The Attic and Other Stories

By David Evans Katz

The Attic is a collection of 13 ghost stories and other supernatural tales by David Evans Katz in the tradition of M.R. James, H.P. Lovecraft and Henry James. Many of these have been published in print magazines such as All Hallows, the literary journal of The Ghost Story Society, Zahir–Unforgettable Tales, and Skyline Literary Magazine. Four are published in this edition for the first time. Mr. Katz is also the author of the novels The Real McCoy and Sin of Omission (Koenisha Publications).

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Evans Katz
• Release date: Aug 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311888334

David Evans Katz

David Evans Katz is the author of the novels, The Real McCoy and Sin of Omission (Koenisha Publications) and numerous short stories. He has also authored The Attic and Other Stories, a collection of supernatural tales. He was educated at Columbia University in New York and at Northeastern University in Boston. Mr. Katz was born and raised in Malden, Massachusetts and currently resides in Connecticut.

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The Attic and Other Stories

By David Evans Katz

Copyright 2014 David Evans Katz

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is fictitious or is used fictitiously.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

About this Collection

The Attic

Forbidden Waters

The Viles

Just Visiting

A Door Ajar

The Gray Man

There Was a Crooked House

The War of Jenkins’ Ear

Next Sunday at the Bazaar

Sent to Coventry

The Wreck of the Anna Marie

Reunion

The Disappearance of Carolyn Failes

About the author

Other books by the author

Acknowledgements

The Attic was first published in the October 2004 issue of All Hallows, the literary journal of The Ghost Story Society

Forbidden Waters was first published in the October 2005 issue of All Hallows, the literary journal of The Ghost Story Society and received an honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror, 2006)

Just Visiting was first published in the November/December 2003 issue of Skyline Literary Magazine

A Door Ajar was first published in the January/February 2004 issue of Skyline Literary Magazine

There Was a Crooked House was first published in the October 2005 issue of Zahir – Unforgettable Tales magazine

The War of Jenkins’ Ear was first published in the Winter 2002 issue of Peeks & Valleys literary journal

Next Sunday at the Bazaar was first published in the June 2004 issue of Zahir – Unforgettable Tales magazine

Sent to Coventry was first published in the October 2006 issue of All Hallows, the literary journal of The Ghost Story Society

Reunion was first published in the April 2011 edition of Zahir – Unforgettable Tales magazine

About this Collection

All but one of these stories deal, in one way or another, with the supernatural (I will leave it to the reader to discover which one). All have a kernel of history underlying them or, at least, a foundation in my own experience which I have described in an afterword for each story.

In The Attic, a man moves back to the home in which he was raised, only to discover that the ghosts he feared when he was a child may really exist.

In Forbidden Waters, a man goes fishing and finds himself trapped in a place where he doesn’t belong.

The Viles is the story of an inquiry into a forty-year old murder by an investigator who is too skeptical for his own good.

Just Visiting finds a lonely little boy visiting some strange relatives with his mother; only his mother doesn’t seem to notice how strange they are.

A Door Ajar is a vignette about a travel-weary businessman who can’t take his eyes off the couple in the next room.

The Gray Man concerns a serial child kidnapper whose victims seem to die of natural causes.

There Was a Crooked House is a tale of revenge.

The War of Jenkins’ Ear involves two old friends discussing a gruesome family relic over port and cigars.

Next Sunday at the Bazaar is about a trader in bargains who gets more than he bargained for.

Sent to Coventry tells the story of a British aristocrat who entertains a visiting American in wartime London with a supernatural tale.

The Wreck of the Anna Marie is a ghostly tale of a shipwreck in the South Pacific.

Reunion involves a man’s search for an old schoolmate he hasn’t seen in twenty years, and who, it turns out, inhabits a ghost town.

In The Disappearance of Carolyn Failes, a woman vanishes in an elevator. It may have happened before…

Enjoy.

-David Evans Katz

The Attic

It was Avery Nesselrode’s sister Cassandra who had told him, more than forty years ago, that the attic was haunted, when he was old enough to be frightened by such things, but not so old as to question his big sister’s motives. Back then, he had to pass the attic door in order to reach his sister’s bedroom, and the ominous presence of that massive door, and the threat that lay behind it, was enough to prevent him from venturing down the hall to trespass on his sister’s private domain.

Old Mrs. Beaudeley, she had said, murdered her husband in the attic. His bones are buried somewhere on the property, and his spirit won’t ever rest.

Part of him knew even then that it was utter nonsense, but his sister’s words, coming as they did from someone older and more experienced in such things, had been served up with a flavor of sincerity that was difficult to resist, even if they had been seasoned with a subtle hint of malice.

