The Old Stroutt Place

My blogging creativity is gone. Nothing seems to be able bring it back. People keep telling me I need to post stuff, and I try, I really do. But I just can't seem to do it. I literally cannot think of anything that anyone would wish to read. And so I have decided to post a story from my archives. Some of you may recall that I took a writing class at KPC last fall. It was only a two day thing, more like a seminar than a college class. I wrote several different pieces during the class, but only two are presentable out of context. The first, The Catchers, I have already posted. However, my final assignment I have never posted. The Old Stroutt place remains my longest completed story, at 4291 words. I wrote it in two days, practically without a break. I have never gone back and reread it, and it remains unedited from the way I first wrote it down. If I recall there are some problems with the story and several things I was going to change, but I don't remember what they were now. In fact, I don't remember much about the story. Maybe I should read it again.

The Old Stroutt Place

By Corin McKenney

The doorbell intoned its electric imitation of Big Ben and Jimmy sighed, begrudging whoever was pulling him out of his book. He looked at his wife who was absorbed in Mutiny on the Bounty and showed no signs of even hearing the bell.

“Don’t rouse yourself, Wynn, I’ll get it.”

“Thank you,” she said, and stretched out on the couch, making sure the space he had just vacated did not go to waste.

On the way to the door, Jimmy stretched lazily, his joints popping like a musket volley. Grasping the large brass knob, he swung open the door.

“Oh, hello. My name is Mrs. Moskum.” The middle aged woman standing on his stoop appraised him with intense eyes. “I’m your nearest neighbor, you know the large yellow house down the road a few hundred yards, yes that’s us. Anyway, I was just on my way to the Woman’s Society meeting that the Mayor’s wife, Mrs. Glossop, is hosting, and thought I must drop by to welcome you to the neighborhood. How do you like your new house?”

“Very well, thank you,” he answered, but saw she expected more. “It is just the perfect size for a family of four.”

“You have two children then. Oh, may I meet them.”

“I’m sorry, but they’re taking their naps right now,” Jimmy said. “We just finished moving in last night and they wore themselves out exploring the place. Perhaps some other time.”

“Oh dear, that is a pity,” Mrs. Moskum betrayed her disappointment. “Boys or girls? Goodness I hope I’m not offensively inquisitive.”

“Two boys, Tobal is six and Isaac is four,” Jimmy said, raking his fingernail impatiently over the flaking paint of the doorjamb. “What time did you say that meeting started?”

She pulled out a watch on a chain which struck Jimmy as rather odd. “My dear, I’m late. Give my welcome to your wife. Oh, and what name should I tell the other woman when they inquire who has moved into the old Stroutt place?”

“Tresk,” answered Jimmy. “James and Wynn Tresk.”

When Mrs. Moskum departed, Jimmy closed the oaken door and ambled back into the living room with his head down, examining the old wooden floor as he went. Its intricate grain fascinated him and when he walked through the house he could not help but follow the random paths it made. Usually the paths ended in a swooping circle around a knot hole through which glimpses of the old-fashioned cellar could be caught.

It was an old house and had burned down many years in the past. The building was gutted by the blaze but the huge beams were barely singed and left a charred but still functional skeleton of the place. When it was rebuilt all the wood that was replaced was burnt to match the old and the interior was built new. All the walls looked as if when you touched them they would blacken you, but they didn’t. Wynn had loved it at once and there was no other option after she set her mind on it.

“Who was that?” the question startled him out of the path he had been following on the floor.

“Our nearest neighbor and wisher of welcome, Mrs. Muskrat.”

“That’s nice of her,” Wynn said, turning a page.

“I believe she was surveying us.”

“That’s nice of her,”

“Scouting us out.”

“That’s nice of…”

“You’re incredible, Wynn. Now when are those little buzzards going to wake up? They’ve been under for a while, don’t you think I should wake them up so they can sleep tonight,” he started toward the stairs leading up to the bedrooms.

“Jimmy, don’t you dare. They’ve barely been up there an hour.” Wynn had come thoroughly out of Mutiny on the Bounty and was beginning to come out of the couch. “Find something else to play with.”

“What injustice,” Jimmy exclaimed. “I can’t even play with my own offspring. What can a man do these days?”

“How about go into town and get me some groceries. I made a list.”

“I guess set myself up for that one,” Jimmy grumbled as he hopped into the Outback and started down the drive.

