Enter Through the Crawlspace

By Lavinia M. Hughes

Enter Through the Crawlspace is a compilation of 20 short stories about neglected houses that talk, time travel that turned out to be not as much fun as the time traveler imagined, how a village dealt with a post-apocalyptic invasion, an alien up for a promotion, a shopping trip to another planet, a cursed cell phone, an entrance into a time warp, a rogue robot, a magical camera, a werewolf's experience in the human world, a cautionary tale about an autonomous ship, a vampire struggling to make ends meet in modern-day Massachusetts, and an old fashioned ghost story with a surprise ending. It is the author's sincere hope that when you read these stories, the hair on the back of your neck stands up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Waquoit Wordsmith Press
• Release date: May 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201727581

Lavinia M. Hughes

Lavinia M. Hughes is the author of Enter Through the Alleyway, her 3rd book of paranormal short stories, which follows Enter Through the Bulkhead, and her first book entitled Enter Through the Crawlspace. The Twilight Zone and the Alfred Hitchcock Hour are her inspirations for these mystical stories that feature drama and a human nature twist. Her other books include An iGen Cookbook for the Unskilled, an instructional cookbook. A native New Englander, she has also co-authored three novels—Newtucket Island, Training Ship, and Cape Car Blues. She lives and writes with her husband and co-author Richard Hughes at their Cape Cod home in the seaside village of Waquoit, Massachusetts.

Book preview

A CASE FOR HOME IMPROVEMENT

FALMOUTH, MASS.—November 1, 1911:

Mrs. Hays was so excited when she first met on my beach with the Boston architects who designed me in late 1911. Isn’t this lot beautiful?  It’s what I always wanted.  I’ll need a 2-car garage for our Model Ts, a trellis for the wisteria, and French doors opening to the beach and a side patio. The architects obliged this moneyed woman, who wanted me for a summer cottage in the arts and crafts style, as a breezy respite from her winter home in Wellesley, Massachusetts. They framed me and continued to review plans for my finish work, spreading out the plans on a work table in what would be my dining room.

I was fast taking shape as a 2-story white stucco house on a beach in Falmouth, Massachusetts, a tony summer colony to which the Boston area people liked to flock in the summer for its cool ocean breezes and weather that was often 10 degrees cooler than in concrete-heavy Boston. They planted shrubs along the street for privacy and a few ornamental trees around my perimeter. I felt cozy and cared for. Mrs. Hays and her husband Charles, who apparently (from what I overheard) was a big shot lawyer in Boston, paid me many visits in the early winter of 1912. They were always talking about the summer parties they’d host with me. I was looking forward to becoming part of their family, as they seemed like nice people.

I must tell my readers at this point that as a house, even though I appear to be an inanimate object, I can hear everything my owners do and say and I can read anything that’s left out on the table. And I have feelings. I do have feelings.

On one of their weekend visits to discuss my moldings and other fun details, they discussed their upcoming trip sailing to England in April. They’d see the sights and catch up with some of their family over there, then sail back on the maiden voyage of the Titanic, which was supposed to be the fastest and most glamorous ship ever built. It sounded exciting. I couldn’t wait for them to come back in May just as the season in Falmouth was gearing up for summer festivities. People were already walking on my beach, looking up at me and admiring how pretty I was. My next door neighbor had a gramophone, which sometimes played I Love You Truly by L. C. Baker.

Well, anyone reading this narrative knows what happened to the Titanic. One April morning, I saw people walking along my beach, calling out to each other Did you hear what happened? Someone had a newspaper with giant headlines reading "Titanic, Giant White Star Liner, Sinks on Her Maiden Voyage, April 15, 1912. 1800 Lives Reported Lost." I was nervous about my future. Was I now alone? What would become of me? I was all completed and pretty as a picture, but I had no people to live in me.

Well, apparently I was hasty because that weekend, the Hays family came down to see me. They had survived but appeared shell shocked, sitting around aimlessly, not looking at each other, and in the end, not even bothering to clean me, fix little things, or weed the garden. I felt dirty and disgusting. I looked at the houses near me. They had full time owners. They were kept up beautifully, with handymen, painters, and landscapers routinely working their magic. Mr. Hays had taken to drinking heavily and screaming abuse at Mrs. Hays. I began to feel neglected and resentful towards the Hays family. One night, he hurtled something at one of my windows and broke it. Ouch. That hurt!