Avery had met old Mrs. Beaudeley when he was a kid. She was then an adult of indeterminate middle years who worked behind the counter of his school’s cafeteria, dishing out the flavorless paste that only just met the requirements of the federal student hot lunch program. He had found nothing particularly sinister about her, but she was decidedly odd and slightly comical – frequently muttering to herself and sniping incoherently at students for some imagined insult. He had always hurried through the cafeteria line, just in case she’d choose him for one of her verbal assaults.

Mrs. Beaudeley sold Avery’s parents the house at number Ten Vining Street in 1952, the year he was born. Her husband had disappeared the year before under mysterious circumstances, and the neighborhood gossips had spread lurid tales of infidelity and mayhem to explain the event, ultimately driving the poor woman away. The result of her retreat from local notoriety was a lucky break for Avery’s parents – a bargain sale price on a sprawling ten-room Victorian in the better part of town.

Avery remembered the other kids in the neighborhood chanting the quatrain:

Old Mrs. Beaudeley

couldn’t get her man to stay.

When she couldn’t have her say,

she murdered him and moved away.

The memory of that childish taunt combined with his sister’s remarks had given Avery countless nightmares and made him adamant in his refusal to remain alone in the house, even as he got older and should have known better. In the eighteen years he lived at home with his parents, he had never once ventured beyond the threshold of the attic door up to the vacant third floor.

The notion of moving back into the house after his father died and his mother went into a local nursing home hadn’t been Avery’s. Cassandra, twice divorced and with no children of her own, conspired with Avery’s wife Penelope to convince him that the house would be perfect for them and their three young boys.

You’re not still afraid of Mr. Beaudeley’s ghost are you? Cassandra had teased him when he resisted the idea.

Don’t be ridiculous, Cassie, he’d said to her. I’m a grown man. Your stories don’t frighten me anymore. As an afterthought, he added, And don’t go telling the boys any of that nonsense, either. I don’t want them crippled with fear of their own home the way I was at their age.

Cassandra laughed, not good-naturedly, but with a throaty undertone that Avery sensed betrayed a touch of the big sister meanness he remembered from his childhood.

Penelope handled all the details of the move, not merely because she was more organized than Avery, but because he refused to help in any way. He was busy at the office – a never-ending situation it seemed – and had managed to avoid all the pre-move activities, but she readily dismantled his excuses with guilt, badgering him into taking time off for the day of the move.

God knows you could use the exercise, Penelope had nagged. A little toting and carrying wouldn’t hurt you.

The twelve-year-old twins, Robert and John, were to share Cassandra’s old bedroom in the back end of the second floor. It was perfect for them – bright and airy with a triple-window view of the large back yard. It also had the benefit of having a private bathroom they could share. Avery and Penelope had the spacious front bedroom, also with its own private bath, and ten-year-old James had Avery’s old bedroom right next door. Down the wide second-floor hallway was a guest bedroom, a common bathroom and, of course, the attic door.

Avery’s mother had left behind all her old furniture, only some of which appealed to Penelope. Penelope decided temporarily to store the unwanted pieces in the attic, so, on the appointed day, a crew of moving men arrived at Ten Vining Street in order to make room for the furniture that would arrive later on the moving van.

Avery hadn’t given much thought to what would be done with his parents’ old furniture. As two of the moving men finished carting it upstairs, Penelope handed him a stack of worn-out sheets and instructed him to follow the men up to the attic and cover the pieces in order to protect them from dust.

Involuntarily, he experienced an immobilizing rush of panic and just stood there, arms full of linen, staring at his wife with his mouth agape.

Penelope looked at him and, sensing his discomfort, said, Cassie wasn’t kidding, was she? You are afraid of the attic.

Avery shook his head in vehement denial. No, no. That’s not it. Really. He was embarrassed. He didn’t want to betray his fear to his wife, but it was too late.

She grinned at him and emitted a quiet laugh, almost as malicious as Cassandra’s had been. Honestly, Avery. Stop acting like a child.

Mortified, he turned on his heels and marched up the stairs to the second floor, clutching the sheets to his chest, punctuating every footstep with noisy resentment.

He reached the second-floor landing and looked down the familiar hallway to his left. The attic door, which opened out into the hall, was ajar. Slowly, he approached it, remembering all the times he had scuttled past in abject fear.

Avery, you’re being a ninny, he said to himself. He had unknowingly muttered it aloud. Ninny was a word he hadn’t thought of in years, one his late father had used to describe him when he behaved foolishly.

The oversized attic door was made of solid oak, arched at the top and divided into six panels that each featured ornate scrollwork carvings and beveled moldings. It smelled faintly of furniture oil. Avery peered beyond the door and saw six broad steps leading to a landing halfway up; there was a rectangular stained glass window on the outside wall of the landing, framed in oak molding that matched the detail of the attic doorway. Below the window on the landing was a window seat. The walls of the staircase were paneled in dark oak wainscoting, nearly as ornate as the attic door itself.

