On the Edge of Twilight: 22 Tales to Follow You Home by Gregory Miller

Author:Gregory Miller
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Itzy, Kickass.to
Published: 2013-07-07T04:00:00+00:00

The Key

“Again.”

“Yes. Again.”

The two men, both on the far side of middle age, stared at the abandoned house from the safety of the sidewalk. At their feet, on the edge of the overgrown front lawn, what had once been a cat lay rigid and desiccated, lips pulled back in a rictus sneer.

Richard Hawthorne spit.

Emil Braddock sighed.

“Something should be done,” said Hawthorne.

“And what,” said Braddock, “do you propose?”

Hawthorne stubbed the toe of his shoe against the cracked edge of the walk. “Well, Mayor, I have a couple ideas. Both involve demolition.”

“Demolition involves people demolishing,” Braddock said impatiently. “No one will do it. We’ve been over this. For years and years, we’ve been over this.”

“We could hire people from out of town,” Hawthorne continued. “They’ll value the work.”

“I can’t have that on my conscience, Dick.” Braddock looked up at the darkening sky. “Here, it’s almost sunset. Let’s go to Schooner’s and grab a beer. I don’t want to see her again.”

“No. No, we can’t have that. No. Me neither.”

* * *

For years 101 Sycamore had been an unassuming house. Then, sometime during the course of its long history, things had taken a bad turn. The place was old and had been rented out as flats around the turn of the century, so the exact circumstances of the problem were hard to pinpoint. Too many people had lived there, and records were scarce. But shortly before half the men in town left for World War I, the house began to develop a reputation. By the time the surviving doughboys returned, it was abandoned.

And shunned.

Hawthorne took a pull of beer and sighed. “You know whose cat that was, Emil?”

Braddock nodded. “Your granddaughter’s. Yes, I’m well aware. We’ve all lost pets to it, Dick. You can’t take it personally.”

Hawthorne leaned forward. “It’s not about taking it personally, goddamn it. It’s about taking care of this problem once and for all. The children of this town should be able to grow up without having to pay for therapy later! They should—”

“Lower your voice.”

Hawthorne looked around. “Sorry,” he said, addressing Schooner’s few other patrons, then turned back to his drink. “It’s just… this town is dying, Emil. When the kids grow up they move away and don’t come back.”

“That happens in lots of small towns, especially when the mines close.”

“But we all know it happens more in Still Creek. And we all know why.”

They were silent, both ruminating on encounters they wished to forget. After dark, the ghost that haunted 101 Sycamore was indiscriminate—it appeared to whoever happened to be passing by—staring out this window, leering out that, peering from the rotting cupola. One didn’t forget the sight.

And then there were the animals.

The house, as anyone who chose to venture near quickly discovered, was invariably ringed with dead birds, squirrels, rabbits and chipmunks. Sometimes the bodies of fox, deer, dogs, and cats could also be seen, slowly putrefying in the brown, knee-high grass and weeds. And beneath them, like rotting strata, was layer after layer of desiccated skin, matted fur, and weather-stained bones.

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