Chapter Six

The cabin felt cold and desolate, haunted even, and she had liked nothing about it. Marcy Walters had decided all of this immediately upon seeing it. Once her eyes laid bare the structure before her she had noted that the walls were coming down, and there had to be points in the structure where holes must have formed for one reason or another, so whatever have you could leak right on inside and make a further mess of the entire thing. Gazing across the front of the small building she shook her head with frustration and arms crossed. “You really think we can flip this one for over forty-five? You’re nuts, Carl! There’s no way.”

Her husband grinned that fat catty look of his, freshly smug, like he caught something he had been after for a long time. He made that stupid face when she’d met him on their first date. “Without a doubt in the world, babe. Without, any doubt really. We scooped it up for a song. Not to mention the land that it’s on being so great. Just look at all of this wildlife and forestation around us. Even if we don’t cut anything away we can easily turn this around for a sweet little profit. I’d say eighty-five, easy. Nothing less than eighty for this place.” Carl nodded, satisfied with his assessment. “We’re not even ten miles from the nearest shopping center either. So that’s a good selling point. It’s isolated enough where the medical services can still come out to it without any problems or troubles. And hell, indoor plumbing out in the middle of nowhere?” Carl Walters whistled long and hard, “Can’t beat that. Nowadays some places don’t even have that in the city.” He decided against mentioning Marcy’s mother’s being one such of those places. A wise move on his own part.

Marcy scrunched up her nose. “Let’s just take some pictures and go. This place has some sad vibes about it. And I don’t want to stay too long as it is.”

“Sad vibes? Like your depressies thing?” Carl teased. He readied and began to take a series of pictures with the most expensive camera they had bought to date. It had nearly taken them three months to pay it off. But it was ultimately worth it for the sales alone that they’ve been able to get on their houses. And all of them were especially due to the camera since then. Marcy came around to the camera idea once they had sold that big beach house on the shoreline within two weeks. She’ll come around on the idea of this house in less time. Of this, Carl was more than sure of it. “Looks like we’re going to need to replace the windows.” He pointed out the broken panes of glass on the side windows. Little holes that caused the glass to splinter out in spiderweb shapes. “That’ll look nice with some blue framing done around them. Maybe some white to accent it a bit too. Balance it all out. Very nice. Very nice indeed. A fresh coat is all this place really needs, babe. That and some soft cosmetic work.”

“Maybe an exorcist,” Marcy mumbled to herself.

“What’s that, love?”

“Nothing. Just noticing the chimney needs to be power washed is all. Real dirty and all.”

Carl shielded his eyes, “You’re right about that. As long as we don’t paint it red or anything that’ll turn out real nice too,” he lowered the camera and covered the lens back up. “Hey, Marcy? What would you think if we kept this place for ourselves. Don’t make that face. I’m being serious. We could easily settle down here. Maybe have a kid or two and just, live a nice easy life out here in the forest. What do you think?”

“I think you’re nuts,” Marcy declared, “that’s what I think, Carl. But. I’ll think about it. You tend to convince me of the craziest things.”

Carl grinned, and decided to let it be. Another wise move on his own part.

Carl instead grabbed a pair of gloves from the back of the SUV and started clearing away debris from the porch, piling it off onto the side of the building. They would need to get some picture of the inside of the structure so that they could figure out repairs and renovation costs. Carl knew that he had oversold the repairs to Marcy. As long as the walls didn’t require too much more work than the flooring did, then they could easily keep this project far underbudget and away from going into the red.

A gravel driveway leading to a small gardened area on the backside of the cabin, that would be a nice touch. Carl made all the mental notes for it; he could convince Marcy once he had Jerr sketch up a proof of concept for what he was thinking up. She’s probably going to suggest a koi pond or stone railing along the driveway, Carl predicted, ever so creative of her. It would look better once Marcy touched up the idea, and she’d be so very much smug about it. Then it would all be her ideas, and she’d love it too. That would be what made her fall in love with this little wooded cabin. That and she could do whatever she wanted around it.

