A Halloween Story........

When we were kids we used to tell ghost stories. Some were just plain silly and some were actually the kind that sent chills down my back. The scariest stories to me are the ones where you don't really see a monster or a slasher, like in the "Halloween" or "Friday the Thirteenth" movies. But, you know there's something there and you want to look behind you if you're walking in the dark.

This is a story that Charlie wrote and it was published in a "Fanzine" called "NIGHTSIDE", The Fanzine of Amateur Horror Fiction, in 1991. He used the pen name "J Walker Bell". He gave me permission to post it in my special Halloween blog. It's called:

THE PORCH
BY
J. WALKER BELL

The jury found James J. Janway guilty of first degree murder. He was sentenced to death row. Janway refused to appeal the decision, released his attorney, and retreated into silence.

Janway’s blunt testimony at the trial sealed his fate. He had his reasons for lying on the witness stand. He wished desperately to mourn his dead wife, but there was room for nothing but the fear. He refused the authorities’ offer to allow him to attend his wife’s funeral. Just sitting in the township courthouse during the trial, fifteen miles from the neighborhood where she died and Pine Home Cemetery where she now lay buried, made him panicky. For Janway, death row was the safest place he knew.

Both Janway and his wife, Mandy, were tired of the California life-style. When the packaging company where Mandy worked opened a new branch in Pennsylvania, they jumped at the chance to transfer. Three months earlier, Janway, who had been laid-off from his civil service job of ten years, traveled to Pennsylvania to find a new place for them to live. The depressed economy of the region provided many choices and Janway examined numerous houses. He chose a small three bedroom house, just the right size for a mature, childless couple.

The area had seen some development, but that had slowed with the economy, and the atmosphere was still fundamentally country. This part of Pennsylvania consisted of rolling hills and farmland planted primarily in feed corn. The country atmosphere and the friendly neighbors were a main attraction. When Janway called Mandy about the house, she liked his description of the farm within walking distance of the house. Horses and milk cows were pastured there, to Mandy’s delight. They moved in that July.

Near Janway's house

Janway and Mandy were happy there despite the inevitable problems and unexpected annoyances. Janway, unable to land a job in his field, took a low-paying job in a carpentry shop. The job did not help their financial situation, but Janway found that he enjoyed the physical work and the creation of something tangible.

The location of their rented home also proved a little disappointing. The narrow two-lane road which their house was next to was surprisingly busy. Neither Janway nor Mandy were comfortable walking along its almost non-existent shoulder on their regular treasured evening walks. They flinched every time a vehicle hurtled by.

It took some exploration, but they eventually found a nearby intersecting road that offered the country scenery and privacy they sought. A small housing development crowded the intersection of the two roads, but once they were past the row of houses, a dirt road wound through the hills for two miles before doubling back on itself. Farmland cut into only a portion of the woods here. They were delighted at the rabbits, groundhogs, and occasional deer they saw along the road and at the edge of the woods.

In September, Janway and Mandy began their regular walk a little later than usual. The weather was getting increasingly fall-like, and darkness was coming earlier. They knew there would be little light left by the time they returned, but the area was now familiar and neither wanted to disrupt their evening ritual. They stopped to say hello to the horses and feed them each a carrot, then turned onto Old Spring road, passing the development and into the woods. Mandy was wearing a light sweater and Janway was wearing a short sleeve shirt. The temperature was in the low 60's and it was breezy. They knew they would be comfortable as long as they were walking.

It was too late for the rabbits to be out feeding, but there were still many birds to watch. Janway talked about the cabinet he was building. He had designed it himself on commission from one of their neighbors. It would be the first thing he had designed and built without assistance. He was excited about it.

Mandy talked about the letter she had received from her sister, Suzy. Mandy and Suzy were very close. She was due to deliver their third child any day. Then they talked about their decision not to have children. Janway and Mandy both needed constant reassurance from each other on that decision. Even after seven years of marriage, well meaning pressure from both sets of parents raised old insecurities. They held hands as they walked, but the closeness between them went far beyond physical.

The rain started in light sprinkles. They joked about the rain, and their ill-preparedness for it. Janway suggested they turn around and cut the walk short, but Mandy wanted to finish their walk. Janway agreed. They continued on.

The back loop of their regular route consisted of occasional corn fields cut into the tangle of woods and heavy underbrush. The road turned into gravel. Once or twice on their walk a car or horseback riders would pass, and they would wave and smile. They never encountered other pedestrians. Weathered farmhouses were a common sight. There were also large, expensive homes built back from the road. These houses, surrounded by out of place suburbia lawns, were inevitably built on a part of an old farm. A crumbling barn and a boarded up house engulfed by vegetation usually shared the lot and looked less incongruous than the two-story Tudor or split-level ranch that sat behind it. These expensive homes were normally deserted. Mandy dreamily described the homes as “weekend retreats” for the rich and famous.

Janway and Mandy reached the switch-back that would carry them down a steep hill and then around a tight curve that marked the mid-point of their walk. The rain had begun to pick up force. They were walking briskly. Mandy’s sweater was still holding off the bulk of the rain, but Janway was getting very wet and cold. On their right just off the road was one of the abandoned houses with its barn. The house boasted a porch that looked very dry and inviting. Thunder boomed in answer to a flash of lightning and Mandy jumped. The worst of the storm was still on its way.

