The Hurricane

I stood in the front yard, hands on hips, staring at my house.“What the hell did you do?” I demanded of my son.

“Well, that’s gratitude for you!” he fussed back. “I did exactly what you said. I painted the porch haint blue!”

“That is NOT what I asked for,” I fumed back, bordering a full-on hissy fit. “I said paint the porch ceiling haint blue—not all the eaves and windows,” I sighed and pointed, “and the front door, too?”

Noah looked at me like I had suddenly sprouted a third eye and rolled his own. “Mom!” he said plaintively. “You said you wanted it painted to keep the haints out, right?”

“Yes,” I said, taking a deep breath and holding it, trying to calm myself. I had just come home from a week-long business trip, a week-long, incredibly frustrating trip, and the last thing I needed was to see my directions for a chore not followed—again!

“Well, what if one decided to come in a window?” he asked.

I stopped dead, blinking my eyes. I scrunched my eyes closed and rubbed my forehead, feeling like that third eye Noah willed into existence was out of rhythm with the other two. I heard my whole life how important it was to paint the porch ceiling haint blue to keep the haints out, and it was one of the first fixer-upper tasks on the to-do list for the new house. I fell in love with the house the minute I set my eyes on it. A turn-of-the-20th-century beauty, it sported a wrap-around porch, two fireplaces, wood floors throughout, an updated kitchen, and a finished-out basement.It was perfect for a mom and her adult son. Space for us both, extra bedrooms upstairs for company, and, most importantly, a private entrance to the basement so he could come and go as he pleased. I had not heard, however, that haints entered a house anywhere but the front door. I hated to admit it, but maybe he had a point.

“Okay,” I relented, as much to head off the headache as the inevitable argument.

He walked to me, towering over my five-foot-seven-inches with his six-foot-two frame. He kissed me on the forehead and gave me a hug. “Tough trip?” he asked.

“I could talk all night, but I’m just too tired,” I said, leaning into the hug. “What say we order in tonight?”

“Pizza?” he said expectantly.

I sighed. No, I really didn’t want pizza, but I was, again, just too tired to argue. “Yeah, pizza,” I said.

He released me from the hug and reached for my bags.“ Let me get those for you,” he said.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” I replied. “And, thank you for painting the porch, too. And the eaves. And the windows. And the doors.”

He grinned a lopsided grin that reminded me of my dad. “Pepperoni, yeah?”

I already had my phone out and was logging into the app. “You don’t think it will take too long, do you?”

“Nah,” he said. “The hurricane isn’t due for a couple of days, so they shouldn’t be that busy.It could still turn, you know.”

“I know,” I said. “I’ve been living on the Gulf coast a tad bit longer than you have.”

We walked into the house to wait for the pizza.

Two days later, we were still waiting in the house for the hurricane to pass through. Hurricane Edna only hit as a Category 3 storm, so we hunkered down, stocked up on hurricane “supplies,” made sure everything that needed batteries had them, and all of our electronics were fully charged along with the portable chargers. This was our first hurricane in this house, so I had no idea where we were in line to get electricity restored once the storm was over. That determined how long you were without power afterwards.

About midnight, Noah got bored and went down to the basement to sleep. I was fully awake, so I made a cup of coffee while the electricity still worked and settled in with a John Grisham novel for the duration. Maybe Camino Winds wasn’t the best choice, all things considered, but, as the old saying goes, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The electric shut off around two a.m. when the storm was just getting wound up good. It’s amazing how quiet the world gets when all the lights have gone dark. No humming or background sounds from air conditioners, kitchen appliances, or even street lights! If the storm hadn’t been howling, it would have felt like a graveyard.

I shuddered at the thought, grabbing the book light I had pulled out for the occasion and fitting it to my novel. I started reading again, reaching for a lightweight blanket to lay over my legs. Why is it when the electricity goes off, the house either feels unbearably hot or suddenly chilled? I’m sure the wind blowing so hard was contributing to my discomfort.

I was sitting in a wing-back chair that came with the house.It was a lovely old piece of furniture, covered in a brocade fabric that showed wear at the head and arm rests. I wondered why the owner removed the crochet pieces that protected the chair. I knew they had been there because the small holes from the anchoring pins were still in the fabric. The protectors were more than just decorative. They served a real purpose!

Maybe I can make a new set, I thought.I have Mama’s old pattern books. Sure I can find one I like.

