The Durlap Place

I think most people recall odd rumors from when they were kids, but the Durlap place takes the cake. It had all the makings of a haunted house. Realtors couldn’t sell it. It’d been empty for as long as anyone knew. The windows were all boarded up and you could hear doors slamming shut if you walked by.

My parents told me that last rumor was probably the wind moving doors, but when I was twelve, that didn’t seem very likely. My friends agreed. The Durlap place was haunted, and so of course, we wanted to get inside.

I remember it was summer, because the air was still sticky even after the sun fell. There were four of us there that evening. Leo, who had always been my best friend, looked at the house like it was a puzzle. Andy didn’t say anything, but he rarely did. And Jack just wanted to get in. Her name was Jacqueline, but everyone called her Jack.

“How tough can a few rotten boards be?” Jack asked. She had a hammer she’d taken from her parents’ garage that afternoon. She walked right up the porch. We watched her from the sidewalk, but she struggled with the nail. Then she swung the hammer straight at the center board. It landed with a thwack, but held solid.

“Maybe around back?” Leo suggested. So we went around the back of the house, parting weeds as tall as our heads and keeping an eye out for dangerous strays. The back had no porch, just another old door and two windows at shoulder level. The glass was cracked in one..

We huddled around the door as Jack tried to get at the nails, but they didn’t budge, not even when Leo tried, and he was a big guy, even at twelve. I studied the house, curious. I could see movement in the upper floor, but realized it was curtains at the window. It’d be hard to pull ourselves up to the windows. But at ground level, I noticed another option. I pointed it out to my friends.

“That looks like an old basement window. No one boarded that up.”

“Score!” Jack cried and scurried to the foot-level window. She raised the hammer.

“What are you doing?” Andy asked.

“I’ve gotta break the glass somehow,” Jack replied, and before any of us could stop her, she smashed the basement window.

“You expect us to climb through broken glass?” I asked. Jack laughed at me. 

“I can open it from the inside now. Look.” She reached in and undid a latch, then with a screech, the window opened inward.

“There’s still glass on the floor,” I muttered.

“Then don’t take off your shoes, doofus. Who’s first? Leo?”

“I’m not gonna fit through there!” he said.

“Where’s your lion spirit?” Jack replied. And I hated when they fought, so I opted for the danger of a haunted house. I stuck my legs inside, shimmied, and dropped to the ground. Broken glass crunched under my feet.

“What do you see?” Jack asked, peering down at me.

“Nothing. It’s a pitch black basement!” I thought I heard something, though. Like a muttering at the edges of my perception. I turned my face up to the window.

“How am I supposed to get out now?”

“You should’ve thought about that before trying to show off, Tommy,” Leo said with a laugh. “Here, how about this. I’ll stay up here and pull you out.”

“You just don’t want to go in,” Jack accused.

“I’m not gonna fit through that! I’m twice your size, Jack. Besides, how else are you going to get out?”

“I could just come out now and we all go home,” I suggested. But then Jack dropped down next to me in the darkness.

“Nah, you’re exploring with me. Come on, I’ll tell everyone how you’re braver than the lion.” Leo made a face at her, but Jack ignored him.

“Pass me my bag!” she cried. It fell with a thump at our feet, and she rummaged through until she found a flashlight. She switched it on and scanned the room. The basement was empty aside from an old rickety table in the far corner. The stairs led up from the center of the room, and Jack moved immediately towards them.

“What about Andy?” I asked.

“What about him?” Jack replied. “He’s a coward, he’d never come in here.”

She was at the stairs by then, and I rushed to follow. Jack trained the light up at the door ahead and calmly walked up the stairs. She turned the handle and strolled into the Durlap place, turning back to look at me.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked, and then she was out of my sight. I didn’t want to lose her, so I hurried up the stairs. The sun had been doing its job of setting while we’d been breaking into the house, and the light from the boarded windows was very faint, except the light from the streetlamp out front of the house. There was still furniture, but it was all covered in sheets. I never understood why they did that. Jack was pulling sheets off of things -- a couch, a table, chairs -- but nothing weird happened. She moved into the next room at the back of the house, and I heard a sharp bang and her cry out. I ran into the room.

“Leo! That’s not funny!” I could see the prints from where Leo had smacked the window, but I couldn’t see him in the light anymore. I heard his laughter, though.

“He’s such a jerk,” Jack muttered, and she renewed her search. Thing was, everyone knew Jack had a bit of a crush on Leo. Not that she admitted it. I guessed she would’ve preferred to be in here with him. They would have made a real adventuring team.

“What are you even looking for?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. She grew quiet in her search, and the muttering sound returned. It was a bit louder from here, although I couldn’t make out words. I started to follow it. It led me back into the first room, then around to the stairs leading to the second floor.

“Where are you going?” Jack asked, popping up behind me.

“You don’t hear that?” I asked.

“Hear what?”

I looked up the staircase and pointed.

“From up there. It’s like… like someone speaking on a radio in another room. Like you can almost make it out, but then you can’t.”

Jack gave me a questioning look, but started up the staircase. At the top, she stopped and aimed the flashlight at the ground. I followed up and stared in confusion.

It was a man, but judging by the wet blood across the floor and the head wound, he was very dead. I guess shock must’ve been setting in on me, because all I remember is fixating on the blood. Wet blood. Recent.

“We have to go,” Jack said. I nodded numbly and we bolted down the steps, back through the basement, and out the window. We told the others and went straight to Andy’s house to call the police. He only lived a few houses down from Durlap place, and it wasn’t long until the police showed up. They took down the door Jack couldn’t, went in, and quickly came out again. They wanted to talk to us -- know exactly what we had seen -- and we told them. I told them about the wet blood, and the officer smiled at me.

“Son, you have an active imagination. That body’s been there a long time.”

No one ever told us who the man was, or what had happened. The only story the police gave was that they’d found a decades old corpse in the house. No word on how he’d gone unfound that long. I couldn’t help thinking he had wanted to be found. I mean, I knew it was a haunted house before I entered, I don’t know what I expected. Jack is the only one who believes me, but she told me to keep my mouth shut. She didn’t want people to talk. We stayed in touch over the years, but she would never talk about what we saw.

She disappeared last week.

Police are looking, but I don’t think they’ll consider the Durlap place. They don’t hear the muttering like I do. It’s why I went back. I’m going to break in again, see if she’s there this time. And if the house plans to get me, I might as well make it easy to find me. So if you’re reading this letter, you can find me at the Durlap place.

I’ll be waiting.