The Man in Blue Coveralls

Short Fiction — Chuck and his team deck the halls, professionally. After drawing the short straw to hang lights at the dreaded Dumont house, he finds out why his workers are so scared of the place.

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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

I had my hands full with a rat’s nest of tangled Christmas lights when the receptionist, Katie, poked her head into the garage.

“Circle up, boys, time to draw straws.”

“Little late in the season for the Dumonts,” I said.

My team stopped their work, setting down storage totes and giant plastic candy canes, and came to crowd around the little coffee bar I’d built in our garage bay.

Katie held up a cup full of wooden stirring sticks. “Come on, don’t be shy.” She went around the group, all bundled up in paint-spattered work wear, letting each employee take one.

Marco sucked his teeth. “Looks like I’m on the naughty list this year.”

Chris, the first official victim of the Dumont house, elbowed Marco in the ribs. “Nice knowing ya, bud.” A year after Chris’s concussion, another employee broke his back at the very same property. We’ve been pulling straws for jobs over there ever since.

“Should be two. Who else has it?” Katie asked.

“That’d be me.” I held up my stick, marked with a black tally.

Every year I took part in the Dumont Drawing as a show of faith to my staff. But this was the first time I’d actually go out on the job.

“Hey boss, if you don’t make it I’ll take great care of the place, I promise.” Chris flashed a wide smile.

“Aright smart ass, you can finish untangling while I’m gone.” I motioned back at the mess of wires and bulbs I’d been wrangling. “I’ve entertained enough of your superstition for today.”

Admittedly, I did feel a bit uneasy heading over to the job. Roofers aren’t exactly known for believing in luck and curses. But the boys certainly had reason to be wary. Most visits to the Dumont house involved at least one close call. If there was even a scrap of evidence the job site was unsafe, I would’ve ditched the client. Trouble was, everything was easily chalked up to honest mistakes and slip ups, made by employees rushing to get home for the holidays. Even Chris told me he suspected the fear around the house was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Of course, that didn’t explain everything.

“I heard it happened in 1929,” Marco broke the silence from the passenger seat. “Owner lost everything in the crash. Bank was foreclosing. Poor bastard decided to hang himself from the banister to tank the resale value. Family found him swinging there on Christmas morning.”

“Is that the version going around these days?” I asked.

“Why, what did you hear?”

I bit my lip. I knew I shouldn’t indulge. “Heard it was an accident, back in the 70’s. Didn’t feel quite right to decorate while their kid was over in Saigon. But when he shipped back last minute, they rushed to do the whole place in one night. Dad slipped off he roof and broke his neck. Real tragedy.”

“I dunno. Me personally, if I fell off a roof on accident, I wouldn’t want to haunt the place forever. ‘Specially if it was a job site—no offense.”

“Yeah, none taken. I’d hope you could find something better to do with your afterlife.” I turned into the horseshoe driveway and pulled in front of the old Victorian. The house wasn’t huge, so much as tall. A turret rose above the wraparound porch from the left side, easily stretching three or four stories before coming to a point.

“Think we’ll need the big ladder for that?” Marco asked.

“No doubt.”

He grinned. “This is going to look amazing.”

“Glad I’ve got you in the Christmas spirit.”

I grabbed the clipboard propped against the center console, and hopped out of the truck. Marco beat me to the bed, and was already unloading our equipment.

“I’ll get us set up out here, boss. You go take care of the easy stuff inside.” He cracked a smile.

The doorbell sounded like something an old cathedral would use to call the town to mass. I almost felt bad for disturbing the ancient-looking man that eventually answered it. He looked as though he’d been tall once, but shrank with age. I could count the wispy white hairs that remained atop his head.

“Mister Dumont?” I asked.

“Yes?” He spoke with a soft voice that still had some strength to it.

“I’m Chuck, from Penter Painters & Holiday Decorating.” He still seemed confused. “You called to hire us to do your Christmas lights?”

A look of recognition crept across his face. “Oh, how lovely.”

“This is what I was thinking.” I held out the clip board, with the sketches of what I’d planned out back in the shop. “Pretty similar to what we did last year. I thought it would be nice to warm things up a bit with some more color.

He squinted at the page, nodding in silent agreement as a smile lit up his face. He handed it back to me. “Beautiful. But you can leave the top alone.” He tapped the clip board with a bony finger. “That’s so high up. I wouldn’t want you boys to hurt yourselves.”

“Nonsense.” Did he know about the rumors too? “It’s no trouble at all.” That was a lie. But leaving the upper floor of a house unlit would make the whole thing look sloppy. I wasn’t putting my name on something like that. “We’ll get started right away.”

The man caught my wrist as I turned back to the porch. “Just be careful out there, eh?”

