The Last House on Beach Road

Trevor Collier, a Russell-based character, buys a house in North Carolina, a lovely

beach house, but with an uninvited resident.

By Atonia Walpole

Part 1:

2009

She went down to the sea and sat on the damp sand, unmindful that her shorts would bear the imprint of fresh washed beach. She had to come. It was the only place she could find solace. The sea with its strength, it’s unmatched power to cleanse the soul. Her soul needed cleansing.

She dug her toes into the sand and closely examined the miniscule broken bits of shell adorning her painted toenails.  The wind blew her hair over her face, blotting out even her own feet and she rested her head on her bent knees and wept. Over the waves, the gulls went about their business and the sand crabs searched the seaweed washed ashore, and not a living thing paid her any mind.

He sat on the wooden porch, his legs dangling over the side, hands braced on either side of himself. The wind blew his hair, too, and pulled his unbuttoned shirt from his body, billowing it out behind him and caressing his back. He couldn’t see her but he knew she was there just over the dune, perhaps hidden by the sea oats. There was no answer for it, no way he could get to her or she to him.

This was the second time he’d come by himself to the house, the first being a year ago when he’d bought it in the summer. He swore he would not return but he had. Why had he come back? It was hopeless. He would have to move. His legs were growing numb and it was important to keep the circulation flowing through their veins. He moved his hands and grabbed the metal arm crutches that had become his legs, pulling himself upright. It was hard going in the sand and he would have to walk to the side door to enter the house.

It smelled as it always did, like fresh laundry dried in the sun. He heaved himself into the kitchen and leaned against the counter while he opened the fridge. There was the lemonade and his mouth began to water just thinking of the tart sweetness that would lie on his tongue. A glass from the shelf and careful balancing, but the pitcher crashed to the floor and he fell onto the counter. He held himself there for a moment before leaning over and picking up the crutch that had fallen to the floor. He left the lemonade spreading across the tiles, moved into the living room and fell upon the sofa.

TREVOR

2008

It was the beginning of summer when Trevor Collier rode out to the beach house that had come on the market. He had intended to take some pictures for the add but his camera remained in his pocket. Unlocking the door and walking inside, he’d immediately felt at home. He moved through the rooms like he knew where he was going. Up the stairs and to the left was the largest bedroom, empty now, but he could see how it could be, the view of the ocean on one side, the front garden on the other.

He checked the other rooms on the floor, three bedrooms and a bath, and downstairs a large family room and kitchen-dining combo.  A quick glance in another room off the family room, could be an office, he thought, or another bedroom. He walked out of the side door that led into the kitchen and down to the beach. Why couldn’t it be his, he wondered, and so he bought it. Busy with his real estate business, he left it empty for awhile and then began furnishing it with a few pieces. He brought some clothes out from his apartment one weekend and shopped for a few groceries. He planned to spend the rest of the summer there.

His on again-off again girlfriend came out and spent a night there but she didn’t like the house for some reason and refused to come back, preferring the city with its nightlife and people. Trevor liked the quiet, comfortable solitude of his beach house. He found a used book store and brought home a pile of books to read in the evenings. He bought a CD player for the house and a stack of CD’s, thinking he could do without TV.

He was thirty-four years old, handsome, healthy and divorced. He didn’t think much about his looks but he did eat healthy and jogged every morning. Having the beach to jog on was a big plus. He was friendly with his ex-wife. She’d moved on and married; he’d moved on to several girlfriends in the past three years.  He owned his own real estate firm, inherited from his father, but he had worked it and made a fair amount of money.

Now that he was a homeowner he spent his weekends doing a little work around the house. He replaced floor boards on the wide, covered back porch. He was prying up one of the boards when he noticed a name and date carved in the weathered wood. Lillian Tolliver 1952. “Sorry about this, Lillian,” he said and pulled up the board, tossing it on the pile. He’d done a little research on the house and it had been through several owners since the l950’s. The house was built in 1934 for Branson Tolliver.

