The Mephistophelean House Read online

  Excise the individual. Another is infected. Contagion spreads. We are left with plague. There is no shortage of individuals. A billion souls now roam this world at war. Imagine a world twice as crowded. What potential for violence would eviscerate the spirit of the times? A world twice as crowded, again? Perpetual war? A war that never ends? Just as there is no shortage of men, there is no shortage of Sin. Consider the metaphor of the diseased mind. Were the world the mind of a psychopath, would not each individual person represent a passing mania? Each face, the face of madness? Such an unchecked, consensual reality is the scourge of Man and the fate of the individual.

  Unless we operate.

  But how to operate upon the soul of man?

  This study identifies a series of procedures to be implemented in Institutions of Public Health across the nation in order to address fundamental moral phenomena in a systematic undertaking. Operate upon a man, does he not bleed? Operate upon the soul of man to solve the riddle of his bleeding. Evil conspires to subsume the human soul. Science prevails a new City of God. Tangled are the webs we weave inside the human mind. What horror might befall us all, deep and dark inside? Where is soul, where is disease, that which makes us ill at ease, when one peers in a mirror has there ever been one dearer, an invention of one’s mind, a distant find drawn ever nearer?

  In my mind Doctor Maximilian Kilgore addressed the Infernal Legislature, beaming like a beacon in mankind’s darkest hour, the world at war, the Infernal Legislators cloying, the gavel falling, the assembly rising out of their seats, boisterous calls from both sides of the aisle for the esteemed Doctor to chair the Oregon Board of Eugenics, protestations of delight and affirmation, compacts of solidarity, the Doctor echoing across the capitol dome, “but my friends, my colleagues, my brothers in arms, fear not, haste hath dutifully been employed. Work has already begun.”

  The netherworldly volume rested on the table. The brown dust jacket was unscuffed, dentelle trig and true, the offset print and bastard title bounded in fresh glue; although the book was very old the textblock case was new, the untrimmed leaves in mint condition, endpaper see-through.

  “I've got to get out of here.”

  Flurries of snow pocketed the quad outside the library. Something was missing from the dorm block. The Sallyport was pockmarked, dappled abrasions cutting the length of the cornice.

  The gargoyles were gone.

  Had I imagined the whole thing?

  I heard the rustling of wings.

  I looked up.

  The lanterns on the Sallyport cast transmogrifications over the dappled maculation. The light played tricks on my eyes.

  I followed the path through the wood and was about to cross the bridge when I noticed a gargoyle on the post.

  “I don't remember…”

  The wood was silent.

  The gargoyle rose on its haunches.

  The lamppost hummed.

  The creek gurgled.

  The trees swayed.

  There was no wind.

  “Must have imagined it.”

  The gargoyle unloosed a guttural caterwaul.

  A stone hammer face-planted my skull on the rail. I reached out but my hands didn’t work. I fell on my knees, bleating wings rising in a field of stars, blood pouring from my mouth, static in my ears.

  “Argh.”

  I stumbled across the bridge.

  The dorm block poked through the trees.

  “Oh no.”

  My head spun.

  A lump formed.

  A shadow sailed over the treetops.

  There were more of them now.

  “There’s got to be another way around.”

  I snaked through the ferns. The creek faded.

  “Must be pretty high up.”

  The wood was silent.

  I looked up.

  There were gargoyles in the tree.

  One went for my face.

  “Argh!”

  I strafed over the embankment twenty five feet to the creek bed below.

  My life flashed before my eyes.

  If I had a second chance, I would have said I never saw the Mephistophelean House. If I knew then what I know now, I'd have never gone inside. If I had my life back, I would ignore the trap door, the abnormal closet, the windowless chamber.

  But as I fell a root jutted from the escarpment and I grabbed hold, slamming against the lip. I kicked my legs and turned myself around, pitching like a fish on a hook

  The gargoyles echeloned. Dagger horns and crooked pincers gashed my hands and arms, maws of tuff and glassy spikes with muzzles made of thorns, a gargoyle lit upon the root and set to rip it out, I caught the devil with my knee and smashed its bony snout.

  The root slipped.

  “No!”

  The gargoyle fell onto the rocks.

  I scrambled up the lip. A pair of gargoyles volplaned, mantling the murder with their spiny wings. I kicked one over the ledge but the other latched on, clawing its way up my leg. I got up and ran, dashing it against the rocks, but instead of smashing to pieces it recoiled, yawping in the duff.

  The primal instinct for survival kicked in. I made for the road. The ground was wet and it was hard to see. In the distance I saw a street lamp. I followed the tree line back to the parking lot and jumped inside the bio diesel.

  The parking lot was empty.

  There were no scratches on my leg.

  My shirt was dry.

  “This can’t be happening.”

  I wrested the phone from my pocket.

  A raspy voice answered.

  “Yeah?”

  “Jonsrud?”

  “Listen. I’m coming up. I've got Matthew’s car.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re bringing that prick...”

  “Matthew’s gone.”

  "What?”

  “It’s the House. There's something in the House.”

