“House of Widows,” a Short Story, by S.H. Cooper
It was small, the movement that caught his eye.
His 7-speed squealed to a halt as he braked at the foot of the driveway. Somehow he’d never noticed this house before. Odd, considering he’d biked past it every day since his family had moved into the neighborhood a couple weeks before. He wasn’t sure how he could’ve missed it. It stood out, a giant dollhouse with its shingled facade and white wraparound porch encircled by a low stone wall. His gaze returned to the arched third-story window, staring like a third eye down from the house's forehead.
The lacy curtain twitched again.
He squinted, and became aware of a face looking back at him. Pale behind the glass, framed by fat, red-gold ringlets. She watched him with a solemn expression, but when she noticed him staring, a shy smile turned up one corner of her mouth. He returned it, it was the polite thing to do, and raised a hand. Her fingers curled briefly in return. She was the first kid he’d seen since they got here and looked to be about his age, maybe a little younger than his eleven years. A girl wasn’t the ideal companion, they didn’t like getting dirty or going on adventures like he did, but it would be better than having no friends at all. Maybe she’d do until school started next month. He motioned for her to come downstairs, hoping to strike up a real conversation, but she shook her head.
He shrugged with a furrowed brow, Why not?
She frowned, glanced over her shoulder, then back to him before drawing a line across her throat with her index finger.
So she wasn’t allowed out. He wondered, briefly, what she’d done to warrant that kind of punishment. He’d been grounded before, usually when he hid bad grades or fibbed to his parents. Maybe that’s what she’d done. Still, he didn’t want to give up on the first chance he had at friendship.
When he looked back up, trying to figure out how he could learn her name, the window was empty. He sighed, shoulders sagging slightly, and turned his bike around to head for home. She could’ve at least opened her window to tell him she had to go or something. On the bright side, he thought, at least he knew she was there, even if she couldn’t come outside.
Now he’d just have to find some way to talk to her.
The next day, he pedaled hard back down the street, over two, to Dawn River Drive and its real-life dollhouse. A big sketch pad “borrowed” from his mom’s art room was clutched tight under one arm. The black marker he’d also swiped poked uncomfortable against his thigh from the pocket of his jeans. While he knew he wasn’t supposed to take his parents’ things without asking, he was sure they’d understand that desperate times called for desperate measures. He skid to a stop in the same spot as the day before, at the end of the cobblestone driveway, and shielded his eyes against the sun to look up at the central, third story window.
The girl was back, as if waiting for him.
He laid his bike down and flipped open the sketch pad. After taking a moment to scribble across the first page, he held it up over his head.
Im anthony whats your name
She bit her lower lip and backed away from the window. Anthony deflated at her retreat and the sketch pad sank. But before defeat could fully take hold, the curtain was drawn more fully back from the window and a piece of paper, small and tinged brown around its edges, was pressed against the glass. The writing was thin and spidery, hard to read from the ground. Anthony looked uneasily to the front door, like one of the girl’s angry parents might burst through and yell at him. When it remained firmly shut without any sign that someone was just waiting for the opportunity to pounce, he scurried across the lawn to stand directly beneath the window.
Juliana
She peeked over the top of the paper, doe eyes crinkled at the edges into a smile. It seemed like she wanted a friend as much as he did. She didn’t have more paper, though, something she indicated by pointing to her lone sheet then holding up one finger. Anthony nodded in understanding. He settled on asking her simple questions about herself, things she could answer with gestures or a nod or shake of her head.
how old r u
She held up ten fingers.
can u come outside
Headshake.
r u in trouble
Nod.
how come
She shrugged and rolled her eyes as if to say, Parents, am I right?
Anthony understood in the way only another child can.
Friendship began to bloom between the pair, despite the obvious limitations. Juliana wasn’t allowed out and, as far as he knew, Anthony wasn’t allowed in. Anthony would sit in her lawn, more at ease by the day, and show her toys and books he’d brought from home. She’d sit in her window, arms folded upon the sill and chin resting atop them, watching him and giggling. He brought the sketch pad every day, which allowed them to communicate in their rudimentary way.
