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The House on Lily Lane

Lawrence Vernon

    Susan set her suitcases down and knocked on the front door to 33 Lily Lane, a neat and prim two-story structure that boasted gleaming white walls, a picket fence, and the pleasant aroma of a freshly cut lawn. The door swung open, revealing a tall woman with gray hair and clad in a yellow, cotton dress. She focused her beady blue eyes on Susan as if the young woman was an unwelcomed intruder.
    “Hello, Grandma,” Susan said.
    Grandma did not reply. Instead, she held the door open and gestured for Susan to enter. Hefting her luggage, Susan walked through the doorway into a foyer. A flight of stairs led upward. To her right, an archway led to the kitchen. On her left, a second archway led to the living room. To its right, a photograph of her deceased grandfather hung over a table with a single rock lily in a black vase.
    After her grandmother closed the door, Susan felt the woman’s hard glare drilling holes into her back. She turned to face Grandma.
    Susan smiled weakly. “Thank you for letting me stay here until I can find a place of my own. Things have been difficult for me since Ben died. If there’s anything—”
    “How bad was it?” Grandma asked.
    “Excuse me?”
    “The accident. How bad was it?”
    “How bad was it?” Susan gawked at her grandmother as if the old woman had asked her to go streaking through the neighborhood. “Grandma, my fiancé died. Doesn’t that sound pretty bad to you?”
    “You didn’t get hurt, though?”
    “I got banged up a little, but nothing serious.”
    “You wore your seatbelt, right?”
    “Of course, I wore my seatbelt. I always wear my seatbelt. Why would you ask me something like that?
    Her grandmother nodded as if confirming a suspicion and then pointed up the flight of stairs. “You can use your old bedroom. Lunch will be ready in an hour.”
    Susan continued to stare at her grandmother until the old woman disappeared into the kitchen.
    What was that all about? Why would she ask if I had worn my seatbelt? What a strange question. The old bird must be losing it.
    Susan climbed the stairs, each step groaning with bitter memories. When she was fourteen, her parents had died in a fire, the result of her negligence with a coffeemaker. She had moved in with her grandparents and lived with them until she got an apartment with Ben. Pain, like a noxious brew, filled the years she had spent with her grandparents. Memories of abusive discipline, harsh feelings, and a lack of love haunted her mind.
    At the top of the stairs, a hallway of doors stretched to a point of darkness. She turned to look down the flight of stairs.
    A dark memory invaded her mind. She remembered Grandma was out visiting friends, leaving Susan and Grandpa alone together. Her grandfather had fallen down the stairs. Hearing the fall, Susan ran out of her bedroom. From the crazy angle Grandpa’s head tilted at, she surmised he had broken his neck. He couldn’t call out, but his eyes pleaded desperately for help.
    She could have helped him but memories of brutal beatings with a thick, black cane crawled through her mind like slimy beetles. She turned on her heel and returned to her bedroom. Two hours later, she called 911.
    When the paramedics arrived, Susan told them she didn’t know when her grandfather fell down the stairs. She was in her bedroom, listening to music on her CD player while doing her homework. After the paramedics transported Grandpa to the hospital, a doctor pronounced him dead on arrival.
    He deserved to die. After the hell he put me through, how could I let such a man live?
    She marched to her bedroom to twist the knob. The door swung open.
     The tone of her old bedroom room radiated depression. Bland, white walls, void of decorations, frowned at her. Dusty drapes hung limply from a solitary window. Across from the foot of a neatly made bed, a bureau with a mirror leaned against a wall. Susan sniffed the air. Her room smelled musty as if it was a decaying corpse.
    With her sneakers thumping upon the hardwood floor, Susan approached the bed and threw her suitcases onto it. They bounced once and settled.
    She turned to gaze at her reflection in the mirror. Dark brown hair cascaded toward her shoulders. White skin glistened. A pair of lips formed a pink slash across her face. Moving her head closer to the mirror, Susan stared into her soft, brown eyes.
    Her pupils constricted into tips of black. In them, agony squirmed like a wounded snake. Agony because Ben was dead. Agony because she had to live with her grandmother. Agony because the past had robbed her of her hopes and dreams. Agony because the future promised nothing but dark nightmares.
    Tears trickled from the corner of her eyes. Her mouth twisted into a grimace, and her throat tightened. She collapsed to the floor as wretched sobs racked her body.
    “Please, God, let everything be all right. Please.”
    Only the suffocating silence of the bedroom answered her prayer.