  Chapter 7

  The Thing at the Ranch

  Colossal rolling thrones stoked diesel plumes, log carriers, ballast tractors, heavy haulers, parking lots, zoned developments, empty fields, trees, brush and grass. I cranked the heat, the oncoming traffic a pure white snake. The Capitol was unobservable from the freeway, a metered blur breaching the freeway wall.

  A state police cruiser merged onto the interstate.

  I tapped the brakes.

  “Great. Just great.”

  The lights flashed.

  I huffed, gripping the wheel. The cruiser shot forward, chicaning around the bend. I stepped on the accelerator, unnerved.

  What had I to fear?

  What crime had I committed?

  I exited onto Kuebler Road and headed east, the bio diesel’s high-beams illuminating a winding, country road. A manufactured home was for sale. The name on a mailbox was scratched out. A fence led nowhere.

  I looked at the digital clock on the leather dashboard. I had been driving for 70 minutes.

  Sublimity

  Population

  2709

  It was hard to keep the car on the road. The road pitched without warning. I stared down the high beams, accelerating. The familiar, clipped milepost indicated the private road to the Jonsrud ranch, a tree farm separated from a pasture by an electric fence for a quarter of a mile.

  The estate was bathed in floodlights. I circled the turnaround and parked next to the shop. A pint-sized Feist yipped frantically on a chain, strangling itself by the neck. A Deerhound named Calapooya emerged from the barn, growling. I took a knee and extended my hand, beckoning the good-natured, loyal hound, Jonsrud’s hunting companion, and my personal favorite.

  The Deerhound bared its fangs.

  “Calapooya?”

  The Deerhound snarled.

  “Calapooya? Don’t you know me?”

  The Feist barked irascibly.

  “What’s gotten into you guys?”

  Calapooya lunged. I backed into the barn. I could hear a struggle, the chain snap, the dogs taking off.

  Hampshire
, Suffolk, and Southdowns huddled around a manger. A pyramid of hay bales stretched up to the rafters where a tom cat licked fir. I ducked my head over the fence post and looked outside.

  The dogs were gone.

  “Hmm. Must have slipped the chain.”

  The chain was cut in two.

  An electrified fence shadowed the ridge. The lights in the arena were on. I followed the dirt road looking up at the night sky.

  Inside the arena Jonsrud was roped to a 1300 pound palomino.

  “Canter.”

  The horse cantered.

  “Good boy.”

  Jonsrud snapped the whip.

  “Halt.”

  The horse pulled up.

  “Good boy.”

  “Good boy Jonsrud,” I said.

  “You’re here,” Jonsrud stroked the horse, 16 hands bristling with muscle. The palomino inspected my pockets with its mutinous lips.

  “Hey,” I exclaimed, “Why don’t you whip him and say ‘Bad Boy?’”

  “He’s curious.”

  “He’s a pervert.”

  The palomino knelled.

  “He’s fat. He needs to lose some weight.”

  “Good boy,” I pet the horse.

  “You know Ben, one of these days we’re going to have to halter you up and teach you to canter.”

  I laughed.

  “I thought,” Jonsrud lowered his voice, “you said you weren’t going to bring that prick.”

  “Matthew’s gone.”

  “But..”

  The gate banged against the post.

  The palomino reared, pile driving Jonsrud into the dirt. I grasped the reigns but the palomino’s hooves sliced the marker.

  “Jonsrud!”

  The vainglorious berserker rose on its haunches. There was nothing I could do. I let go of the reigns. It was too late. The rope locked around my wrist. I was pulled under.

  The hooves descended. Jonsrud grabbed the halter and wrenched it sideways, cradling its jowls and poll. The quarter horse slipped the halter and cast him aside, bolting around the arena.

  “There’s something out there.”

  I picked myself up.

  “Whoah, boy.”

  The horse doubled back.

  “He’s spooked.”

  “We’ll never get him now.”

  Jonsrud withdrew a pack of cigarettes and headed for the gate.

  “Let’s take a look.”

  The palomino kicked up plumes of silt, Jonsrud’s cigarette smudging a blurred line. We stood outside, silos dotting the forest like a silver city. Far below we could hear the Feist yipping across the field.

  “There’s nothing here.”

  “I could have sworn I saw someone.”

  “Matthew’s gone. The detectives came to the House.”

  “Detectives?”

  I told Jonsrud about the pattern on the basement floor, the trap door, the upside-down numbers, the gargoyles, Doctor Maximilian Kilgore. To return in my mind to the Mephistophelean House was to return to the windowless chamber, the place in the wall where the black X and pink circle came together.

  “He’s calmed down,” Jonsrud said. The palomino drank from a trough. “I’ll put him in the paddock.”

  Jonsrud wedged his cigarette in the dirt and led the palomino into the paddock, snatching a fresh bale of alfalfa. He replaced the hose and closed the door, joining me outside.

  “What about the dogs?”

  “Coyote’s no match for a Deerhound. They’ll come back after they chased off whatever it was.”

  We followed the road back to the veranda. A marble bar, metal chairs and glass tables were arranged around a Cartesian fountain. Jonsrud opened the French doors and we entered a granite-topped kitchen. Portraits of Jonsrud as a younger man hung on the wall of the great room, a staircase abutting a stone mantle, the skull of an ox in its center.

