TO THE BRIM
TO THE BRIM
by Logan McConnell
For the last delivery on Dot’s mail route, she was surprised to find, at the bottom of her mailbag, a letter addressed to the abandoned house at the end of Forrest Lane. Her day had been busy but unremarkable up to that point. Distributing parcels and packages spanned well into the evening, concluding her shift with this unexpected discovery, never needing to get close to the house until today.
Forrest Lane began like all the other streets in the neighborhood: a straight line studded with houses spaced apart by prim lawns. The lane’s finish was unique, however: instead of capping off with a perfect semicircular cul-de-sac, the pavement abruptly veered off at a sharp angle to a lone house perched on a dead end.
Strung out pieces of cracked cement slabs served as a walkway across the front lawn. Beside them was a thick oak tree whose gnarled branches stretched skyward, hiding most of the house from view. The property was assumed unoccupied and rarely acknowledged by neighbors, which was why Dot was so surprised when she found a letter for the address.
In the past, Dot imagined the house being built long ago, the surrounding houses built around it generations later. Other times she thought all the nearby ‘normal’ houses of Forrest Lane were actually the ones built long ago, and this one popped up overnight, hoping to latch onto the affluent street unnoticed. Either way, the dilapidated property was the only blight on an otherwise tidy neighborhood.
She carried the envelope up the path, stopping half-way to rub her aching knees. Dot was used to a heavy workload and grueling hours on her busy route, but lately her career was starting to take a noticeable toll on her body. Her joints throbbed and she could no longer carry two bags at a time. The cord of the mailbag scraped against the soft spot on her ring finger, a spot recently exposed for the first time in years.
Management noticed she was finishing her route later and later each day. Her walk was slower, her agile arms now rigid, and she began talking far more often. Dot chatted with parents on their stoops or children playing in their yards. She had to while on the clock, there was nobody at home to talk to anymore. That day, there had been no one loafing around the mailboxes to greet, and Dot completed her route with solemn efficiency.
To the right side of the house was a garage that was always shut. Dot had heard, from her conversations with the local children, that on some nights, hours after midnight but well before sunrise, a clunking whoosh of the garage door opening had woken them up. Only when everyone was asleep did a car ever enter or exit the garage, the unknown owner driving past sleeping neighbors, on business that could only be done in the dark.
The last time the house had drawn any attention to itself in the daytime was months ago, when Dot noticed the house had a fresh coat of paint. The white walls had always been smeared in years’ worth of grime and dirt, especially the bottom panels, as if animals or intruders had scraped against the sides. Now, the bright, bone-white color of the new paint could be spotted through the twisted branches of the oak tree. She had asked around Forrest Lane if anyone had seen who painted the house. No one had.
This would be the first time Dot actually stepped onto the property. The envelope was ruby red, an unusual color for stationary, typically seen only in February around Valentine’s Day. There was no name of the recipient nor a return address. The stamp was unremarkable. The handwriting was large, words written in sloppy penmanship like a child’s scrawl, wide spaces separating each character.
No mailbox in sight, Dot spotted a dingy envelope flap in the front door. She walked closer, out of the sunlight, into the shadow of the house, where she was greeted by the chill of late autumn. She shivered and quickened her pace, eager to return to her heated mail truck.
All the house’s windows were filthy, opaque from dust and dirt. One on the first floor caught her eye. In the glass was a handprint. It was small, made by either a petite woman or maybe a child, upside down. Strange, she thought, and stepped onto the front lawn for a closer look.
High up on the window was another handprint, this one larger, on its side, with pudgy digits spread apart. Dot stood in thought, running the envelope over the sore spot on her ring finger. Studying the prints, she could not invent a story behind why someone would twist their arm in such a manner to make a print at that height.
Inside the unlit house, only silhouettes of furniture draped in white sheets were visible. She dared another step closer, her own elongated reflection forming in the window. The old glass was warped, distorted with time, her appearance unrecognizable, as if some other person were looking back at her.
Dot’s fixated gaze finally broke, and realized with some embarrassment she had been staring into someone’s private residence. She blushed, thinking how foolish and odd she must have looked, and scurried back to the walkway.
The outside temperature plunged further. Dot shivered, and through her visible breath saw, above the front door, on a small half window, more prints. Two handprints and a footprint were in the glass. The window was too high up for anyone to reach; a footprint, as if to stand sideways on the glass, would be impossible.
Once again, Dot tried to conjure some explanation, a story behind how the prints were placed. She could not. Either somebody floated up or found how to walk on walls like a spider. Not only were these absurd ideas, but other than the paint job months ago, and the dubious claims from children that the garage door opened on rare nights, no evidence suggested anyone lived inside the house to make these prints.