#

    “Isn’t this great, Sue?” Ben shifted the Celica into fifth gear. The needle climbed from seventy to eighty. The scenery on both sides of the car rushed by in a blur.
    After slurping down a can of beer, Susan giggled. Earlier today, she and Ben had celebrated her twenty-first birthday at a surprise party. She beamed with happiness as Ben, in his silly juvenile manner, tried to impress her with his newly purchased Celica.
    When a curve loomed ahead, Susan glanced at the speedometer. The needle dangled just below eighty-two. Concerned, she looked back up at the approaching curve.
    “Be careful, Ben,” she said. “That curve looks sharp.”
    He laughed. “Don’t worry, babe. I can handle it.”
    Ben slowed down a little. The needle dropped below seventy-five, making Susan feel a little easier. However, her stomach was still a tight knot.
    The car rounded the curve and Ben probably would have made it if a green Ford wasn’t in their lane. The horrified look on the driver’s face filled her vision while Ben screamed something.
    Closing her eyes, she braced for the impact. When the two cars crashed into each other, Susan lurched forward causing her forehead to smack against the windshield. Pain ripped through her body as shards of glass punctured her flesh. Blood filled her mouth.
    When Susan opened her eyes, she landed on the hood with a loud thud. Her body jerked once, and then she could no longer move. Her pain faded and blackness met her eyes. A voice whispered in her mind: You’re dead, Sue.
    Susan bolted awake. Her heart pounded. Her sweat-drenched nightgown clung to her body like a layer of molasses. A sharp odor of urine tickled her nose, and she placed a hand between her legs, feeling a damp spot.
    “Jesus Christ,” she whispered.
    Hyperventilating, she thought about her dream. It was all true except the ending. Susan never went through the windshield. She wouldn’t be here if she had. Besides, she always wore her seatbelt.
    Not that time you didn’t.
    Susan jerked as if someone had poked her with a pin. She kicked off her blankets, left her bed, and headed to the bathroom to clean herself.
    An hour later, and wearing blue jeans and a blouse, Susan went downstairs into the dreary kitchen to find a cold breakfast of sausage and eggs waiting for her. After gobbling the food down, she thought about her plan of action for today. First, she would buy a couple of newspapers and peruse the want ads to see if she could find a job. She wanted to save up as much money as she could and get an apartment. The sooner she left this place, the better.
    After putting her dish and utensils in the sink, Susan entered the foyer. Something gleaming in the living room caught her eye. Curious, she entered that room and stopped.
    Like wasps, horror swarmed throughout her body, stinging every part of her being. Her mouth dropped open. Her heart rate accelerated. Perspiration trickled from under her arms and down her face.
    A smashed, gray Celica dominated the center of the living room.
    Susan cautiously approached the wrecked car and placed her hand upon the driver’s side door. Cold metal kissed her palm. She walked to the front and discovered a gaping hole where the windshield used to be.
    You forgot to put your seatbelt on.
    Through the busted windshield, Susan could see an unhooked seatbelt resting on the bloody passenger seat.
    Susan backed away from the car. Dark terror wormed its way through her stomach, up her throat, and tore from between her lips. “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?”
    “Susie,” someone said behind her.
    Twisting around, Susan faced a thin, pale man with a shock of brown hair who smelled like rotting meat. A sweaty, white shirt hung onto his skeletal frame while baggy pants clung to his waist.
    “Daddy?” Susan gasped. “But how? You’re dead!”
    “Just like you,” her father said.
    “What?”
    “Just like you.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    Her father advanced on her with outstretched arms and an awkward gait. His skin blackened and flaked off like chips of paint. He grinned.
    Susan backed away. “Stay away from me!”
    She stumbled over something and fell. With wide eyes, she leaped up, ready to defend herself, and realized she was no longer in the living room.
    Cold cement walls frowned at her, and electric lights swung from the ceiling. A pile of wood rested in a corner. Cool moist air caressed her body. Rats squeaked.
    “The basement,” Susan whispered. “How did I end up here?”
    “Susan.” A hand touched her shoulder.
    Shrieking, Susan whipped around to see a slender woman about thirty-five-years old. She wore a nightgown with a floral pattern and had long, blonde hair flowing from her head like a waterfall. Her eyes shone with rage.
    “Mommy?” Susan cried.
    Her mother’s body suddenly erupted into a flaming pyre, bathing Susan in a cascade of suffocating heat. With a nasty grin, the burning woman reached for Susan’s throat.
    Susan fled from the hideous apparition and down a hallway that had somehow materialized within the brick wall. She continued to run until she bumped into something solid.
    After falling onto her buttocks, Susan looked up. A tall, pale faced man in a black tuxedo and stinking of formaldehyde glared down at her.
    “Hello, Susan,” the man said.
    “Grandpa?” Susan asked.
    “You could have saved me but you let me die, didn’t you? You hated me. You despised me. You wanted me dead. Now, I’m going to make you pay.”
    With a nasty grin and outstretched hands, he advanced on her.
    Susan twisted around and fled down the hallway. Instead of leading back into the basement, the hallway returned her to the living room.
    When she arrived there, she discovered a rolled-up piece of paper with a yellow ribbon tied around its middle in place of the Celica. With her heart thumping, Susan retrieved the paper and read it.
    Susan shut her eyes and dropped the paper as shock forced her into a near swoon.
    “That can’t be,” she said. “That can’t be.”
    The paper was a death certificate bearing her name.
    When something creaked behind her, Susan spun around. Her grandmother was rocking back and forth in a rocking chair.
    “What is going on here?” Susan asked.
    Grandma stopped rocking, stood, and held up an unhooked seatbelt. “You forgot to put it on.”
    “No.”
    “Yes, you were drinking and so happy that Ben got a new car that you forgot to put it on. You went right through the windshield and died.”
    “No.”
    “Face it, Susan. We’re all dead and trapped in this house.”
    “That can’t be! We’re not dead.”
    “Yes, we are. You died in that car crash. I died from a stroke a month later.”
    “No! You’re lying, you crazy, old bitch. I’m leaving right now.”
    Susan rushed to the front door and wrenched it open. A brick wall greeted her. She backed away from the wall and collapsed onto the stairs.
    “No,” she whispered.
    “We can’t leave.” Grandma stood and waved her hand around. “This house is like a giant battery for lost souls. Sometimes when someone dies in or near it, the house will trap that person’s soul. That’s why we are all here. That’s why you are here.”
    Grandma approached Susan and dropped the seatbelt onto the young woman’s lap. It lay there like a dozing snake.
    “Face the facts, young lady,” Grandma said. “You are dead. You are trapped here and you’re going to be here for a long time. So get used to it.”
    With that, Grandma departed for the kitchen.
    Susan gazed upon the seatbelt for a long time before pushing it away. It clattered onto the floor. She buried her face in her hands and wept.

