IHW Winter Retreat 2008 (The Final Chapter): Good Friends and Good Spirits…I HopeA cold wind blows hard down Jefferson Street, buffeting the outer walls of the Eastern Woodcarver Club. Inside, however, a small space heater creates an island of warmth. Once, this was a doctor’s waiting room, now it is a place for the Indiana Horror Writers to rest their weary heads for the night.
Tracy Jones and Tiffany Proctor lay on the couch across the room, buried beneath throw rugs and blankets, Bob Freeman has staked out the chair by the door, while I have elected to spend the night in the “choking chair”—the comfy blue recliner where one of Quest Paranormal’s many investigators was strangled a few months before. Using the DVD drive in Tiffany’s laptop, we begin to watch Vincent Price in
Last Man on Earth, but I barely make it through the opening credits. Despite my excitement, it is three o’clock in the morning and I have been up for nearly twenty-four hours now.
My eyes snap open just after 4:00am and I hear the muffled noise of a loud conversation. I lift my head and look around. Everyone is asleep. I glance over at Tiffany’s laptop. The screen is black. Either the movie has ended, or someone has shut it off. Either way, that is not Vincent Price that I’m hearing.
After a moment, my groggy mind suggests that a television must be on in another room. I am tired enough to believe it, and so I close my eyes once more and fall back into a deep slumber.
I return to consciousness slowly, and finally, around ten o’clock, I manage to get up. After a nice hot shower, I dress and venture downstairs. Maurice Broaddus has made the trip up from Indianapolis for the day, and Bob is giving him the now familiar tour.
We shake hands, exchange pleasantries, and then Bob looks at me and says, “Did you hear that argument this morning?”
“When?”
“Just after four. There were footsteps up and down the hall and people having a very loud, heated chat.”
My eyes widen. “I did hear something, but I thought it was just a television somewhere.”
Bob shakes his head. “No, it was right out in the hall. I got out of my chair to go look, but there was nobody there.”
Maurice has an odd look on his face. Does he believe us? He was not here for the investigation last night, did not experience the things we experienced. I might find it difficult to accept myself, had I not actually been touched by something otherworldly.
With the addition of Maurice, our group is too large for the doctor’s waiting room. We move across the hall, a part of the building reserved for a ladies’ sewing circle, and make ourselves comfortable on the couches and chairs within. Today’s discussion centers on the creation of believable characters, but per our norm, it morphs into wider topics of genre, publishing in general, and industry gossip.
As we talk, I feel something brush against my neck and across my hair. On the counter behind me sits a row of miniature Christmas trees. Before I sat down, I noticed that some of them had lengths of ribbon trailing from their branches. I turn around to push the tree off to one side, or at least push it back so that it is not bothering me all afternoon, but there is no tree behind me. I’m sitting right between them…and there is nothing that could have been touching my neck.
A loud knock echoes up the stairs.
Bob Freeman hurries down to the lower level, and when he returns, writer/editor Doug Warrick is with him. We are all pleased to see Doug. The man is an amazing talent, and I for one cannot wait to hear what he has to add to our discussions. But first, the tour.
After showing Doug around, and relaying all of the bizarre happenings from the night before, we return to the second floor.
Bob and Maurice are nowhere to be found.
“Where’d they go?” I ask.
“Bob took Maurice over to see the Angel of Death,” Sara informs me. “He’s locked us up here.”
“You mean, ‘he’s locked the outside door.’”
“No, I mean he locked the door to the kitchen too.”
“Sara…That door doesn’t lock. It’s got a latch on it, but you latch it from this side.”
“Go see for yourself.”
I head down the stairs, holding tightly to the railing. People have been pushed down these steps in the past, and I do not want to fall. It is a long way to the landing below.
When I get to the side door, I grab the handle and give it a push. It doesn’t open. I look to the doorframe for the hook-and-eye latch. The hook is dangling. There is no earthly reason why I shouldn’t be able to open the door. I put my weight against the glass, but it will not budge. It is as if the door has been superglued to the frame. I try once more, feeling the center of the door bow in, then I back away quickly, afraid that I will break through it and fall onto the kitchen floor.