It took about a week for his folks to notice he would go out for hours at a time and question just where he was running off to. They were delighted to learn he’d found himself a little playmate and pressed for details. Anthony wasn’t sure how they’d react to the “long distance” nature of the relationship, so he kept it purposefully vague.
“We play at her house. I forget the name of the road, it’s a few over from ours. She lives in the big, old house with the stone wall and porch and stuff.”
“You’ll have to invite her over here some time,” his mom said. “Her parents, too. I’d love to meet them.”
He could read between the lines easily enough: I need to approve of them if you’re going to be spending so much time over there.
He mumbled something he hoped passed as an agreement into his mashed potatoes and the conversation moved on.
The next day, he sat beneath Juliana’s window at the usual time and waited for her to appear. He was trying to figure out how he was going to ask her to come over when he heard the creak of the front door opening. He tensed, on edge and ready to run in case one of her parents finally caught him, but it was Juliana’s face peering out through the crack. A grin broke out across his face and he set the sketch pad in his lap aside.
“Hey!” he said, jogging toward the door.
She waved, and then stepped back, ducking behind the door as she opened it wider.
“I can come in?” Anthony hesitated at the bottom of the porch steps, until Juliana stuck her head out and nodded.
By the time he reached the door, Juliana was already halfway up the narrow staircase just beyond the entryway. For the first time, he was able to clearly see what she was wearing, and was surprised by her frilly white dress and the floppy white bow pinned at the back of her head. He’d have to tease her about that later, he decided with a smirk.
Anthony stepped inside and let the door click shut behind him. His footsteps were loud upon the polished wood floor. He paused for a moment, equally curious and awed by the house, which was unlike any he’d ever seen. An archway to one side opened to a living room with an armchair and matching burgundy sofa positioned atop a muted floral rug around a fireplace. A boxy, old fashioned radio with gleaming brass buttons, almost as tall as he was, stood in one corner. On the other side of the hall, another room, this one with a grand piano at its center. The orange shag carpet and wood-paneled bar clashed with the more reserved style of the living room.
Down the hall, past the staircase, he caught a glimpse of the kitchen. The pale pink fridge, more squat than he was used to with only a single, rounded door, and flower-patterned wallpaper reminded him of his grandma’s house.
Juliana was rounding the corner at the top of the stairs when he started climbing them and ascending the next flight to the third story. He raced up after her, not wanting to be left behind.
He’d made it halfway up the second set up steps when the smell hit him. Some sickly sweet odor that turned his stomach and had him covering his nose with his forearm. The heat was stifling and becoming more oppressive the higher he climbed. His shirt clung to his back and his hair stuck to his forehead.
When he finally reached the landing, he was huffing and puffing for breath.
“Juliana?” he asked, wondering how she’d been able to sit up here so comfortably when it was so hot. And that stink! His eyes watered with it.
The room, for it was just a large attic space, was mostly bare, save for a metal framed bed covered in lacy white pushed against one wall and a white dresser against another. Juliana was in the middle of the room, stooped over a child-sized table.
“Juliana?” he said again, gagging on the word as the stench invaded his mouth.
But she was busy with something on the table. China clinked delicately. Anthony frowned. Did she expect him to play tea time with her? That was stupid, and for girls!
“Juliana!”
She went completely still. He didn’t know why, but every hair along the back of Anthony’s neck rose. She just stood there, her back to him, unmoving, even when he asked if something was wrong. At her lack of response, he started inching forward.
And he saw them.
Two boys were already seated at the table, previously blocked from his view by Juliana. Their flesh had shriveled and shrunk against their bones. Tattered clothing a hundred years out of style hung from their mummified forms. Eyeless sockets gazed at him over wide, toothy grins, as if inviting him to join them at their tea party. His place had just been set, after all.
Anthony screamed, and Juliana finally turned towards him.
Her rosy cheeks had dulled to gray and sunken inward. Dark circles rimmed her doe eyes, no longer bright and warm, but narrowed. Predatory. Her curls had gone limp and lost their shine, hanging limply around her face in thin, matted strands. Her skin was mottled, sloughing off in spots, and the smell. It was coming from her.