#

    “So what do you think, honey?” John asked.
    Christine shrugged. “It has a certain . . . charm.”
    “That it does.”
    While the young newlyweds stood in front of 33 Lily Lane, a soft, summer breeze that carried the scent of a freshly cut lawn ruffled John’s black hair and stroked Christine’s golden blonde strands.
    A For Sale sign stood on the front lawn. Earlier today, the realtor, a lovely woman with a cheerful personality, had shown them the property. She had left to keep another appointment, but the couple had decided to explore the exterior of the house and its surroundings some more to determine if they would be happy here.
    “I like it,” John said. “It’s close to work. It’s nice and roomy. I can convert one of the bedrooms into an office. I can set up a gym down in the basement too.”
    Christine maintained a steady silence prompting John to nudge her.
    “You don’t like it?” he asked.
    “Oh no, I like it,” Christine said. “It’s just that the previous owner died in the kitchen.”
    John chuckled. “What? You believe in ghosts?”
    “No, I don’t believe in ghosts. It’s just that . . .”
    Christine suddenly drew in a sharp intake of breath and widened her eyes. She remained transfixed as if under a fearful enchantment.
    “Hey, hon.” John shook his wife’s arm. “Are you okay?”
    Shaking her head, Christine blinked several times as if she had wakened from a deep sleep. “I’m sorry. I must have been seeing things. I thought I saw a young woman staring out of the window.”
    “A young woman?”
    “Yeah, she looked . . . really sad.”
    John pursed his lips. “Maybe we better head back.”
    “Yeah, maybe we should.”
    They approached a SUV in the driveway. John hopped into the driver’s seat while Christine entered the passenger seat. He started the engine, and was about to back up when Christine grabbed his arm in a crushing grip.
    “John!”
    “What?”
    Christine gazed at him like a frightened child. Her normally tan flesh had become bone-white, and her green eyes glowed with a violent fear.
    “Your seatbelt,” she said. “You forgot to put it on!”
    John looked down and realized he did indeed forget to buckle up. Shaking, he grabbed the seatbelt, pulled the strap out, and snapped it in place.
    “Jesus, Christine,” John said. “You didn’t have to scream like that. You scared the hell out of me.”
    She faced forward. “We can’t ever forget to buckle up.”
    “Well, okay. I’ll be sure to remember that.”
    Christine fell into a deep silence while John backed the SUV out of the driveway. After shifting gears, he drove away from 33 Lily Lane.

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