THE CRYSTAL THRONE by Bert McKenzie Copyright 2010
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any real person alive or dead is coincidental and unintentional.
CHAPTER I
"Ghosts?!" Clearly, Jennifer did not believe him. She was his best friend, and had been for the past ten years. They had met, been close friends, shared secrets, fought, made up, cried on each other's shoulder, but always, they had trusted and believed each other. That was why it came as such a blow.
"I'm sorry I said anything," Scott replied quickly, a bit too quickly.
"Now I've hurt your feelings. Scott, I'm sorry." The words only made her doubt sting all the more. For some unknown reason, Scott really needed to feel that someone believed him. It seemed vitally important, and yet it all sounded so outlandish that he wasn't even sure if he believed it himself. "Let's go through it all again, and let me see if I can understand it." How did it all begin?
At age 30, Scott Quartermain, a distant nephew of a famous African explorer, was a bit of a loner. His modest good looks, a handsome face, strong chin, and broad shoulders topping his five foot ten inch frame, he had inherited from his father, a service man who died in the Vietnam War. He came by his thick brown hair and grey eyes from his mother. Never much of a motherly type, she had left him in the care of his Aunt Nell, a grandmotherly, older spinster. Scott's mother came into money and had actually been rather well off, but he had never benefitted from any of her wealth until after she had passed on. Of course the government received a generous share of her estate in taxes, and there had been a number of outstanding debts to take care of, but when all was said and done, he still had enough to buy an old, three story Victorian mansion.
Scott had always dreamed of living in a mansion. The old Victorian house he had purchased was probably as close to one as he would ever get. It had lots of antiquated character and charm, yet had been restored and modernized by a previous owner. The house was firmly grounded in an older section of town adjacent to the river, surrounded by similar houses and buildings. An iron fence traced the parameter of the yard, front and back, with a quaint carriage house behind the main building. The carriage house was really no more than a small garage with storage above, but it added to the look and feel of a bygone era.
Moving into the three story home was simple enough. He had always lived in apartments, and consequently had very few furnishings, but with what little money was left over, Scott managed to redecorate and fix up the ground floor. On the second floor, the only rooms he finished were his own bedroom and the bath. The other four rooms on that level, and the story above, were left empty and closed off, for future use.
Scott had lived a solitary life ever since graduating from college. Having earned a business degree, he worked for a time as an assistant manager at a branch of a big department store chain until deciding to go into business for himself. He had recently opened a small, storefront curio shop that sold all manner of odd collectibles. Unfortunately, many of his unsold objects de'art found temporary quarters in his apartment. At least now he had ample room to showcase (store) such things in his new home.
Unfortunately, only about a month after moving in, the strange occurrences began. At first it was nothing more than doors that were shut and locked had managed to be open. Then leaving for work and returning home at the end of the day, he would find small objects or pieces of furniture rearranged. It was as if someone had been in the house looking for something. It wasn't a ransacked mess like burglars searching for hidden money, more like someone examining everything and putting it all carefully back, only back in not quite the same places.
Of late, he began to get the feeling that he was being watched. It came on in the early evenings, especially around dusk. The feeling would last for hours, until he would eventually fall into a fitful sleep. In the morning he awakened, not much refreshed, and found that once again, small items had been rearranged. The thought of calling the police had crossed his mind, but what could he tell them? He had no proof that it wasn't all an overactive imagination.
It was only a few days earlier that Scott first saw the apparition. He was sitting at his bedroom window. The view of the setting sun over the old city skyline was spectacular, the silhouetted buildings looked like discarded blocks in a giant child's playroom. Just as the darkness was beginning to deepen, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. Looking down on the back yard he could make out a shape in the dim twilight, perhaps of a man, or woman. It was vague and indistinct. Then, just as he was able to really focus on it, it was gone. Was it just a trick of the dusk and an already overworked imagination? Or perhaps there really was someone out there, watching the house, waiting for an opportunity to rob him. But the way the figure vanished without a trace, like it was never really there
. . . maybe it was a ghost.
Jennifer only shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe you should talk to someone else about this. You know, get some serious 'professional' help."
"What are you saying? That I'm crazy?" Scott had never felt so betrayed.
"You've been working hard and then the house, the move, your mom's death. Everything came so suddenly. I just think you ought to get a different perspective on things. Just talk to a counselor or something."
"I know what I saw."
"Fine, then call the police. Tell them an invisible ghost has been rearranging your furniture, and now appeared in your back yard at sunset." She was clearly losing her patience with his moodiness. Of course, Jennifer Sloan was never the most patient individual at the best of times. When being tactful, Scott referred to her as dynamic. Her five feet eight inches coupled with her big frame made her appear larger than life. Although she was slightly overweight, the heaviness wasn't excessive enough to detract from her looks. She would never be considered beautiful, but she did have a pretty face, surrounded by thick, auburn curls topping her attractively curved figure. She was the type of woman that would be called attractive and maybe even striking, or on a less generous day handsome, but never really beautiful.
