The Estate by Holden Marrs

Some things are not worth money.

When I first entered my grandfather’s estate, I was almost shocked. He was, by all accounts and definitions, a hoarder. Naturally, nobody in the family wanted to take care of his estate for this very reason. So it fell upon me to do it, although he still had living children of his own. They said that I could have an equal share of the profits from the sale of the house and the land if I did, otherwise they were going to have to pay someone else to do it anyway. I guess they felt I would be cheaper, or perhaps they felt the need to do a good deed. I was in need of money to pay back my student loans, and the job market wasn’t exactly blowing up right now, so I took them up on it.

It was a small house out in the hot, dry middle of nowhere. It was miles from the nearest town, and even that was almost just a gas station and a Sheriff. When I arrived there was a dumpster already sitting outside waiting for me. I’d stopped at the gas station earlier to fill up and grab some food, so I trudged to the front door with my luggage in one hand and a couple of bags of staples in the other. By the time I got to the door I was dripping sweat, and the A/C unit in the house’s only front window didn’t bode well for the rest of my stay here. The inside had to be cooler than under the Summer’s noon Sun though, so I quickly unlocked the door and made my way inside. I was right - it was cooler, but not by enough. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the darkness I walked into, but once they did I could see why no one wanted this job.

The house was full to the brim with papers and various objects. It seemed it was made up of hallways created by the debris, and as I navigated them to the kitchen I began to smell something foul. When I got there I opened the fridge and was met with an odor that made me wretch. There was food in there that had gone bad most likely months ago given the advanced progression of the mold on it. I had found my first job.

So I set my things out of the way and broke out the gloves I had bought to do this. I made several trips to the dumpster emptying the fridge, and once everything was out I set to scrubbing it down with some cleaners and a brush that I had found under the sink. Thank God for small miracles. After about thirty minutes my arms were screaming at me - I hadn’t done anything this physical in a long time - but eventually, I managed to get the refrigerator to an acceptable state. Once I did I put the food I had brought inside and sat down in a chair in the dining area to rest. I felt much better, having adjusted to the temperature a little, but I was still sweating like a pig - my clothes were soaked. After a brief respite, I decided to go assess the bedroom. It was Hell getting to it as the hallways of garbage were meant to accommodate my grandfather’s much smaller frame, but get to it I did, and was pleasantly surprised at the state it was in. Somehow, he’d kept it relatively tidy, with only a stack of books near the foot of the bed. And the bathroom was fairly clean as well - it was somewhere I could actually see myself taking a shower in, thank God. Coming out of the bathroom I saw a nightstand that I hadn’t noticed before. Inside it, I thought I might find some of his more intimate and personal belongings, but instead, I was met with two things: a singular handle and its screws, and a screwdriver. Perplexed, I shut the drawer and continued my tour.

After determining that I wouldn’t need to go back into town to stay the night, not that I could really afford to, I began cleaning the house. I started in the front where the majority of the mess was large pieces of metal, various wooden boards, and what appeared to be an antique toilet. The toilet was faced at and in front of the sole window - I had no idea why he would’ve had it so, and I doubted that I wanted to know. So out everything went, into the dumpster. I didn’t take any special care with the floors, instead dragging things through the house because I figured that anyone that bought this property would tear the house down anyway, or at the very least renovate it.

After a few hours, I managed to get the living room mostly cleared out, mainly by removing the towering columns of papers and books. Quite a few of them were newspapers, sometimes with multiple copies of the same one. Many of them had random words circled in them throughout, some with articles and pictures and pages missing. It looked like my grandfather had gotten them from every corner of the country. As for the books, they were almost entirely self-help books. I found it rather odd, as I’d only met my grandfather a few times, but I didn’t remember him being plagued by any demons or inner turmoil. In fact, I remembered him being quite happy. Apparently, something had changed.

It was getting dark and I was exhausted, so I decided to retire for the evening. I made myself a simple dinner, eating it in the small dining area off the kitchen. I had no service out here, so I was limited to reading my grandfather’s books for entertainment. He had some other than the hoard of DIY fix-yourself-type books; some of them were even classics. I settled on Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and went to the bedroom to read it. As I lay in bed, I grew very tired very quickly, and soon set down the book. As I began to drift off to sleep, all I could hear was the humming of the window unit and the insects outside. The darkness began to take me.

Then it all stopped.

The sounds of the night ceased, and at first, I thought I had fallen asleep. But then I heard them. The whispers.

