Sky Light

Mel Kaplan moved into the house at 15 Cosgrove Court which was a cul-de-sac boasting four houses. Mel lived alone in what his neighbors still called The Treadlow House, because Mr. Robert Treadlow had been such an important part of that small, close-knit community. Mr. Treadlow had no children, no family, so he treated his neighbors like they were his own, and they all loved him for it. When he died, rather unexpectedly, everything had been divided, as per his carefully set will, to the other families. Jenny and Dwight Lemmonds, Rich and Tara Ford, and their three daughters, Tara, Jesse, and Sabrina, and Will and Peggy Albrecht all made out very well from Mr. Treadlow and his generosity, but because of a loophole in the legal arrangements, the house went up for sale.

Mel Kaplan, whether he understood it or not, had to live his life in the vacuum that Robert Treadlow's death created. Mel was just a regular neighbor who wanted to be on good terms with the other families. He didn't understand his new position, so, I made an effort to get to know him early and act as a buffer if I could.

I lived in the next house just outside the cul-de-sac. I didn't benefit from Robert Treadlow or his generous will. That was okay. I was happy for his neighbors. And, as far as they knew, their little hermetically sealed community within our larger neighborhood was reckoned by everyone else in Homeland Acres to be just a little too friendly and close-knit for our liking. 

The families on Cosgrove Court lived and thrived in their tiny Quebec and had learned through their leader that they didn't need us. For our part, the feeling was mutual based on aversion. We all knew something didn't feel right about the cul-de-sac and so we minded our business and they minded theirs.

I asked my wife to come with me to bring Mel a pie, welcome him, and invite him to a barbecue at our house. He gratefully agreed, and he seemed like a decent guy. For the next few months, we got to know each other pretty well. He sat in my driveway with me most Saturdays, watching the day pass, having a few beers. We got to be decent friends.

It was during this time that I gently asked him about the other neighbors in Cosgrovia, as he and I had taken to calling the cul-de-sac: the Lemmonds, the Fords, the Albrechts.

He said they were nice enough, but that he got a weird vibe from all of them. When I asked him to explain, he said he couldn't. It wasn't anything specific. Just a weird vibe.

◯

Number 15 had been built, like the other houses in Homeland Acres, in the early 1980s. It was one of three or four standard house types that the builders would use for the development, so that all the houses weren't exactly the same. Mr. Treadlow owned the first house to go up back then. He watched the other houses go up one by one and saw the people move in and out of them over the years. He remembered how things had been before Homeland Acres was there. He remembered the fields that had once been corn, tobacco, alfalfa, and owned by Harry Johnson. The rumor was that Harry Johnson went insane after the disappearance of his wife and gave everything to Robert Treadlow, but no one really knew about it. In the cul-de-sac, any mention of Harry Johnson was like a switch that cut the conversation off.

One day, several months after Mel Kaplan moved in, we were working on my old GMC truck in my driveway. Out of the blue, he asked me about the Albrechts. 

‘They part of a religious cult or something?’

I looked up from under the hood. ‘Peggy and Will? Why?’

‘Here’s why.’

He went on to tell me about the night of the rainstorm.

◯

Will Albrecht walked out in the middle of a downpour in just his boxers and undershirt. Peggy came out after him in her nightgown. It might have been midnight. It was late. 

They have a dusk-til-dawn light on the side of their house that casts a bright light across their side yard. Mel said he had to buy theatre-grade light-blocking curtains so he could sleep. Thunder woke him, and he peeked out on a whim and saw them come out. It was raining hard, and yet there they were. They walked out to the middle of their backyard and both raised their hands over their heads. A light, very bright in a solid beam maybe ten yards across the middle shone down on them from directly over their heads. Mel had to look away, the light was so bright. He heard thunder again, and when the purple spots finally vanished from his vision, Will and Peggy were gone. 

◯

He stood there, looking me directly in the face. There was no evidence of a joke or a lie in his features.

The next day, Mel went over to Will and Peggy Albrecht’s house. The car was in the driveway, and he could hear the TV blaring, but they weren’t home. He figured they were out, but he didn't see them come or go for several days. 

‘Then, last night, he said, ‘I couldn't sleep. I was plenty tired, but I just couldn't calm down. I was keyed up. Nervous as hell. On a whim, I looked down at the Albrecht’s backyard. There they were. Peggy and Will. He was in his underwear, which was soiled and filthy, and she was in her nightgown. She looked like she'd gone skidding on her backside down a mud slick.’ 

‘I went over there this morning and they were in the kitchen, chortling to one another. They invited me to join them and I went in. I was still jumpy as hell and didn't want to stay, but I did. They were in clean clothes, but their dirty clothes were piled on the back porch. I could see them through the screen door. Peggy saw me look at them and closed the door. 

