Killing Down the Roman Line by Tim McGregor Read Free Book Online

matter how many times he’d been told not to.
    Travis dropped the paper onto the table, reached for the cereal box and was already pouring cereal before he noticed his dad watching him. “Sorry.”
    “That door is just gonna fall right off the hinges you keep banging it like that.”
    Emma brought the milk and Travis poured and ate noisily. Halfway through the bowl, he looked up. “What’s going on next door?”
    Jim lowered the front page. There was no next door, their closest neighbour was a quarter mile away. “What?”
    “Did someone buy that crappy old house?”
    The crappy old house. It took a second before Jim understood what he meant. The derelict farmhouse on the property next to theirs, a crumbling tinderbox so old that Jim didn’t even see it anymore. Part of the landscape, no more visible than the weeping willows that surrounded the place.
    Travis clocked the confusion on both their faces. “The haunted house. Up the road.” Travis had called it a haunted house since he was five. To Jim’s knowledge, the boy had never gone near it, death-trap that it was.
    “What do you mean, honey?” Emma sat down, hands drawing warmth from her mug.
    Travis poured a second bowl. “Some dude’s over there. Tossing junk out on the front yard.
    Jim pushed his chair back and went to the window. He knew full well that the old house wasn’t visible from this window but he went and looked all the same. Nothing. Trees, the old fence.
    “Did you recognize him?” Emma asked.
    “No.”
    “Maybe the town’s decided to finally pull it down.”
    Jim crossed to the backdoor and slipped his boots back on. “I doubt that. Probably just some junk collector. I’ll go see.”
    “I want to come.” Travis, already on his feet.
    “Stay here.”
    ~
    Jim climbed under the wheel and rumbled down the driveway to the road. A fly bounced inside the windshield before being sucked out the open window. Trespassers weren’t uncommon on the old property, usually antique hunters from the city. Sometimes just kids looking to explore. The old Corrigan house was big and spooky-looking, a natural draw for any curious eyes driving past. Two years ago it was some college kids with a bunch of weird gear. Said they were ghost hunters searching for signs of paranormal activity. Jim had chased them off, telling them they were trespassing and he’d call the cops if they didn’t pack up and skedaddle.
    The driveway to the old place was nothing more than two rutted tracks of hard packed clay. Overgrown crabgrass trailed beneath the pickup’s undercarriage. Jim could already see a vehicle parked in the front yard. A new Toyota FJ, tricked out with floodlights on the roof and a heavy grille guard. Long way from home too. Nova Scotia plates. Another antique hunter.
    An ambitious one at that, Jim thought. There was a tidy pile of trash and debris just off the veranda, hauled from inside and pitched out. Jim went up the rotted plank steps and stopped outside the open door.
    “Hello?”
    No response. A dull crash deep inside the house.
    The interior was dark and musty smelling. An overturned chair to his left, the spindles splayed and broken. A table against the wall with a yellowing calendar hung over it, forever frozen to June 1973. A rack of stag antlers over a wide stone hearth. The floorboards warped and filthy with the dry bones of mice and other small creatures. The staircase and the hallway to the back. He hollered again.
    Noise thudding through the floor. A shatter of glass and the tinkling of shards. Jim passed under the staircase to the hallway, the light brightening into what was once the kitchen.
    A silhouette in the room, the man a blur against the sunlight squaring the grimy windows. His back to Jim. Rubble at his feet and dust frosting the air. An iron poker in his hand.
    “Hello.”
    The voice was low and unfamiliar. He didn’t turn around.
    Jim’s back went up, wary. He reminded himself the man was a trespasser. And a vandal,