“Of course, sir. Thank you.”

I made it two steps out the front door before Marco called for me. “Hey, Chuck?” Sounded like he was around the side of the house.

“Yeah?” I started walking around the porch. The wood felt spongy beneath my boots.

“Bring the A-frame ladder, would you?”

“What for?”

“Just come.”

I didn’t have to look far: the ladder had been popped open and set up right beside the edge of the porch. I leaned out from beneath the awning to grab it.

“Whoa, Chuck what are you doing?”

It was Marco, and he was above me.

“Aren’t you—” I stopped mid sentence to poke my head around the side of the building. The side yard was empty, save for the creeping weeds. I stepped out from under the porch and spotted Marco, sitting with his legs dangling over the edge of the roof.

“What are you doing up there?”

“You told me to go up and look for a place where we could hide the wires.” He pointed up at the turret. “You know, you pulled that ladder about a half second before I stepped down on it. Could’ve killed me.”

“I’m sorry, I—I thought you were calling me from around the back of the house.”

Marco didn’t answer, he just shot me this confused look, like he wasn’t sure if I was messing with him. Had we both been hearing things?

“Come down, and we’ll get started,” I said.

We put the incident out of mind while we laid out our materials. But the second we set up the tall ladder, I got the nagging feeling something wasn’t quite right.

We planted the base out in the yard, and carefully lowered the rubber grip of the feet against the siding at the top of the turret.

“You sure you want to do this bit first?” Marco asked.

“Absolutely. Knock out the tricky stuff while we’re still fresh. More daylight,” I reasoned.

“Before the ghost knows we’re here?” Marco cocked an eyebrow.

“Oh, knock it off.”

“If you’re so brave, why don’t you go up there?” He held out the green wire, lined with large, bright colored bulbs.

I snatched the cord from his hand. “You better hold the ladder tight, you big baby.”

With every rung I climbed, my confidence shrank a little. The ladder seemed to bounce in time with my steps, flexing under my weight over the long span. Of course, I knew this was normal. I’d lost count of the number of homes I’d painted. Why did this feel so different?

Halfway to the top, my hands began to shake from anticipation; I was actually expecting something terrible to happen. I wiped my sweaty palms on my work jacket and pressed upward.

Near the top of the turret, I passed the home’s highest window. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement in the gap between the curtains. Dumont was probably taking a peek at our progress.

I ignored the window, and set to work. We’d already attached plastic clips to each bulb, back in the shop. All I had to do was pop them onto the edge of the roof.

“Three, four, five…” I counted off under my breath. It didn’t take long to reach as far as I could in either direction. With the size of the turret, we’d probably need to reposition a handful of times. This would be time consuming.

Over the top of the gutter, there was a small lip with a gradual slope, before the roof angled sharply upward. If I looped a long safety harness around the spire, I could walk my way around, and fix all of the lights in only a minute or two.

The ladder jerked backward, putting me several feet away from the safety of the roof. I clung to the rails, swore, and leaned my body weight forward. My position didn’t change. The ladder slowly moved farther away from the building.

“Marco!” My voice shook with fear. I didn’t want to look down, but I could feel my center of gravity getting close to the point of no return; when the ladder stood vertical and the fall would be inevitable.

“Oh shit—hang on!” Marco’s voice called out. Why did it sound so far away? I chanced a glance at the ground, and saw my assistant sprinting back toward me from the truck.

Was he out of his mind? He’d left the ladder unattended? He was fired. No question about it, I would fire him for this—if I survived. The top of the ladder jumped back toward the building, almost shaking me loose in the process. I was still out in the open air.

As I pulled myself tight against the bars, my gaze fell on the ground once more. There was another man below me, digging in his heels as he tried to pull the ladder back toward the house. I knew right away that this wasn’t Marco: the man wore blue coveralls and a dandelion yellow ball cap, stained with flecks of paint.

“I’ve got ya! Don’t move.” As soon as Marco took hold of the side rails, the stranger started to climb up the underside, adding his weight to mine and pulling me closer to the house.

I swung within range of the dangling strand of lights. I reached out, wrapped the cord around my wrist, and started to tug. The extra pull seemed to be just what we needed: the gutters inched closer.

Plastic snapped, as one, two, three clips broke free. I wrestled with the wires and tugged again. Closer. Another clip popped off.

“Help!” Marco yelled. Was he losing his grip? I was so close to the side of the house, and the window—was that open before? “Chuck, I’m slipping!”

Getting down alive would mean doing something risky. “Marco, hold the left side!” I let go of the lights and shuffled toward the window. I lifted my foot off the rung and extended my leg, touching the sill with the tip of my toe.

I could make it.

