Posted on March 21, 2008

The Hole: Part 65

The house stood alone in a field of wheat. A dirt road cut through the crop to its front door and it was this Elliot followed as Evajean gazed out the window at the barrier.

The curtain of light came down directly on the house, cutting it in half. But where it should have pierced the shingles and wood, the barrier sizzled a brighter yellow and pulled back, just far enough to see through. Elliot stopped the truck in the small drive and turned off the engine. He got out, leaning on the open door, and stared at the house. “Melvin was right,” he said.

They’d driven for several hours, heading northwest as the map indicated, taking the tiny two lane roads that split off from the highway. Eventually, they drove away from everything and entered a wilderness of farmland, without houses or town, gas stations or streetlights. Evajean had spotted the house first, a speck of black on the horizon, standing out against the orange of the barrier and the brown of the land. Elliot drove toward it and Evajean checked the map again and again, making sure this was the right place.

Now they were here, looking up at the three story dwelling, with faded black walls and a black roof, the windows dark and the porch sagging. This was the way through. It would mean abandoning the truck, however, and whatever supplies they couldn’t carry. And it would mean dealing, in their unequipped state, with whatever lived on the other side of that impossible wall of light.

“Why here?” Evajean said. Hope had jumped out and was running through the wheat, barking.

“It must be another waypoint,” Elliot said. “Like in the book, it’s something we were meant to do.”

Evajean shook her head. “That’s crazy, you know? That all this was planned. How could it have been?”

“I don’t know. You a believer?”

“You mean religious?” Evajean said. “No, not really.”

“Me, neither. But maybe this is what they’re always going on about–the religions. When they talk about God’s plan or a purpose for the universe, maybe this is what they mean. We’re just part of that purpose.”

“That feels right,” Evajean said. “Which is silly and kind of stupid, but it does. It feels like we are part of something and, you know, there’s nothing we can do about it.” She kicked at the ground. “But, then, we already made up our minds, right? To do this? To follow it through wherever it leads?”

Elliot nodded. “Yeah. So get the dog and let’s do it. I want to see what’s inside.”

They decided to look first and come back to gather their belongings if it turned out to in fact be a way through the barrier. Evajean and Elliot made their way over and climbed the steps of the porch.

The house had an odd smell, mildew and age, but also something sour. The wood under their feet, dark with age, felt almost spongy. Elliot looked at Evajean. She glanced back. And then they both laughed.

“Right,” he said. “It’s a haunted house.”

“I know, right?” Evajean said. “What were we expecting? I mean, this is exactly what it was going to be.”

Hope was sniffing around the edges of the porch, but stopped to bark at them. “Come on,” Evajean said and the dog ran over. She picked him up. “Inside, I guess,” she said.

Elliot twisted the knob on the front door and pushed. It came open slowly, creaking. “It’s like a funhouse ride,” Evajean said.

“True,” Elliot said, and then they were inside. The foyer was immense, spreading into a living room with rotted wooden floor and lumps of furniture covered in plastic. The light from outside was bright enough through the windows to make this out, but the house’s interior was still gloomy.

“The back door,” Evajean said. “It’s probably through there.” She pointed ahead of them, into an area that looked like a dining room and, beyond, a kitchen.

“Probably,” Elliot said.

Upstairs, something creaked. Hope barked three times and then turned and ran out the front door. Evajean started for the dog, but Elliot put his hand on her arm. “He’ll be fine. We’ll get him once we’re sure this is the way.”

She nodded. “What was that?”

Elliot shrugged. “The house settling? I don’t know. Let’s go.”

They walked through the dinning room–a row of chairs in one corner, but otherwise empty–and then into the kitchen. The appliances had been removed, or never installed in the first place, and the countertops were cracked, the edges of the formica curling. On the other side was a door with a small glass window through which Elliot could see sky.

“There it is,” he said. “If that gets us through the barrier, then we’ll go back, get the stuff, and then– I guess then we’ll just see what’s next.”

“Elliot, this is kind of weird.”

“What is?”

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s just this feeling, like we’re not supposed to go through yet, like there’s something else here.”

“Where? In the house?”

Evajean nodded. “You know when you go out to your car and you sit there, about to leave, and have the feeling you forgot something? But you don’t have any idea what it is?”

“It’s like that? We can look around.” Prophecy, he thought. Prophecy and plans and things that are meant to be.

“We don’t need to,” she said. She smiled, though the expression was weak and a little forced. “It’s down there.”

“Where?”

She pointed. Elliot turned. In a corner, near where the refrigerator should have been, was another door, narrower than the one that lead outside. “I’m pretty sure– No, I’m totally sure that whatever it is I’m supposed to fine, it’s down there.”

“The basement.”

“Yeah.”

“Of a haunted house.”

She laughed, the fear from a moment ago gone. “Yeah. Exactly where you’d expect it to be, right?”

“Ladies first?” Elliot said.

“Sounds good to me,” Evajean said.

As they made their way down the slim staircase, Elliot let himself ponder just how stupid this was. In the days since they’d left Charlottesville, they’d run into a homicidal woman, packs of crazy people, a town full of, well, even more crazy people, and then otherworldly creatures who’d eaten the only friendly soul he and Evajean had come across. And now the two of them were flippantly descending into a dark basement, armed only with a single rifle that’d be nearly useless in cramped quarters–all for another hunch in a string of hunches bringing nothing but trouble, torment, and death.

Though embarrassed to even think it, Elliot was kind of glad Evajean was in front of him.