  Jonsrud built a fire. He put the poker in the rack and proceeded to the bar.

  “Freshen your drink, governor?”

  “Certainly.”

  Chestnut flasks and Benedictine bottles bedecked a demilune bar. Jonsrud poured two highballs, handing me one.

  “There could be explanations for the things you describe,” he suggested, sinking onto a brown leather chaise. “Normal situations misinterpreted.”

  “Such as?”

  “You said yourself the basement smelled like gas. There’s your black X and pink circle.”

  “I’ve thought about that. What about the other things?”

  “The water in the basement. Foundations warp. The building’s over a hundred years old. The other things, like the billowing curtains, could have been dreams. You woke up in the middle of the night, right? Who’s to say you didn’t dream the whole thing? Matthew could be back by now, for all you know. How much do you know about him, anyway?”

  “I hardly knew the guy.”

  “What about the gargoyles?”

  “It doesn’t make sense. If there is something in the House, how could it follow you?”

  The poker hung on the rack.

  “I don’t know,” Jonsrud ruminated, “people disappear every day. There are over a hundred thousand missing persons registered by the FBI. One hundred thousand. Are the supernatural to blame? Is our nation being shanghaied by specters? Kidnaped by corpses?”

  Jonsrud craned his neck.

  “Jonsrud?”

  The color drained from his face.

  He stared up, profoundly still.

  “Jonsrud?”

  The fire blazed.

  Jonsrud went over to the poker.

  “What was that, you were you saying?”

  “Are we to presume, Doctor...”

  “Doctor?”

  “Just a figure of speech, but are we to presume, on this melancholy moon, that the dead are taking our place? That soon every house, a Mephistophelean House, bereft of the human race? And that facets of you, and the things that you do, deep inside are becoming erased, just a matter of time with a corrupted mind, disappearing without a trace.”

  “Jesus Christ, you sound like Matthew.”

  In the light of the hearth I raised my glass.

  The fire burned richly.

  I looked through the window.

  The forest was dark.

  The stars were cold.

  “Some things require a leap of faith.”

  The poker glinted.

  One by one, the stars blotted out.

  A dog barked.

  There was the sound of a struggle.

  A bone crunching scream.

  “Calapooya!”

  “Don’t open the door.”

  “Calapoya’s back.”

  “I told you it’s not Calapooya. I brought It here, with me.”

  “It’s Calapoyya. I’ll open the door.”

  “Jesus Christ, don’t open that door.”

  The fire cracked.

  The door opened.

  I made for the poker.

  Chapter 8

  Moving Out

  I sat up.

  It was day.

  Jonsrud was gone.

  The poker was missing.

  “Jonsrud?”

  My head ached.

  “What happened?”

  The mansion was empty.

  I checked the second floor.

  The den was unoccupied.

  The bedrooms were vacated.

  I stood in the office looking out over the ranch.

  “Jonsrud!”

  I called Jonsrud.

  He didn't answer.

  “Maybe he went somewhere.”

  The pickup was next to the shop.

  “Truck’s here.”

  I checked the barn.

  The dogs were gone.

  I walked over to the arena.

  The palomino drank from the trough.

  “Where in the hell did everybody go?”

  The air was stagnant.

  The trees were still.

  I co
uld not remember.

  I went back to the house.

  I sat in the great room.

  Jonsrud did not appear.

  “I can’t remember!”

  I looked at the floor.

  The sofa did not cast a shadow.

  Nor did the table.

  The hutch, recliner, and shelves were shadowless.

  Not even I cast a shadow.

  The ashes in the hearth rustled.

  “The poker. Calapooya…”

  Light poured through the window.

  “I brought It here, with me...”

  The evergreens swayed on the hill, just as they always had. Just as they always would. In the evergreens I stood next to a pond, holding a stone.

  “Let me go.”

  In a white room with a white carpet, it is easy to see when something is out of place. Especially when there is a shadow on a day when no shadows are cast.

  “Wherever I go.”

  “Whatever I do.”

  “I'll never be free.”

  “You'll be there too.”

  The surface of the pond was still.

  I could see my reflection.

  It was there.

  Behind me.

  It was reaching out.

  I grasped the stone.

  “There are a lot of things in the basement that need to go.”

  “Knickknacks, keepsakes, even a couple of cans of gas.”

  I had nothing to lose.

  “It’s so nice to come to Home to a fire…even when there isn’t a fireplace.”

  A hellish scream riled the horses in the field.

  The bio diesel accelerated down the dirt road past the clipped signpost, tailpipe burning a bio-chemical trail through Sublimity. A colorless sun hung over the Willamette Valley. I-5 topknotted the Marquam Bridge and merged onto the Banfield. I drove in a stupor, planning my next move.

  “It knows I’m coming. I have to be quick. No milling about. I’ll get what I need, pack the car, set the house on fire…”

  I looked in the rear view mirror.

  “If I lost control, and something else was pulling the strings, would I know? If IT was me, and I was a stranger to myself, at what point did It take over? When did I stop calling the shots? Why go back? Isn’t that what It wants? Isn’t that what It’s wanted, all along?”