Читать книгу Demon Dancer - Alexander Valdez - Страница 18

Chapter 13

The Mansion on the Hill

The new day had to be filled with something new and exciting as us boys could not be held down. George suggested we go to the country club and play golf. I didn’t have the foggiest idea of how to play golf, but hey, I didn’t know how to ride a horse yesterday, much less go for an eighteen-mile trek riding one through hell’s canyon. So golf, oh hell yeah, I’ll give it a go. The house chauffeur drove us out to the county club and dropped us all off, instructing us to call him when we wanted to come home.

George and Albert gave me some brief instructions, and then we teed up the little pills and hacked our way down the fairways. We laughed as we left one green looking like an Iraqi minefield with all the divots. We placed all the grass clumps back in place and stomped them down. I guess the next party would have a hell of a time lining up a good putt.

We wrapped up nine holes and made our way back to the patio to sip some ice-cold Cokes and eat Fritos soaked in Tabasco sauce.

That was when I caught notice and, for the first time in days, gave any thought to the dance hall that stood off in the distance atop a small hill.

The terrain around the building was barren and devoid of any growth that I could tell. That was when I popped the question as to what that building was. Albert said that it was an old dance hall that had been abandoned and left to ruin over thirty years ago. Nobody gave it any thought anymore, and it held no interest to anyone. It was just there. The roof was collapsed and missing, with the doors having been removed left it exposed to the elements over the years.

I just had to go have a look-see at this old battered building, all the while recalling my father’s words to me before I left.

I threw all caution to the wind as I could feel some mystical force daring me to climb up that dusty road and forego the promise I made to my father.

The boys could care less about the building, and it held no attraction to walking up there in the miserable heat. I guess they sensed my relentlessness and that I was becoming adamant about going up the hill even if it meant my going alone. So after chugging down those last few ounces of good cold cola, we made our way to the top of the hill.

The boys were murmuring displeasures toward me as we walked, but I was the guest, and they were the perfect hosts. Now that this was the topic at hand, the old wives’ tales and legends started to come out. George said that legend had it that once about thirty or forty years ago, a young bride was abducted from the wedding party and was never seen again. The mansion was abandoned after it became known that the devil had appeared there one night, and nobody ever went there again. I told him it was 1923 specifically, and he was taken aback, asking me how in the world I even knew.

That was when I started relaying the information I had gotten from my father, and I made them swear that we did not come up to the old building. I told them that if they told their father, he would tell mine, and so on and so forth, up until the ass whipping I would get when I got back to Tucson. Plus, I didn’t want to hurt my pops. He was my hero, and disappointing him just wasn’t what I wanted to do. But nothing can ever trump my curiosity; I just had to see for myself.

The old dance hall had been in the latter stages of decay for many years now. For George and Albert, there just wasn’t any interest, and they were just waiting for me to get my fill so we could leave.

I walked about imagining the people consumed in the evening’s festivities, even conjuring up the stranger coming in the front door. It was when I walked into one of the side rooms, which might have served as a restroom facility, that I felt the chill creep up my back. Here I was standing in a room with the sun starting to creep toward the horizon that I became a believer in my dad’s story.

I looked the room over and then approached the window that would have been the escape route for the stranger, and there it was on the wall. The handprint that was very faded and barely recognizable unless you were looking hard for it. I called to my friends, but they were starting down the hill, beckoning me to hurry up. The print was becoming more defined in my mind the longer I stared at it. The fingers were longer than normal, and the palm area was wider than the average man’s hand.

This print was not there when I went out and demanded the boys return and see what I had found. They told me I was crazy and seeing things and that we should start heading back. I felt an uneasiness as we started outside, and I couldn’t explain it.

I told them to go ahead and that I would be along very soon. I had to walk around to the window that my dad had said he was looking into the dance from. There I crouched down, trying to get a feel of what he might have felt that night. Like a gift from the beyond, the evening came to life in my mind, and I saw the young bride and groom swirling around the dance floor.

That was when the man in black appeared in his coach, and he was dressed like my dad described him to me. I was starting to become very frightened even though it was just some type of imagined vision that was transparent.

I soon became convinced that it had to be more than that when the man in black looked my way with the coldest eyes I would ever come to know in my life. I got up and ran toward my friends who were halfway down the hill already. They asked me why I was as white as a sheet and poked fun, saying that I must have seen a ghost. Apparently, I just had.

We got back to George’s house and washed up for dinner, putting on some fresh clothes and sitting down to eat more wonderful food. This food can’t be had in the United States, and I can’t explain why. It is just different; maybe it’s the water. I never got sick down there.

Dinner complete, appreciation expressed, we headed for the streets. The usual suspects and more fun were waiting for us.