The Chrysalis Read online

  Another doorway across the room and to the left opened into a small bathroom. A doorway directly in front of them led into the kitchen, and a small door with a brass knob stood to the left of that, between the other two doors, oddly placed in the far wall, cut into the painfully bright wallpaper.

  “Whoa,” Jenny said quietly.

  “Is this … does someone live here?” Tom asked, confused.

  “Not anymore,” Chelsea answered, walking around the table and spreading her arms out with a bizarre amount of pride, as if she had decorated this disaster herself. “The house is what we call ‘as is.’ A friend of a friend of a friend who lives in Europe inherited it like this. I don’t know all the details but he is very eager to get it off his hands, so it’s less expensive than it might otherwise be … much less expensive. On the condition, of course, that whoever buys it will have to deal with all of the stuff left behind.”

  Jenny and Tom followed Chelsea around the giant wooden table and into a room through yet another doorway directly to the left. This space was clearly intended to be the living room, judging by the matching floral-pattern upholstered couch and love seat, both shrouded in yellowing plastic. An ancient rocking chair sat by itself against the far wall. An awful red-and-black rug covered the floor, and above the furniture hung an ugly, angular chandelier that was too low—it would be hard to walk straight across the room without having to duck, or risk having your eyes gouged out. An old-school stereo system hunkered in the far corner, complete with a turntable, double cassette player, and an eight-track.

  “When you consider the … extremely cluttered nature of the house, you begin to understand why it’s so affordable. The rooms don’t have to stay as is, of course. Who wants to walk straight into a dining room from the outside?” Chelsea said with an offended laugh.

  “You can make the place your own! How much fun would that be!” She lowered her voice slightly. “Of course, the house does need some work, some overall upkeep, another aspect that may have turned off some buyers, though the foundation is more than solid. Are you handy, Tom?”

  “We both are, actually,” Jenny said, put off by Chelsea’s casual sexism, though she wasn’t exactly proficient with tools.

  “Well, good,” Chelsea said with a smile that seemed to be calling Jenny a liar. “This might be perfect for you, then, if you’re up for a project. And who knows what kind of cool things you’ll find hidden here!”

  “Where does that door go?” Tom asked as they walked back into the dining room, pointing to the small one with the brass handle.

  “Ah yes,” Chelsea responded. “That goes upstairs. I love this little door. These Victorians have all kinds of cute touches. A tiny door! So quaint.” She opened it and walked quickly up the carpeted stairs. The carpet was a pretty awful dark pink. Tom half expected the stairs to creak and groan as Chelsea walked up, but her ascent was silent. Maybe she’s right, he thought, maybe this house really does have a solid foundation.

  He grabbed Jenny’s hand before she went up. “Well?”

  “I … I kind of frickin’ love it, Tom.”

  He laughed and put his arm around his wife, kissing her cheek gently. “Let’s see the rest of this haunted house before we jump into the deep end.”

  “Of course,” she whispered as they walked up the steps. “But I know you like it, too. I can see it in your eyes.”

  Tom didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. She was right. He kind of frickin’ loved it, too.

  * * *

  The second floor was fairly unremarkable, the three bedrooms and bathroom all large and cluttered, but Tom and Jenny loved the small, winding staircase at the end of the hallway that led to the compact third floor, which had only one room, as the house narrowed. When Chelsea opened the small door, Jenny marveled at the sunlight pulsing in, multicolored, through the stained glass.

  Surprisingly, unlike the rest of the house, this small room was empty of furniture. The walls were decorated with a half dozen large, framed black-and-white photographs of desert settings, including two that featured the gaping maw of a dark cave. The photos themselves were a little hard to see, since someone had taken a red marker to the glass, covering each image with illegible scrawls, what looked like crude maps, and somewhat disturbing drawings of monstrous faces.

  “Whoa…,” Tom muttered, “postmodern.”

  “This room gets beautiful light, as you can see,” Chelsea said cheerily, ignoring the pictures. “Might be nice for an office … or a nursery?”