They were soft, traveling upon currents of air as audible feathers. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but I could feel a sinisterness in them. I opened my eyes and looked around, frightened by the possibilities. Turning on the lamp on the nightstand I called out into the night, inquiring as to who might be disturbing my slumber. But there was no response. The whispers continued, filling the room with their hollow energy. I was terrified, so much so that I reverted to a childhood defense against monsters and pulled the covers tighter to my body.

“Help.”

I heard it. One of the whispers had gained form, giving me a glimpse of its origins. It sounded like a little boy, and he sounded as frightened as I was. Immediately I called out again, asking as to his whereabouts.

“Help me.”

Now I was growing concerned. The clarity of his pleas was muddied at best, sounding as if in a different room, locked behind a door. I got up from the bed and began calling out to him, asking him where he was, what his name was. Every inquiry was met with the same desperate cry for help. He sounded far away, but clear as day. I couldn’t put my finger on where he might be; I’d gone through the entirety of the small house today and hadn’t seen any place that might be hiding him. I started to wander from the bedroom when I heard a faint thump behind me. I turned around and saw the only stack of books in the room jostling in time with the panicked thumping.

“Help me, I’m scared.”

The voice was louder now, and with haste, I began clearing away the pile of books. As I did the thumping stopped, but the cries just became louder.

“Help me.”

“Help me.”

“HELP ME!”

Finally, I managed to sweep away the last of the books, and underneath them lay a trap door. It had no lock and no handle, but it had the holes and outline from where a handle had been. I scrambled to the nightstand and removed its contents, careful not to lose the screws in the relative darkness.

“HELP ME!”

“HELP ME!”

“HELP ME PLEASE!”

The boy's now shouts assaulted my mind, invading every corner of my skull as I fumbled desperately with the handle. I tried so hard to be quick about it, but the screws themselves were long, and they did not go in easily. Finally, I managed to get them both in and gave a great heave upon the door. As soon as I did the shouting stopped, and I was met with a square of complete darkness. I grabbed my phone and turned on the flashlight, but for some reason, it would only pierce the black veil by a few feet. I could see only that there were stairs leading into the abyss, but what lay at the bottom was a mystery. Hesitantly, I placed my foot on the first step, unknowing of the journey I was embarking upon.

It took me far too long to reach the bottom. I turned around and couldn’t see even a glimmer of light from whence I’d come. Before I could think too much about it I heard a skittering coming from the dark, from somewhere out there. I whipped around and shone my phone into the void, but I couldn’t see anything. I reached out and put my shaking hand on the wall as I stepped off the final step into the darkness.

“Help me.”

There he was, whispering for my help once again. I called out to him but received no answer. I kept my hand on the wall as I began to venture out, alternating the light between the floor and the center of the room. Not that it did much good; I could barely see the floor and it might as well have been turned off when I shone it anywhere else.

The wall was cold, but the air was colder. The stones that made up the wall were large and smooth as if boulders polished down by some ancient stream. I’d been fumbling around for scarcely a minute when I felt something warm and wet under my hand. I brought it into the light, and it was covered in blood. I shone my light on the wall and saw something horrifying. I saw my grandfather crucified on the wall, naked and bleeding from his chest where the word ‘freedom’ was carved. One of the worst parts about it was his smile; from ear to ear and missing teeth. He looked so happy. I screamed and fell backward onto the ground, dropping my phone in the process. Thankfully it was easy to find it with the light on, but once I picked it back up I couldn’t see anything. I swung it around, but all I could see was the darkness.

“You came for me.”

I heard the child once more and turned my light to where I had heard them from. I saw them sitting naked in the darkness, a little boy with his head buried into his knees. He was shivering from the cold and his hair was long and unkempt, as though he’d been down here for months. We were about a yard apart, and I could tell that I didn’t want to get any closer. There was no innocence, no tenderness, no life left in his countenance. I was regretful of my decision.

Then he looked up, and locked eyes with me. It was me. He was a bastardized, malicious, monstrous version of my childhood. I was scared. I was afraid and horrified. I was frozen.

“I knew you’d come,” he said. “Your grandfather couldn’t resist me either. Call it a familial weakness.”

With a shriek he lunged at me, eyes blackened with hate and teeth flashing bright in the light of my phone as I dropped it. I screamed and bolted upright in the bed. I was covered in sweat, cold and wet. I rolled over and checked the side table drawer, and the handle was missing. Looking over at the place where the door to that strange Hell had once lain, I saw nothing but piles of books. Slowly, I got out of bed, and crept over to the piles, trying not to let the floor creak beneath my feet. I moved the books and found… nothing. No door, no portal to a horrific fever dream, no nothing.