Carl smiled, and tried to force the front door open with a grunt. Some sort of debris must have fallen against the back side of the door, wedging it shut. It was probably from one of the last few storms. There had been a big one a couple of weeks before that was the worst one either of them had ever seen. In the city it had brough everyone’s busy lives to a complete standstill.

“Marcy, I think. Oof, jeez. I think some of the roof must have fallen down from that last big snowstorm and wedged the door closed.”

“Do we need to break the door down? Some of the windows are already broken in. We could just break one and climb inside?”

“No, I-” Carl slammed against the frame again, “I think, I think I’ve got it,” he then shoved a loose board from the porch through the gap of the opening. He could feel and hear the board hitting and shoving against something behind the door. With a movement of the board whatever it was fell aside with a clattering series of thuds. The resistance felt less stiff but it was still partially there. So he pulled the door closed. The sounds of falling wood could be heard from outside. “I think we got lucky. I was able to knock whatever is was over. And, there we go. Woof! Lot of snow leaked inside through the cracks in the roof, babe.”

“This place is going to need a lot of work…” Marcy grumbled. She stepped cautiously and lightly across the rotting floorboards, avoiding a loose floating cobwebs and stepping past Carl who was standing just inside the doorframe. He moved further inside to give her room to pass him by. “Think we’re going to need to call Lare and have him get us an estimate on the roofing costs. And the flooring, obviously. And the- what? What’s wrong?” Her eyes followed after Carl as he walked lightly towards the den area of the cabin. “What are you looking at? I don’t see, anything…”

“The roof didn’t just fall down, Marcy. Someone came inside and tore up part of the flooring. You can see the holes in the kitchen area right by the door over there. Probably to keep the door shut from that last big storm we had. To keep the snow out if I had to guess.”

“What makes you assume all of that?”

Carl had his phone in his hand, ready to dial, “Because there’s a dead man on the couch. Poor guy must have probably stumbled in here and froze to death looking for a safe place to wait out the blizzard.”

“Oh, my god!”

“Come on, let’s wait outside for the police. You go ahead. I’m calling the station first then I’ll be right out. Yes. Hi, I wanted to report a dead body. Uh huh-”

Marcy Walters didn’t have to wait long by herself outside for Carl to come join her. He looked disappointed. She didn’t know what to say or what to attempt to ask him what was wrong. Marcy didn’t have the words to say in that moment.

“I’m sorry, love. I was so excited to show you this place. I hoped that you would-” He broke off and fell silent. Marcy waited patiently and leaned against the car with him.

“Hey, Carl,” said Marcy, she leaned against him and rubbed his shoulder, “It’s alright. Well, not alright, alright. But, well, you know what I mean. I know you really like this place. You like this place a lot. You didn’t hide that fact very well with how quick you wanted to come here and fix this place up. And as evil as it sounds, I think we can clean it up nice enough for a homeless person or two to haunt it. In a morbid way, it wouldn’t be as beautiful as it is any other way. Don’t laugh and give me that look like I’m crazy. I’m being serious. Sorta…

“My point is that a place like this is like an old timey mansion. It would be weirder if there wasn’t a death or two in it. You know what I mean? Like a spooky cabin in the woods where no one ever visits, because, it is haunted!”

“I think I get what you’re driving at, love. It is still sad and a shame though. I really liked this place a lot. I was being serious about us maybe moving out here. Down the line of course. No rushing in it to leaving the city behind and all that.”

“No, I know what you meant, you big lug. But, I was thinking…”

“Yeah, Marcy?”

“I was thinking that, yes. We could still clean up this place. Make it presentable and see how things go from there. Knowing you, and all of your tricks. You’ll probably end up tricking me into falling in love with this little cabin in the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by trees and all sorts of animals. Carl?”

“Thinking about what we can do for that homeless man?” Carl guessed, Marcy had been glancing at the windows of the house with an odd look in her eyes. He felt his guess was close to the mark.

Marcy smiled and squeezed Carl’s arm.