Not so many hours later, he shuddered at the fact that he left his family alone.

He braked to a stop outside the door and looked up at his new house. A feeling of pride swelled in his chest, it was his, this big lovely old place to live, and he suddenly loved it even more, he thought, than Wynn did. He jumped out and opened the trunk, hefting six grocery bags. Putting the milk on one side and the orange juice on the other to balance the weight, he sprang up to the door and pounded against it with his foot, rang the doorbell with his chin, and set about turning the knob with his encumbered hand. Before he could succeed it was opened by some invisible force from within.

“We must have had an automatic opener installed,” Jimmy marveled, and a little giggle came from behind the door.

“It’s just me, dad,” said Tobal, jumping out of hiding.

“Oh, good, I was worried for a second, automatic openers are expensive. Now go get Isaac and you can help me carry the rest of the groceries in.”

Jimmy went to the kitchen and set the bags down on the counter top with a thud. On his way back outside Wynn met him with Isaac in her arms and Tobal pestering her to put him down so they could help daddy.

“You didn’t happen to buy some rat traps did you?” she asked.

“Um, no. I don’t randomly buy things like rat traps very often,” he said, walking out to the car. “Why, did you see one?”

“No,” Wynn put Isaac down and the two boys ran out to help carry the bags. “But down in the old cellar I can here things scuffling around and a cellar like that is perfect for rats, and you know how I hate rats.”

“Next time I drive into town I’ll get some traps,” he said, handing Isaac the lightest bag and Tobal the second lightest.

“Dad, I’m this big now,” Tobal said, puffing out his chest. “I can take two.”

“Sorry, here you go.” Jimmy took the last two bags himself and the whole family went inside and left the bags in the kitchen.

“Now take these two little ruffians and keep them out of the kitchen while I put everything away,” said Wynn, smiling. “And be gentle on our new house.”

The three boys tumbled in the living room and Jimmy asked, “What do you want to play?”

“Let’s play football,” said Isaac, jumping up and down.

“Alright football it is, where’s the ball?” Tobal disappeared behind the couch and returned with the soft football Wynn had bought them for Christmas after they had broken a lamp and a picture frame in one day.

“Okay, the touchdown is the end of the rug and we have four chances to get there, just like in the old house only this is bigger. Isaac, you’ll be offense first and Tobal will defend. And you know mom’s rule, no tackling if we’re playing inside so its two hand touch.

They had gotten one play off, a three foot button hook, when Wynn’s voice came flying from the kitchen, sharp with exasperation. “James, I put it on the list, how could you miss it.”

Jimmy jumped up and ran into the kitchen, “What was it, I was sure I got everything.”

“The milk, and the cheese too. You forgot them both.”

“What? No way, I remember specifically…” he trailed off. “You say you heard rats in the cellar.”

“Yes, I heard scuffling. You mean someone snuck up here and stole a bag while we were out at the car getting the rest.” Wynn’s eyes were advertising fear like a billboard.

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t jump to conclusions. You go and sit with the boys and I’ll go look around down there.” He grabbed his Mag-lite and opened the door to the pantry. “If it’s Bigfoot and he tries to jump me, I can bean him with this,” he said, smiling back at Wynn. She didn’t laugh, but turned and went to the living room.

Jimmy examined the trap door that opened to the cellar. Finding nothing that told him whether or not it had been opened recently, he hoisted up the heavy hatch and descended the rickety stairway. It was cool and a bit musty, seldom used in the past fifty years. Empty shelves that used to hold winter stores lined the walls ending at the far wall where a door to the ancient coal room stood. He walked cautiously through the room, shining his light here and there not looking for anything in particular. In the very center hung a single light bulb with a pull string dangling from it. He turned it on and walked to the door to the coal room. It was a heavy door, and old too. The hinges were bent and it dragged on the floor when he pulled it open. Nothing stirred inside the coal room, and it was blacker than night with coal dust still coating everything even after so many years. Little slits of light coming from cracks in the coal chute door lay across the ancient boiler, highlighting it in the darkness.

Jimmy turned to go, but as he passed back into the cellar, something on the floor caught his attention. The door had left a fan shaped scar on the wooden floor from being drug across it for many years. But the scar was not dull with age, it was bright and fresh, like newly cut lumber next to aged planks. The door had been used lately, and much. His eyes darted around with more reason now and he noticed more. The dust was disturbed, but there were no footprints. Instead it appeared that something was drug or brushed along the ground.