"Look, I'm sorry," Scott apologized. "Let's go get some dinner or something." He tried his best to placate her and change the subject. They went to a small Italian cafe, her favorite, and Scott was as charming and entertaining as he could force himself to be. But there was still something wrong . . . a slight discord in the air between them. Jennifer had to work in the morning, so they called it an early evening, and he went home to his gloomy, empty house.
The sun had been down for two hours, and the lights shining from the windows looked inviting. This was home, even if it wasn't always comfortable.
Slowly, Scott went through the ritual of locking doors and turning out lights. He fixed himself a rum and coke and then padded upstairs to bed. The curtains on his bedroom window were floating slowly in the warm breeze. With just a little imagination they came to life as shrouded arms reaching out for him. "Maybe I am going crazy," he thought, and placed his drink on the window seat while undressing for bed.
Dropping his clothes in a pile on a chair in the corner, and not bothering to light any lamps, he picked up his drink and sat on the window seat to enjoy the warm breeze. The hard wood bench was cold, sending a chill through his bare flesh. Scott leaned out against the window sill and watched the almost full moon gleaming brightly.
Feeling the skin crawl and the hairs stand up at the base of his scalp, Scott first thought it was a reaction of his nakedness to the chill of the hard wood and the breeze, but then he sensed it again. He was being watched. Looking down into the back yard, he again thought he saw something. Gazing intently into the dark shadows near the carriage house, he spotted it.
It was there. A lighter patch in the darkness. It might have been a person, or just a shape formed in the gloom. Barely holding his breath in a strange excitement, he continued to peer into the gathering dark. The lighter patch moved! It slowly began to inch its way along the side of the carriage house, moving toward the back porch. As it moved into a patch of moonlight, he finally had a good view of it. It was a person! It looked like maybe a young, extremely thin boy. Scott let out an involuntary gasp.
The boy froze. Slowly the head tilted to look up toward the window. And just as suddenly as before, the figure was gone. He had blinked his eyes and it was gone. Had it just vanished, or had it managed to fade into the shadows and run off in the instant he had blinked? At any rate, he felt sure it would not be back again that night.
The bright sunlight awakened him, shining in Scott's eyes as it reflected off of windows from a house across the alley. He was stiff and cramped, every bone in his body aching. He had evidently fallen asleep at the window and now woke stretched across the hard surface of the wooden seat, his face against the side molding of the opening. Slowly, lifting his stiff body up, he stood. Scott shrugged his shoulders and rolled his head in circles to relieve the cramps in his upper back. The pain gradually subsided as joints snapped and popped like breakfast cereal.
He called in to work to tell his assistant that he wasn't feeling very well and wouldn't be in. The truth was, Scott needed some time to himself, just to sort things out and determine what course of action to take. He was still gripped with the strange excitement from the previous night, seeing his fears of being watched confirmed. He wanted to take some action, but wasn't sure what that was to be. All he knew was that he could not go on night after night experiencing that strange dread, waiting for someone to come. He began by investigating the back yard.
The morning dew was all but gone, leaving just the slightest trace of moisture on the overly long grass. Scott really needed to get someone to mow his yard, or to purchase a lawn mower and do it himself. As he walked back to the carriage house, he noticed a slight shimmer. Everything smelled so fresh and clean, like the air itself had been freshly scrubbed.
The tall grass along the side of the structure was standing as if it had never been touched. This seemed odd, since Scott could turn and see clearly where he had stepped, mashing down the blades with his body weight. And yet, there was no sign that anyone had been in the yard other than he. There was no telltale indication that someone had lurked there the night before, or sneaked along the side of the building; not even a broken blade of grass to indicate anything had been amiss. Maybe there had been enough time for the grass to spring back and cover the interloper's tracks.
As he returned to the house, Scott noticed something odd about the grass beneath the big oak tree standing to one side of his yard. He walked over to get a closer look. There, beneath the shading limbs was a circle of mushrooms. They were a delicate, eggshell white, and for the most part, perfectly formed. But the oddest thing about them was the perfectly circular arrangement in which they were growing. They formed a ring approximately four feet in diameter.
Back inside, Scott wrestled with himself for quite a time. Finally coming to a decision, he walked over, picked up the phone and punched in the non-emergency number for the police department. An hour later when the investigating officer arrived, Scott began to have second thoughts. He told of his spotting a person in his back yard, and of thinking it was a prowler, but that was it. No mention of the rearranged furniture, or of the feeling of being watched. And definitely no mention of ghosts.