At some point, I drifted off. The next thing I was aware of was a very cold hand shaking my shoulder. When I awoke, my shoulder was still chilled from the touch. What on earth? I thought. I didn’t have time to worry about it, though. I heard a noise from the back of the house and realized there was a problem.

I stood, dropping my book on the floor, and hurried to the noise. “Oh, no!” I cried. I heard the basement door open, and Noah joined me.

“What a mess!” he said.

A tree branch had stabbed through the roof of the dining room. It didn’t look like it broke anything other than the roof and ceiling, but water was coming in around it. We quickly started moving the table and chairs and other furniture to the other side of the room. “Good thing we hadn’t unpacked any of the china,” Noah said.

“Yeah,” I replied, wincing at the fact I had been fussing about that before I left on my trip. Turned out my son’s procrastination—and mine—had worked in our favor. We grabbed tarps we had brought in for this very purpose and laid them around to catch as much of the water as possible. There really wasn’t anything else we could do until the storm was over and Noah could get up on the roof to look at the extent of the damage.

“You okay, Mom?” Noah asked.

“Of course,” I said. “One of the pleasures of living in paradise!”

Noah rolled his eyes and nodded.

“You keep doin’ that, those eyes of yours are gonna get stuck up in your head and strike you blind,” I warned, Southern drawl raging because I was tired.

“I’m goin’ back downstairs,” he said. “You need to go to sleep.” It’s what he always said when that drawl of mine showed its ass.

I plugged the Keurig into the small generator and fixed another cup of coffee, making sure to turn it all off when I was done. I wouldn’t worry about the kitchen appliances or using the large generator until the storm was over.

Settling back in my chair with my coffee and armed with a small battery-operated lantern, I reached to pick up my book from the floor where I dropped it.

It wasn’t there.

“What the…” I started to say, grabbing the lantern and searching for it. I found it sitting on the footstool, closed, bookmark in place, booklight folded and closed beside it. “I didn’t do this,” I said aloud.

“No. I did,” a male voice responded.

I jumped up and held the light above my head, whirling around to find the source of the voice. On my second revolution, I stopped, shining the light into a corner of the room. There stood a man. He was around six foot, a little shorter than Noah and a lot stockier. He had a handsome, bearded face that was enhanced by a nose which looked like it had been broken a couple of times. His eyes were dark in the little bit of light I had, but even from across the room, they looked kind—not wild like I expected a serial killer’s eyes to look. His brows were bushy, and his hair poked out from under some kind of brimmed cap.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

“Bill,” he replied.

“Bill who?” I asked.

“Don’t matter,” he said with a shrug of his broad shoulders.

“What are you doing in my house?” I continued with the interrogation.

“You mean, my house,” he said simply. “I’ve been living here for about…what year is it?”

I looked at him suspiciously. A homeless guy with an active imagination? A schizophrenic off his meds? I answered, “2025.”

“Oh, wow!” he said, obviously surprised. “I built this house in 1925.”

I shook my head. “Come on, dude,” I said, exasperated. “Nineteen-twenty-five? Are you freaking kidding me? How much do you expect me to believe?”

“Only the truth,” he said.

“Really. Who are you? And what are you doing in my house? Answer me, or I’m going to call my son.”

“Go ahead,” he said. “He’s a fine-lookin’ young man. I’d love to talk with him about motorcycles.”

My jaw dropped. Motorcycles? How did this intruder know my son had an obsession with the demon-bikes since he was a little boy, but he hadn’t talked about them in a while now. He seemed to lose interest after one of his buddies, Darius, got killed on one.

“That shouldn’t a’happened,” the man said.

“What?” I asked.

“The motorcycle ‘accident’,” he answered with air quotes. “You know it wasn’t no accident, right?”

We had suspected. Darius was an exceptional rider, so when the police told his family he had laid the bike down, we had questions—questions law enforcement didn’t seem to want to answer. When his parents got the bike back, we would have sworn he was hit, but the cops said no, and their forensic people backed them up.

“What are you saying?” I asked. Something didn’t feel ‘right,’ but I wasn’t sure exactly what.

“I’m sayin’ exactly what you think I’m sayin’,” he said, coming out of the corner towards me. “Your son’s friend was killed, on purpose, not by accident.”

