Stories of Darkness and Dread by Brennan Joseph Payne

Author:Brennan, Joseph Payne [Brennan, Joseph Payne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction.Horror, Fiction.Dark Fantasy/Supernatural, Short Fiction, Collection.Single Author
ISBN: 9780870540646
Google: fO3iAAAAMAAJ
Amazon: B0006C9V0M
Goodreads: 2586776
Publisher: Arkham House
Published: 2017-10-26T00:00:00+00:00

The House at 1248

It was an ordinary looking red brick house situated at 1248 State Street, New Haven, near the corner of Blatchley Avenue. Although simple in design and construction, it was not unattractive. It was strong and sturdy in appearance; its soot-stained bricks remained firmly mortised in place, uncracked and unloosened by decades of frost and rain. Its stone window supports gave it a further look of sturdiness.

I suppose it was built sometime before the turn of the century; I have never ascertained the exact date. I was brought to the house a few months after my birth in December, in 1918, in Bridgeport. My mother contracted influenza before I was born and I was not expected to live. In a literal sense, I was brought to the house to die. For weeks and months no other possibility seemed to exist.

But I survived. The sturdy brick house seemed to shield me; its brick walls and stone-secured windows kept in the warmth. The floors, at least on the second story which we occupied, always remained dry. The chimney drew well. There was ample ventilation whenever needed—windows all round. Even the attic, with its big unfinished timbers reaching up the slant roof, was a cozy, friendly place.

At night the soft glow of old-fashioned gas lights gave all the illumination required.

The house was my first fortress, the first home I knew, my earliest anchor on earth. What matter that I was not yet four when we moved? Those first formative years were stored within my memory for all time. Deep within my subconscious, the red brick house became a symbol of security, of refuge, a place which would forever be home, a site set apart, a first haven—and a last frantic hope.

My family moved, not because of any deficiency in the house itself, but because of an unpleasant situation concerned with new tenants who took over the first floor.

I was deeply disturbed, but childhood throws off these events, at least at the time. We moved into a frame house at 59 Bishop Street, which, in design and room arrangement, actually bore a resemblance to the old brick house. With the house went a large back yard, containing two cherry trees, a grape arbor, lilac bushes, a catalpa tree and expanses of deep grass. Here I was brought up, while nearly sixteen years sped past.

At length, reluctantly, we moved once more, again because of impossible neighbors. Tragedy and hard times swiftly engulfed us. My father died. The struggle to keep the remaining members of the family together under reasonable living conditions became a grim ordeal. There was little time to look into the past; the stark present and the ominous future consumed all energies, all imaginings.

And yet the old red brick house was never entirely forgotten. It was a comfortable if fleeting thought to know that it was still in existence, virtually unchanged by the speeding years. It remained an anchor, more psychic than physical perhaps, but reassuring nonetheless.

War came and I had to leave.

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