The Harbor's Revenge

A piercing shriek pulled Mr. Montgomery from a sleep that had come over him quite suddenly. Not one to find himself asleep behind his desk, it took him far longer than usual to return to his senses. The shrill sound that continued its lament certainly didn’t help.

Grumbling to himself about the incompetency of his butler, Mr. Montgomery left his office and the large stacks of work he needed to finish behind and headed towards the kitchen.

The house was eerily quiet in this wing, or it was meant to be at least. Mr. Montgomery would have it no other way. He was not the kind of man to suffer noise of any kind while he was meant to be working. The last thing he would tolerate is the keening wail of a neglected tea kettle. After all, he paid people to attend to that sort of thing for him.

This will not do. This will not do at all. Mr. Montgomery thought to himself as he continued towards the abominable sound. I shall have to cut all of their wages for such a gross oversight.

As he reached the kitchen, silence once again fell over the house. This only caused Mr. Montgomery further irritation. He was not meant to be disturbed or forced from his office, yet here stood, out of his office and thoroughly disturbed. With a huff, he pushed through the swinging door, ready to give the butler and kitchen maid a piece of his mind. He puffed out his rotund chest and squared his jaw as he faced… no one.

The kitchen stood perfectly clean and empty of anyone else. Mr. Montgomery’s eyes swung towards the stove and the source of his disturbance, only to find that no kettle sat there. Everything was set up for the evening, and the kettle sat securely on the shelf. Only, this made no sense as mid-afternoon light shone through the room.

The sound that had awoken him was quickly forgotten as a new kind of anger took over Mr. Montgomery. Honestly! What am I paying these damned fools for anyway? If my staff is set on draining my coffers, the least they could do is complete the work I pay them for.

Mr. Mongomery’s anger clung to him like his well-fitted suit as he charged towards the servant’s entrance located at the other end of the kitchen.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

The shrill sound of a kettle once again filled the empty kitchen.

At the end of his temper and with no patience for whatever game his staff thought they were playing, he turned back towards the stove.

The sound abruptly cut off, and everything remained precisely as he had last seen it.

With a sharp shake of his head, Mr. Montgomery returned to his office. He would have a word with his butler later about firing the kitchen staff. For now, he’d had enough of the tomfoolery taking place in his house. He had far too much work to complete to be chasing his staff around, ensuring they were competent and able enough to conduct their own jobs appropriately.

****

Hours later, Mr. Montgomery was still angered over the ordeal that he had faced this afternoon. Worse, he had yet to receive his dinner or have been paid any visits by his butler to ensure that he had what he needed to complete his work. Mr. Montgomery made it through the last document left on his desk with an exasperated sigh.

What was going on with his staff today? Why were they making noises that they shouldn’t be and not being where they were needed. He decided to chalk all of this up to the horrible upbringing that children received these days. Mr. Montgomery was, of course, forgetting that his butler was far older than him and had been brought up in a household that was the very picture of traditional ideals.

As Mr. Montgomery rose, the sound of water dripping against wood interrupted his thoughts. He whirled towards the noise and wobbled as he saw the window located behind where he sat was wide open. Rain was pouring into the house and spraying across his office and onto his desk.

Mr. Montgomery quickly shut the window. He was moments away from once again bemoaning his cursed staff when his eyes drifted towards his desk. The whole edge of the desk and the chair were drenched with water. The carpets made a sloshing noise. The curtains stood limp on either side of the window as they dripped water on the floor.

There was a reason Mr. Montgomery usually made care to close this window. Not only was it ripe for distractions, but it also faced towards the harbor, and rainstorms were always catastrophic to his work area. All of this would typically have Mr. Montgomery in quite the state. But that is not what held his attention.

Mr. Montgomery didn’t even notice that the squeal from earlier was once again filling the halls and trickling beneath his door. Nor did he notice that one of his pages was sitting dead center in his desk, despite it having no reason to be there.

No, Mr. Montgomery was focused on the sleeves of his shirt. While usually a vain man, it was not the ruination of an expensive shirt that held his attention. In fact, it was the opposite.