It must have been a nightmare, I surmised. There was no way that any of it could be real anyway, no matter how real it had felt. That would be simply preposterous. So with that knowledge, I climbed back into bed and drifted off into what I hoped would be a more peaceful sleep - it wasn’t. During the night I tossed and turned, visions of monsters dancing in my head. When I awoke in the morning I was still tired, drained by my unrest. But I got up and went about my day.

I cleaned up a good portion of the house, most of what I found simply went into the dumpster outside, but there were a few things of potential value that I thought were interesting, so I kept them. The family said I could take anything I wanted out of there, as long as it wasn’t cash. My grandfather wasn’t a particularly wealthy man, but his finances had always mystified everyone. No one knew where his money came from or where it went, only that he’d never really wanted for anything or ever asked to borrow. Even his children were dumbfounded, and my grandmother had died shortly after my father was born, so she wasn't around to explain. I was never told exactly what happened, but growing up I heard whispers. From what I could piece together she had cut her wrists open in the bathroom sink when my father was only six months old - on the day of in fact. It was a horrible end that no one could explain.

Among the few baubles and trinkets I found was a dagger. It was very obviously old, being made not of metal, but of bone. The handle was wrapped in leather, and it had a strange symbol carved into the blade. I assumed it was Native American in origin, but I was no expert. Just a bad guesser.

The next few days passed without incident, though my sleep was still plagued with horrors I’d never encountered before. I chalked it up to sleeping in a bed that wasn’t my own, as I was generally a creature of habit. I did my duty, and when it was done I left. The dumpster out front was almost overflowing as I got in my car and drove away. The house was a quarter-mile from the main road, and as I kicked up dirt on the drive to it I looked in my rearview. I did a double-take because at first, it looked like someone was standing in the window. But when I looked again, there was no one. I kept driving.

I stopped in “town” to get gas and some things for the road. I wasn’t much of a talker, but the girl at the register was cute, and pleasant enough, so I struck up a bit of conversation.

‘Rape her.’

The thought came from nowhere and startled me so much that I tripped over my words. I’d never had a thought like that before.

‘There’s nobody here but the two of you. It would be easy. Rape her.’

I couldn’t comprehend my thoughts and stopped mid-sentence. Where was this coming from? The cashier asked if I was okay, and I told her I was fine, just tired. I paid for my things, thanked her, and left. As I walked back out to my car images flashed through my mind of her, crying and screaming as she fought against me. I shook my head, trying to physically banish the images from my mind. I couldn’t believe I would even think something like that - I never had before. I didn’t know what was wrong with me.

As I drove away from the station the thoughts subsided, and I was left with a horrible feeling of guilt, though I’d done nothing. I turned on some music to distract myself, and after a few minutes, I felt like myself again. Soon I was jamming and singing along to the music, the strange thoughts completely gone from my mind. Before long I was back on the main highway, well on my way to civilization.

I was still a good ways away from the closest major city, and hours from home, but I was making good time. The road was a wide two-way with ample shoulders but no middle divider, and only one lane on each side. I couldn’t see any cars ahead of me or behind me, and only the occasional semi passing opposite me. The fields on either side of me rolled like golden waves in the wind, and I felt peaceful as I drove through this ocean. Another eighteen-wheeler approached me.

‘Drive into it.’

My eyes widened.

‘You’re going seventy. It’d be over in an instant. No pain.’

My knuckles were white on the wheel.

‘It’d be like an insect being squashed in its grill. All you have to do is pull to the left.’

I couldn’t believe what I was thinking. Like in the gas station before these thoughts were completely unprecedented. Never in my life had I had these urges.

I was ripped from my self-reflection by the sound of the truck’s horn. It blared at me because I had drifted slightly into its lane, and I swerved back into mine to avoid it. It shot by me and I imagined what would’ve happened had I not made the correction in time. Images of the front of the car caving in and the engine being shoved into the passenger seat, all while my airbag tried desperately to do its job with the front of the semi coming through the cabin immediately after it, my face meeting its headlight. I hated the thoughts but I couldn’t stop them. They came forcibly into my mind and left without a trace.

Some hours passed without incident, and I had to stop for gas. I pulled into a station off the highway, which had grown by two lanes on each side and a concrete divider, and chose a pump, going inside to pay. I grabbed myself an energy drink and something to eat; an infamous gas station tuna sandwich. As I stood in line a police officer got behind me, and I offered up my place to him to allow him to check out first. He thanked me, and as the cashier rang up his items they made some small talk about the night’s high school football game.

‘Take his gun.’

Once again my thoughts turned uncharacteristically violent.

‘You could shoot him and everyone else in here. You’d be famous in this town. The biggest thing they have to talk about is high school football, you’d be doing them a favor. It’s right there. Take his gun.’