Jimmy cursed and ran back upstairs. “Yeah, something has been in the cellar,” he answered Wynn’s questioning eyes. “I would think a it must be a person because it stole a grocery bag but the prints are weird. It could be a coon or a possum but the prints are still weird.” He neglected to tell her that there was no possibility that a coon or possum could have opened the door to the coal room.

“So what are we going to do?” Wynn was scared but hid it well. Isaac and Tobal were still playing football but it had changed into simply a tussle for the ball. “Call the police?”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Jimmy, watching his sons. “There is nothing down there and all they would say is be careful and lock the doors. In fact I’ll nail down the hatch to the cellar right now.”

After there were six eight-penny nails sunk into the trap door to hold out intruders, a restless evening passed slowly. The fact that someone had been lurking in the cellar prodded their minds and kept them from relaxing. Tobal and Isaac tried to explore the house some more but Wynn was touchy and made them stay in her sight. That night when they were in bed a soft knock came on their door. It was Isaac and he was scared again. Soon after he came, there was another knock and it was Tobal.

“Mom, I’m scared,” he said, and Jimmy sighed. The bed would be crowded tonight. “I keep hearing things downstairs.”

“What?” Jimmy sprang to his feet. “What kind of things can you hear.”

“It sounds like whispers and grunts. Do you believe me? You’ve never believed me before about this kind of stuff.”

“Tonight’s different,” said Jimmy, going to the closet and pulling a pistol out of its hiding place. He loaded it as he talked. “Wynn, you keep the boys in here and don’t get out of bed. I’m going to see what’s going on.”

Wynn inhaled sharply and bit her lip. She said nothing but nodded assent. Opening the door, Jimmy slipped into the hallway and crept down to the main floor. He stole into the pantry for a look at the hatch. It was wide open, the nails he had put in jutting up like teeth from a jaw.

A floorboard creaked somewhere across the house and adrenaline shot through him. No man could force six eight-penny nails like that. He slipped into the kitchen and stopped to listen again, but heard nothing. Slinking into the next room, the entryway, he stopped to listen, holding his breath to hear over it. The floor creaked right over his head from the bedroom.

Jimmy lost all sense of stealth and sprinted upstairs, busting into the room like a one man SWAT team. Wynn stood beside the bed with a shocked look in her eyes. The gun lowered and Jimmy sighed with relief, “I thought you…” evidently when he pounded up the stairs he had disturbed the intruder, for footsteps drummed through the main floor. The gun rose again and he sprinted back down the stairs. He could hear the footsteps ahead of him, seemingly just out of sight as they ran through the house. Through the kitchen they went and into the pantry. Jimmy rounded into view of the gaping black maw that was the trap door and skidded to a halt. The footsteps were silent and he dreaded stepping down that dark throat. Taking the safety off his gun, he edged into the gloom. With every step he stopped and listened, straining his ears for the slightest hint of sound. He was almost at the bottom, the knotholes above his head were like stars in the sky of the cellar with dim window light coming through them from the rooms above. At the bottom step there was still no sound and he stood there working up his courage. With three great bounds he leaped to the middle of the cellar and grasped at the dangling pull cord. For a moment it eluded him and he started to panic, but his hand found the string and pulled. Light flooding the dank room.

Nothing. It was empty. There was nothing in the little coal room either. Whoever it was must have got out the coal chute door. Jimmy staggered back upstairs, picked up the phone, and called the police.

“…be careful, and remember to lock all your doors,” the police officer offered helpfully.

“Thanks,” Jimmy grunted. “And I’ll be sure and call if anything else happens.” He trudged back inside as the squad car pulled out and headed back to town. Wynn was waiting for him inside, Tobal and Isaac were asleep.

“They say they’ll have someone watch the place,” Jimmy told her.

“Well, I suppose that will have to do.”

The next few days were quiet and the Tresks thought that they might have scared off their visitor. Jimmy started his new job at the quiet local wilderness store and Wynn and the boys settled down to life in the new house. Then one day when he got home from work Wynn was waiting for him with worried eyes.

“I heard them again, Jimmy, the scuffling and scraping in the cellar.”

