The following if from a story I started (and nearly finished) about six months ago. I wanted to write something dark and Gothic, like an old horror story Poe used to write. My tale is about John Harper, a college student who takes a job helping an old woman sort through her dead husbands old office. The germ of this story is based on my own experiences helping an elderly woman set up her home office (all those years ago). Unlike John, I didn't find any dead bodies...or anything else sinister (though there was french bread pizza). Enjoy:
From "The Gossamer Trunk" by Jason A. Wendleon
Using what little gas he had left, he drove to the Glynn house on Holden Avenue. It was a cold and rainy November morning. The sun was obscured by thick gray clouds, and the pavement glistened from early morning sleet. Getting out of his car, he studied the old house. The Glynn house was in an older, crumbling part of town. An area that had been considered affluent about two decades ago, it seemed forgotten now. The street was cracked and uneven, and the sidewalks undulated haphazardly across the ground.
The Glynn house leered at him with its grimy, vacant windows. Half of the house seemed to be swallowed up by thick, wild ivy. A few forgotten hedges were now running amok at the edges of the property, their leafy tendrils criss-crossing each other at bizarre angles. A handful of skeletal trees dotted the landscape; their gnarled branches looked like fingers trying to grab hold of the pale gray sky.
What still remained uncovered of the house was brown and faded. Most of the windows had no shingles, those precious few that remained limped and sagged. It was as thought the house had exhaled deeply, then simply died.
Walking up the uneven stone steps to the front door, he noticed a line of crows peering down at him from the crest of the roof. Their black, shiny feathers provided a stark contrast to the dull home.
A fat bronze knocker rested at eye level on the door. Grasping it with both hands, he knocked three times. The loud clinging sound startled both him and the birds. They abandoned their lofty perch and flew off into the hazy distance. From behind the door, Harper could hear a muffled shuffling of steps and a barely audible: “Just a minute!”
Harper ran a hand through his hair quickly and cleared his throat. Then he waited. Small, half frozen drops of rain began to fall onto his shoulders. From behind the door he could still hear someone moving around. He cleared his throat again. A loud metallic click sounded within the heavy door. It creaked open slowly, revealing a small wrinkled figure.
Rosa Glynn resembled her house in more ways than one. Like the Glynn house, Rosa was a decaying beauty. The tentacles of time strangled her like the snaking vines that were choking off portions of her house. Her soft brown eyes sat surrounded by two dark, heavy circles. She wore her hair in a tight gray bun, a few loose strands floated around the top of her head, making her look oddly angelic. Extending a twisted, arthritic hand, she motioned for John to come inside.
“Good morning! You must be John, come in! Come in!”
He nodded, “It’s nice to finally meet you Mrs. Glynn…”
“You got here on time,” Rosa said as she consulted a bronze pocket watch. “I like it when people are punctual. Did you have any trouble finding me?”
“No,” Harper said holding up a damp sheet of paper. “I went online and printed out some directions.”
“Ah, I see…” she nodded vacantly. “Well let me take your coat Mr. Harper, then I can show you the mess I need your help with…”
She took his coat and shuffled towards a dusty wooden coat rack. Placing the coat gingerly next to a faded tweed coat, and a black umbrella—she turned and motioned for him to follow her.
“Right this way, Mr. Harper.”
“I prefer John, ma’am,” he mumbled.
Inside, the Glynn house was dark and quiet. To Harper, it seemed like either an old library or a rundown art gallery. There was a strong, sour odor of mold and dust clinging to the air.
From the foyer, Rosa led him slowly through a long, twisting hallway. Hanging on the wall were several paintings of flowers. Each still life, though expertly painted, seemed to portray artificial flowers rather than real ones. The sharp green stems were angular and had bits of metal sticking out of them. The petals hung limp and waxy. Why a person would go through the trouble of painstakingly rendering fake flowers rather than real ones was beyond John.
“Henri, that was my husband’s name, kept his office all the way back here so he wouldn’t be bothered…” her breath was already ragged and wheezy.
At the end of the hallway, there was a large black door with a polished sliver handle; it was here that Rosa stopped.
She turned and faced him, “Alright, now I must warn you…my Henri was not a very neat or organized person…”
“I’m sure I’ve seen worse,” Harper replied. “After all, I am a college student.”