The image of me pulling the trigger and blowing the cops’ gray matter all over the poor cashier flitted through my mind. The officers’ blood blinded the poor boy as I took aim at him next, landing two to the chest before he could sink below the counter. Then I could see myself taking the next logical step; I put the now warm muzzle to my own temple. I was just eight pounds or so away from Hell.

I was shaken from my murderous thoughts by the officer, who was asking if I was okay. He said I looked tired and scared. I told him that I was fine, that I’d just finished cleaning out the house of a dead relative and I was still emotional about it. He simply nodded and wished me the best of luck moving forward. I thanked him, even though I could still practically feel the recoil of his gun in my wrist. I could barely look the cashier in the eye as I paid for my items and left. At the pump, I was as quick as I could be, but much like the inescapable march of time, the gasoline would not be rushed. It moved as fast as it was going to move, and no faster. When it was done I put the nozzle back and got in my car and drove away. I ran my hand through my hair, and it felt singed on my temple. I nearly hit another car as I panickedly checked the mirror; it was all normal. I waved apologetically to the other driver as they honked at me, and finally pulled out of the station. I had no idea what was happening to me.

The rest of my drive home was somber. I couldn’t stop thinking about my previous thoughts, which mercifully prevented any new ones. I arrived at my apartment after dark, and as I trudged up the stairs out front one of my bags suddenly ripped and deposited its contents on the ground. I swore, and as I stooped to pick up its contents an object caught my eye - the dagger. A realization washed over me, and I hurried to pick everything up and get inside the door. I struggled and fumbled with the keys, mostly because my hands were shaking at the connection I thought I might have made.

I had actually been in school for archeology, specifically wanting to explore the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It was the main reason I had taken the dagger. The symbol on it looked like something from the Mayan civilizations, specifically of the Preclassic or even the Archaic era based on the materials the dagger was made of. The Mayans had been great believers in the supernatural and often practiced ceremonial human sacrifice. Their writing system was known to be the most advanced of the pre-colonial Americas and consisted of hieroglyphics similar to the one carved into the dagger. But in all my studying I’d never come across this particular one. It was similar to those symbols representing Ah Puch, or the nameless God L, which in and of itself was fascinating. The fact that I may have discovered a new god of the underworld was thrilling, but one of the reasons I found the early civilizations so fascinating was because I was somewhat spiritual myself. Many would call me agnostic - I felt that there had to be more than just life, that there had to be a before and after. And I believed that there was something in the cosmos that lent itself to creation, and destruction. But I didn’t believe in the traditional theistic constructs. I felt that whatever was out there was not so defined as God. At least, not one God.

I spent the rest of the night accessing what databases I could, but I couldn’t find anything that matched the symbol. It was of a nearly skeletal disembodied head, with what appeared to be long hair and sharp, gnashing teeth. It wasn’t quite like anything I’d seen before. I fell asleep at my computer in the early hours of the morning and was awoken by a phone call after the Sun had risen. It was my father, calling to see if I was okay. He said he’d called a few times while I was out at the estate, but I’d never answered. I told him it must’ve been the cell service out there because I hadn’t received a single call. He told me he’d left a message, so I checked my voicemail after we hung up, and sure enough there it was. But I’d never received a notification for it. Interesting, but not as interesting as the dagger - it could be the start of my career if it was authentic. I needed to get in touch with one of my old professors. He was well respected in the field and knew more than anyone I’d ever met about the pre-colonial cultures of South America. If anyone could help me it was him, so I drew the symbol on a piece of paper and scanned it, took a picture of the dagger itself, and drafted up an email to him. Afterward, I took a shower and changed my clothes.

When I was ready for the day the sun was high in the sky, and my professor still hadn’t emailed me back, but I wasn’t worried. He usually didn’t check his personal email until the evening. I set out to visit a friend that worked at a lab that could help me date the dagger. They had an AMS machine that I was hoping they would let me use to carbon date it.

When I arrived at the lab I told them who I was there to see, and they called him. I would’ve done it myself, but they had procedures they liked to follow. He arrived shortly after I had finished checking in and greeted me with a hug - he was a very good friend. We’d known each other since high school; when he was a junior I was a freshman, but we were the same age. He was brilliant. He probably could’ve already been in college at that point, but his parents wanted him to be able to socialize with people his own age more. It didn’t work very well - I was one of his only friends. But that’s because high schoolers are vicious, being one step above middle schoolers in civility. It didn’t help that he was smarter than them all, and he knew it. He was never condescending, he just was never quite able to dumb himself down. He understood everything so easily that it was hard for him to understand how some people couldn’t get it.

