Photograph entitled Haunted © by John D. Stanton 2006 www.3AMBlue.com.
NUMBER 17,268
by H.F. Gibbard
Stuart started that Spring, with number 501, over in Johnsville. Afterwards, next to the entry for 501, he wrote “creepy but unconvincing.” Today, he would visit No. 17,268, just across town. The Hubbard House.
Stuart sat in the passenger seat of the Taurus while Karen drove. A gigantic paperback tome rested in Stuart's lap, its pages rippling slightly in the air conditioning. Its margins were full of comments inked in with a fountain pen.
Stuart was between jobs at the moment. He spent part of each day working his way half-heartedly through want ads and on-line job postings. The rest of his time was devoted to The Book.
“The Book,” as he called it, ranked The Top Twenty Thousand Haunted Houses in America. One thousand eighteen of them were located within sixty miles of home. It was Stuart's goal to visit all 1018 of them before becoming re-employed. He might never again have the time to complete such a magnificent project. Seize the day!
“Why go see something so far down the list?” Karen asked, frowning, as they wound through a depressingly dilapidated suburb.
Stuart looked up from The Book and ran an ink-stained finger down the MapQuest printout taped to the dashboard.
“Take a right here, dear,” he pointed.
Karen complied.
“It's all about the long tail,” Stuart said.
Karen was silent for a moment. Then she demanded, irritated, “Is this about my butt again, or what?”
Stuart opened his mouth to explain, but she cut him off.
“I was going to join a fitness center, you know! Right before we lost half our income!”
“No, no, no!” Stuart exclaimed, raising his hands in supplication, “It has nothing to do with that! I like your butt! I do! It's a marketing concept. Big tail, I mean, long tail, refers to selling even the smallest items in the inventory!”
She stared at him, unconvinced.
“Suppose,“ Stuart explained, “you're a retailer with ten thousand songs in your on-line catalog. Even song number 9,998 will score a few downloads, at least. The graph looks like it has a long tail on it. Hence, the long tail.”
“And this has what, exactly, to do with haunted houses?”
“It means there'll be something worth seeing in all of them,” Stuart said, “even the ones way down the list.”
“If you say so.”
They pulled up in front of Number 17,268. It was a large, squarish house with gabled windows jutting out from the attic. Looking closely, Stuart saw peeling paint and broken banisters. There was something grim about the place; a darkness hovered over it. Stuart smiled.
“I'll be half an hour or so,” Stuart said.
Karen rolled down the windows and shut off the engine. She pulled out a romance novel.
* * * * *
The front porch creaked menacingly. There was no human attendant on site. Instead, next to the sign explaining the rules of the house, stood an automated ticket vending machine, offering “twenty four hour access to the most terrifying supernatural experience of all time.”
Stuart stared at the machine for a moment. He fed a twenty dollar bill into it. With a sound like clanking chains and a deep groaning, it spat out a ticket. Stuart inserted the ticket into the slot next to the heavy metal door to the house. The door clicked and then opened slowly, with a recorded creaking and a blast of cool air from inside.
“Enter!” a sepulchral voice boomed, “If you dare!”
This was followed by the sounds of recorded laughter, which cut off suddenly. Stuart frowned, and stepped inside the house.
Red theatrical ropes directed Stuart through the entryway and the parlor. Multiple security cameras observed him. He picked up a program at a table by the front door.
The program explained that while ghosts are inherently unpredictable, the spirit of the tragic Mr. Hubbard, who had died in 1959 in this very house, was known for its remarkable regularity. The program offered a timetable of the specter's daily activities.
Stuart checked his watch. It was 8:15. Hubbard's ghost was scheduled to eat breakfast in less than five minutes. Stuart followed the program map, headed for the kitchen, and found a chair not far from the kitchen table. The table was set with real props: a cereal bowl, a box of Wheaties, and carafes of orange juice and milk.
Stuart sat in silence for a moment. Then, he heard it. A creaking door from somewhere upstairs, followed by a low pounding noise as something slowly descended the stairs.
The noise on the stairs became louder. Stuart felt his breath quicken. Soon, Hubbard's ghost entered the room, dressed in a night-shirt.
The ghost was of an elderly man, with disordered hair and disheveled features. It made its way painstakingly to the table and sat down. It poured itself a bowl of cereal, its veinous hands shaking a bit, then poured milk over the cereal. Then it began to eat.
The food fell through the specter's translucent mouth and landed in little splotchy globs on the table. After a few minutes of this sloppy feeding, the specter was finished with breakfast. It suddenly lifted its right leg, and passed an enormous quantity of wind. Stuart smelled a hideous smell, of marsh swamps and graveyards, decay and moldering things. With a satisfied grunt, Hubbard's ghost rose from the table, left the room, and began noisily ascending the stairs.
The next item on the program was Hubbard's lunch, at 11:35. Stuart decided not to stay.
* * * * *
Back in the car, Stuart tossed The Book onto the dashboard, and folded his arms.
“So, how was it?” Karen asked.
“I think,” Stuart said, slowly, “I'm going to work a little harder at finding myself a job.”