The skies had taken on an ominous look toward the end of July, and a trip to the local grocery explained why. There was a hurricane offshore, wasn’t expected to make landfall, but they should be getting some weather from it. For the first time he wished he had a TV. He stocked up on batteries and candles and canned goods just in case. It began raining about two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. Trevor pulled out his stack of books and found something to read. He left off the music because he actually liked the sound of the rain against the windows. It was a good solid house.

He’d drifted off to sleep and when he woke the family room was dark. He lay there on the sofa listening to the rain for a minute until something else entered his consciousness…music. It wasn’t the music from his CD player. This had a tinny sound to it like an old record player. He sat up on the sofa and looked at his watch. It was just after six. Looking out of his window toward the sea, he could see whitecaps. It wasn’t totally dark outside.  Once again the music started and he got up and walked through the house, thinking maybe there was something outside, maybe a car radio out front, but there wasn’t anything down at the end of the road except his own vehicle.

Trevor climbed the stairs. The sound had definitely come from upstairs but a look in his room told him it wasn’t his clock radio. He hadn’t furnished the rest of the bedrooms and kept the doors closed. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up as he walked down the hall to the last bedroom that faced the sea and opened the door.

The breath caught in his throat. The room was furnished in white painted furniture. A lavender spread covered the bed and the window was open. He walked over and closed it to keep out the rain. Twilight Zone, had he fallen into it? He stood still and took in the room. It was a feminine room with frilly white curtains tied back at the window. A white stuffed dog lay on the bed and the record player atop a bookcase was playing a 45 rpm version of the song Picnic.

“Is someone here?” he heard himself say but there was no answer. The lights flickered and went out and he left the room, closing the door and running down the stairs. He found his flashlight and lit some candles. When he sat down in the family room he was bathed in sweat. What the hell had just happened upstairs?

 

Lillian

1958

She parked her Mustang at the end of the road. The drive was full, her father’s Buick and her brother’s Chevy. The invitation to join the family for a week at the beach couldn’t have come at a better time. Things were getting a bit too hot between her and her boss at the photography studio; not that she didn’t like him, just not that much. Sitting in her car she thought about David, but there was really no need to think about him anymore. He’d married her best friend. The news had come as a shock. She thought he’d gone on a business trip.

Her nephew Paul came running around the house and spotted her. “Aunt Lilly’s here!”

She put a smile on her face and got her bag from the trunk. “Hi, Paulie.”

“Hello, Mother.” Kiss, kiss on the cheeks.

“Your father is taking a nap. Donna and Jim are on the beach. How are you, dear?” Her mother looked at her, a question in her eyes.

“I’m fine, Mother. I’ll just take my things up.”

“Of course, dear. There’s lemonade in the refrigerator.”

Lilly took her bag to her old room and placed it on the cedar chest at the foot of her bed. She opened the window to let in the breeze and moved around her room, touching her things. Later she would unpack but now she put on a record and changed into shorts and a halter top. It was blazing outside in the July sun.

She made her way back downstairs and with a glass of lemonade walked out onto the back porch where her mother was reclining in a lounge chair reading.

“Lilly, I was shocked to hear about David’s marriage as I am sure you were. Had you no idea?”

“No, Mother, I hadn’t. I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Of course, dear.”

Lilly sat quietly in the porch swing sipping her lemonade, ‘of course dear’.

Later she went for a long walk on the beach by herself trying to sort out her feelings. What did it matter what she felt? She’d lost her best friend and her lover. She was twenty-eight years old. He may have been her last chance at happiness. She would be an old maid and never marry. The wind was getting up, blowing stinging sand on her legs. She didn’t realize how far she’d walked until she looked up and saw the pier. Then she looked at her watch. It was after five and she’d better start back.

The rain began shortly after she’d turned and she looked up at the sky. Dark clouds hung over the ocean. A summer storm, she thought, and trudged on through the sand.