Slowly, reluctantly, Avery ascended each step, feeling his chest contract and his pulse race as he did so. He was overweight and out of shape, but six steps shouldn’t have been a challenge. When he reached the landing, he was taking short, shallow breaths with his mouth open. He saw that the stairway doubled back and led up to the attic proper, but he couldn’t bring himself to raise his leg and take the next step.

Avery knew he wasn’t alone – two of the moving men were already at the top arranging his mother’s old furniture – but the prospect of company gave him no comfort. He was rooted to the landing, frozen by irrational fear and quite incapable of doing anything to alleviate his paralysis. Sooner or later, he knew, the moving men would come down and find him standing there, holding a pile of old sheets and looking inane.

Avery Nesselrode! What in God’s name are you doing? Are you going to stand there all day?

It was Penelope, in the hallway below, armed with an aerosol can of Lemon Pledge and a fistful of cheesecloth. For the first time in their sixteen years of marriage, he hated her. He hated her for catching him in his moment of weakness and for hectoring him as though he were a schoolboy who had forgotten his homework.

Penelope, I’m– He started to speak, but the words he was trying to form somehow dribbled from his brain and got lost before they reached his mouth.

She looked up at him, arms akimbo, and said, Sometimes you act like such a ninny.

There was that word again.

Penelope abruptly turned and walked away, shaking her head in disgust and muttering words that were incomprehensible to Avery. Her interruption had diverted his attention and broken his fear, releasing him from his momentary stupor. Now, however, he felt something worse. It was almost as if his mother had walked into the bathroom and had caught him masturbating. His shame evolved into anger, and he carried that anger up the final six steps to the top, thinking unspeakable things about the woman he had married and who was the mother of his children.

A strange voice addressed him, once again tearing the thoughts from his mind.

Mister, how do you want we should arrange this stuff?

It was one of the moving men. Avery looked at the familiar collection of furniture he’d grown up with – his parents’ dismantled bedroom set, their flower patterned camelback sofa, an ugly overstuffed armchair, tables, lamps, and a dining room table and chairs that had hosted countless Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. They all looked forlorn and out of place in the center of the attic floor.

Avery glanced around at the cavernous attic he had never seen before. The center room was enormous, at least five hundred square feet, covering an area of more than half the house; there were two smaller rooms at the front and rear off the main room. Across from the stairway were three large dormer windows, each with a semi-circular window seat. Two fireplaces faced each other from opposite sides of the room, and the walls were covered with faded yellow and white striped wallpaper peeling slightly at the edges. On the floor was a thin layer of dust, but Avery saw the solid hardwood beneath it. The high vaulted ceiling rose to meet an octagonal cupola in its center that illuminated the room with sunlight. Avery knew the roof of the cupola was topped with a rooster-shaped copper weather vane visible from the street.

Suddenly, Avery felt foolish. The attic was magnificent. It would make a beautiful den or study, once they had gotten rid of the unwanted furniture. Or, perhaps, it could be a playroom for the boys. It would have been a great playroom for him when he was a child if only Cassandra hadn’t planted the fear of Mr. Beaudeley’s ghost in him.

Hey, Mister, how do you want we should arrange this stuff?

It was the moving man again.

Avery looked at him and smiled. I’m sorry, he said. I was just admiring the room.

Yeah. It’s neat, the man said impatiently. He wiped his brow with a dirty handkerchief. Now tell me how you want us to arrange this junk.

Just bunch it all up together in the center of the room so I can cover it with these sheets.

The moving men did as they were told. It took them only a few minutes, and then they went back downstairs, leaving Avery alone to spread out the sheets. When he was done, he looked around at the room. What a pity, he thought, that he had never come up here before. He wondered if the fireplaces still worked, and he imagined himself up here on a cold winter’s night with both of them roaring and him curled up on his mother’s old overstuffed chair with a good book.

Avery thought about the other two rooms, wondering if they were adequate for storage, and he began walking toward the front room to check. As he stepped around the pile of furniture, he felt a nagging sensation that something was amiss. It was an indefinite feeling. Suddenly, he was unsure of his footing; it was as though the floor was too far below where it ought to be, like walking down a flight of stairs and unexpectedly finding that the next step wasn’t there. He gave a panicked gasp, certain he was going to fall. Quickly, he reached out to steady himself against the arm of the sofa under the sheets, but in doing so, he jostled some of the furniture, causing a shrill scraping sound to echo off the attic walls.

In an instant, all his earlier fear descended on him like a