  Jenny felt blood immediately rush to her face and could sense Tom tensing next to her. This was a conversation they’d had many times, and it never ended well. Tom was open to the idea of having kids but it was something that made him extremely nervous. He thought his parents had been emotionally abusive, to him and to each other, and he didn’t want to make the same mistakes they had. And honestly, Jenny didn’t feel ready for kids either, but lately, when she saw cherubic little faces in strollers or a toddler asleep on a parent’s shoulder, she’d started feeling those “biological clock” pangs she had always dismissed.

  A long moment of uncomfortable silence stretched out until Tom clapped his hands together, a little too loud for the small space.

  “So … is that it up here?”

  “I’m glad you asked!” Chelsea said, her eyes lighting up. She headed toward the far wall, to the right of the window. Jenny looked at Tom quizzically and he shrugged in reply. “Like I said,” the real estate agent continued, “these old houses are full of all kinds of cute touches.” Tom cringed at her repeated use of the phrase, as though she were reading out of a brochure permanently etched in front of her eyes. “Check this out.”

  Chelsea pushed her fingers against the wall. Tom noticed the thin, tall, rectangular outline in the wall just as the hidden door swung open.

  “Okay, you got me,” he admitted, laughing. “That is cool.”

  Jenny and Tom stepped forward and peered down into the darkness of the open doorway as Chelsea moved aside. “A … secret staircase?”

  “Exactly! I’m thinking a servant used to live up here, back when the house was first constructed.”

  “What makes you think that?” Jenny asked.

  “Come on down and I’ll show you,” Chelsea said, and whisked past them, walking daintily down the steep and rickety wooden stairs.

  “This is pretty sweet,” Tom said to Jenny, smiling.

  “You always did love the Gothic stuff,” she responded, pushing him into the stairwell ahead of her.

  As they walked slowly down the stairs, Jenny wondered how many people had used them in the last hundred-plus years and felt goose bumps race across her flesh. Something about this gloomy staircase and the stale smell of the air made her feel light-headed.

  Chelsea had already opened the door at the bottom, flooding the space with light from below. She stared up at them with an anticipatory smile on her face, as if she’d sneaked them dessert before dinner.

  When Tom reached the bottom, his face contorted in surprise.

  “What’s down there?” Jenny called out, unable to see past either of them.

  * * *

  The kitchen looked like the 1970s had thrown up in it. Repeatedly.

  Polished bronze and white lacquer were everywhere. The stained wooden cabinets, which Tom and Jenny glanced through, were still full of supplies, including half-full spice containers, plates and bowls, dust-covered glassware, and knives and other utensils. On the far side of the kitchen, Tom saw a well-stocked pantry through an open doorway that was right next to a closed door.

  “Wow,” Jenny said, taking in the room.

  “It’s got a lot of personality, that’s for sure,” Chelsea agreed.

  “Where does that go?” Tom asked, pointing at the closed door.

  “Ah yes, that’s the basement,” Chelsea said through her unnaturally white teeth. “A great space, but it needs some work. Maybe a man’s touch.” Something in her tone drew Tom’s attention; she wa
sn’t as ebullient or friendly as she’d been earlier. He noticed how tired she looked and that her smile was starting to really look forced. He felt bad for how unenthusiastic he’d been all day. Maybe she’s not as bad as she seems, he thought.

  “Why don’t you and I check out the backyard while Tom looks at the basement?” Chelsea said to Jenny.

  “I could use some fresh air,” Jenny admitted.

  “Sounds good to me,” Tom said, absentmindedly pulling an elastic band off his wrist and pulling his hair back into a ponytail. It was warm in the kitchen and he was starting to sweat a little.

  As the two women went outside, Tom moved toward the basement, then stopped, noticing a large, somewhat faint stain on the linoleum floor. He’d never seen that particular shade of gray before. Some sort of horrible pasta accident, he thought with a chuckle as he walked over to the closed door.

  The metal doorknob was cold and his entire body shivered when he touched it.