“You scare me sometimes with how well you know me. And yes. I want to see if the police can figure out who that man is. And if he had no family, I’d like it if we paid for his funeral. It only seems right and all since we found him in our new house that we bought. You know, out here in the middle of nowhere. Feels like something that comes with the final purchase, you know? Like closing costs. Only fair that we cover all of the expenses that we can afford to.”

Carl leaned over and kissed Marcy’s forehead. “You always make things look better, love. Glad that you think that way. I have nothing against the idea. If anything it helps me feel a little better. Just a little, anyways.”

“That’s what I shoot for. Just a little bit better. Do you think he had family?”

Carl shrugged and frowned, “I don’t know. I don’t expect him to have anyone in this area. Especially given, well, you know…But we’ll see what the police find out. Maybe he did have someone and they didn’t know what happened to him. Regardless, I’m more than alright with paying for or even helping to cover the cost of his funeral. As long as it doesn’t have a chocolate or a fondue fountain. We can’t afford to go through those heartaches again.”

“Don’t be silly. Of course it’ll have both of those things. You only die once. Why not make it a fun experience for everyone else? What’s with that look now? You know I’m just joking around a little. This is painfully sad after all.”

Carl shook his head, “No, it’s nothing. You just make things better. Whether I want you to do it or not,” he paused briefly, trying to smile at her the best he could. Before adding, “That poor man, Marc. He died alone. That’s. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone…”

“At least he had a radio with him,” Marcy pointed out.

Carl smirked, and laughed a little, it had nearly sounded like a cough. “That’s your silver lining thing again. That, right there. No, no you’re right. Absolutely at that. You’re always right, love. No, I’m not teasing you. I’m not. That’s absolutely right. At least he had a voice with him while he passed on. No, I’m not being facetious. I’m being dead serious. Okay, not dead, dead. You know what I mean. You are absolutely correct. I just hope you’ll haunt me forever, will all of your silver linings, and endless slivers of optimism.”

“I’ll see what I can do. You might be awfully boring to haunt. Crying about how things need to get better and this and that. Plus you hate melted chocolate and cheese.”

Carl smiling, held Marcy close to him, and decided to let it be.

Marcy sighed after a long silence, “At least there won’t be any neighborhood kids nearby if we do end up keeping the place.”

“Is that a good or a bad thing?”

“Both? I guess. Maybe neither? I was just thinking that we won’t have to worry about kids throwing rocks at the windows when no one is home is all.”

Carl slowly nodded. “It would be an awful experience, to come back home to broken windows all along the side of the building. And bits of shattered glass everywhere. You know what? I don’t think I ever had a chance to do that. You know, when I was a kid I mean. No haunted houses near where we grew up.”

“Want to throw some rocks at the windows? While we’re here I mean. And we need to replace them anyways.”

“No,” Carl shook his head. “We better not do that. It might scare away the ghost.”

“Carl!”, Marcy hit him in the shoulder. Then she smiled.

“What? What’d I say? Even ghost need to have a home. A place to rest their weary bones. Do ghost even have bones? I’ve never had a chance to ask one.”

Marcy pouted, and turned away, “If you say so. Suppose you might be right on that. Not the bones thing. But the- Oh! The police are here. Hello!” She waved and flagged the flashing lights over.

In the far corner of the front windows. Off on the leftmost side of the little cabin hidden away by melting snow and frosted over foliage, there was something there. And after everyone and everything had come and went on their busy ways. It was there, watching over them all living their busy lives. Paying them no mind other than a passing interest in what sorts of things their lives contained.

Just before the Walters had left for their long two hour drive back to their current town home, Marcy thought she saw something there, looking out from within the window. A trick of the light she later convinced herself. That’s all that it had been. A simple working of her overacting imagination, especially given what they had just seen.

When she had mentioned it to her husband, she told him that she thought she had seen a man watching over everyone come and go. Watching them, through the broken windows of the lonely and sad cabin.

Carl had smiled sadly, shrugged, and suggested that the case may have been simply thus, “Perhaps the ghost just wanted to be a passing member of everything going on. To simply be included, I mean. At least I’d guess that would be the case if I had died. I’d want nothing more than to be included. Let alone to simply just be able to say hi.”

The End

Chapter Six

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