She lunged with a bestial snarl.
Andrew leapt back and lost his footing on the top step. Down he tumbled, slamming his shoulder and back against the stairs, but he didn’t have time to think about the pain. She, it, was coming, clamoring after him on all fours with a spider’s quickness. He rolled onto his knees, grabbed the nearby railing for support, and hauled himself back up. He shot down the remaining stairs, pursued by relentless skittering, and landed hard on the first floor.
Someone was playing the piano, discordant and out of tune, in the shag carpeted room. A grinning, afroed woman was sitting at its keys, banging on them with abandon. Her bell-bottomed pants and blouse were stained with dark red splotches. A man’s body slumped limply against the piano, his head closed in the instrument’s body.
His head jerked automatically toward the sound of the radio clicking on in the living room. Another woman, this one with her hair rolled up in victory curls and wearing a tea length dress cinched at her waist, swayed into view in time with oldies music. She was dancing alone, eyes closed with a small glass of liquor in one hand. At her feet lay a man with bloated features, his eyes wide and protruding, his tongue swollen and hanging from his mouth. A drinking glass was still clutched in his hand.
Floorboards creaked behind Anthony and again he spun to face the noise. A third woman stared at him from the kitchen doorway, a kitchen knife in hand. She could’ve stepped right out of Leave It to Beaver, complete with pearl necklace and white apron. The fridge was open behind her, its shelves home to plastic wrapped body parts.
And still, coming down the steps, was Juliana.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he reached for the door, his mouth twisted open in a scream he couldn’t force out. The piano’s hollow notes hammered into his skull. The lounge music distorted into a cacophony of unrecognizable shrieking. He could feel their eyes on him, all of them, watching. Laughing.
He managed to get his hand around the doorknob.
And then fingers closed in his hair, and wrenched him backwards.
*~*~*
A cop car illuminated the dilapidated old Victorian in splashes of red and blue. Anthony’s parents gazed up at the house, long out of use and crumbling beneath time and age. His dad wrapped an arm around his mom’s shoulders and pulled her close. The officer beside them shook his head.
“Are you sure this is where your son said he was going?” he asked.
“Yes, he said he had a friend who lived here. It’s the only house that matches the description he gave us.”
“Well, I can tell you no one’s lived here for at least fifteen years, probably since ‘75 or ‘76. Lot of bad stuff happened here and eventually the history just made it hard to sell.”
“Bad stuff?” Anthony’s mom repeated, unable to hide the incredulous tone in her voice.
The officer didn’t miss it and had the decency to look a bit mollified. “Look, I’m just saying he couldn’t have had a friend living here. Seems like every time a family moved in, the lady of the house…well, she went a bit nuts. Everyone in town avoids the place. Think it’s cursed or haunted or something.”
“Is now really the time for a history lesson?” Anthony’s dad snapped. “We need to find our child.”
He sighed. “I don’t think we’re going to do that here. I tried all the doors and windows; the place is locked up tight. Let’s get back in my car and I’ll drive us down to the station to make a report, ok? It’ll be a better use of our time.”
Reluctantly, the couple agreed, and they followed the office back down the driveway to his waiting vehicle.
None of them looked back.
None of them noticed the pale face framed by fat, red-gold ringlets watching them go from the third story window.
S.H. Cooper is a Florida based author who got her start in 2016 by posting short horror stories to the Reddit subforum, NoSleep, under the username Pippinacious. Since then, she has published three collections, THE CORPSE GARDEN, FROM TWISTED ROOTS, and ALL THAT'S FAIR, a cosmic horror novella, THE FESTERING ONES, and a young adult fantasy novel, THE KNIGHT'S DAUGHTER, in addition to appearing in various anthologies. She is also co-writer for the comedy horror podcast, CALLING DARKNESS, and a contributor to the award winning horror anthology podcast, THE NOSLEEP PODCAST.
When not writing, she enjoys voice acting, gaming, and spending time with her husband and pets.