the lumber lord haunting

8/12/2019 The Lumber Lord Haunting

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The Lumber Lord Haunting

It wasn't until Kip Brecker lopped off the tip of his pinky finger

that anyone began to suspect foul play.

Two months earlier, Kip had tripped over a concrete mixer and

sent the whole thing tumbling to the ground. A little dollop of wet

concrete landed on his forearm and left him with a scabby, cherry

red chemical burn that looked a bit like a Star of David if you

squinted at it.

We chalked that one up to Kip's sheer carelessness, and Kip

chalked it up to HaShem trying to steer him towards a holy path

and ordered a yarmulke off of Amazon.

So, when we heard Kip's high-pitched howl coming from the big

circular saw machine, we assumed the man's clumsiness was about

to send him to the hospital for the second time this year andwondered why he had been given a much more dangerous job

than the one that had already nearly melted his arm off.

We gathered around the machine where Kip was curled up on the

floor moaning. A tiny geyser of blood poured forth from his

shortened digit.

"I am being punished," Kip whined, cradling the finger. "I trimmed

my damned mustache on Sabbath and, in doing so, violated that

sacred day of rest. God has seen and acted accordingly."


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His trembling voice swelled and then collapsed into penitent

sobbing. The bleeding had slowed, and Kip's pinky now gave

halfhearted squirts of blood in time with his heaving chest.

Tony Huntzinger, the most superstitious among us, was the first to

step up and inspect the machine. He called us over, and we all

marveled at the impossible angle at which the saw blade had

strayed from its track.

"This ain't the work of God," Tony said. "There's evil over this

machine and under this roof."Most of us were inclined to agree. I went up and traced the saw

blade's path from its precise, preordained groove to the bloody

splatter where Kip's pale, lonely fingertip still rested. Along the

way, the blade had taken an unnatural forty-five degree turn,

cutting through the machine itself to arrive at Kip's unsuspecting

finger.

Word got out around Oakmere that there had been a gruesome

accident at the Lumber Lord. We knew better than to comment on

these rumors, for whatever the townspeople wanted to believe was

better than what we had begun to suspect: a malignant being had

taken up residence at the Lumber Lord and decided that we ought

to clear out.

That gruesome incident had illuminated a supernatural pattern in

what we previously believed was a just a series of random

occurrences. I suggested we make a list: things falling off shelves,


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and fire crackers to set off behind the grocery store. All these

things and more formed a delicate balance that each citizen of

Oakmere privately swore to preserve. The Lumber Lord stood at

the center of it all.

Glenn Finckley founded the store. Some say he built the massive,

squat building himself while some say it predates the town and

called Finckley from a distant land to name it and give it life. I've

never bothered to ask anyone the truth about the Lumber Lord. I

much preferred the legends, as ridiculous as they were.A man entered Lumber Lord with a plan, an idea, or just an

inkling. Maybe, he thought, if he could build a little shed off to the

side of his house, he could move some stuff out of his garage to

make room for a TV and a mini-fridge, or perhaps Tabitha was

expecting, and, even though he had no idea how to start, it might

be something special if he could build the crib himself.

Yes, we would say. Yes, you can do that. You're gonna want a

cement base for that toolshed. Black walnut will do nicely for a

crib. How far along is Tabitha? Well, that's really something! No

time to lose then--come this way!

And that man would watch as we spun his idea into reality. It was

a precious thing to see a dream scooped into the realm of

possibility, measured, reasonably priced, and made tangible. It

bolstered the soul, fortifying it against little misfortunes, life's

potholes, that might chip away at it and grind it down.


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That was the magic of the Lumber Lord, a magic now tainted by

some foul thing none of us understood. We were still hotly

debating the nature and existence of this malevolent presence when

it struck again.

