March 19, 2025

In the Window
Lee Clark Zumpe

This story appeared originally in SpineChiller in 1997
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Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai Podcast.
 
 
​Maggie found herself squatting in front of old man Macready's estate, cowering in the thorny bushes that his underpaid gardener kept perfectly clipped. The bleary moon floated listlessly overhead, glimmering dimly through the clouds and sparkling on cheap reproductions of neoclassical statues representing Greek gods. The gaudy busts dotted the sprawling gardens. Shadows billowed along the perimeter of the property, threatening to advance without mercy.

Maggie felt at home in the shadows.

The young woman shivered. For the first time she noticed how unseasonably cold the night had grown, and she longed for the comfort of a familiar quilt. She pictured herself sitting by the hearthstone, a roaring fire warming her, her cat stretched out beside her purring contentedly. She imagined curling up with her husband, his strong arms wrapped around her. God, she missed him...

Maggie shook her head. She drove all the distractions from her mind and focused on her purpose. Scanning the windows of the antiquated mansion, looking for signs of life, she began to edge quietly through the shrubbery. Slowly, she inched her way closer to the house. That old man lurked somewhere in the place, and she would find him.

She had long suspected that horrible things transpired at old Macready's place. He had admitted to certain depravities during his professional life as a mercenary, confessed freely his immoral attitude and unscrupulousness as though neither his actions nor his principles should concern anyone. When challenged, he shrugged off all his former malevolence as though it was a set of clothes he could simply dispose of at his convenience. 

His eyes, though: They betrayed echoes of the wicked deeds he had performed, and the tone of his voice hinted at the abominations of which he was capable. The cancer of his iniquity was inescapable.

Thin blades of grass tickled the soles of her feet as she sprang from the bush and raced across the lawn. A few lampposts scattered across the estate radiated small, feeble pools of light. These holes in the night she easily avoided as she skirted the elegantly trimmed hedge-line and used dusk as her cloak. She practically floated across the lawn, gliding stealthily and swiftly toward old Macready’s house, enveloped by darkness and silent as death itself. 

Maggie had only one fear: She worried old Macready’s dogs might catch her scent, then come howling out across the estate. She imagined that vicious pair of hounds, frothing and gnashing and barking their venomous rage. Tonight, she found, the savage Rottweilers were happily absent.

It struck her as peculiar that she could no longer remember how she had come to be on Macready's property that evening. She could not recall leaving her bed or leaving her house. She must have scaled the wall enclosing the estate, must have cut through the prickly bramble that grew along its length. Certainly, she must have done these things – as she had done before trying to get a glimpse into the secrets old Macready kept sealed in that blighted mansion. 

Yet, all she remembered was opening her eyes in that thicket, beneath that hazy moon and watercolor twilight. Her husband floated on the perimeter of her thoughts, a warm glowing candle on the far side of a shadowy chamber. 

Again, she forced herself to disperse such thoughts – at least until she had managed to find Macready.

She rounded the corner of the mansion and ran carelessly into a patch of light spilling from a first floor window. Around the rim of the light painting the lawn, shadows lapped gently like ocean waves at the sea shore. 

Maggie hastily ducked for cover, taking refuge in a dense scrap of gloom clinging to the outer wall. Nestling herself into a good position, she hesitantly peered inside. Macready sat in a reading chair, a pipe dangling from his lips. A ribbon of smoke fluttered in the air above his head. A black cat coiled itself about his foot.

Surrounding him stood his voluminous library. She shuddered to think what archaic tomes might pollute those shelves. She envisioned all the world’s worst grimoires collected in one den, all employed by their keeper for the most odious rituals of history. She imagined texts outlining the repulsive rituals of necromancy, blasphemous pamphlets reporting arcane lore, and vile perversions of cabalistic traditions scribed upon moldering scrolls.

Maggie eyed the old man as she recoiled into the shadows.

Macready reached for a glass of red wine perched upon an end table. His gnarled and bony fingers trembled as he grasped the goblet. As he drew it to his lips, he winced as if surprised by a sharp pain. Having completed the motion he sighed, clearly wearied by the effort.

Seeing him like this, Maggie suddenly realized how feeble the old man was, realized how foolish she had been.

As she turned to leave, Macready chanced to glance toward the window. Their eyes met. Embarrassed, she blushed and froze in her tracks.

The old man gasped and the pipe tumbled from his grasp. The black cat awoke and stretched, and its eyes followed his gaze to the woman standing outside the window. The hair on its back suddenly stood on end and its fluffy tail grew bushy. It jumped to its paws and ran from the room.

Maggie wanted to run, but something held her still. Something about the way Macready's eyes had ignited with recognition…how his expression had been painted by fear.

He turned away after a moment, just as his caretaker marched into the room. The servant raised an eyebrow when he saw his employer shuddering and mumbling to himself.

"What is the matter, sir – should I ring the doctor?"

"No – no, Barrimore. It's just," he staggered, leaning forward in his chair. Maggie stood there trembling, tears bubbling up in her eyes. "It's just that I've seen her again."

“Who, sir?”

"That poor woman – what was her name, Maggie?” He spoke guardedly, fearful his admission might give rise to accusations of mental deficiency. “But, it couldn’t have been her, of course."

"No sir,” the caretaker agreed. He feigned sympathy for the old man, surprised the incident still haunted him. Five years had passed since Macready’s hounds had mutilated the woman. “You must stop blaming yourself for her death, you know. She had no business wandering the grounds in the middle of the night.”

“Certainly not,” the old man barked, his condescending demeanor reasserting itself as he dismissed the apparition as a fragment of a fleeting dream. “Damn woman cost me two perfectly good dogs.”

“Yes, sir,” Barrimore said, dispensing Macready’s nighttime assortment of medications. He waited patiently as the old man swallowed one pill at a time, chasing each with a sip of overpriced sparkling spring water. “Will there be anything else, sir?”

“No,” Macready said, discharging the caretaker with a patronizing wave of his hand. 
The old man wanted to reassure himself, to turn his gaze back to the window to confirm that what he had seen had been nothing more than his imagination. He lacked the courage, though, knowing if he caught sight of her cold stare again it might well be his undoing. 

Barrimore glanced back as he left the room, watched silently as Macready shrank into his chair. For a moment, the caretaker thought he saw something shimmer in the window.

“Leave me,” Macready whimpered. “Leave me to my thoughts.”

                                                             💀💀💀

Lee Clark Zumpe, an entertainment columnist with Tampa Bay Newspapers, earned his bachelor’s in English at the University of South Florida. He began writing poetry and fiction in the early 1990s. His work has regularly appeared in a variety of literary journals and genre magazines over the last two decades. Publication credits include World War Cthulhu and The Children of Gla'aki from Dark Regions Press; Through a Mythos Darkly from PS Publishing; Children of Lovecraft Country and Shadows of an Inner Darkness from Golden Goblin Press; and Corridors and The Pickman Papers from Innsmouth Gold. Lee lives on the west coast of Florida with his wife and daughter.
 Lee’s inclination toward horror manifested itself early in his childhood when he began flipping through the pages of Forrest J. Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland and reading Gold Key Comic classics like Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery and Grimm’s Ghost Stories. In his teenage years, he discovered Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce, Richard Matheson and other masters of the genre. Lee’s work often focuses on character interaction set against a pervading sense of cosmic dread and high strangeness.