The policeman went with him to the back yard. Together they examined the grass around the carriage house. The officer concurred that there was no evidence, which was unlikely given the condition of the long grass. He then mentioned the local ordinances concerning mowing and weed control. Scott was humiliated. As they walked back toward the house, the policeman noticed the circle of mushrooms.
"Hey, you got a fairy ring."
"What?" Scott stammered, somewhat taken aback.
The policeman pointed to the white circle under the tree. "That's a fairy ring. That's what my grandma used to call 'em anyway. Toadstools growing in a circle. My grandma said they marked the spot where fairies danced at night." He winked and nudged Scott in the ribs. "Seen any fairies in the neighborhood?"
Scott could feel the heat of embarrassment creep up his neck and spread into his face and across his cheeks. The officer's joke, in questionable taste, struck a nerve with Scott's sexual orientation.
"Hey," the cop said, noticing his blush, "Don't worry. The fags don't usually dance in respectable neighborhoods like this one." He then let out a deep belly laugh.
The blush of embarrassment quickly turned to a flush of anger. "If you have nothing else useful to contribute, I can do without the bigoted comments," Scott retorted.
The policeman's face fell as quickly as his laughter. His expression turned instantly sour as he made a snap judgement. "Sorry, didn't mean nothin' by it," he grumbled, and turned to head toward the front yard.
"So what about my prowler?" Scott asked as he hurried to catch up with the officer, making fast tracks to his squad car.
"If I were you," the cop said as he opened the car door and tossed his clipboard in, "I'd ask my friends to go dance somewhere else." Scott stood dumbfounded as the car pulled away, so angry he couldn't even think of what to do next.
As the sun began to set that evening, Scott was stationed in his bedroom window. He was prepared for his nocturnal visitor. He had pulled the phone over so he could call the police if need be. The window seat was padded with an old comforter and some throw pillows in case it was a long vigil. He also had his pair of binoculars standing close by. This time if the prowler did show up he was ready to keep him well under surveillance while calling the cops.
It was a perfectly clear evening, with only a hint of a breeze in the air. The not quite full moon would be rising in the east any time now. The sun had gone down in a blaze of color, reds and golds shooting through the sky. The tiny twinkle of city lights could almost be seen on the dark buildings of the skyline as they stood out in the lingering afterglow of the magnificent sunset.
The sounds of the spring evening, crickets and cicadas, all but lulled Scott into a hypnotic sleep when he again started at the feeling on his scalp. The same feeling he had felt twice before when seeing the apparition again came over him. He slowly reached for the binoculars and raised them to his eyes, barely daring to breathe. At first he could see nothing as he scanned the backyard, not really even knowing what to look for. Then a white gleam swept by his field of vision. He quickly moved the glasses back in the opposite direction and soon trained them on a bright curve. Adjusting the focus, he watched the bluish white curve jump into relief . . . it was only a part of the mushroom fairy ring, gleaming brightly against the dark grass. He almost laughed as his tension eased a bit.
He again, slowly panned toward the carriage house. Again a light shape swept past his field of view. Quickly backing up, he trained his binoculars on the lighter area. His heart raced as he realized he was looking at a man's torso. It might have been a marble statue placed on his lawn, it was so white and still. Panning down he saw it wore ragged, white shorts. Two thin but muscular legs descended from the frayed bottoms of the shorts to disappear at the ankles in the thick grass. Scott slowly raised the glasses up again, up the legs, the white shorts, the thin stomach and naked chest. Revealed to him were broad shoulders and long, thin arms as he kept scanning. Finally, the face came into view. It, too, looked like a statue, blank white with expressionless features carved in marble, the deep set eyes hidden in shadow could reveal no sign of life. The hair on top of the head was fairly long and curly, with the same white, stone carved look, as if he were looking down from overhead on a copy of Michelangelo's David.
As he watched the stone came to life. The statue was very slowly moving toward the back porch. It was creeping so slowly that he almost overlooked the movement, until he saw one of the legs take a step, raising one bare foot out of the grass and moving it slowly back down.
Scott's mind raced. His thoughts of calling the police seemed useless. The statue-man would be in his house before they could ever get there. He quietly slid off the window seat and onto the floor. As quickly and quietly as he could, Scott raced to the bedroom door, out into the hall and down the stairs. He rushed to the kitchen and slowly peeked out the window. There, just a few yards from the porch stood the statue, still gleaming palely in the light of the newly risen moon.
Scott reached for the switch beside the door that would turn on the back porch light. This would clearly illuminate the bizarre scene in his back yard. Keeping his eyes glued to the slowly moving figure, he stretched out his hand and felt around. Nothing. He knew the switch had to be there, but only the flat wall greeted his finger tips. Turning his head just for an instant to spot the switch, he grabbed it, turned back and flooded the empty back yard with light. There, where the statue had stood, was nothing. He looked all around. It couldn't have moved that quickly, nothing could!