I understood their feelings, but shouldn’t they be grateful they were alive? They didn’t seem all that grateful to me. I wished they’d sell me, as I no longer wanted to be aligned with them. I began to think maybe I could do something about it. You know, just a little boost to get them out of me. Sometimes when one of them would be half out the door, I’d kick up a wind (don’t ask how) and smack them in the butt. They always looked surprised, but then would just laugh. That silly wind, they’d say. When they’d close a window, I’d make it go down fast, trapping their fingers. Ouch, they’d say, I must have been careless in lowering the window. If one of them was on a ladder fixing something, which didn’t happen often—see earlier thought on that subject—I’d shake my whole self and try to knock them off the ladder. That didn’t accomplish anything either as they’d step off the ladder just in time. I needed to go big or go home as they say in the 21st century.

I finally hit on it. My coal furnace, while not typically used that much in the summer, was turned on in the spring and fall, when it was cooler. The Hays family liked to stretch out their season as long as possible, coming down on weekends. One late Saturday night in October they had fired up the coal furnace, as the weather had turned quite cool. I shook myself (those darned ocean breezes) and a piece of flaming coal popped out, catching on to the wooden beam next to the furnace, igniting a fire. They slept right through the whole thing, killing Mr. & Mrs. Hays and a 40-year old cousin who was staying with them. Time to start over with a new owner.

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FALMOUTH, MASS.—March 1, 1913:

The Hays executor came right down and worked with the insurance company and contractors to clean up the mess I made. They threw some money at me and before I knew it I was brand new again. Realtors were showing me to new people who admired me and never noticed the slight lingering smell of smoke. Lucretia Beaulieu, a French Canadian, toured me with her fiancé Jonathan Tremblay and they decided to buy me.

Lucretia, my darling, I know you love being a nurse but do you have to go so far away? I don’t like the sounds of what’s going on in Europe these days. We have plenty of sick people here on the Cape, he said.

"Oh, Jon, it’s just to get more experience. I always wanted to sail to Europe on a luxury liner. The Lusitania is so beautiful and it would be so exciting. Come with me! You can write anywhere. Think of how much you would see so you could write about it, she argued. And when we’re done with our adventure, we can settle down here in this beautiful house."

It warmed my house’s soul to hear that. They sounded like great young people—smart, dedicated to helping others. They got married in my living room in front of the fireplace and two dozen of their closest friends and relatives. The bride was beautiful in her short-sleeved ivory silk dress with gold lace over the bodice and skirt overlay and embellishing the edges of the train. On her head she wore a medieval headpiece with flowers on each side holding a floor length veil. Her ivory pumps had little bows on them. She held a giant bouquet of flowers as was the custom back in 1913. It was a formal wedding, though small. Everyone wished the couple well, then dined on fancy hors d’oevres and champagne provided by a local caterer. After a short honeymoon to Newport, Rhode Island, they moved in and we were all so happy for a few years.

The two of them sailed regularly on the Lusitania from New York to Ireland and other European ports—she as head nurse in the infirmary—and Jonathan writing steadily for The Boston Globe about all of the sights he saw. When they came back to Falmouth in between her assignments, they reveled in my beautiful presence overlooking the sound to Martha’s Vineyard, watching sailboats on the water, hearing the sounds of kids playing, their parents having picnics on the beach, and some people even daring enough to put on one of those bathing costumes, inhaling the brisk salt air, and braving a swim in the cold Atlantic. It was such a glorious time for all of us.

But as Jonathan had said to Lucretia the first night they had moved in, the political climate in Europe was now more than worrisome. It was dangerous. Various European regimes were roiling in a malevolent atmosphere which affected almost the entire world. War had already broken out in Europe. On one of Lucretia’s and Jonathan’s trips on the Lusitania, it finally happened. The Boston Globe that someone left on my beach reported that the ship left New York on May 1, 1915. The captain of the Lusitania proceeded to ignore the British Admiralty’s recommendations, and at 2:12 p.m. on May 7 the 32,000-ton ship was hit by an exploding torpedo on its starboard side. The torpedo blast was followed by a larger explosion, probably of the ship’s boilers, and the ship sank off the south coast of Ireland in less than 20 minutes.