Frank Romero was working the forklift that day. He was

transporting a tightly bound bundle of excess birch logs to our

storehouse when a rope snapped. The logs stirred, slipped their

remaining bonds, and rolled in every direction. The ensuing chaos

ended swiftly with most of the logs coming to rest against heavyequipment and causing minimal damage. One log careened

towards one of the new guys who dove out of the way, spraining

his ankle in the process. The log collided with a pyramid of paint

thinner cans and slowed to a halt.

We respectfully examined the new guy's bluish ankle and

expressed our sympathy, which was hard because none of us

could remember his name, and most of us wished he had just

stopped the log with his foot rather than let it topple the paint

thinner display, since he was apparently going to sprain his ankle

whether the log touched him or not.

Frank tracked down the guilty rope and drew our attention to the

point where it had come apart.

"No fraying," Frank said, eager to absolve himself. "Like

somebody chopped it with a machete!"


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I was deeply disturbed. I relied on this rope everyday, and

witnessing its spontaneous failure caused all sorts of disasters to

bloom in my mind. Even those of us still unconvinced of

supernatural meddling now agreed it was time to talk to Glenn

Finckley. Perhaps the Lumber Lord himself would know what to

do.

We scoured the store for any remaining customers while Frank

reset the days without incident sign. With a flurry of excuses, we

herded a handful of shoppers through checkout and closed thestore. I joined the small crowd gathered outside Finckley's office at

the back left corner of the Lumber Lord.

Even though we were in near universal agreement that this baleful

spirit constituted a Finckley tier disaster, we hesitated to call on

him.

Finckley, when summoned from his office, sometimes solved our

problems so thoroughly and swiftly that we felt foolish afterwards.

He was a man of infinite warmth and unflinching geniality who

never gave any indication that his time had been wasted, but if you

had wasted it, you knew.

In three years at Lumber Lord, I had probably interacted with

Finckley no more than two dozen times. He made customary

appearances at company functions and sometimes dipped into the

break room for an apple fritter, but most of his time he spent holed

up in his office doing nobody knew what.


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Tony knocked on the door.

"Come in," the Lumber Lord answered.

We filed in reverently. Glenn Finckley, even sitting down at his

desk, filled the room. He had a wiry beard the color of tomato

soup with a single white hair threading through it. His tiny black

eyes glinted like polished stones. Tony made his way to the front.

"Mr. Finckley, did you ever take a look at that rogue saw blade that

got Kip?"

"I did," Finckley said. "It was a puzzling thing.""Well, now we got something else. Frank, hand that rope up here."

The rope was passed to the front of the room. Finckley turned it

over in his giant, red hands.

"Like it was cut by a machete!" Frank repeated.

"Mr. Finckley," Tony said. "Most of us here, including myself,

believe this to be the work of an evil spirit."

The room was dead quiet. Finckley swivelled back and forth in his

chair.

"Tony, that sounds nutty as hell, but I can't offer any other

explanation," Finckley said. He stood suddenly and towered over

us. "I've got an axe to grind with this ghost," he boomed. "Who's

with me?"

We were with him. Of course we were with him.

"What are we going to do, Mr. Finckley?" I asked. Finckley looked

right through me. His mouth was buried in that colossal orange


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beard, but his eyes glittered and his ears wiggled ever so slightly.

He was smiling, and I felt my fear draining away.

"That's a good question," Finckley said. The crowd parted as he

made his way for the door. "I don't know the first thing about

ghosts. The best thing to do when you can't wrap your head

around something is to wrap someone else's head around it!"

We were going to the library, Finckley told us. We were going to

the library to learn a thing or two about ghosts, spirits, curses,

demons, and things of that sort."Can't we just look it up on the internet?" somebody, probably

Kip, asked.

"No," the Lumber Lord said. "Books are written by people worth

their salt, people who know things! It takes real conviction and the

confidence of dozens of people, publishers and the like, to get

something put into a book."

So we gathered in the parking lot to hash out the carpool details,

and at four o'clock, we arrived at the Oakmere Community Library

and followed Finckley inside.

