Twelve Nights at Rotter House J.W. Ocker
To jest kolejna powieść, która powinna pojawić się u nas w kraju.
Jest klimat, jest historia, która ma dobre tempo, pomimo braku tłumów bohaterów - jest tylko narrator - Felix Allsey, pisarz; jego kumpel Thomas (?) i ON - nawiedzony dom.
Rotter House.
Felix ma takie założenie, żeby w tym rzekomo nawiedzonym pustym domu przetrwać 13 nocy, opisać każdy dzień i stworzyć z tego arcydzieło na miarę Domu Amityville.
Czy mu się to udaje?
To nie jest do końca historia o nawiedzonym domu, ale ma wszystkie jej atuty, a zakończenie, choć troszkę ćmiące się już od połowy powieści, może być zaskakujące dla niektórych.
Podobało mi się także to, że bohaterowie nawiązywali do popkulturowych odniesień do filmów i książek o domach właśnie nawiedzonych - prawie skarbnica wiedzy.
Świetna okładka.
MOJA OCENA: 7/10
PRZECZYTAJ FRAGMENT!
Chapter 1
I had to get into the house.
It was towering and dark, asymmetrical and multistoried. It was so dark that it made the starless void behind it look bright, like a flaw in the dark firmament, a ragged black piece excised from the perforated navy of the night sky.
I ran up its concrete steps without pausing to take the edifice in. I knew what it looked like—like a haunted house.
At some point, its exterior had been painted a bright, sunny, annoy-the-neighbors shade of yellow, but over the centuries, where it hadn’t completely peeled off in toxic shards of lead, the color that remained had aged to a pale, diseased hue. The green and maroon of its trim had darkened to a dingy black. The exterior of the house was lavishly ornamented with lacy overhangs and pointed dormers in painfully acute angles. The tall, grimy windows of its three floors were stacked atop each other in three columns, crowding the façade like links of bad costume jewelry. It was gaudy even for a Victorian. Of course, it was a Victorian. In its current condition, with plywood filling half of the windows and the lace and siding broken and covered in streaks of mold, it looked like a rotting tier cake. A godawful thing, probably even when brand new and occupied. A large picture window gaped near the top of its single, central tower, the dark square like an eye or a mouth. Atop the flat roof of the tower was the spiky metal crown of a widow’s walk, an ornament for decaying royalty.
I had to get in.
Four shiny deadbolts marred the edge of the tall door like healed scar tissue from an old break-in. The sweat soaking my hair and the back of my shirt flashed cold as I saw the locks, and I almost dropped the large, sagging cardboard box in my hands. The porch light was off, so I scuffed my boots quickly on the concrete deck to see if there was a mat that could hide a key. Nothing. It made sense. This wasn’t the kind of house that would have a welcome mat. I dropped the box onto the porch and raised my fist to knock on the door before realizing how stupid that was, knocking on the door of an abandoned house. I cupped my hands to my eyes as I smudged my nose against the window beside the door. Shreds of yellowing curtain dangled inside—dead jelly fish tentacles in a dark, silty ocean. I couldn’t make out anything in there, as if the house stopped at the façade.
I dashed down the steps to the lawn, my bags flapping around me like clunky ostrich wings. I quickly slunk around to the side of the house, knowing that I had just transformed from visitor to trespasser. I sprinted to the side door, which was less ostentatious than the front one but shared with it the existential and physical qualities of being locked firm. The house towered above me—a dark sphinx, oblivious to my plight as I traced my way in a burgeoning panic around its irregular flanks. By the time I completed the entire circuit of the house and jangled three locked doors, I was huffing like an idiot who should’ve left his bags on the porch.
At either side of the front porch steps were large rhododendron bushes, the kind that grow everywhere but whose thick, waxy leaves and bright blossoms look tropical. These particular specimens looked mostly dead, their leaves shriveled into stiff, brown tubes. I stuck my head and shoulders through the dry, scratchy foliage of each, their sharp, twiggy branches grabbing at my bags as I dug in the dirt looking for large rocks. I found only one, about the size of my fist, so I hefted it. No key beneath, just the dark, soggy wrigglings of a pair of worms.