It was revealed later that the Lusitania was carrying about 173 tons of war munitions for Britain, which the Germans cited as further justification for the attack. The United States eventually protested the action, and Germany apologized and pledged to end unrestricted submarine warfare. Unfortunately my sweet owners perished in the bombing. I was once again an orphan. I only knew this because an executor for the couple visited me, made an assessment, then sat down in one of the overstuffed armchairs facing the picture window and told this sad story to the realtor. The next of kin sighed, then put his head in his hands and began crying, along with the poor realtor.

We could all hear A Long Way to Tipperary by John McCormick softly playing at my neighbor’s house. The soundtrack of the Great War. I cried too, in my house way. This, of course, happens when I am overcome with emotion, just like people. My tears come from the rain-filled gutters. You laugh at such a thing, but they are tears to me.

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FALMOUTH, MASS.—September 29, 1929:

So the realtors toured me once again, pointing out my Delft-tiled fireplace, expertly finished moldings, warm hardwood floors, the leaded glass accent windows, the French doors leading to the patio and a pair on the beach side affording those magnificent views, and finally in late 1915 I had a new owner, Mr. Percy Locke, a 39-year old person of means who was affiliated with the stock market, as once he moved in, the dining room was covered in newspapers and investment periodicals. He even installed a ticker tape machine, as he called it, explaining to his visitors who asked what is that?

It’s a ticker tape machine. It transmits stock information and commodity prices over telegraph lines. Lads, let me tell you a little something about business and investments. After the war, as with all wars, so Percy Locke instructed his nephews when they visited in 1929, the economy shifts from wartime production to peacetime production. The returning soldiers need all kinds of things—housing, furniture, automobiles, and all the associated items needed for babies in growing families. It’s actually a wonderful time for the economy. President Coolidge has done a great job of making America more prosperous, so now we have money to invest in Wall Street stocks and bonds. It really is a get rich quick idea that we are all jumping on. You don’t even have to pay the whole amount at once. Say, for instance, you want to invest $100 in Bell Telephone. When they make money, you get dividends, or interest, let’s call it. But this new scheme doesn’t even require you to put the entire $100 down; you can just put down, say, $50, and owe your broker the rest when it makes all that money for you. They call it buying on margin.

But Uncle Percy, what if it doesn’t make money? Then what happens? asked his smart aleck nephew Lawrence Locke.

Oh, that’s never happened. Look, it’s 1929. I’ve been investing for 14 years now since I bought this house in 1915. How do you think I can afford this place, spend winters in Key West, plus sail to Europe every spring? said Percy all self-assured like. C’mon, boys, let’s eat supper. But first, some music. And he went over to his phonograph in the dining room and put a record on—Makin’ Whoopee by Eddie Kantor.

Well, looks like Percy Locke got ahead of himself. By August 1929, brokers had lent small investors more than two-thirds of the face value of the stocks they were buying on margin—more than $8.5 billion was out on loan. The amount of money out on loan was more than the entire amount of currency circulating in the U.S.A at the time. Stock market crash predictions were made which, while correct, caused panic among the investors who tried to sell off their stocks, all of them at one time. It was, as they say, a run on the banks. People lost everything. They had no savings. The money they had invested in stocks was worthless, gone, along with their get rich quick dreams. People were jumping out of high-rise windows and off of bridges.

Mr. Locke had loved me and taken good care of me with all his millions, but he was not immune to such tragedies. One day, shortly after the October 29, 1929, stock market crash, Mr. Locke put a record on the phonograph, Am I Blue? by Ethyl Waters. Then he simply walked into the ocean in front of me and sunk beneath the cold dark blue waves of the Atlantic.

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FALMOUTH, MASS.—April 19, 1932:

Two and a half years I sat empty, watching the tide come and go, watching my wealthy neighbors—for whom the beach is named—come and go, with their fancy late model automobiles that got bigger and bigger every year. Their servants dutifully lugged the trunks and picnic hampers from another automobile bought expressly for the purpose of lugging servants and things, while the wealthy folk traveled in I travel light style in even fancier automobiles, which they hopped out of carrying nothing but a flask. I saw their lavish parties, tiny lights strung around the trees lining their manicured lawns, a jazz band playing How Deep is the Ocean by Guy Lombardo, cocktail glasses clinking, entertaining their friends in high style. You’d never have known there was a Depression.

I felt a little creaky and drafty as there was no owner or anyone around