“Oh great,” Jimmy shrugged. “Don’t worry, nothing will get in the house.” He got his cordless drill and went to the pantry. Screw after screw bit into the wood, binding the hatch and floor together. Every inch around the whole trapdoor he put a screw. No one was forcing it open again.

Later they were reading in bed. “I can’t take this book anymore,” said Wynn suddenly, dropping Mutiny on the Bounty to the floor. “It’s just so full of terrible people, and the few good ones keep getting killed.”

“Sounds like it’s good to make you care so much,” mumbled Jimmy without taking his eyes off of his book, Black Orchids.

“Being good at writing such heart wrenching books is like being good at torturing people, it may be a skill but…” she was interrupted by a splintering crash, like a tree falling. Then a scream pervaded the house. Bowel wrenching and blood curdling, it ripped through the house carrying its message of agony. Suddenly it cut short and all was silent.

Tobal and Isaac burst into the room with scared faces. They took Jimmy’s place on the bed as he hurtled down to the main floor. He checked the pantry and the cellar door was still screwed down but he could here grunting and mumbling from below. After he called the police he grabbed his screw gun and set it to reverse. Screw after screw was pulled out and flung to the side. Jimmy cursed himself for putting so many screws in the trap, it was ridiculous excess just to make him feel better. The sounds in the cellar stopped before he finished and he anticipated it to be empty again. But that scream still rang in his head and the pure agony it told of.

Finally the last screw was removed. Jimmy found his Mag-lite and shined it down into the stomach of the house that was the cellar. He nearly took a step before he noticed the stairs were gone. The ancient and rickety steps had callapsed and produced that timber drop sound. Jerking the light around, he searched for the source of the scream but nothing unusual could be seen from there.

He waited there for the police and recounted the events for them. “Strange,” said Captain Heath, the officer in charge. “I’ve never heard of anything like this around here before. We’ll take a good look at that cellar before we decide anything.”

“How long have you been around here?” asked Jimmy. “Do you know why it was empty for so long?”

“Now if you’re thinking anything supernatural there’s no reason for that,” Heath reassured him. “The Stroutts moved away something like fifty years ago and always planned on coming back. Now they’re dead and the children have sold it, nothing uncanny at all.”

“You say they always planned on coming back?” Jimmy was shocked when he heard himself ask it, the wail had rattled him more than he first thought.

“Come now,” Heath comforted him like he was a child. “The Stroutts are said to have always been nice people, why should that change in death? Even if you believe in such things as hauntings why should they bother you?”

Jimmy said nothing and Heath went on with his investigation of the cellar. Hours later when they had gone the police had found nothing but a small puddle of blood the size of a quarter.

After the stairs collapsed there was no disturbance for almost a month. The cellar they used for storage and locked the coal chute so they leave the hatch open. They began to get to know their neighbors and several they even called friends. Tobal and Isaac met a little boy of five named Jack and they played in the surrounding woods most days.

“Isaac, Tobal,” Wynn bawled from the deck one day. “It’s time to come in, there’s a storm on its way.”

“But mom,” the boys emerged from the trees, Jack holding a little garter snake with both hands. “We just caught Twisty and want to give him a home. We are trying to find a bucket.”

“Not right now,” Wynn called back. “You’ll have to catch another one some other day, you have to come in now.”

The boys mumbled a bit and then Jack turned and set off to his home taking Twisty. Tobal and Isaac came inside dragging their feet from disappointment.

“Look,” Wynn told them, “there’s a storm coming and it is a big one. You can’t play in the rain and lightening.”

“But it isn’t raining yet.” Isaac protested, but was silenced by a look.

When the storm broke and thunder shook the world, Jimmy decided to close up and go home early. He pulled up through the pounding rain and hopped out of the car. The driving torrents tried to beat him into the earth but he sprinted to the deck and reached the safety of indoors. Peeling off his wet coat and shoes and lazily putting them in their places, he reflected on how a storm like this made him so possessive of his house. The whole world outside was a black forbidding war zone with nature and his home was a box of light, warmth, and comfort.

He strolled toward the living room, his head down and eyes following the paths the grain made for him. Outside the trees thrashed and beat against the walls in a vain effort to break them down. Lightening flickered and lit up the sky while thunder smashed and cracked like a great celestial train wreck.