‘I asked them how they'd weathered the storm, and they looked at me like I was speaking Greek.’

‘I’ve never been in their house,’ I said. ‘They always seemed reluctant to do anything with the rest of us,’ I gestured vaguely at Homeland Acres.

‘Damnedest thing. All they would talk about was the election.’

‘What election?’

‘Nixon and Agnew.’ Mel laughed. ‘But here’s the other thing and you gotta swear you won’t think I’m crazy.’

‘Shoot,’ I said.

‘The oldest Ford girl ... What’s her name?’

‘Blonde?’

‘Yeah.’ 

‘Tara.’

‘Yeah. She was dressed like a cheerleader. Pompoms and all. Well, she came over, just as I was getting ready to leave.’

‘Yeah, they treat those girls like their grandkids,’ I said.

‘They seemed to. Here’s the thing.’ He paused and waited for me to look at him again. ‘The Albrechts and the Ford girl started talking in some weird language.’

‘What, like Spanish?’

‘That's the thing. It's not like anything I have ever heard before.’

◯

A week later, Mel came over to my house and asked to come inside. He looked like he'd seen a ghost.

◯

‘Dwight Lemmonds came over this afternoon.’ He said.

“How about you come over for the final barbecue of the season? It will be at the end of the month.”

Mel said Dwight Lemmonds stood on his front porch. He was smiling and gesturing to his house across the cul-de-sac. ‘You can invite your friend over there, if you want.’

‘That’s what he said?’

‘That’s what he said.’

‘Doesn’t he know my name?’

‘Apparently not. Anyway, that's not the weirdest part.’

‘What was the weirdest part?

‘He was muttering under his breath to someone I couldn't see. ◯Please go with me.’

I said I would go.

Two weeks before the barbecue in the cul-de-sac, I saw something similarly bizarre.

‘Did he really just stand there?’ Mel asked.

‘Damnedest thing I ever saw.’

‘Dwight Lemmonds is a big man. Pushing three-fifty. He tries to put it off by wearing big shirts, but it’s hard not to notice that he looks like he swallowed the prize pumpkin,’ I said.

‘That he does.’

‘Remember the other night when all the car alarms went off?’

‘How could I forget?’

‘So I look out my front window to see what the hell happened. I was thinking earthquake. It wouldn’t be the first time we had temblors or whatever around here.’

‘What did you see?’

‘Just Dwight. Nothing on. No clothes, no shoes, no nothing. Just in his all-together, jiggling like crazy and wet, like he was sweating profusely.’

‘You went up to him?

‘Yes. I thought he might be having a fit or something. I walked up to him, trying to think what to say. All I could think was why would he wander outside like that? I got close and started to ask if he was okay.’

He just smiled at me.

“The sky light had me.”

‘I was going to ask him to repeat that, but I didn't have time. He shat himself, right there in the middle of the cul-de-sac, smiling the whole time and saying, “The sky light had me.”’

◯

The barbecue was a small affair. The Albrechts were there. The Fords and their three daughters were there, and Dwight Lemmonds was there with Jenny. Everything was set up in the cul-de-sac. Mel Kaplan, I attended. My wife had to work a late shift. It was all very polite and neighborly.

In the middle of the Ford driveway was a folding table with a strange book on it. There were candles and incense around it. I waited for a chance to take a look and saw that it wasn’t one book. It appeared to be several old-fashioned composition notebooks that had been duct-taped together. On the cover, scrawled across the silver tape in black marker were the word, “The Last Will and Testament of Robert W. Treadlow”. I started to reach for it, but Tara Ford appeared suddenly and said, ‘We can show that to you another time.’

I moved hastily back to where Mel was standing, clutching a paper plate slathered with barbecue food, but he wasn’t eating. For some reason, none of the food smelled particularly good to either of us.

I looked back over at Tara, who was speaking to her eldest daughter, but both of them were looking at us. I tried to tune into what they were saying, but the words didn’t make sense. Neither blinked, though their faces didn’t betray anything but friendliness.

‘We have some fireworks to set off once it gets dark,’ Dwight Lemmonds said as the sun set. Mel and I had found some empty lawn chairs and were sitting off to one side, smiling and chatting to anyone who came by. Everyone oohed and ahhed at the announcement. ‘This will be our way of saying goodbye to summer.’ He emphasized that last bit, and the other residents of Cosgrove Court said something in unison, but neither of us knew what it was.

Soon, the high-pressure sodium vapor street light flickered on and made everything look like it was cast in copper. Dwight got everything set up with Will and Rich helping. We offered, but they told us to sit down, so we did.

We also quietly agreed that once the fireworks started, one of us would swipe the book from the Ford’s table and meet back at my garage.