Brandy Tolliver was trying to get his family organized. “It’s probably going to come ashore tonight. That’s what the radio said. I think we should get off the island.”

“Well, everyone’s here except Lilly.” Jim Tolliver looked around at his wife and son.

“Where did she go?”

“Down the beach. Went for a walk.”

“It’s coming up awfully fast, Dad. Look how far up the water’s come, all way to the path.”

“Jim, take your family and go on. We’ll meet up at the hotel on Atlantic Street.”

Brandy and Martha Tolliver never left the island. Lilly hadn’t shown up and they were afraid to leave without her. The hurricane hit at nine o’clock and the house above them took the brunt of the surge. Brandy and Martha were on the second floor when downstairs flooded. Lilly never came home.

The insurance paid for the clean-up and repairs to the house but the family was never repaired. Lilly was lost to the storm and the house went on the market.

It sat empty for two years before a family bought it and moved in for the summer. They stayed for two weeks and left. Once again it was in the hands of a real estate agent. The pattern pretty much repeated itself for the next fifty years.

It was now July 2008 but she had just stepped out for a walk.

 

Part 2:

Trevor sat on the sofa watching the wax melt and drip down, filling the candle holder. His breathing was now back to normal and his hands had stopped shaking. He’d never experienced anything like this before and still thought it might have been an illusion, something leftover from a dream he couldn’t remember upon waking. The house was now dark and silent, the wind and rain battering outside but not able to get in.

He went to the kitchen to get something to drink and found a glass pitcher of lemonade in the fridge. Lightning flashes through the kitchen window gave him a glimpse of the pitcher. It appeared to have orange and lemon slices painted or printed on the outside. He stuck a finger in the pitcher and tasted. It was lemonade but he hadn’t made it and didn’t own a lemon. He put it back in the fridge and took out a canned soft drink instead.

Something strange was going on and he didn’t want to think what it might be. He’d never been one to believe in haunted houses or ghosts but how else to explain the room upstairs or the lemonade in the fridge? He huddled in the corner of the sofa and drank his soda. From time to time he glanced out the window and thought the water looked awfully close. He hoped it didn’t breach the dune and flood for he’d have to go upstairs and he didn’t want to go upstairs.

Sometime before daybreak the wind and rain died away. He missed the exact moment for he’d fallen asleep on the sofa. He woke to a bright sunny day and went to the window and out the door onto the back porch to survey the damage. The water had come nearly to the back porch. He could see the debris washed over the dune but it had receded and the sun was even now drying out the soft sand. He turned back inside the house. Now in the clear light of day he climbed the stairs, walked down the hallway and opened the bedroom he’d seen the night before. It was empty.

It had been a dream he convinced himself for there was nothing in the room. No gray and lavender wallpaper covered the walls. They were painted a clean bright white. Satisfied, he went back downstairs and opened his fridge. There was no pitcher of lemonade there. It had been a dream, that was all. The electricity came back on around 10:00 and he went to work cleaning sand off the back porch and dragging branches to the curb. It still bothered him, the dream, because it had been so real but after a while he pushed it to the back of his mind.

He’d almost forgotten about it a few days later when he came home from work and dashed upstairs and changed into shorts and a tee shirt. He came back out into the hallway and smelled cigarette smoke. There was no mistake. He knew it well; he’d quit a year ago. He hesitated a minute and walked down the hall, stood outside the bedroom door, feeling compelled to open it.

“Oh, hi! I wondered when we’d meet.” Lillian Tolliver sat in the middle of the lavender-covered bed with a magazine and an ashtray.

Trevor couldn’t say anything. He backed against the door frame.

“It’s okay. You can come in. Really, it’s okay. No one is at home now anyway.” She smiled at him, her dark eyes bright.

His fingers ran over the wallpaper. This was no dream. “Who are you?” he asked, barely above a whisper.

“Lillian but you can call me Lilly. I know who you are, Trevor. I like that name I’ve never met a Trevor before.”

