not only that, but tonight you are chosen. You should be honored.”
“Chosen for what?” I demanded. “Are we going to be safe in here?”
“Your lives are over now,” he said calmly, the gleam of madness in his eye. “I will lead the living dead to you and they will feast on your flesh to gain strength for tonight’s festivities. Travis Rovenheath’s vision is complete.”
“Why?” Alison screamed at him. “Why would you be a part of this?”
“It is no more than my destiny,” Patrick said, shutting the opening. Through the door we heard him say “Goodbye.”
“Who was that?” the man asked me.
“That’s my brother, Patrick,” I told him. “He’s not well.”
“Not well?” the man snorted. “He’s going to feed us to those things!”
“But we’re locked inside,” the woman reasoned. “Can they get to us?”
“That door at the back,” Herbert pointed, “it rolls up, powered by an electric motor. I am guessing Patrick has the switch on the other side. He needs only to get those things in place to come and get us.”
“There’s got to be something we can use to fight,” the woman said, “gasoline or knives, or something.”
“Has you or your husband any matches?” I asked her.
“We’re not married,” he said, walking away from the group.
The woman looked down and said: “Well, we’re married, but not to each other. We were running away tonight.”
“That doesn’t matter right now,” Alison said, shaking the woman as though she’d been sleepwalking. “Matches! Have you got any?”
On the wall we found a fire axe and there were some crowbars for the crates. One of the crates was already open and full of packing stuff that would burn easily enough. There were also rollers for the crates, so we got the empty one up on it and got it ready.
“I heard a noise from outside,” the man said, “I think it’s them.”
The roll-up door began to rattle, as though many people were shaking it.
We all looked at one another, no one knowing what would come.
The metal door began slowly to slide open and we saw already that many of those things stood without, waiting to do their worst to us. They did not begin to move forward until the door rose further, for they were not limber enough to bend down to come inside.
“Get ready,” Herbert said. “Light the match and get ready to push.”
The door was up and the putrid bodies began to move inside. I could see at least a dozen starting towards us, but there were more still outside.
I struck the match and touched it to the straw in the crate.
We all began to push as hard as we could, straining to give it all the momentum we could muster. Off it went, across the concrete floor.
The crate went into their midst as the flames rose up higher, and then the bright blaze was all around them. I saw through the smoke that at least one of the things was engulfed.
It wasn't enough on its own, however. The others still came.
“Get ready with those irons,” the man said. “Aim for faces.”
What horrors their faces were!
On some of these shuffling corpses, the skull was nearly exposed. Most had only the ruins of eyes, if anything in their dead sockets. They came up to us, expressionless and opened their mouths, but not to speak.
I cracked down the pry bar and the head before me came apart like a ripe melon, the body below it tumbling to the floor. There was no time to reflect on this, for the next was already on hand for the same treatment.
We navigated past the flames, working towards the door.
We could not neglect the flames, however, for some of the bodies in them hadn't stopped their movement. In fact, some of them seemed unaware that they were on fire, for the walked at the same pace, bumping into one another, and spreading it to their fellows.
“Hurry, damn you!” Herbert shouted. “Or we'll burn up with them!”
It was terrible work, knocking the dead things away, but we made it out through the door and onto the street. The warehouse behind us was now ablaze.
The town was in chaos, for everywhere we looked we saw swarms of the dead, and witnessed them closing in on the living. Parthenon was cursed with zombies. The sky was filling with smoke, already caught in the orange glow from the heads of the founders.
“Where can we go?” I asked. “We can't escape this.”
“To the Faraday house,” Alison said. “Quickly!”
We ran down Salish street, ducking the outstretched arms of the dead.
We'd just come to the iron rail bridge across the water, and a scream came up from the rear. When I looked I saw that the dead had snatched the man and woman who had helped us escape. The teeth of the corpses had already sunk into them, and nothing would save them.
Their screams were terrible, for the dead creatures tore them up like fresh bread, gathering to feast on them.
Herbert pulled me away and we ran for the narrow front of the Faraday home.
The door was open.
We slammed shut the door and bolted it, then we found a chair to wedge under the knob. The front rooms had draped windows level with the boardwalk, meaning we were vulnerable.