A chain stretched across the unused driveway with a “No Trespassing” sign hung on it. The barn, on the immediate left of the driveway, held a weather faded “Beware of Dog” sign. Past the barn was a single story, unpainted house with shuttered windows and its porch. The house sat on a hillside that sloped down from its right side. The driveway extended to the end of the long side of the narrow, rectangular house. There were no awnings or other protrusions aside from the short porch, which extended from the house’s front end.

Janway hesitated despite the increasing rain. His respect for the rights and property of others was so strong it often interfered with practical considerations. Mandy admired this trait in her husband, while at the same time the manifestation of it tried her patience.

Mandy pointed out that no one could possibly be living in the house. The owners would not mind if they stood on the porch to keep from getting soaked and possibly catching their death of cold. She shivered convincingly and jumped again at the flash of lightening. Mandy was not as cold as she wanted Janway to think, but she was definitely afraid of thunder and lightning. She then stepped over the chain and headed for the porch. Janway, overcoming his reservations about trespassing, followed.

The barn and porch

They stepped gingerly onto the porch. The untreated floorboards were broken along the edges and the wood sagged and groaned where they stepped. Much of it looked rotten. The front railing and the supports for the roof were made of saplings probably cut right on the property. The floorboards were nailed together, but the saplings were held together by hemp rope. They were amazed that the porch roof did not leak. Two large pines sheltered the area between the house and the barn, about ten feet away. The two-story bulk of the barn blocked the rain from the porch. Janway, who had a nervous fear of spiders, looked a bit anxiously for the expected webs and was surprised and relieved that there were none.

Janway wrapped his arms around his wife, the chill providing a convenient reason to snuggle. Mandy, who knew how cold Janway’s hands could get even in mild weather, pulled his hands under her sweater to rest against the light shirt she wore underneath. She rested her head on his chest. They stood this way for a long moment, drawing warmth from each other and watching the rain fall. Mandy raised her head and they kissed lightly.

After a few minutes the rain had slackened considerably. A heavy mist still fell soundlessly and contributed to the growing darkness. It was very quiet. The light was dim and objects seemed to take on a faint white glow. Mandy walked over to the other side of the porch to see what that side of the house looked like. Janway, still uncomfortable with the unstable look of the porch floorboards, stepped off on the nearer driveway side and walked around the porch, between the house and barn.

Mandy discovered that the house and porch foundation were made only of thick pieces of hand-cut timber. The upper and lower ends of the timber rested on the underside of the house and the ground, respectively, with no other visible support. Over the years the weight of the house had forced the timber out of alignment and it was obviously only a matter of time before the whole structure tumbled down the hillside. Already the house showed a slight lean and some of the porch supports had collapsed. That explained why the side of the porch near the driveway was lower than the opposite side. The porch had already partially fallen to ground level on the higher side of the hill.

The leaning house and collapsed foundation suddenly made the porch look dangerously unstable to Janway. The area of the porch where Mandy now stood was supported underneath only by a small boulder, which had evidently been dragged to that spot to hold the porch in place. A quick look at Mandy confirmed that she felt the same sudden fear. Moving quickly, Janway pulled Mandy off the porch and they wasted no time getting back to the front of the porch and out from between the structure and the hillside.

Their relief gave them the giggles, and they playfully prodded each other, trying to get the other to admit who was more scared. Janway noticed that a rope was tied to one of the railing supports on the driveway side of the porch. The rope stretched to the ground and then disappeared underneath into the ten inch gap left between the half collapsed porch floor and the ground. Near the rope was an old, iron skillet with something still crusted in the bottom. Mandy rapidly caught the implications, confirming Janway’s own deduction that the rope had been used to leash a dog. A dog that had been fed from the iron skillet.

Janway, still playing up the scare they’d just had, wondered aloud, in a foreboding voice, if there might still be something attached to the end of the rope which snaked under the porch. Mandy was standing next to the rope. She looked from her husband to the rope and back. The dare had been made, and Janway knew Mandy would be too curious to leave it alone. They played this game often. One would dare the other, and then if the dare was taken, the roles were later reversed. Mandy smiled. It was getting darker and harder to see.

Mandy grasped the rope where it was tied to the railing. When she touched the rope, Janway felt an inexplicable tension. He almost spoke, telling her to let go and forget it, but there was no reason for the feeling and it would make him look silly, so he said nothing. She began to pull on the rope, collecting the coils that lay on the ground and wrapping them around her hand. She stopped just before starting to pull the rope from under the porch. She made scary noises at Janway, teasing him, and he mustered back a smile. He teasingly told her that she should back away from the porch a few steps, but the words came out too seriously. Mandy’s smile faltered slightly at his tone. She didn’t back away, however, chiding him for being a sore loser, and then she pulled on the rope.

Janway saw immediately that there was more tension on the rope than there should have been. The logical part of his mind informed him that the rope was probably caught under some part of the collapsed porch. The rest of his mind went numb with terror and his eyes fixed on the rope, unable to look at anything else.

Mandy jerked on the stuck rope, and they heard a sharp sound that was half yelp and half whimper.

More in Part 2.........