The front porch was wide and spacious, decorated with potted plants and white wicker lawn furniture; it looked like the type of setting Eudora Welty often employed; two ancient Southern ladies, sitting on their porch at twilight, sipping extra-sweet iced tea as they watched the sun go down and told each other all about their day and their plans for the coming week, when the grandchildren were supposed to visit. It looked cool and safe, the front porch of home from a Frank Capra film.
I opened the screen door and knocked on the heavy oak door behind it. There was a wide stained glass window in the center of the door, depicting a scene of a bird with a flower in its beak flying over a church steeple with a ringing bell; beneath this scene was the word Welcome.
I knocked louder, called Christopher's name several times, then pounded the door with the side of my fist.
"Fuck this," I said, and picked up one of the potted plants, readying to smash the window; then I asked: What would you do, Dad?
I'd check to make sure the door was locked before I went all ape-shit.
Good idea. I set down the plant and checked the door.
It was unlocked, and swung open noiselessly. Grendel must have had them oil the hinges every day.
I took a deep breath, held it, and stepped over the threshold. I did not close the door behind me.
The place was an antique dealer's Nirvana; from the wing-backed chairs to the little end tables to the china cabinets and the china inside them, there wasn't one piece of furniture within sight that probably didn't cost less than two-weeks' salary for most people. Even the area rug on which I was standing probably carried a four-figure asking price; homemade quilts of exquisite craftsmanship hung on the walls; an old Victrola in mint condition was placed just inside the entrance to the living room. The only thing modern in the entire downstairs was the massive 62-inch digital television in the corner of the living room.
And then there were the jars.
Dozens, hundreds of specimen jars lined the bottoms of the walls all around me, and continued on up the steps to the upstairs; they lined the floor of the kitchen, the pantry, the bathroom—even the back porch. The lids had been removed and the stench of alcohol and formaldehyde hung in the air, watering my eyes.
I glanced too long at a few of the jars and saw what floated within them—a child's hand, a pair of testicles, a few eyes, something that might have once been a small girl's vagina—then doubled over and dry-heaved. When I could stand again and pull in my breath without gagging, I called Christopher's name twice as loudly as before, and was answered only by the muffled echo of my own voice.
I had no choice but to search the entire house. I started upstairs and worked my way down.
In my blackest nightmares I have never imagined any devices like those I saw in the various bedrooms; devices for torture, for restraint, for the mouth and genitals, strap-ons, leather hoods, spiked heels, whips, studded gloves, studded collars, an Iron Maiden, cages with children's toys inside them, chains, handcuffs, enema bags, rubber tubes, rubber gloves, leather underpants, a machine with needles and clamps stained with blood… if I stood still and held my breath, I could still hear the children’s cries.
I never knew there were so many different ways to scream, Christopher had said.
Back downstairs, shaking like crazy but still on my feet, I passed what I at first thought was a charcoal drawing of Jesus Christ in a gold frame, but I was wrong; the frame was gold-plated and it was an enlarged photograph of Charles Manson.
I found the door to the basement and went down to the kids' room; all I found there were their beds, single-sized, arranged around the walls like bunks at sixth grade camp; if it weren't for the chains hanging from the walls, you could almost mistake it for a children’s bunkhouse. There was a small refrigerator, a hot plate, a small combination TV/VCR unit, a large stack of videotapes five-deep, a bookshelf that displayed such titles as Yertle the Turtle, Bridge To Terabethia, The Chocolate War, Summer of My German Soldier, Where the Sidewalk Ends, and many others… but no Winnie-the-Pooh books. Not a one.
The floor down here was lined with opened specimen jars, as well.
The door to the sub-basement, to Ravenswood, was at the far end of the room; it, too, was unlocked but creaked and screeched as I pulled it open. An opened specimen jar sat on either side of each step all the way down; twelve wooden steps, twenty-four jars. A single bare bulb hung from a wire in the ceiling, casting a sick white glow over everything and making the shadows to the side seem deeper and endless and hungry.
"Christopher?" I called, my voice made deafening by the narrow space.
No answer.
I started down the steps, looking only at the large iron door at the bottom, never at what was inside the jars. What was inside the jars had once been the light of some parents' lives, a giggling ball of cuteness in a high chair plopping its face down into its very first birthday cake, a hyper thing that had to chase after constantly because they ran everywhere like they knew something really exciting might be happening over there and they didn't want to miss a thing…
I hit the bottom of the steps and had to steady myself against the door.
All this death, all these remnants of lives ended too soon and too brutally. I could feel all of them behind me, around me, above me; I could hear the ghostly echo of their voices crying out for someone, anyone, Mommy, Daddy, please somebody come help me.
From their jars the remains of these forever-lost children whispered: How can you be a part of this?
I think there are places in this world, ruined places, dark places, places where human apathy toward human perversity runs rampant, and these places become a cancer unique to any known disease; spreading, chewing apart anyone who comes into contact with them, forever infecting anyone who even knows they exist; places that, for whatever reasons, have gone unchecked and unnoticed and have become, through the horrors committed there, living, twisted, evil beings unto themselves.
Places can be as evil as any human being.
And I knew such a place lay on the other side of the door I now faced.
I am a good and decent man, I thought.
The image of Grendel's grisly rose flashed across my mind's eye.
I am a good and decent man.
The door was the same kind you see most restaurants use for their meat lockers; there was even a temperature-control panel in the wall beside it. Right now it was an even thirty-two degrees inside. The door was thick and heavy; if Christopher was in there, he wouldn't have been able to hear me.
I grabbed the handle and yanked it back, opening the door.
Cold mist rolled out, covering my hands, my legs, my torso, snaking up to my face.
"Christopher?" I said, my breath foggy before my eyes. I blinked against the battling temperatures of the stairway and sub-basement, then stepped inside, waving the mist away.
He was lying on the autopsy table, naked, a rubber tube around his arm and an emptied syringe hanging from his arm.
I think I might have screamed as I ran toward him but I can't be sure. I do remember that I grabbed him and pulled him upright, slapping his face and shaking him but he'd been dead for at least a day; his back was discolored from the blood that had settled there. He'd gone to great lengths to make sure his makeup looked smooth and natural—he'd even added a few wrinkles near his eyes like Rebecca had done.