He swallowed,.“What are you doing here, why…how?”

“This is my room. It’s always been my room.”

He remembered the board he pulled up, Lillian Tolliver, 1952. “This is not possible.”

She stubbed out her cigarette. “Oh, but it is.” She closed the Photoplay magazine, moved over to the edge of the bed and stood up.

Trevor backed away out of the door.

“Don’t go. It gets so lonely here. I really need someone to talk to.”

“Not me…don’t talk to me!”

“But I’ve been waiting for you. I knew you’d come someday. It’s not often a girl my age gets a second chance. Maybe you don’t know about broken hearts, or maybe you do.” She looked at him a moment and moved over to her record player. “I’ve brought a few new records. Do you like Elvis?” She put on Love Me Tender.

“You’re not real! What are you?”

“I beg your pardon, not real?” She moved over to the door, placed a warm hand on his chest and looked up into his eyes. “Just how real does a girl have to be?”

Trevor tentatively placed his hand over hers. She was solid, warm. He turned and ran down the stairs, out of the house and down to the beach before he stopped and looked back at the house. She waved at him from her bedroom window. He shook his head as if to clear it but he’d felt her hand. It just was not possible. He walked in circles in the sand for a while and decided he’d just tell her to leave, go away.

He knew before he climbed the stairs that she would not be there. The room was empty again. Tomorrow, he thought, he’d find out who she was and what happened to her. He’d seen a ghost, of that he was certain. Lillian Tolliver simply could not be, not the woman in the bedroom anyway.

Over the next few days he spent as much time as possible researching microfiche at the Wilmington Daily Newspaper and talking to some of the locals on the island. He now knew who she was and that her body had never been found. The coast guard had searched for three days. She was presumed to have been washed out to sea in the surge. Her parents died thirty-odd years ago and her brother only two years ago but the nephew Paul Tolliver was still alive and living in Raleigh. Trevor had his address and phone number in his pocket but had not called him yet.

There had been traces of cigarette smoke in the downstairs rooms. He could smell it when he got home from work but as yet she had not reappeared. Trevor pulled out the phone number for Paul and called him around 7:30 one evening.

“Mr. Tolliver, my name is Trevor Collier. I was hoping you might tell me something about your aunt, Lillian Tolliver. You see, I’m living out on Emerald Isle and, um, have bought a house.”

Paul chuckled, “You’ve bought a house? Well, the only reason I can think you called me is that you bought THE house, the one my family used to own. Yes, I remember Aunt Lilly. What is it you want to know?”

“There was a hurricane that hit the island and your aunt went missing. I know this is going to sound crazy, Mr. Tolliver, but I’ve seen her in the house. Yes, I did buy it a couple of months ago.”

“I don’t know how crazy you are because I don’t know you but I do remember my father receiving a phone call, oh, back in the late sixty’s, I guess it was. A man and his wife bought the place and they must have seen something because they wanted to know about her and what happened to her. My parents lived in Wilmington then. I was only about six or seven at the time. I do remember her. She was a real pretty woman and was good to me what time I spent with her. Daddy said that last time, before she was drowned, she’d come down upset about her fiancé up and marrying her best friend. She was twenty-eight that year. It was a horrible death, you know.”

“Yes, I can imagine it was and a horrible experience for your family to go through. So that’s the only time you know of that anybody contacted your parents about the house being possibly haunted?”

“Well now, I don’t know if it’s haunted. I’d hate to think that was going on but there must have been some disturbance there. I can’t remember anybody else calling Daddy. None of us ever went back there except my grandparents. They had to do some clean-up after the storm and then they sold the house.”

“Thanks, Mr. Tolliver. I hated to bother you. I was just trying to put the pieces together.”

“Sure, Mr. Collier. Hey, if you see her again tell her Paulie said hello,” he chuckled.

Trevor got the impression Paul didn’t believe him. “Yeah, I will.”