It seemed ridiculous and melodramatic that it should end on a night like that, at least until he thought about it later. His eye followed the path toward where it ended at a knot hole. The grain went up in its swoop and…Holy Bajezus. Jimmy let out an inarticulate shout and jumped back three feet. His eyes had come to the end of the path, the knothole, and in that hole was an eye looking straight up into his. It was there a split second then was suddenly whisked away.

“Its back,” he yelled somewhat stupidly. But, almost subconsciously, he realized it was a human eye and any small fear of the supernatural that he might have had left him. He snatched his gun from the place he now hid it in the pantry and ripped open the hatch. Jumping down the ladder that now served as means of decent, he thudded to the floor. He held his gun ready and clicked on the light.

“What the…Wynn,” he shouted upwards. “Call the police.”

“You mean you knew that they were staying in our cellar and you didn’t bother to tell us,” Jimmy’s face was red with fury.

“Oh dear yes,” said Mrs. Moskum. “They’ve been living in there for a few years now and I couldn’t bear the thought of casting them out of their home.”

“This isn’t their home,” Jimmy gestured toward the building behind him. “This is my home. I paid money for it, lots.”

“Yes, but just think of them huddling together in the cold outside on nights like that.”

“Yes, and just think of them slipping through my house at night, stealing my groceries, and spying on my family from the cellar.”

“Jimmy,” said Wynn, pulling him back toward the house. “That’s enough. I’m sorry Mrs. Muskrat.”

Mrs. Moskum stared at her, appalled, and Jimmy burst out laughing. “Here, Wynn,” he said, “let me introduce you to Mrs. Moskum.”

Wynn turned red. Then she turned and drug Jimmy into the house. “You told me her name was Muskrat,” she chastised him

“I didn’t think you took me seriously,” Jimmy struggled to keep a straight face.

“I was reading a book, you know my brain doesn’t work right when I’m reading,” Wynn sighed. “Oh well, I guess she deserved it. That’s pretty terrible not telling somebody when there is four homeless guys living in their cellar and stealing their food.”

“It’s her charitable spirit, she didn’t want them shelterless.”

There was a silence, each absorbed in their own thoughts. Then Wynn spoke, voicing just what Jimmy had been thinking, “I’m glad it ended so…anticlimactic. In those books I’ve read it usually turns out being a serial killer or an escaped convict or…something supernatural. In real life even four homeless guys was terrifying.”

“Something you said just now, supernatural,” Jimmy paused, then went on, slightly embarrassed. “Did you ever find yourself wondering if it could be, just maybe, um, a ghost or something?”

She looked up into his face and nodded, “Right about when that horrible scream went through the house. Did they ever find out what that was all about?”

“Yeah,” said Jimmy. “Remember when I nailed the door down the first time. Well all four of the men put their shoulder against the hatch and tore it loose and they proceeded to explore the house and take some food. After I screwed it down like a madman they tried the same technique but they collapsed the old stairs and one of them broke his leg in the fall, pretty bad too.”

“That’s horrible,” Wynn shuddered.

“He should be in for surgery pretty soon, it didn’t heal very well.” Jimmy shrugged, and they went to the living and sat down on the couch. The boys were asleep upstairs. “Anyway, he started hollering and wouldn’t shut up so another fellow gave him a thump and put him out cold, that’s what the little blood was from I guess. They carried him away and apparently were never going to come back but that storm drove them for shelter.”

Wynn picked up Mutiny on the Bounty.

“You know,” he said, thoughtfully. “Why couldn’t someone who is dead come back and haunt? Say the Stroutts really did want to come back to their old house, what stops them? Is it because they are dead? But then what is dead, they say its when our brainwaves stop but they used to think it was the heart, and before that the breathing. And sometimes when they put those people who have almost died on life support, the body still works almost perfectly but they never come back. Something’s missing, but what? And where did it go? Could it haunt?”

“Jimmy,” Wynn interrupted. “I’m trying to read.”

After I had turned this in and recieved an email response from my teacher praising and criticising it (in a good way) and him inviting me to a writers confrence that I forgot about and just missed, I found out that he knew my Grandma and even had a blurb on the back of her book. He was the first person who was 1. A real writer, and 2. Not related to me, who showed any interest in my writing. And he has the same agent as Tobias Wolff. So I can forever say that someone with the same agent as Tobias Wolff liked something I wrote. It may be a stretch but it's my only claim to fame.