"Gimme everything you got on ghosts, Barb," Finckley said to Mrs.

Bailey at the front, and she led us up and down the aisles handing

us this and that book while trying to explain how we might find

this stuff without her help next time. We weren't at all interested in

that, and I think most of us hoped this might be the last time we

entered a library in our lives, but we trailed along and nodded and


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whispered and thanked Mrs. Bailey when we had amassed a

suitable pile of cryptic tomes.

To no one's surprise, there was not much material available, but

the ten or so books we found looked promising. Finckley divvied

them up, and we got to work.

I was paired up with Dave and assigned toDenizens of the Dead

Realmsby Mikhail Vartoumian. He and I decided that I would

read the left page while Dave would read the right. I always

finished my page a good minute and a half before Dave, who readat a snail's pace with his upper lip curled in concentration.

Denizens of the Dead Realms was not a helpful book. It was

composed mostly of firsthand accounts of Vartoumian traveling

across Eastern Europe neutralizing banshees, succubi, and goat

demons, often by seducing them. He described his methods in

graphic detail, which made the stories, especially the goat demon

ones, unsettling and difficult to read.

Dave and I found only one useful passage inDenizensconcerning

what made a spirit start haunting in the first place. Vartoumian

explained that people with an unfulfilled purpose at the time of

death, whether it was thirst for revenge, unrequited love, or a

powerful need to visit the restroom, were liable to hang around

after they kicked the bucket. Even if the spirit's desire was realized

following its body's passing (common in the case of needing to

take a crap), the specter, not knowing any better, would carry on


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like a child until it received either assurance that its concerns had

been seen to, convincing evidence that those concerns had become

irrelevant, or, Vartoumian's specialty, erotic satisfaction.

We removed some of the carnal details and brought our findings to

Finckley who peered up fromHousehold Hauntings and

Everyday Exorcisms and beamed.

"Thank you, fellas. That's fine work."

Soon it was almost six o'clock. Finckley checked out the books,

and we all drove back to the Lumber Lord, our heads brimmingwith plans to banish the wretched spirit once and for all.

We huddled around Finckley outside the store.

"What's the plan, sir?" Tony asked. "I can whip up a ghost trap. I

just need a couple drops of holy water and a container of some

kind. Hell, a Kleenex box will work."

"I'm starting to think we're dealing with a full-blown demon here,

boss. How could I have been so blind? This ain't no Star of David.

It's a pentagram!" Kip, who had grown bored with Judaism,

invited us all to take a second look at his chemical burn.

"Whatever it is, we're going to have to disarm it before we send it

into the hereafter," Dave said. "Vartoumian recommends a light

tickle of the spirit's inner thigh. I've got real dextrous fingers, Mr.

Finckley. I'll do it."


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Mr. Finckley suddenly looked old, ancient even. I saw, for the first

time, valleys beneath his eyes and in his hands. He still appeared

enormous, but now frail, on the verge of collapse.

"We'll deal with this thing tomorrow," he said. "Everyone go home

and get some rest."

Mr. Finckley bid us good night and entered the store with the stack

of books.

I journeyed home to find rest impossible. To be asleep was to

lower my defenses against countless fears that had taken shape thatday. Slumber claimed me eventually. In the morning, my wife, her

voice laced with concern, asked me what I had dreamed of.

I couldn't say. The tormenting images had faded only dull terror

remained, seared into my vulnerable unconscious mind.

I pulled into the Lumber Lord in a daze. Mr. Finckley's green

pickup occupied the same parking space it had the night before.

We found him in his office with books strewn across his desk and

a mass grave of coffee-stained styrofoam cups behind him.

"We're ready, Mr. Finckley," Frank said. "Whaddya say we do?"

Mr. Finckley, now more caffeine than flesh, closed the book he

was reading and regarded us with tired eyes.