Later that night when he went up to bed he smelled something else in his bedroom, her perfume. That did alarm him a little because he wasn’t sure what she was about, what could she do, what did she want? “Lilly, are you here?” He received no answer.

The next morning he saw her again as he was taking a shower. He blinked his eyes and saw her though the steamed shower door. He opened it just as the bathroom door closed. He wondered how long she’d been there watching him bathe. She was in her room when he came out of the bathroom wrapped in a terry robe and he opened her door.

“You know you shouldn’t do that,” he said.

She was tying her halter top around her neck and turned and smiled at him. “You’re rather nice looking, you know.”

“Are you going to explain all this to me, why you’re here, what do you want?”

“I’m here because this is where I belong and as for what I want…I just want some happiness.” She took a step toward him. “I think you can provide that for me, Trevor.”

“I…I can’t provide anything for you. You’re not real, Lilly, at least not anymore. I talked to your nephew, Paul. He says hello.”

“Paulie, really? He’s a sweetie. Why do you keep saying I’m not real?”

“You aren’t. You were…drowned in 1958, fifty years ago.”

“How can that be possible when I’m right here in front of you?” she laughed. “I can’t imagine why you are so afraid of me. We’re going to have to do something about that, you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“We need to get to know each other better. I’m here all alone all day just waiting for you to come home. It’s almost like being married I guess. The man goes off to work and the wife stays home. I thought I was going to be married; I should have been. That’s all over but, then, now I have you.”

“You don’t have me. I think I’d…like for you to go.”

“Go where? This is my home and you’ve come to live with me.” She moved closer to him. He could smell the scent she wore. She reached out and ran her hand down his arm. “You really are nice looking. Do you think I am?”

“Yeah, you’re very, um, nice…I need to, uh, get dressed.”

“I like you undressed.” She ran her hand inside his robe, across his belly.

“Don’t do that!” He stepped back. “Don’t!” He turned and walked quickly back to his room. My God, he had an erection…for a ghost? He leaned against his door. Maybe he was crazy, losing his mind, but that sure felt like a woman’s hand on his belly.

He began having vivid dreams about her of a sexual nature. He woke one night to find it wasn’t a dream he was having at all. She was in bed with him and she kissed him and fondled his body. He made love to her for hours and the next morning he found himself alone in the house.  Two days later she was back in her room playing her records when he came home from work.

“Lilly?” He opened her door.

She jumped off her bed and kissed him. “You’re home! Did you have a good day?”

“You can’t keep doing this to me. I’m losing my mind. Where do you go?”

“Go? I don’t go anywhere. I’m always here waiting for you.”

He entered her room, running his hand through his hair. “You came to me the other night in bed.”

“That wasn’t the only time, Trevor. I love you everything about you. You’re perfect in every way. I couldn’t help myself. You weren’t coming to my room at night, so what was I to do? I’m not really that kind of girl, you know. I don’t go to bed with just anyone.”

“Why me? There have been others in this house.”

“Old, stodgy, married men. I’m not interested in married men or marriage. That’s not exactly true. I was interested in marriage. I thought I was going to be a bride but it turned out my best friend married my lover. There hasn’t been anyone else until you.” Her arms went around his neck.

Trevor couldn’t help himself. He kissed her, running his hands over her body. “I want you, Lilly,” he said against her lips.

“I want you, too. This time I’m not going to let love get away from me. Take me, Trevor!” She gave herself over to him across her bed.

She appeared more often to him, daily visits sometimes outside on the back porch swing, sometimes in her room and most nights in his bed. He expected her there and longed for her when she was absent from him. He’d fallen in love with her, couldn’t get enough of her and yet he knew how fantastic a thing it was.

The summer was coming to an end and he’d planned to go back into Wilmington but now he was having second thoughts. He was thinking about leasing his apartment and moving to the island year round until he had a visit from one of the former owners of the house, one he’d tried to contact when he began researching.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come forward before my wife finally talked me into it.” Bill Randall sat nervously in the chair by Trevor’s desk. “I understand you’ve bought the place?”