“We should board up the windows,” Herbert said, “I'll see what's here.”
The sounds of chaos drifted in from outside, shouts and screams coming from a distance.
“Alison,” I turned to her. “Why here? What good is this place?”
“Edna brought this about,” she told me. “She hanged herself to loose Rovenheath's power. There will be something here we can use to stop it.”
“Do you know how to do that?”
“Yes, I think so. I only pray she hasn’t been here first…”
As she walked away, I thought to ask: “What of Mr. Faraday? Is he here?”
No one answered. Herbert went looking for wood, Alison went looking for some occult item, and I was alone in the main room with my panic. Only a light in the kitchen burned, and a small one down one hall.
There was a wall with a heater mounted in what was meant to resemble a fireplace, and above this was a shelf, and on the shelf were six candles, with the wax running down the face of it in hardened rivulets. I could see where a seventh one had been, the wax trail in place, but the candle having been broken away.
Behind the sitting room was a small dining area, but there was no table in this, but a mattress resting on the floor with unmade sheets.
“Did they sleep in here?” I called out. “Isn't there a bedroom?”
Alison appeared: “The door to the bedroom is locked, I need something to break it with.”
“What are you looking for?”
“A quilt,” she went to the kitchen and fished around in a drawer, “it’s not a normal quilt, but it’s important. Just watch the windows and make sure they don’t get in.”
I looked at the drapes and saw the shadows of them moving past, and the glow from the fires that were breaking out. They didn’t appear to come near the house.
When I heard a noise, I turned from the window, and saw Alison moving out of the dining room, only she had on a heavy black veil now.
“Alison?” I asked. “Did you find it?”
I saw the kitchen drawer open, and I remembered about the lock. Then I realized I hadn’t seen Herbert in a while, and I began to worry.
Back into the hall, I called out “Herbert?”
The house was old and cramped, the hallway almost too narrow to pass through. I went to the lighted room at the end.
I’m not sure it could ever have been a bedroom, for it was too tight, perhaps it was for storage. The ceiling here was high and had cross-beams, and from one of these hung a noose. In the noose there was a body.
Mr. Faraday swung from the ceiling, his tongue hanging out and his eyes bulging. He looked like he might have been there for days. Beside him, the room was empty.
I went into the hall and found the bedroom door opened and darkness inside.
“Alison? Herbert? Faraday is here, he’s dead…”
The door slammed shut behind me and I tried to shake it open. All was blackness inside, at least at first.
A ghostly glow started up from something on the floor.
I realized that this was the quilt she’d mentioned, the only object in the room. It was the quilt that glowed, light pouring up from the squares of it.
Standing behind it was Alison in their veil, or at least I thought it was her.
“Alison?”
“No,” said the woman, “I am Bernice, her sister. Mrs. Faraday watched us, and she was very sad when her husband went away to sea. He enjoyed the company of other women. Mr. Faraday has paid the penalty.”
“I imagine she would be. Where is Alison?”
“Alison is with us.”
“Where? I don’t see anybody.”
“All are here with us, your mother too.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.”
As if a great wind blew, I was pulled across the floor towards the quilt, which remained fixed where it was.
As I moved, helpless through the air, I saw that there were others, floating above each of the squares. They seemed to flicker in and out, but at one point I recognized Mrs. Faraday, and then briefly saw a woman with a crown of broken glass shards pointing in all directions. Then there was my mother. Things became vague and it looked for a second that Alison stood beside Bernice, but it was no more than a flicker.
I fell into the quilt, and was swallowed by it.
Under the Floor...
The Market Square Fairy
Your chapel
What in the hell kinda holiday is this??
I know you guys are really sharp, so I bet you know that this belongs TO THIS STARTLING SERIES RIGHT HERE that you might read if you are really brave
So! This dream is almost straight across done from a dream I had on March 4th of 2023! In the dream I thought I was watching a Lucio Fulci movie when I started living it. The town of Parthenon is my own fictional city built on the Nisqually river delta and appeared earlier in this series.
This series takes inspiration from some of the greats of the horror genre from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Stay sane and healthy out there, buddies!
Congratulations on your daily deviation
It looks like all our numbers came up this week
Beautiful work as always!