◯

Robert Treadlow didn’t just remember the Johnson farm. He remembered what happened there in 1971. He remembered what happened to Harry Johnson and his wife, Effie. Robert Treadlow worked on the Johnson land as a farmhand. He’d been there and seen it the night of the Sky Light. Harry and Effie were in the yard, scattering grain to the chickens around dusk. Robert was just wrapping up to go home. It was getting dark. A blinding light shot down from the sky. It was so bright that the rest of the world went dark. Harry and Effie were there one minute and gone with the vanishing light, leaving nothing but purple bars in his vision where it had been. 

◯

Rich Ford went over to the light pole and did something to make the sodium vapor light switch off. Dwight, standing in the dim light cast by the dusk-til-dawn light on the Albrecht house, held up a beer and said, “For Robert Treadlow and The Masters.”

◯

Three days later, the dogs at the place wouldn’t stop barking. Robert Treadlow found Harry Johnson behind the barn. He was naked and filthy, as if he had been rolling in the manure pile. His eyes were hollow. He was speaking in a language that Robert had never heard. Effie was nowhere to be found. He and Sam Barstow and Ken Ford searched high and low and slowly came to the conclusion that Harry Johnson had gone insane can killed his wife. Sam and Ken agreed, but Robert Treadlow couldn’t forget the sky light.

◯

The sky was clear. In the new darkness, we could see the stars twinkling overhead. Dwight stooped and used a grill lighter to catch the fuse on a lone firework. It shot up into the sky with a whizzing whoop and then exploded into blue shards of light. There was a boom and then it felt like someone detonated hundreds of pounds of TNT right beneath us. I looked at Mel and his eyes were huge. We both got up and got out of the cul-de-sac and into the street. My ears were ringing. Mel was saying something and pointing back to the book, but I couldn’t understand him. 

Then, a bright bar of light slashed the darkened cul-de-sac into searing brightness. 

◯

It was several weeks before Harry Johnson could be made to speak coherently. He refused to eat or drink. He would mess himself frequently and would scream unknown words in the middle of the night. 

After a few visits from the doctor to give him some shots to calm him down, he became lucid but stoic. All he would say was “They took Effie apart.” 

He couldn’t or wouldn’t work. He wouldn’t go outside, but only looked out the windows at night and wailed about his Effie. The farm would soon fail, Robert Treadlow knew. He called a lawyer friend, and together they convinced Harry Johnson to sign over the farm to Robert. Three days later, Harry Johnson walked outside and across the yard to the barn. Ken and Sam, and Robert found him hanging from a beam.

Not long after that, Robert Treadlow shut the farm down and sold off the chickens, the cows, and everything else. He closed the lane to the house with a locked gate and stopped letting people on the land.

◯

‘Jesus Christ,’ Mel Kaplan gasped. His eyes were huge, and he coughed and gagged, trying hard to catch his breath.

I looked around. 

A cylinder of impossibly bright light was slamming down onto the cul-de-sac. The residents of Cosgrove Court were rising from the ground. Dwight and Jenny Lemmonds. Rich and Tara Ford. Will and Peggy Albrecht. All three Ford girls. They floated upward, their faces slack, their eyes rolled back into their heads, their clothes turning to ashes as they rose. 

In one voice, they spoke, chanting the same phrase over and over, rising into a shriek as they were lifted. The light flashed out, and there was another ground-shaking sound, like thunder. My eyes were filled with bright splotches of purple floating where the brilliant light had been. Slowly, crickets began to chirp again. 

◯

In 1982, Robert Treadlow made arrangements to sell the Johnson Farm to a developer. Part of his intention was to live in the first house they built. He signed off on plans for Homeland Acres. To outsiders, it was just the first of many such sales. A sign of the times. 

His house was in a cul-de-sac. As the other houses were built and new families moved in, Robert Treadlow started a journal. The Masters needed supplicants, after all.

◯

Mel Kaplan moved out later that week. The for-sale sign is still up, but I don’t know if he’s ever going to sell it. The police asked many questions, but we said nothing. My wife and I are looking to get out of here, too. 

Mel and I haven’t spoken since that night, but we agreed silently not to say anything about the sky light. We quietly removed any evidence that we had been at the barbecue. I also grabbed the book from the table in Ford’s driveway. It’s contents, at least the legible parts, are horrifying. I rarely go outside. They are out there, I know. The Masters, as he called them. 

Robert Treadlow and his tiny cult are gone. Their houses sit empty. Police tape flutters in the wind. No one in Homeland Acres says anything about the cul-de-sac or the families that disappeared. Traffic barriers have been put across the entrance. The homes are all sealed. 

I read at night, when I cannot sleep. The Last Will and Testament of Robert W. Treadlow is sitting on a shelf in my garage, but tomorrow, we’re taking out stuff and loading it on a truck and moving. Before we go, I’m burning some papers and trash and that book is going into the flames.

◯