Giving him a toothy grin, she reached down with one of her clawed hands, and opened the door.
Beyond the door frame was a hazy cloud his eyes could not penetrate. Rosa stepped into the room, as she did the haze rippled around her—almost like a liquid. Vanishing into the room, she started speaking again--she didn't notice that Harper had not followed her into the gloom.
“I know what you must be thinking…” he could hear her saying. “What sort of a man makes a mess like this…”
Deep down in the pit of his stomach, John Harper wanted to flee. He blinked his eyes trying to clear them. Why couldn’t he see into the room? The smoky gray haze swirled and beckoned him inside. A curled wisp of smoke stretched out, eerily resembling Rosa’s gnarled hand; it tried to pull him in...
“It’s not that bad is it?”
John was suddenly aware that she was standing in front of him, her hands resting on both sides of the door frame. He stared down at her and shook his head.
“Oh no, ma’am…I’ve seen quite worse messes in my time….”
She squinted up at him, unsure if he was merely being polite or if he was speaking the truth.
“Well Henri ran several businesses during our marriage, and towards the end he started two charities. As you can imagine all that generated quite a bit of paper.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Yes I imagine that would…”
“Not to mention that poor Henri was a bit of a pack rat…you know what a pack rat is, don’t you Mr. Harper?”
“Please, call me John…”
“A pack rat,” she said ignoring him and vanishing back into the room again, “is a person who can’t stand to throw anything out. They hoard and save every little scrap of everything they get. Not sure what makes a person like that, do you have any ideas Mr. Harper?”
“No, ma’am…I sure don’t…”
Closing his eyes, he took a step forward and let the haze…the room…devour him whole. When he found the courage to look, instead of standing in smoky cloud, he discovered he was in a large private study. Nothing too sinister, just an endless sea of books and papers. Piles and piles of paper. Stacks upon stacks.
Though the entire room was dominated by this explosion of paper, one corner in particular seemed to be the source. It was as if the seed for this mess had been originally planted there, in the back left corner of the room. Harper imagined the rows of junk to be long spider legs emanating from the corner of the room.
That’s the spider’s abdomen, he thought, over there where it’s practically touching the ceiling.
It was difficult for him to tell much about the departed Henri Glynn’s private office. A large swell of paper seemed to indicate a desk, buried against one of the walls. On the wall farthest from the source of the mess (as he was calling the largest pile of paper in the back left corner) was a large curtained window.
“Anything dated before 1989 can be thrown out,” Rosa said. “Everything else needs to be sorted by date and organization.”
“I’m probably going to need a lot of garbage bags,” he told her quietly.
She nodded, “I have some in the other room, I’ll be right back…”
He watched her slowly meander her way through the sprawling mess.
A person could get lost in here, he thought idly.
Harper hadn’t known very many pack rats, but this seemed to be a bit extreme. Part of him wanted a camera, so he could study this tomb of papers later.
That’s what it feels like, too…a tomb. Like her dear Henri was trying to encase himself in memos and invoices.
There weren’t any chairs (that were visible at least); however there were two small mounds that probably concealed chairs of some kind. So, with his foot he made himself a little place on the floor to sit. Rosa returned a few minutes after he’d sat down. She came into the room, a strange expression on her face.
“Where did you disappear to Mr. Harper?”
He sat there quietly on the floor, watching her stumble through the room looking for him. Her face grew worried and he shook himself out of his strange trance.
“I’m down here Mrs. Glynn,” he said softly.
She found him, loosening her grip on the foil bags they glided to the floor.
“I’m not sure how to tell you to tackle this project…not exactly…I myself wouldn’t no where to begin…” She turned and looked over her shoulder. The widow seemed suddenly desperate to leave the office.
“Well,” Harper said. “I guess I’ll just start sorting right here, I’ll make piles of what you want me to keep and throw everything else out.”
“Yes,” she muttered quietly. “That sounds fine…well I’ll leave you to your work. If you need anything I’ll be down the hall in the front parlor.”
John nodded and watched her stumble out. As she left, he saw her slowly push the door shut. It closed with a thud. He felt as though he was sealed inside a sarcophagus. The numerous stacks of paper menaced him. Harper tackled the pile directly in front of him. Grabbing a handful, he started rifling through the dead man’s papers...