"Before we attempt anything drastic," he said. "Let's try to reason

with it."

Far be it from us to question Glenn Finckley, but this seemed like

the worst possible plan of attack. We weren't entirely sure how to


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cast out this sinister being Hell had regurgitated into our store, but

we were almost certain it was immune to negotiation.

But we said nothing and joined Mr. Finckley in the center of the

empty store.

"Ghost!" Mr. Finckley bellowed. "I implore you to appear before

us and make your grievances known!"

I imagined the wraith flitting invisibly among us, appraising the

fear plastered on our faces.

"Whether you be a lingering human spirit or the spawn of Hellitself, I, Glenn Finckley, demand to know your business here."

Then we felt it. We really felt it. A dark wind rustled below the

surface of reality. Something was moving, gathering, and

condensing. The hair on my arms prickled and rose.

"I command you a final time, Spirit," Finckley said. "Appear! Be

seen! Be heard!"

A screech split the air. Light bulbs shattered, pipes burst, and the

paint chips that Kip had spent all day yesterday arranging flew in

every direction. Above our heads, a sickly green mist twisted and

took human shape.

"I'm here, man," it said. "And I've got grievances like you wouldn't

believe."

We all took a few steps backward to get a better look at the spirit's

manifestation. Only Glenn Finckley stood his ground, craning his

neck a couple inches to stare down ghastly creature.


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It was a spindly, translucent man. He was naked as the plains save

for a necklace of wilting flowers and had a mane of glossy hair

floating and twisting about his face.

"Name yourself!" Mr. Finckley commanded. The spirit crossed his

arms.

"My fellow guardians of the planet christened me Moondrop," he

said. "You may address me as such."

We all groaned at that, momentarily forgetting our dread. Tony

took the crumpled list of supernatural events out of his pocket andunfolded it.

"Moondrop, you stand, or float, accused of making the lights

behave weirdly, knocking stuff off of shelves, screwing with the

fridge, and causing mayhem, injury, and spilled food in our

workplace."

"And tripping me!" Kip added.

Moondrop rubbed his chin.

"Tripping you? I don't remember tripping you, man."

"You tripped me a few months ago," Kip said, his face reddening.

"Over by the concrete mixer."

"I definitely did not trip you," Moondrop said. "I don't think I

made anyone spill food either."

Embarrassing for Kip and Dave, but now was not the time to

ridicule them. Mr. Finckley snatched the list from Tony and

brandished it at the spirit.


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"All I'm saying, Moondrop, is that I don't see any tree ghosts

around. Just you."

An unnatural wind whipped through the store picking up tiny

shards of glass and stray paint chips.

"Are you trying to tell me trees aren't alive, man? Because don't go

there. I'll flip."

"That's not what I meant," Finckley said. He walked over to the

bag of woodchips, tore a hole in it, and took a handful. "It's like

you said. These tiny fragments once belonged to a flourishing treewith roots stretching deep into the soil. That tree has been chopped

down and ground up. Its connection to the earth has been severed,

and what I hold in my hand is nothing more than corpse dust."

Finckley let the woodchips fall from his hand and clatter on the

floor.

"But tomorrow, a fellow might come in and buy this bag of

woodchips. He'll use them as a foundation for his garden to succor

the vegetables growing there, and his son and the neighbor girl

might sit in that garden on cloudy afternoons.

"And the man's house, which from one perspective is a

monstrosity, an unholy fusion of wood and concrete, will protect

that boy. It will protect the parents. It will incubate the love that

flows between them all.

"The neighbor girl will visit regularly, I'm sure, and the connection

born in that mulchy vegetable garden will develop into romance."


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Mr. Finckley's eyes shone like never before. We drew close to

every word.

"The boy and the girl will marry. They'll feed each other cake at

their wedding while their parents watch on proudly. They'll have a

house of their own, kids of their own, a vegetable garden of their

own.

