patting the man on the shoulder. “Give me a day to unpack and I will get you the information.”
“Could you share it with me, as well?” Deidre requested. “I don’t wish to involve my priest in this.”
“Consider it done. Just give me a day.”
Deidre sighed. “Well, I just wanted to pay my respects and see if you wanted my care of the place to continue. Considering the circumstances, I won’t be offering my services to you. I hope you aren’t offended.”
Baker smiled and shook his head. “No. And I am actually accustomed to cleaning after myself.”
“Good day to you both,” Deidre Ahearn said, turning and leaving the apartment.
Baker dug coins from his pockets and offered them to Sherman. “I moved from a rather large place to live here and I fear many of my belongings may be redundant in a fully furnished place such as this. If I sort through this mess and put some items aside, could you get rid of them for me?”
Sherman stared suspiciously at Baker. “You want to give some things away? Like your uncle?”
Baker caught the man’s meaning and laughed good-naturedly. “No, no, Mr. Drummond. I have no desire to haunt or curse anyone. These items can be sold, given away or burned, for all I care. They carry no energy save for mine.”
Sherman smiled back at him and took the money. “I’ll handle it for you, sir.”
“Thank you,” Baker said. “I would love to read your work, sometime.”
Sherman looked at him with surprised appreciation. “No one has ever read it. It would be nice to get an opinion of my worth as an author.”
“I am not an avid reader of poetry, but I would gladly share my impressions with you. Here, I think I have something you can use.”
Baker walked to one of the trunks in the formal room. He found the one marked OFFICE and unlatched it. He opened the container and rummaged around, finding and retrieving a small silver sculpture of a duck. He handed it to Sherman.
“It’s a paperweight,” Baker explained.
“I love it. Thank you, sir,” Sherman said. He then spotted a very ornate jewelry box in the trunk. Sherman put the paperweight aside. He picked up the jewelry box without asking. Baker forgave the intrusion. The man was strongly and strangely taken with it. Baker wondered if there was a tiny bud of sensitivity in the author.
Sherman opened the box, slowly. A tiny ballerina spun and music played. A gold band had been draped over her and vibrated at her feet as she danced. “Is this an item you wish to part with? I know a child in the building who would adore it.”
“No,” Baker said, gently taking the box from Sherman and closing it. “This has too much sentimental value. Come back late in the day tomorrow. I will have inventory for you and that contact at the church.”
Sherman nodded and collected his paperweight. He shook hands with Baker. Sherman then left, closing the apartment door softly behind him. Baker felt that his display of kindness had brought the building supervisor to his current and future causes. He was putting on, of course. Baker had little interest in Sherman Drummond or his poetry.
Baker cracked the jewelry box open again. He stared down at it, watching the tiny dancer. His uncle had been right about one thing. He had warned Baker not to take a wife. Richard Johnson had never loved another human being and Baker was the only one who ever knew why. It was the journey he and his uncle had both taken, and the haunted items that filled up their black rooms. Loved ones were targets for the negative energy; for the inhuman spirits and the demonic.
Richard Johnson never wanted to endanger another for the selfish reason of love. Baker, though, had been selfish. And he knew that his own black room had been responsible for the deaths of his wife and daughter. It was too much, the energy he and his uncle had watched over. It was a hateful and vengeful thing and the force of it grew stronger with every new acquisition.
Baker had received a letter from his uncle, days before the man’s death. He suspected it was Richard’s last correspondence. In his mad scribbling, Richard Johnson had said something that had struck a chord with his nephew.
Better that many be a little haunted, than one man consumed by the dark majority, Richard had written. The keeping of these trinkets was a mistake, and I fear they shall anchor me forever to this realm. I am going to purge myself of these glowing keepsakes. They shall go, indiscriminately, to others.
Baker had understood. He had cleaned out his own black room, in a similar fashion, before moving to the city and claiming his inheritance. The items went, without malice or conscience, as Baker felt it was every living person’s responsibility to the dead to be plagued. A few would feel this dark invasion into their lives and homes, and it would be quite pronounced. But most would attribute a small shine of it to fate and luck or God’s will.
Baker closed and then held the jewelry box to his chest. It had belonged to his daughter. And the wedding band inside had belonged to his wife. This was his piece of the pain and torment to carry and keep warm; his share of the misery. He hoped, one day, that an icy shadow would creep from the box. But his wife and daughter seemed at peace without him and this troubled him worse than anything he had ever seen or heard in his case studies.
Baker had been good to his family. He had provided for his wife and child and he couldn’t think of one sin he had committed against them, save perhaps neglect; Baker Johnson was a driven and ambitious man. But he was beginning to think his inattention toward them might have been the worst offense possible.
So he waited for a sign of them, always. He was haunted not by a specter, but the absence of such.
The door to the black room suddenly slammed shut. Baker nearly dropped the box. He sat it back carefully into the trunk and then he walked to black room. He whipped the door open quickly, and tensed himself to face whatever might be lurking there.
It was empty, of course. The black room was pouting. Energy had evidently been spilled there. One or more prisoners were striking at the bars with a tin cup. Baker made plans and they needed to be implemented right away. He was sure Sherman could recommend a good handyman.
Baker would have the room painted a bright color. And then he would hang a crucifix on its door. The space would be blessed until Baker was sure there wasn’t a flicker of energy left. There would be nothing fed to the room; no potential vessels for a stowaway. All he would fill the black room with was air.
It would be a bare and still place.
There was a time when he would have been consumed with who or what was still lingering there. But he no longer cared. It was a haystack, really, and he was done with chasing ghosts.
Baker shut the door to the black room. He noticed that the night was coming. The apartment was growing dark and cold.
He wondered where Richard Johnson, the dead old whoreson, had hidden the liquor. Baker searched the apartment until he found a bottle of brandy concealed behind a hollow bookshelf panel in the study. He dusted off a glass and filled it. He lounged and grew drunk in the ornate and comfortable chair pulled next to his uncle’s desk.
There was a firm knock on a door outside of the study. Baker wasn’t sure which entry required his attention and he wasn’t in the mood for flesh or spirit. So he ignored it and poured another drink.
About the Author
Terry M. West is an American horror author. His best known works: What Pri
ce Gory, Car Nex, Dreg and his Night Things series. He is also the managing editor of the Halloween/horror website, Halloween Forevermore. He was a finalist for 2 International Horror Guild Awards and he was featured on the TV Guide Sci-Fi hot list for his YA graphic novel series, Confessions of a Teenage Vampire. Terry was born in Texas, lived in New York for two decades and he currently hangs his hat in California. www.terrymwest.com
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