I stood up too fast and felt woozy, the monster silhouette against the night sky swimming quickly above me before settling back onto its foundation. I shook off the feeling and sprung up the porch steps to the door with new resolve. Everything depended on me getting into this haunted house. I raised up on my toes and stuck my fingers behind the high, ornate lintel of the door. I slid my hand across the top edge in search of a hidden key—and screamed.
I instinctually pulled my hand back in a fist, fixating on the have a welcome mat. I dropped the box onto the porch and raised my fist to knock on the door before realizing how stupid that was, knocking on the door of an abandoned house. I cupped my hands to my eyes as I smudged my nose against the window beside the door. Shreds of yellowing curtain dangled inside—dead jelly fish tentacles in a dark, silty ocean. I couldn’t make out anything in there, as if the house stopped at the façade.
I dashed down the steps to the lawn, my bags flapping around me like clunky ostrich wings. I quickly slunk around to the side of the house, knowing that I had just transformed from visitor to trespasser. I sprinted to the side door, which was less ostentatious than the front one but shared with it the existential and physical qualities of being locked firm. The house towered above me—a dark sphinx, oblivious to my plight as I traced my way in a burgeoning panic around its irregular flanks. By the time I completed the entire circuit of the house and jangled three locked doors, I was huffing like an idiot who should’ve left his bags on the porch.
At either side of the front porch steps were large rhododendron bushes, the kind that grow everywhere but whose thick, waxy leaves and bright blossoms look tropical. These particular specimens looked mostly dead, their leaves shriveled into stiff, brown tubes. I stuck my head and shoulders through the dry, scratchy foliage of each, their sharp, twiggy branches grabbing at my bags as I dug in the dirt looking for large rocks. I found only one, about the size of my fist, so I hefted it. No key beneath, just the dark, soggy wrigglings of a pair of worms.
I stood up too fast and felt woozy, the monster silhouette against the night sky swimming quickly above me before settling back onto its foundation. I shook off the feeling and sprung up the porch steps to the door with new resolve. Everything depended on me getting into this haunted house. I raised up on my toes and stuck my fingers behind the high, ornate lintel of the door. I slid my hand across the top edge in search of a hidden key—and screamed.
I instinctually pulled my hand back in a fist, fixating on the dark gash in the meaty part of my thumb. I shoved it in my mouth, tasting blood and feeling it drip down my chin. I didn’t need a porch light to know what had happened. I’d just ripped my hand open on a protruding nail or shard of wood. It hurt bad.
The haunted house got first blood.
I pulled my hand out of my mouth and wiped my chin on my shoulder. As I squeezed my injury in my other hand, I leaned against the door. It felt loose in the jamb.
I reached down and turned the textured surface of the knob with my cradled hand. It stuck firm at first, but after a few moments of slippery grappling, rotated easily. I slowly opened the unlocked door with an ominous, satisfying creak that no Foley artist could have faked.
Forgetting my lacerated hand for a minute, I picked up my box and entered the foyer, stepping from the darkness of the night into the darkness of the house.
It felt like more than a transition from out to in. My ears popped and a sense of vertigo tingled around the base of my skull. It was hard to breathe, like the air was bad. When I did finally draw a deep breath, I detected the mothy scent of dust, old wood, and rotting fabric. A few labored breaths later, I was able to muster enough air to speak through the miasma.
“Hello … Rotter House.” Silence and darkness in response. Both thick. The kind of silence that hurts your ears. The kind of darkness that strains your eyes.
I closed the door behind me with my hip, throwing my weight against it like it was a heavy airlock hatch. At the ominous sound of the metal latch catching the jamb, I realized that I didn’t feel any better now that I was inside the haunted house. And I suddenly regretted what got me here [...]
***