"And someday, many years down the line, the man will die, the

boy will die, and his comely wife will die too. The earth will

swallow the house, and the untended vegetable garden will growthick with weeds.

"All of it will break down and blend into the soil."

Moondrop's anger had subsided. He stared down at the fallen

woodchips.

"Sounds like a raw deal for the trees, if you ask me," Moondrop

said.

"Moondrop," Finckley said, his voice pensive and overflowing

with kindness. "I think the trees know even better than I do that

death is giving. The body and soul, partners and friends for so

long, part amicably and move on to the next act of one long tale of

life and love in which all things play an intricate role.

"Over the course of a thousand years, this leathery heap of

molecules I call my body might be a skunk, a tomato plant, a can

of root beer, a thundercloud, or a bale of hay.


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"Why shouldn't my soul have an equally wondrous and diverse

destiny? And who's to say the two won't meet again someday, after

eons of adventure, to laugh and reminisce?"

A fat, ectoplasmic tear rolled down Moondrop's face and fell from

his cheek, dissolving into nothing before it hit the ground.

"Hell, Moondrop, this is all speculation. All I know is this: if you

ever want to make it to that grand reunion, you gotta move on.

You gotta move forward."

"I'm scared, man," Moondrop admitted. He sniffled."We're all scared, son," Finckley said. "But when I look out as far

as I can, miles in every direction, years into the past and future of

this world and the next, I see nothing to fear. It's all beautiful. It's

all one big ol' thing."

Finckley placed a hand Moondrop's shoulder.

"Do you think you know the way from here?"

Moondrop nodded. Man and ghost shook hands, and Moondrop

vanished. Mr. Finckley went home for the day.

Things were normal after that. I gave Mr. and Mrs. DuPont some

solid birdhouse advice. Frank hopped back on the forklift and

moved merchandise to and from the storehouse without incident.

Kip got a papercut from a paint chip and tried to convince us the

ghost had returned, but we wouldn't have it.

Over the next few months, we recounted the event again and

again, embellishing it a little each time. The story escaped the


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hardware store, spread through Oakmere, became absurd, and

took its place in the Finckley mythology, much of which no longer

seemed so outrageous to me.

In town, I heard someone say that Finckley had defeated an army

of tree ghosts by putting them through the woodchipper. I saw a

boy at the park pretending to be Finckley vanquishing a

mulch-eating ghoul. A man outside the pharmacy asked me for a

cigarette and told me how the devil himself had appeared at the

Lumber Lord to claim the tip of Kip's finger and how Finckley hadplucked the lone white hair from his beard and used it to lasso him

back to Hell.

But as the legend grew, the man himself diminished. I saw

Finckley's car in the parking lot less and less. When he popped

into the break room, his beard seemed less vibrant his flannel shirt

too loose.

Six months after he faced down Moondrop, Glenn Finckley died.

We were surprised to see his widow turn up at the store a few days

after his death. She was a hale, old woman, and you could tell she

had once been a radiant, homespun beauty. We were even more

surprised when she handed us a copy of his will, telling us we

were in it, sort of.

In the distribution of Mr. Finckley's meager belongings, the will

was curt and simple. It divided his funds among his two children,


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his own death and stolen away in the night to start new Lumber

Lords in towns that needed him more than we did.

Of course there were those who said that Mr. Finckley still ran the

Lumber Lord as a ghost.

Certainly we wished that one was true. We knew that life and

death intermingled in many strange permutations, and some of

them could manage a hardware store.

So when a summery breeze filled the Lumber Lord in the thick of

December, causing a wall of drill bits to clang together and acouple paint chips to flutter off the display, we would look up for

a moment and scan the store for a pair of shimmering ghostly eyes

and a smile that neither death nor that magnificent beard could

obscure.

Then we would remember the one thing we knew for certain and

return to our work. Glenn Finckley was the least likely man in the

world to leave a ghost.

the lumber lord haunting

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