But Dot could not convince herself the house was empty. Standing outside, she felt the way she used to when she stood outside of her own house, and sensed her husband inside even before she saw his parked car on the street. She could sense him there, as strongly as she could sense his absence the day he left her. She knew it before she opened the door to their empty house. This house, at the end of Forrest Lane, was not empty.
Her curiosity swelling into boldness, she marched over to the other side of the house and told herself if there were no prints on these windows, she’d deliver the mail, forget everything she had seen that day and go home. Dot rounded the corner. She stopped, looked up and nearly cried out.
The towering first story window was as grimy as the others, with five handprints near the bottom and three footprints at the top, all different sizes. One of the footprints was missing a big toe. The second story had no hand or footprints, but a V shaped print, the right side thicker than the left: an arm and forearm, pressed against the glass.
Sunlight was fading. The evening sky held a dying purple sunset that would soon disappear, leaving her to investigate the premises in darkness. With little time remaining, Dot crept into the back yard, stepping onto the ground rife with crabgrass browning at the tips. She turned to face the back of the house.
Several windows were displayed, the lowest a tiny rectangle of glass belonging to the basement. Her eyes rose to the first and second floors, then further up to a single pane in the attic at the very top. Dot froze. Her pulse quickened; her pumping blood chased away the cold. Before her was all the proof needed to confirm the house was very much occupied.
Prints of hands, feet, arms, legs, torsos, breasts, and faces were on the glass. Space around the mouths of faceprints would fog up, then disappear. Fog up, then disappear, all in unison, on different floors, as if the house itself was breathing one single breath through multiple grimacing lips.
Only the attic window was untouched.
Between the house and the dark backyard Dot felt trapped within a world she couldn’t grasp. This plot of land operated under some law that was impossible to fathom, her mind took a moment to regain composure before it cried at her to return to the safety of Forrest Lane.
Dot ran. Catching her breath she stopped at the driveway’s end, flapping her shirt to cool the sweat off her chest. She held up her shaking hand, clutching the now-crumpled envelope. She hadn’t delivered it. The mystery of the prints, the disturbing sight around back, and the owner’s identity, may all possibly be answered by the letter in her hand.
Forgetting the constraints of professionalism, she decided to open it. Dot started slowly, hoping to pry apart the adhesive without leaving a mark, to reseal it later without a trace of her crime. When the paper began to tear, she gave up and carelessly ripped open the top. Before she read the words she felt them: the writer had pressed so hard while scribbling that the page’s back had indents, grazing her fingertips like braille. The handwriting was large, messy, and wild.
You are a greedy girl you are a bad bad girl and a glutton stop doing this you have enough I treated you like a person I begged you to stop I loved you I gave you a shiny brand new coat and you keep hurting me keep hurting me I will not help you if this continues why do you do this you have enough ghosts you are bloated now you stack them all so high you must be full to the brim by now do you even have any room left I wanted to build a fire for just the two of us do you even have space there or do you stack the ghosts in the fireplace too I wonder if it goes all the way up to the chimney top you bad hungry girl stop stop stop there’s no space for me to live inside can’t you see you are ruining my mind
There was no closing signature. No post script. Nothing on the back. Dot reread the writing over and over again until the sun was gone and she could no longer see.
Neither the deranged note nor its author provided any answers, other than that a woman lived inside. Dot’s imagination, so often prone to forge stories, imagined a neglected wife living as a hermit. She turned to the house in the darkness, unable to see the prints she knew were there, thinking of some poor woman, abandoned, longing for company, for a friend.
Holding her breath, she stepped toward the door, lifted the mail slot flap and inserted the letter. There was a pause. Dot waited, her ears poised for a sound, never hearing paper land on the floor. Hot air wafted up against her fingers, like breath warming her clammy hand. She crouched down and looked inside through the opening.
Dot gasped at what she saw, and felt her hand pulled through the slot, then her arm, then finally her entire body. The limits of physics and the barrier of the solid door ceased, her figure passing through the structure as easily as walking within thick fog. She had no time to scream.
Years later others will stomp around the house, peering at the windows covered in prints. They’ll find all sorts, including a handprint, on the highest window, in the attic, the house filled to the brim.
Fiction © Copyright Logan McConnell
Base Image by ARTURMEDYK from Pixabay
Logan McConnell is a health care worker, lifelong reader and new to writing fiction. His work has appeared in The Crow’s Quill, The Dark Sire and the webzines Schlock! and Yellow Mama. He is influenced by the works of Mary Shelley and Thomas Ligotti. He lives with his boyfriend in Tennessee.
Twitter: @LMwriter91