“Yes, I’ve been living there for three months.” Trevor said.

“Well then, you might be all right. I don’t know. This is gonna sound nuts to you but the house is haunted. There’s a woman; she, uh, she tried to, uh, well get me to make love to her. My wife, um, had to go to her mother’s and I was alone in the house. I wasn’t drunk or nothing. I know it happened and I told Marge about it as soon as she got back. The, uh, ghost tried to push her down the stairs. There wasn’t anybody behind her but she felt a push and caught herself on the railing. That’s when we left and I put it on the market.”

“When was this?” Trevor began thumbing through a folder he’d begun on the house.

“Two years ago. We bought it in March and it was July before we could get out there and spend any time and then my mother-in-law became ill. The couple we sold it to tried to back out of the bargain after about a month. Had to get a lawyer and everything.”

“Yeah, I saw that. Why? What was the problem?”

“Well, same as I told you. He had a visit from the woman. She’s a pretty thing all right but, boy, was I scared especially after she tried to kill my wife. I know that’s what she was trying to do, Mr. Collier, cause she wanted me.”

“I appreciate your coming in, Mr. Randall. That’s quite a story.”

“It ain’t a story. You be careful, Mr. Collier, and look out for her cause if she ain’t come for you yet, she will. She’s looking for somebody to take with her.”

“Yeah, I’ll be careful.”

After Mr. Randall left Trevor realized she’d lied to him. That house had been on the market too many times for the story not to be true. He didn’t want to believe the part about the man’s wife. He didn’t know what to believe except what he knew to be true.  He did love her and believed she loved him. He wondered what Mr. Randall would have said to that. Had he lost his mind completely?

Trevor went home that day and instead of sticking around the house waiting for her to appear, he changed his clothes and went for a walk. He’d just got caught up in this thing. It wasn’t real; it couldn’t be real. He’d seen real fear in Bill Randall’s eyes. He wondered why he wasn’t afraid for himself. What could she do to him? She’d done nothing but love him, but still she wasn’t real regardless of how she felt to him. It wasn’t possible, was it?

He walked all the way to the pier and leaned against the supports. Before he got any deeper into this nightmare, he was going to leave as planned. He’d made up his mind as he walked along the edge of the water. He stopped and looked out at the waves coming in. Somebody was in trouble out there. Trevor was a strong swimmer and he waded out and dove in, swimming toward where he’d seen the person.  He came up for air and dove back down again, salt water stinging his eyes. He saw something and swam toward it. Just as he was about to reach her a wave crashed, sending him into one of the supports for the pier. He felt nothing at first only the impact and he struggled to reach the surface. Strong arms soon grabbed him and pulled him back on shore.

He came to in an ambulance racing toward the hospital. He’d broken his back on the pier. It took months in the rehab center just to get him to his feet. Still he was going twice a week. As he rode in the ambulance he’d answered questions. There had been no swimmer in trouble, but he knew this. He’d seen her face just as he was about to grab her hands. It had been Lilly.

2009

Trevor spent one night in the house. She was there. He could hear her upstairs, her music playing, things being dropped on the floor. She hadn’t appeared to him and he didn’t think she would.  He shifted himself on the sofa and stared at the ceiling. He believed if he hadn’t broken his back, if the wave hadn’t hit when it did, he would be dead, drowned with Lilly. It might be a year but he would walk again; he was determined to walk. She’d broken him but she hadn’t killed him.

 It was quiet in the house and, pulling himself up on his crutches, he moved across the floor to his wheel chair and sat down. Balancing the crutches across his lap, he moved himself to the front door and out onto the concrete walk. His specially-equipped van sat in the drive and he moved toward it. He took one last look at the house. Tomorrow it would be no more. The house wrecking crew would be there to tear it down.

 

BACK TO LIBRISCROWE