I shuffled farther, reaching my left hand off the ladder and grabbing the upper edge of the window frame.

“Almost…” My second foot couldn’t reach the window—not while I still held onto the ladder.

I gritted my teeth, and let go of the rung.

The rotted wood gave a little.

My hands scrambled for something sturdier to grab, settling on the curtain rod. Once my fingers wrapped around the wood, I pulled myself into the room.

Without my weight, the ladder sprang away from the siding, toppled backwards, and came crashing down, right through the truck’s front windshield.

“Chuck?”

I stuck my head out the window. “I’m fine. The hell was so important you needed to go back to the truck?”

“You told me you’d anchored in… sent me back to the truck for more bulbs.”

“No I didn’t!”

He looked up at me with genuine confusion. “I—but I heard you.” Was he for real? I thought back to the voice I’d heard from the side yard. He must’ve been hearing things again, and this time it had almost gotten me killed.

“Where’d the other guy go?” I asked.

“Who?” Again, real confusion.

“Hang on, I’ll be right down.”

The musty room smelled like it hadn’t been aired out in decades. I could practically taste the cigarette smoke, and the curtains, wallpaper, and linens on the bed all bore pale-brown nicotine stains. Dust coated every surface, rising from the carpet with each step I took toward the door.

The handle turned, but it wouldn’t budge.

I returned to the window and called back down to Marco: “Feels like something is blocking the door. Can you get up here please?”

It wound up taking him five minutes just to convince the widower to let him up to the fourth floor, and twice as long to let Marco remove the boarded up barricade that was keeping me inside the old bedroom.

“What about a rope? Tie it to the bed maybe, and lower yourself down,” he suggested through the door. “Please, just don’t make me open it.”

It took threatening to call the police to get him to cave, and the longer I stayed in the room, the more I understood why. The pool of sunlight filtering through the window shifted, revealing a dark stain on the carpet. The pointed corner of the dresser bore a similar mark, though it was much harder to make out on the dark mahogany.

My mind raced. Could that be blood?

It was either that, or wine. Judging by the boards on the door, I guessed there was a good chance someone had died in this room.

When the door finally opened, I pushed past Dumont, grabbed Marco by the front of his jacket, and pulled his face within inches of mine. “I should shove you out that window, you half-wit. You don’t just leave someone like that!”

“Chuck, you sent me back to the truck! I thought you were safe.”

“You couldn’t use your eyes? If it hadn’t been for the other guy—”

“What other guy?”

Dumont pushed us apart with a degree of strength that didn’t match his frail frame. “This isn’t his fault, it’s mine. Mine and Mary’s.”

Whose?

He led us down the hall to a black and white wedding photograph. Didn’t take much imagination to see the man was a younger Dumont. The woman could’ve been a movie star. She had a gorgeous heart-shaped face framed by long, curly hair.

“That’s Mary,” Dumont said. “She always was a pretty girl. Always told so. And, well, that can do things to a young lady’s head. Do you know what I mean?”

“Do I ever,” Marco muttered.

I just nodded.

“Mary fancied herself the center of attention. Always assumed people were looking at her, even when maybe they weren’t.”

I knew plenty about that too, but I bit my tongue.

“Billy was a family friend. A roofer. Came by to fix a leak up on the turret. I guess Mary, forgot, or didn’t know. She was changing. Must’ve seen Billy through the curtains, gotten startled and…” he trailed off and motioned back to the room. “Cracked her skull on the dresser. Died before we could get help.”

Now I understood the reluctance to open the door. “Sir, I’m sorry.”

“It was a lifetime ago.” He let out a labored sigh. “I’m certain Billy wasn’t leering or anything like that. But I can’t say the same for Mary. She always had a vengeful streak.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Billy came back to finish the job for free—wouldn’t take my money and wouldn’t hear anything else. His way of showing how sorry he was, I suppose.

“I left to grab them lunch. When I got back…” He swallowed hard. “I’ll never forget how Billy looked, layin’ on the pavement. Men on the ground swore they saw someone lean out of the window and push him.”

I thought back to the man on the ladder. “I don’t suppose Billy was wearing a yellow cap and blue coveralls when he died?”

Dumont’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”

“I think he just saved my life.”

I refused the man’s money, and politely explained that we could no longer service his home.

“Yes, I expected as much.” There was a resigned kind of sadness in his voice when we left him in the foyer.

We loaded up our gear before heading to the property line to wait for our tow. Neither of us wanted to stand any closer to the house than we had to.

When the truck finally arrived, I looked back up at the window one last time. The sash was still up, leaving the smoke-stained curtains free to dance in the December breeze. Someone was standing there, staring down at me; a woman with golden hair, stained black on one side and matted against her head.

I blinked.

The window was closed, and she was gone.

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