Reaching for the knob, Scott yanked the door open, and bounded out onto the porch. Only after he was outside did he think that it might be hiding beside the door and right behind him. He whirled around quickly. Nothing. Scott cautiously stepped off the porch and out into the yard. Looking all around, he saw only the familiar sights of his back yard, the long grass, the carriage house, the oak tree with its fairy ring beneath. As quickly as he had bounded out, he raced back for the safety of his house. Inside he threw the deadbolt and ran for the phone. Dialing 911, he told the operator there was a prowler trying to get into his house.
Three agonizingly long minutes passed until he heard the wail of the siren. Two police cars raced up the street and pulled to a rapid halt in front of his walk. Four policemen got out, two with drawn guns and flash lights headed for the back yard, the other two split up, one going around the other side of the house opposite from the first two, and one coming to the front door. Scott let the officer in and began to explain what he had seen.
"A statue?!" The cop was obviously skeptical.
"It only looked like a statue, all white. Maybe he was wearing some kind of makeup as a disguise or something."
"Prowlers generally dress in dark clothes so as not to be seen," the cop replied, making a note on his clipboard. Just then one of the other three officers came in the open front door.
"There's nothing out there now. Jacobs and Wilson are still checking the area. There's no sign that anyone has ever been there, no footprints in the grass or anything." Clearly, the police did not believe the story. They both eyed Scott with open skepticism.
A blast of loud static followed by unrecognizable numbers came from a speaker in one of the two cars parked out in front. This seemed to catch the attention of the two officers who quickly started to wrap up their notes and leave. In no time at all Scott stood on the front porch watching the two squad cars pull away. He was left with a gentle reminder from one of the cops to mow his yard before he got a citation.
"Well what did you expect them to say, or find?" Jennifer was eyeing him over her coffee. He had asked her to breakfast to get a little sympathy, but had obviously made a big mistake. "A statue that came to life in your back yard, and then disappeared when you turned on the light. Really Scott, it sounds pretty far fetched."
"I know what it sounds like. It's what I saw." He got up to refresh their coffee. "You don't believe me, do you?"
"Of course I believe you. At least I believe that you believe what you thought you saw was real." She was hedging. "Scott, I don't want to upset you, but you really ought to talk to a friend of mine. He might be able to get a better grasp of this than I could."
"A shrink, right?" he asked bitterly.
"Now, Scott. Don't take it that way."
"Well, maybe you're right. Leave the number and I'll call him."
"You're sure? You really will call him."
"I said I would," he replied.
She got up to give him a hug. "Okay, now show me this fairy ring you spoke of." They walked out into the back yard. "It's really quite impressive," she said, bending down and looking closely at the delicately shaped mushrooms. "There was probably an old well or cistern buried here which accounts for the perfect shape. But I must say, it does strike me as quite appropriate that you would have fairies in the back yard."
"Now don't you start," he grinned. "I got enough of that from the cop yesterday." They both were able to laugh at the irony now in the light of day.
As they started back to the house Scott asked quietly, "Jen, what's your doctor friend's name?" She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.
That evening Scott was prepared. He had his doors and windows all locked and bolted. The phone was beside him and he again was stationed on the window seat with his binoculars. As the darkness descended he began surveying his yard, looking for the apparition. He could easily make out the carriage house, the old oak, the white circle of mushrooms. He thought how odd they had stayed for so long. Whenever he had seen mushrooms or toadstools growing wild in the past they seemed to spring up and disappear in a day.
As he was musing on the subject, a movement caught his attention. Swinging the glasses up, he again saw the statue-man. This time it was moving much more rapidly and again heading for his back porch. Scott jumped up and raced out of the room. He quickly bounded down the stairs, through the drawing room and out into the kitchen. Peeking out the window he saw the statue-man climbing the three steps up onto the porch. He reached for the light switch and threw it! Nothing. It had worked fine yesterday, but now nothing happened. What a time for a bulb to burn out.
The knob rattled. Not daring to breathe, Scott flattened himself beside the door. At least he knew it was tightly locked and bolted. He heard a soft click, followed by a musical plunk. The knob turned and the door began to open. Trying to flatten himself even further against the wall, he hid in the shadows behind the slowly opening door.
Reaching out, his hand made contact with cold metal. It was the cast iron skillet he had hung on the wall as decoration. Scott silently lifted it off its hook and held it ready to strike. The thought of what use the cast iron could possibly be against the white marble echoed in his mind.
The white statue-man slowly stepped into the kitchen, not making a sound. He reached back to close the door behind himself. It shut with a quiet click. He stood looking toward the rest of the house. Scott stepped forward and swung the skillet, aiming at the back of the white mass of curls. Expecting a solid contact and loud ring as the metal struck stone, Scott was surprised by the dull, resounding thunk. The pale intruder toppled forward, felled by the blow.