DEMENT: A Texas Ghost Story

Chapter II

Dot wonders whether she is meant to ring the doorbell or use the large ornate brass knocker which hangs from the front door. The knocker, like the rest of the great ghastly house, looks like something out of The Fall of the House of Usher or some other old piece of gothic literature: it is in the shape of a bison head, its eyes wide, staring, and pupil-less. She notes, with a wrinkle of her nose, that the brass knocking ring dangling from the thing is not a ring at all, but a coiled snake which slithers out of the mouth of the dead bison, a macabre tongue. Dot finds she has difficulty even bringing herself to touch the thing, though whether because she finds it too sinister or too repulsively tacky, she is unsure. Thus, she opts to use the doorbell. At the press of her finger, the little button shudders and gives way, collapsing out of its perch beside the door and dangling ineffectually from a few frayed wires. It seems the doorbell has abandoned functionality; Dot considers using this as an excuse to turn tail and run.

Miss Lark's letter failed to mention that the nursing home she owns and operates is in fact a refurbished slavery-era plantation house isolated in the middle of the deep dark woods of East Texas. Dot feels a bit as though she has been lured into a trap. The whole thing, from the long and twisty dirt driveway to the way the tall white house leers down at her, sends all her alarm bells into cacophony. She decides she will give one cursory tap of the wretched brass knocker, and if no response quickly comes, she will flee.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The knock echoes throughout the pines, sending clouds of agitated birds fluttering up toward the orange beams of the setting sun. If the knocking is so loud outside, Dot cannot imagine that anyone inside could fail to hear it.

Indeed, almost immediately she hears a scuffling about from within, as if the person lied in wait by the door for her arrival. There comes the heavy clattering of mechanical locks, and the door swings open.

"Doctor Cobb!" Amy Lark exclaims with a note of cheeriness that sounds a tad artificial to Dot's ear. Dot enters without further invitation, dragging her brand new small beige carry-on suitcase on wheels behind her. The top of her head barely reaches Amy's chin. Amy's skin is as pale as Dot's is dark, and the chestnut waterfall of her hair contrasts Dot's tight charcoal curls. The only trait they share is that general wiriness about the limbs and torso.

"Hello!" Dot says with her own note of slightly forced pleasantry. She takes in the cavernous den in which she now finds herself. A few flat, haggard armchairs and a small wooden coffee table stacked with board games and antediluvian magazines sparsely occupy the room. A beige corded phone hangs on the wall; Dot is unsurprised to see it still bears a rotary dial. Her eyes are drawn particularly to the crownwork of the room, which is lined with shoddy, abstract arts-and-crafts like a grade-school classroom. She wonders why people insist on forcing the elderly to do crafts in their spare time, and then laughs wryly to herself at her choice of words. As if the elderly have anything other than spare time.

The most striking of these projects is a piece of macaroni art, where a multicolored variety of dried pasta has been glued to a sheet of black construction paper in the shape of a man. The man is little more than a stick figure, but the strange elongation of his limbs, the unnatural angle of his neck, and the black empty holes where his eyes should be give him a haunting quality that makes it difficult for Dot to tear her gaze away.

With an almost audible snap, Dot rips her eyes from the macaroni man and turns to her hostess. "Amy?" she says, by way of confirmation.

"Yes, I'm Amy. Hi." She extends her hand, and Dot clasps it. The younger woman's grip is unpleasantly flaccid, and Dot quickly breaks away. "Sorry," Amy says, "you can... you can sit." She gestures at the faded armchair in front of the squat, dial-operated wooden television set which forms the centerpiece of the room. Apparently, Miss Lark is not content to rot her resident's minds with vapid art projects; she must throw television into the mix as well. The doubt and distrust that has occupied a space at the back of Dot's mind from the moment she chose to undertake this case only grows stronger with each passing moment.