There was not a single drop of water on the sleeves of Mr. Montgomery’s shirt. His hair sat on his head in its usual greasy style, but the wind had not blown it about.

Water covered half of Mr. Montgomery’s office, but not a drop landed on him. Wind had torn through the room in a cyclone, but he stood in the middle of the wreckage without a single hair out of place.

Now, many things could be said of Mr. Montgomery, but a superstitious man, he was not.

That is, until he finally looked at that piece of paper, laid so careful in the center of his desk. So carefully when all the other pages had been soaked and blown to the ground.

THE WILL AND TESTAMENT OF BRIAN MONTGOMERY

“Impossible!” Mr. Montgomery exclaimed. And it truly was impossible, for many years ago, Mr. Montgomery burned all copies of his elder brother’s Will. Every. Last. One. Mr. Montgomery had made sure of that. No one would ever know the contents of that horrid document. If anyone discovered that Mr. Montogmery was never bequeathed ownership of the harbor all of his current business holdings would begin to crumble.

The window flew open at Mr. Montgomery’s exclamation. The squeal increased in pitch and strengthened in sound. The house rattled with the wind and the rain, and that blasted noise! Chaos took over the house as window after window, door after door opened to the storm.

Despite the wind and rain that tore through the beachside manor, that paper remained unmoved, and Mr. Montgomery stood untouched by the raging storm. His eyes were fixed on the document as fear tickled down his spine.

Finally, the Will, that damning piece of evidence, flew into the raging storm until it landed over the only picture of Brian that existed in the whole house. The one of Mr. Montgomery and Brian playing in the harbor. The harbor that Mr. Montgomery stole through the most nefarious of deeds. The harbor that claimed Brian after Mr. Montgomery held his brother’s head under the water until long after he stopped thrashing. The very same harbor Mr. Montgomery had recently signed deals to have drained and rerouted.

With a loud bang, all the windows and doors slammed shut. Everything in the house stood still, including Mr. Montgomery, who had hardly moved a muscle in the preceding whirlwind. The horror of the situation had him rooted him to the spot.

The sound of wood being scratched came from every corner of the office. Shavings of the dark oak fell to the floor soundlessly as words took form. In hardly anytime, every inch of wall was covered by the phrase ‘You’re next’ repeated as if chanted and whispered by whichever angry spirit stood with Mr. Montgomery in his once pristine office.

There was no denying that something was here. Something knew what Mr. Montgomery had done and decided that it was finally time he pay for his misdeeds. Time to pay with his own life for the life he took so brutally.

But Mr. Montgomery would have none of this. If his house had turned against him, then it was time to make a quick departure. He had not done so well in business by being unaware of the best time to cut and run. Only, it was much too late for that.

As Mr. Montgomery fled, he didn’t feel the invisible hands that wrapped around him. The hands of his brother and the hands of the harbor he had destroyed through actions were not ready to let him go. They would ensure that he felt every ounce of pain that he inflicted on them.

Those hands dragged Mr. Montgomery through his house, down the lawn, and straight into the water itself. Brian and the harbor took their time with the former brother and owner. They made sure he felt every ounce of pain that he had brought onto them and to others.

No one knows exactly how much time passed between Mr. Montgomery’s final moments in his house to the moment that he was spat out on the other side of the harbor, though it is assumed that weeks had passed. There was no one to mourn his passing, only those to mark the brutal beating his body had taken both in and out of the water.

There was little left of Mr. Montgomery to even have a funeral and no one to attend regardless. The staff of Mr. Montgomery’s household had all disappeared without a trace. However, some say that his butler was seen years later diligently attending to a household miles from Mr. Montgomery’s manor and the harbor that took him.

The manor that once stood proudly at the edge of the harbor was destroyed by storms, by floods, and by the passing of time.

Nothing remains of the legacy Mr. Montgomery sought to leave behind. With time there wasn’t even a stone of the house he built. All that remained was the picture of Brian Montgomery and the words ‘You’re next’ engraved on a piece of dark oak wood, both drifted on the water where the house once stood as a warning and reminder of what was done one fateful night.