We walked through the halls making small talk until we reached his office, whereupon I produced the dagger. He hadn’t asked me why I was here, probably because he didn’t like asking questions, knowing that I would tell him eventually. As I unwrapped the dagger he became visibly intrigued. He pulled out a drawer on his desk and took out a pair of those nitrile powder-free gloves. After putting them on he took the dagger from me delicately, turning it over in his hands as he asked me questions about it. Where did I get it? Where was it from? Did I think it was authentic? I told him everything except for the strange nightmares I’d been having and the connection I thought they might have. Unlike me, he was fully atheistic. When I told him how old I thought it could be his eyes widened. To find something like this just in my grandfather’s house was incredible, he said. I agreed with him and told him that I needed it carbon-dated. Without so much as blinking, he said he’d do it - it was a bit of an abuse of power, but he didn’t really care. He was fascinated.

We talked some more after that, catching up a little bit as it had been a while. Once we’d exhausted our conversation he said that he’d best get back to work, and I thanked him for helping me. He walked me back to the front of the building and as we said our goodbyes -

‘He probably doesn’t like you.’

The thought was tamer than the ones before it, but it was still unwarranted and unusual.

‘You know he doesn’t care about you, or you two would keep in touch more. He’s not even that far away.’

I told myself that we’d both simply been too busy to hang out; him with his work and me with my school. There just wasn’t time.

‘If he cared he’d make time; he just doesn’t care.’

I began to think about why we hadn’t made any time to see each other, and couldn’t really come up with any good reasons. I drove home in sadness.

When I got home I went to my computer and checked my email. My professor had emailed me back. He first told me how good it was to hear from me, but the email quickly turned business. He wrote that the symbol was something he had only seen once before, on a tablet that had been somehow lost before it could be fully translated. It was indeed from the Preclassical era, and perhaps even earlier. It was of a nameless god, known to prey on the souls of the living. He was a feaster of the mind, but nothing else was known about him except that he had been defeated at the hands of a great hero after he foolishly gave himself mortal form. That was all they had been able to get before the tablet and its accompanying pieces were lost - though my professor had suspected they’d actually been stolen.

After absorbing this information, I wrote him back, thanking him for his insight. After I’d sent the message I put my head in my hands. It was terrifying, the parallels between what was happening to me and the very limited history of this god. I was now certain that there was a connection between my thoughts and the dagger, and I was growing less certain that my experience at my grandfather’s estate was simply a nightmare.

The next few days passed quickly and with great emotion. The thoughts were getting worse, to the point that I would get angry at people for things that never happened anywhere but in my head. I’d be sad in ways I’d never experienced before, and I started to argue with myself in my head. It felt more hollow up there than usual, and my thoughts would often echo, though sometimes the thoughts that echoed back were not the same as the originals. The nightmares were getting worse as well, and I’d barely gotten any sleep because of it. All-in-all, I felt like I was going crazy.

My phone went off. It was my friend. He apologized for getting back to me so late in the week, but he had strange news. The dagger was large enough to provide two samples, but neither of them returned any results - that is to say, the bone was older than carbon dating would allow. This would put it as existing long before any pre-colonial civilization; as existing before any real civilization at all. That seemed impossible, but he said that both samples had returned the same very implausible results. He had no explanation.

But I did. It was the bone of a god-made mortal.

‘Good job Sherlock. You figured it out.’

That wasn’t me.

‘No shit. Go into the bathroom.’

I was afraid.

‘Do it.’

I didn’t want to, but I walked into my bathroom. There on the counter sat the dagger. It couldn’t be.

‘Start the water in the tub. Draw a bath for me.’

I did as he commanded, the water being warm and soothing. But I knew what was happening. It would offer me no relief. Not the water anyway.

‘You’re smarter than your grandmother.’

I stripped down and grabbed the dagger before shutting off the water and getting in the bath. My hands trembled as I held the dagger to my wrist.

‘No. Long ways. We’re only going to do this once.’

I cried as I did as instructed. The dagger was surprisingly sharp and sliced my arm open with ease. As my lifeblood spilled into and stained the water I heard laughter echoing in my head.

‘You might be smart, but you’re weak. At least your grandfather fought back. He was a worthy feast; he put up the best fight I’ve had in a long time.’

The tears almost completely obscured my vision, and the pain in my arm was agonizing, but I took the dagger in my now bloody left hand and mirrored my cut on the other arm. As the water turned crimson the laughter continued to echo in my head and was the very last thing I heard before the darkness completely overtook me.