Safely back upstairs, I proceed to tell the others what has happened, and after a few minutes, Bob and Maurice return from their trip across town.
“Bob, did you lock the door to the kitchen?” I ask.
“No.”
“Well, I can’t get it to open.”
Bob points over his shoulder. “We just came in that way.” He then holds up his pager. “Which one of you sent me a text that says ‘8:41’?”
None of us had, but we all knew the significance of that time. Yesterday, Tracy’s phone had a mysterious alarm set to go off at 8:41 pm, and one of the Quest investigators saw that same time on a digital readout, despite the fact it was actually 8:52.
We stand there a moment, none of us knowing what to believe, and then Maurice informs us that the time has come for him to return to Indianapolis. If I hadn’t known about his previous commitment in advance, I might have been tempted to think that we’d scared him off, but I know better. If he could have stayed the night, he would have.
After saying our goodbyes, we break for Michelle Pendergrass’ wonderful spaghetti dinner, then return to the sewing room for readings and something to drink. We have six bottles of red wine from Indiana’s own Oliver Winery. This is my favorite wine in the world! It’s sweet, but not too sweet, and it helps to calm my nerves.
You see, the sun is going down fast, and tonight…well, tonight there will be no Quest Paranormal here with us. Tonight, we are on our own.
I’m starting to think Maurice had the right idea, and then Sara brings out candles of various sizes. She puts them on a tray and strikes a match, creating a kind of campfire in the center of our reading circle. We then turn off the lights, each prepared to tell a spine-tingling tale.
I have a seat next to Tracy Jones and read aloud from “Goodnight,” a story which will soon grace the pages of the upcoming
Dark Harvest anthology. Michelle and Sara read their tales from the collection as well. Tiffany and Tracy read excerpts from their novels, while Bob opts to read “T’was the Night Before Christmas,” his story that features the gothic house from across town, the one with the Angel of Death looming in its back yard.
And then it comes time to hear Doug’s reading. He opens his laptop and shares with us the first chapter of a novel he’s been working on. I must tell you, my experience with the entity in the upstairs closet was utterly amazing, but this…hearing Doug Warrick read with such power…hearing his wondrous prose…this is the highlight of the weekend.
Doug brings his reading to a conclusion with the words, “…right…now!”
At first, we just sit there, letting the power of the story sink in, and then Tiffany speaks up, “Not to freak anybody out, but you finished that at exactly 8:41 pm.”
Doug’s mouth falls open, his eyes wide. “Are you
serious?”
Tiffany nods and I glance down at my own watch for confirmation.
8:41 pmI wonder what it can mean, and the only thing that comes to mind is “time of death.” Perhaps someone in the doctor’s office passed on at 8:41 pm. Or it might have been the poor men who were tortured in the KKK office down the hall, or the man who carved hundreds of hammers…we may never know.
As the evening comes to an end, we clean up as much as possible. We need to be out of the building by 10:00 am tomorrow, and we have to leave everything just the way we found it. Chairs are moved back into place, trash bags are tied and taken out, and all of our belongings are gathered together so that we can easily run them out to our vehicles when the sun comes up.
It is a quiet night. No voices…no footsteps…no locked doors…no intense feelings of cold or ill will. We sit and finish off the wine bottles, but those are the only spirits we encounter.
The next morning, we say our goodbyes and go our separate ways. In a few weeks, we will all meet again in the safety of an Indianapolis Starbucks. The conversations will be just as stimulating, but the atmosphere could never hope to equal this place. There was a lot of laughter here, a lot of excitement and creativity. God, I never felt so alive.
As I walk to my car, I look over my shoulder at the Eastern Woodcarver’s Club, my eyes drifting up to the windows on the third floor. I cannot help but feel that there are eyes up there, watching me leave. Are they happy to be left alone…or do they miss the company of the living? I turn back to the Converse watertower, silhouetted against the bright morning sky. Soon it will be reduced to scrap. Will the Woodcarver’s building meet the same fate one day? And if so, what will become of the spirits within? After all, buildings crumble, memories and photographs fade with time, but the dead…the dead will forever remain.
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The End...?[/glow]