  Turning the knob, he pushed the door open and was greeted by a dank, moist odor, like upturned earth after a particularly bad storm. Images of his parents’ funerals flashed through his mind … how they had died so close to each other, how Tom had been forced to go through the process twice in the same year when he was in his early twenties … but he forced them away. Spotting a light switch to his left, he flipped it; a dirty, naked bulb sputtered on overhead, accompanied by an intermittent ticking noise that seemed to emanate from the bulb itself. The wooden stairs that led down to a cracked, gray concrete floor were old, worn, and not altogether safe-looking. Tom felt dizzy—a familiar sensation he often experienced when entering a new place, somewhere potentially exciting or terrifying.

  He walked down the stairs slowly, the wood creaking and even buckling slightly in places. At the bottom, he found and flicked another light switch. Fluorescent ceiling lights hummed to life, crisscrossing the low-hanging drop ceiling. There were a few scattered windows down here, but, Tom saw, they had been painted over. He stared at the contents of the basement for a few seconds in slack-jawed wonder.

  Every inch of the enormous space was packed with stuff … boxes, black garbage bags filled to near explosion, stacks of books, sports equipment, what must have been hundreds of gardening tools, bags of seed and dirt, camping equipment, at least a dozen old television sets, and who knew what else.

  His eyes started to water from all the dust as he surveyed the space. The piles stretched off into the darkness, a lunatic maze of seemingly infinite proportions. Tom took a deep, panicked breath, as if he’d been drowning and surfaced at the last possible moment, then laughed at himself.

  “Fucking hoarders,” he said out loud. Jenny would probably love going through all this. She was obsessed with crappy little flea markets and secondhand shops.

  He turned to go back upstairs, but a strange noise from the distant shadows stopped him.

  “The hell?” he murmured, turning to once again peer into the darkness. After a few seconds, he heard it again. God damn if it didn’t sound like breathing. Watery breathing, as if a sick animal were hidden down here.

  Plumbing problems? Tom wondered as he cautiously moved toward the sound, wary of the precarious towers of junk. It got darker the farther he walked, as though the basement were somehow absorbing the fluorescent light, but he was able to discern a kind of path through the piles, like someone had walked this route before. Looking ahead, he squinted at something large and shadowy against the far wall. His breath hitched in his throat, his steps faltering.

  A person, huge and hunched, stood facing him.

  No, that was ridiculous. What would someone be doing down here, waiting in the dark? Fighting the urge to turn and run, Tom reached shaking, sweaty fingers into his beat-up jeans and withdrew his phone, which he immediately dropped. It landed with a hollow thud. Hoping the screen wasn’t broken, he bent down to pick it up. A huge millipede-type insect ran out of a nearby pile of junk and skittered across his fingers—Tom flinched, yelled, and fell back onto his ass. Terrified, feeling like an infant, and hating himself for his reaction, he hit the button on the side of the phone and it blazed with light. He held it up, aiming it toward the person or whatever the hell it was in the corner.

  The horrifying “person” was actually an old refrigerator. A very old refrigerator. It had probably been white once, but now it was mostly brown and yellow. A rusty metal handle dangled off the door.

  “Get a grip,” Tom mumbled. At that instant, the light went out and his stomach dropped. He quickly hit the button a second time.

  Moving closer to the fridge, he noticed markings on the floor in front of it, scrapes in the concrete and shifted dust. He shook his head, intrigued even though a knot was forming in his gut. Someone moved this refrigerator back and forth, he thought, cocking his head as he studied the ground. A lot.

  Tom shoved the phone back into his pocket, plunging the corner back into darkness, and took hold of the fridge. Slick with sweat, his fingers slipped. He quickly wiped them on his shirt and grabbed the antique appliance again.

  It was heavy. Really heavy. He smiled at the challenge, then tightened his grip and pulled with all his strength.

  The refrigerator inched forward, then seemed to find its path, swinging to one side as if it were the door to yet another hidden passageway, opening into darkness like a toothless grin.

  Panting slightly from the exertion, Tom squinted into the shadows.

  Stuck to the wall, previously hidden by the refrigerator, was a dark pulsating mass about the size of a baby.

