The Old House by the Highway, pt. 1

Ok, all, holiday stress has gotten to me so badly that I can't write anything for a while. So I'm editing what I've already written and we're starting another Story Serial Series! Enjoy!

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The Old House by the Highway, pt. 1



The old house by the highway was perfect when we found it – at the right price and in the right place, exactly what we’d hoped for. The previous owner, and old man whose son told us had kept mostly to himself, had died a few years before. His family had refurbished, repainted, and re-everything-elsed it, and we had jumped on the chance to buy it. The house itself was beautiful, and it was close enough to the city that I could make the commute in 45 minutes or less. But it was still far enough out that we could have our own piece of the earth and quiet nights. Sure, it was a little close to the highway, but after having lived in a shoebox-sized studio for five years on the second story of a building on Main Street, the sound of cars driving by would be comparatively peaceful. Besides, the highway was only a forty-something foot strip of macadam between the house and the West River, which reflected glorious sunsets every evening into our living room, where the light bounced across the brand new hardwood floors and lit up Monica’s eyes. It was perfect.

Three bedrooms would give us plenty of space for guests and maybe even a family. A giant living room with big new windows looked out over the river and joined onto a kitchen big enough for Monica to stretch her cooking muscles. Two bathrooms, one upstairs and one down, and even a small study where I could set up a home office. The basement was a little bizarre, with its dirt floor and noisy old furnace, meat hooks hanging from the beams (we’d been told the original builder was a butcher) and a musty, unfamiliar odor. It might have just been the old dirt, that smell, but neither of us were used to old houses. Monica didn’t like it one bit, so we resolved to use the basement mainly for storage until we had the means to put a new floor down and buy a new furnace.

There was a large back yard set into the hill behind the house, where Monica could set up pa garden for tomatoes and strawberries and whatever else she wanted. We discovered after a few days that if we positioned ourselves just above the house on the hill, we could put the roof between us and the highway, and see only the roof and the river beyond. The small plot of woods behind the house was dense enough to be shady in the summer, but small enough that Monica wouldn’t have nightmares about strange forest beasts attacking her in her garden while I was at work. She was a city girl, born and bred in the urban landscape, not used to bugs or animals, and I wanted her to feel safe from the unknown terrors of Nature.

We moved in hardly a week after we’d bought the place in late April, excited after our years scrimping and saving. We started ordering furniture like mad – a giant L shaped couch with a chaise, a rocking chair, a giant roll-top desk, bookshelves, end tables, coffee tables, a bigger bed, a giant stereo system and entertainment center. We bought pots and pans, new cutlery, china, and crystal. We shopped for art and plants, candle votives, wreaths, holiday decorations. We were swimming in delight. My perfect vision of our new life was of me coming home from a day at the office, amidst the hustle of the big city and the hectic scramble of business dealings, the sunset lighting up the windows of my new home, and finding Monica in the garden with a big floppy straw hat and her work gloves, maybe a round belly, and a basket full of tomatoes for our supper. It seemed as if it would all come true, and soon.


* * *

Things began to settle down after the first two weeks – we had most of the furniture set up and a large part of the decorating finished. We’d settled in for a quiet night of TV when I noticed Monica doing that “I’m trying to be subtle but I’m really freaked out by something” motion: stiff neck, head cocked to one side but twitching occasionally, nostrils flared. Usually this is in response to something I’ve done, so I ignored it for a while, but at every commercial break I noticed her doing it again, so finally I asked what was wrong.

She looked at me, aghast that I didn’t already know. “Can’t you smell that?” Her nostrils flared up again, her eyes wide. I’d been smelling the same air as her all night, but I hadn’t noticed anything, so I just shook my head. She rolled here eyes at me. “It’s like the same smell from in the basement, but… worse. Stronger. I can smell it from here.”

I took a deep breath, sampling the air for anything abnormal. The smell was there, faintly, but stronger than usual underneath the soft cinnamon scent of Monica’s candle burning in the kitchen. “Hm. Yeah, I do smell it. Well, it’s been kind of damp weather lately, I’m sure that’s bringing the smell out.”

Monica chewed on her lip, crossing her arms. “Will you go check it out?” she asked eventually. “Just to be sure there’s not something wrong down there?”

I glanced at the TV. The commercial break was nearing an end. “What could be wrong?” I asked. “It’s just a smell.”

”Oh come on, Ed, just to be sure. I mean, it could be flooding or maybe the furnace is acting up. If there’s a problem down there...”

“Fine,” I said, throwing another glance at the TV and mentally giving myself the next 30 second commercial slot to get to the basement and back.

Monica had been right, the smell was worse than usual. On a typical day you couldn’t smell anything unless you were actually in the basement, but now, the closer I got to the top of the stairs, the stronger I could smell it. It was an unclean smell, like an animal on a hot day, mixed with something more unpleasant, nauseating, almost… sinister. Maybe it’s just hindsight that makes the smell scary, but even then I felt a little flip in my stomach as it grew stronger. Something unsettling in that stink.

Pressed for time as I was, I nonetheless hesitated at the door to the basement stairs. If there were something wrong with the furnace, that would be a lot of money spent on fixing it, and if it were flooding… I hated to even think about the possibility. Living across from the river, I imagined that flooding was a very serious possibility, and I made a mental note to start researching flood insurance.
The smell hit me when I opened the door like a damp rag, reeking of something unnamable. It came at me so strong that I reeled backward, gagging. There was a sound in the depths of the basement, quiet and hardly noticeable, sensed more than heard, a rustling like someone passing by me, then silence. I struggled forward against the stench and flicked on the light to the basement, straining my eyes down the stairs to see...
Nothing. Just the bare dirt floor, dry as ever. I descended a few steps, hesitantly at first, then faster as more of the basement came into sight. Nothing on the floor, not even a puddle or a damp spot. Certainly nothing moving; the noise I heard must have been the musty basement air moving as the draft of fresher air hit it. And now, as I sniffed, there was hardly even a smell. Just that same old musty basement odor with a little bit of nasty mixed in. It must have just been collecting down there, like in a room where the gas has been left on, and now it had aired out. We'd kept the door shut almost since the day we moved in and I supposed we'd just have to leave it open at night while we slept from now on, and get a decent floor put down in there.
I bounded back upstairs just in time for the commercial break to end, and told Monica my findings. She just nodded and didn't even look away from the screen.