LYLE: Then why all the nostalgia?
MRS. E: It wasn’t that . . . it was . . . like an exorcism . . . Frank said he’d been haunted by his childhood all the years we’d lived in California . . . This was an attempt to get rid of it . . .by facing it . . . seeing that it was really gone . . . that it no longer had any reality . . .
LYLE: What happened on Forest?
MRS. E: We walked down the street to his old address . . . which was just past the middle of the block . . . 3337 it was . . . a small, sagging wooden house . . . in terrible condition . . . but then, all the houses were . . . their screens full of holes . . . windows broken, trash in the yards . . . Frank stood in front of his house staring at it for a long time . . . and then he began repeating something . . . over and over.
LYLE: And what was that?
MRS. E: He said it . . . like a litany . . . over and over . . . “I hate you! . . . I hate you! . . . I hate you!”
LYLE: You mean, he was saying that to you?
MRS. E: Oh, no. Not to me . . . I asked him what he meant . . . and . . . he said he hated the child he once was, the child who had lived in that house.
LYLE: I see. Go on, Mrs. Evans.
MRS. E: Then he said he was going inside . . . that he had to go inside the house . . . but that he was afraid.
LYLE: Of what?
MRS. E: He didn’t say of what. He just told me to wait out there on the walk . . . Then he went up onto the small wooden porch . . . knocked on the door. No one answered. Then Frank tried the knob . . . The door was unlocked . . .
LYLE: House was deserted?
Illustration by Lee Brown Coye.
MRS. E: That’s right. I guess no one had lived there for a long while . . . All the windows were boarded up . . . and the driveway was filled with weeds . . . I started to move toward the porch, but Frank waved me back. Then he kicked the door all the way open with his foot, took a half step inside, turned . . . and looked back at me . . . There was . . . a terrible fear in his eyes. I got a cold, chilled feeling all through my body—and I started toward him again . . . but he suddenly turned his back and went inside . . . The door closed.
LYLE: What then?
MRS. E: Then I waited. For fifteen . . . twenty minutes . . . a half hour . . . Frank didn’t come out. So I went up to the porch and opened the door . . . called to him . . .
LYLE: Any answer?
MRS. E: No. The house was like . . . a hollow cave . . . there were echoes . . . but no answer . . . I went inside . . . walked all through the place . . . into every room . . . but he wasn’t there . . . Frank was gone.
LYLE: Out the back, maybe.
MRS. E: No. The back door was nailed shut. Rusted. It hadn’t been opened for years.
LYLE: A window then.
MRS. E: They were all boarded over. With thick dust on the sills.
LYLE: Did you check the basement?
MRS. E: Yes, I checked the basement door leading down. It was locked, and the dust hadn’t been disturbed around it.
LYLE: Then . . . just where the hell did he go?
MRS. E: I don’t know, Lieutenant! . . . That’s why I called you . . . why I came here . . . You’ve got to find Frank!
END FIRST TRANSCRIPT
NOTE: Lieutenant Lyle did not find Franklin Evans. The case was turned over to Missing Persons—and, a week later, Mrs. Evans returned to her home in California. The first night back she had a dream, a nightmare. It disturbed her severely. She could not eat, could not sleep properly; her nerves were shattered. Mrs. Evans then sought psychiatric help. What follows is an excerpt from a taped session with Dr. Lawrence Redding, a licensed psychiatrist with offices in Beverly Hills, California.
Transcript is dated August 3, 1975, Beverly Hills.
REDDING: And where were you . . .? In the dream, I mean.
MRS. E: My bedroom. In bed, at home. It was as if I’d just been awakened . . . I looked around me—and everything was normal . . . the room exactly as it always is . . . Except for him . . . the boy standing next to me.
REDDING: Did you recognize this boy?
MRS. E: No.
REDDING: Describe him to me.
MRS. E: He was . . . nine or ten . . . a horrible child . . . with a cold hate in his face, in his eyes . . . He had on a red sweater with holes in each elbow. And knickers . . . the kind that boys used to wear . . . and he had on black tennis shoes . . .
REDDING: Did he speak to you?
MRS. E: Not at first. He just . . . smiled at me . . . and that smile was so . . . so evil! . . . And then he said . . . that he wanted me to know he’d won at last . . .
REDDING: Won what?
MRS. E: That’s what I asked him . . . calmly, in the dream . . . I asked him what he’d won. And he said . . . oh, my God . . . he said . . .
REDDING: Go on, Mrs. Evans.
MRS. E: . . . that he’d won Frank! . . . that my husband would never be coming back . . . that he, the boy, had him now . . . forever! . . . I screamed—and woke up. And, instantly, I remembered something.
REDDING: What did you remember?
MRS. E: Before she died . . . Frank’s mother . . . sent us an album she’d saved . . . of his childhood . . . photos . . . old report cards . . . He never wanted to look at it, stuck the album away in a closet . . . After the dream, I . . . got it out, looked through it until I found . . .
REDDING: Yes . . . ?
MRS. E: A photo I’d remembered. Of Frank . . . at the age of ten . . . standing in the front yard on Forest . . . He was smiling . . . that same, awful smile . . . and . . . he wore a sweater with holes in each elbow . . . and knickers . . . black tennis shoes. It was . . . the same boy exactly—the younger self Frank had always hated . . . I know what happened in that house now.
REDDING: Then tell me.
MRS. E: The boy was . . . waiting there . . . inside that awful, rotting dead house . . . waiting for Frank to come back . . . all those years . . . waiting there to claim him—because . . . he hated the man that Frank had become as much as Frank hated the child he’d once been . . . and the boy was right.
REDDING: Right about what, Mrs. Evans?
MRS. E: About winning . . . It took all those years . . . but he won . . . and Frank lost.
END TRANSCRIPT
LADIES IN WAITING
by Hugh B. Cave
Hugh B. Cave was long just a name to me out of the famous history of Weird Tales. He graduated from that school of fiction to the more demanding and better-paying “slicks,” and was out of our field for many, many years. His interest in fantasy and horror was recently rekindled by Karl Edward Wagner and David Drake’s small press, Carcosa, which will be bringing out two volumes of his fiction (as illustrated by the talented Gothic artist, Lee Brown Coye). You can clearly see the influence of the “slicks” in this horror story concerning a young couple, a very strange house, and its even stranger inhabitants.