  “Jesus…” Tom whispered. It resembled an oversized chrysalis, reminding him of days spent in the woods when he was a kid. Back when he had parents, had a family. But he’d never seen anything quite like this—the size, the color, everything about it seemed somehow wrong.

  Despite the fear nestling in his stomach, he leaned closer, his eyes having adjusted to the darkness. Black and dark-purple veins covered the object, and he realized that the slow, rhythmic breathing noise he’d heard earlier was coming from the chrysalis. So was a rancid smell, like days-old garbage or the scent of a body after it gave up the ghost. The thing was covered in a thick, shiny mucus that caught what little light reached back here.

  Disgusted, Tom looked around for something he could use to get rid of whatever this was, the same way he handled cockroaches or spiders or even mice in their apartment. If they ended up buying this house, he didn’t want Jenny to inadvertently come across whatever this thing was. His gaze came to rest on a short-toothed metal rake. The teeth were incredibly sharp looking, making the tool resemble a medieval torture device more than a suburban gardening implement. He picked it up and tapped it against the floor a couple of times, liking that the bars of the rake were stiff, unbending. Strong enough to be used the way he intended. The splintered wooden handle felt comfortable against his palms, reminding him of working in the backyard with his dad when he was a kid. Some of the only good memories he had of the man. Maybe Tom could get used to living in the suburbs again.

  Turning back toward the chrysalis, he raised the rake, ready to destroy this bizarre object stuck to the wall. Just before he swung, he paused. Had the “breathing” increased, or was that his imagination? The veins also seemed to be pulsating. Tom stared at it, makeshift weapon still raised. What is this thing?

  He dropped the rake, which clattered onto the floor, and stepped forward. He could feel something intangible radiating off the chrysalis. Blood pounded in his ears, and a wave of excitement swept through him as he reached out. Before he could even question his actions, Tom carefully placed his hand on the dark mass. It was warmer than he expected, soft and spongelike. It pulsed, shrinking away and then expanding back into his grasp, as if frightened and then accepting, pulsating into his palm over and over and over again.

  After a long moment, Tom pulled his hand away. Mucus stretched between his fingers and the still-throbbing chrysalis, arcing through the air, connecting them.

  He stared at his
glistening fingers. They seemed very far away, as if they were falling to the floor while the rest of him stayed in the same place. The entire basement brightened, went black, then lit up again, darkness and light oscillating in a regular rhythm. The chrysalis grew larger, its shape morphing, human hands and faces reaching out toward Tom from beneath its surface, beckoning him closer.

  Voices whispered his name. His skin seemed to slough off in the same instant that his blood was absorbed by his bones, which turned to dust. He blew away in a sudden gust of wind, only to re-form in the same spot, the lights above him flickering, his eyes opening and closing even though, he knew, his lids were completely gone. He disintegrated and reappeared once, then multiple times. Time stood still.

  Holy fucking shit.

  * * *

  “How was the basement?” Chelsea asked as Tom joined them outside, striding through the long grass.

  “And what took you so long?” Jenny added, staring at him.

  “It was … uhh … pretty crazy down there,” Tom said, avoiding eye contact with Jenny. He could only imagine what he looked like after what had just happened. Or had it even happened? He wasn’t sure. He fought an urge to head back inside and go down those rickety stairs again.

  “Like I said, the basement needs a bit of work,” Chelsea admitted. “‘As is’ means ‘as is.’ But who knows what treasures are down there!”

  “Yeah … who knows…,” he mumbled, feeling Jenny’s gaze burning a hole through his face. He fought to keep his composure, mind still spinning. “There’s a ton of dust, that’s for sure. What have you two been up to?”

  Jenny’s face softened and she smiled. “I’ve been grilling Chelsea about Victoria’s college days, but I’m not getting much out of her. Something about a sorority sister ‘code of silence.’”

  “That’s right!” the real estate agent chirped. “Just trust me when I tell you that neither of us will ever drink tequila again!”

  * * *

  Jenny looked out at the passing houses while Tom drove them back to the car-rental place. They had taken a train out to New Jersey to see what the commute was like, and were surprised to discover how little time it took.