My heart seemed to stop in my chest. How could this man know about Darius? How could he know what we all hinted at privately. And who was he?? He still hadn’t told me!

“I’m Bill Parks,” he said, in answer to the unvoiced question. “I built this house, like I said, in 1925. I been stuck here ever since I died in 1973. The house has had four different owners since then, ever one of ‘em makin’ changes. The house didn’t mind the sprucin’ up, but it held on to me.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Cain’t you carry on a conversation without a lot of durn fool questions!” he exploded.

I pulled back. “Well, excuse me, hoo-doo man!” I smarted off. “I don’t know what’s goin’ on ‘round here so I have a lot of ‘em!!”

He glared, but eventually softened. “Sorry, ma’am,” he said. “You be the first one what’s seen me in all them years. Guess maybe I lost some of my manners.”

I sighed. “No problem,” I said. “Why won’t the house let you go, though?”

“There’s one little improvement the house wants put back.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to encourage him without actually asking a question.

He walked past me and pointed at a brick in the fireplace. “Pull that out, would you?” he asked.

I joined him, and found the brick he was pointing at loose. I gently pulled it out and said, “Now what?”

“Reach in there,” he said.

I looked at him like, Have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind? Or, maybe I’ve lost mine. I couldn’t believe how quickly I moved from “Who are you?” to “Why are you bound to my house?” I mean, wasn’t all the haint blue Noah painted on the house supposed to keep things like this from happening?

“No,” I said. “Not without a proper light so I can make sure I don’t stick my hand in a nest of brown recluse spiders!”

“There ain’t no spiders in there,” he answered back. “And the haint blue would have kept me OUT of the house if I had actually been OUTSIDE, but I’ve been bound to the INSIDE of the house!” He rolled his eyes.

Just like Noah.

I guess it was the eye-roll that convinced me, but I reached inside the hole. There was paper in there, so I pulled it out. It was some kind of tiny notebook. I walked back to the chair and sat down, grabbing the book light and attaching it so I could read with both hands free.

For the second time that night, I said, “What the….”

It was a list of names. A list of GIRLS’ names. There must have been 20 or 30. I flipped through, recognizing several of them. Each page had a date, a description of the girl, and…a description of how she died.

“Is this?” I began.

“Yeah. The first family that lived here after I died was the Smiths. Plain name for a not-so-plain family, isn’t it? The daddy killed all them girls down in the basement. I watched, time after time. When he was done, he would sit down, and write all that stuff down. Then, he’d hide it under that loose brick in the fireplace. He kept on doin’ it for twenty years! The house wants it gone. Can you help?”

Absolutely I could help. I explained that as soon as the storm was over and we could get to police headquarters, I would make sure the notebook was turned in.

“Go to a detective,” he cautioned.“Not a patrolman.”

“Of course,” I said, a little surprised at the warning.

“Look, I don’t want to start no trouble, but one of the patrolmen killed your boy’s friend, Darius,” he said. “When this notebook gets turned in, they gonna realize what they got on their hands.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“That cop is this man’s,” he pointed to the notebook, “son. Look at the last entry,” he said.

I turned to it and gaped when I read it. It was dated 1993. “You are kidding me,” I said in a low whisper.

A week after the storm passed, the story broke. The man’s son was arrested. He was forced by his father to participate in the last murder when he was only ten years old. Unexpectedly, he discovered he had a taste for killin’. And he had an unvarnished hatred of black and brown people. He killed Darius his last night on patrol. The police covered it up, moving him to desk duty until he retired. They were convinced it really was an accident, and they didn’t want him to lose his pension over it after a lifetime of service.

It was also a lifetime of unsolved murders. Murders he kept track of in his own little notebook hidden at his house.

I brought the newspaper to the table, which had been returned to where it belonged after Noah repaired the roof. There was still a hole in the ceiling, but he promised he would get it fixed. “Before Thanksgiving, Mom! I swear!!”

Thanksgiving. Only three months away, I thought, resigned to it.

I opened the paper and laid it on the table. Bill appeared at my shoulder and read the story. We spent a lot of time together since the night of the storm, and I enjoyed having him around. Hesitantly, I asked, “Can you go to the other side now?”

I felt icy arms around me. “I could, if someone hadn’t painted around every opening in the house a haint blue.”

“I’ll ask Noah to paint…”

“No hurry,” he said, holding me tighter.

Turns out, I like the cold.