My name is Bill Comstock. Most of my life I’ve been haunted by a paranormal event that occurred when I had just turned thirteen-years-old. The memory is like a mental film projecting on my gray-matter screen. It’s an ominous and toxic veil clawing to get out and into my reality. Its frequent successes are terrifying, especially when the ethereal creature that controls that memory escapes from within a nightmare in the middle of the night.
Before the haunting, I used to laugh at friends and acquaintances who told me of their spooky experiences with ghosts, haunted houses, bizarre coincidences, and other variations on the paranormal theme. Now I can no longer cast it off as entertaining myth.
Seventeen years later, as a mature adult, I can still picture most of the events vividly, like they happened yesterday. I’m now a thirty-year-old man of science and a high school science teacher, but I believe those events that occurred when I was thirteen were real even though they flew in the face of logical science. Sometimes I’ll be talking to my students, and something will remind me of those days. I become silent while staring out the window at a maple tree that’s not far from the school. Sometimes just looking at the trees will activate those memories. So, yes, the students think I’m weird, so I tell them that they are correct and that I wish they were not so perceptive. That gets a good laugh out of them.
After all these years, I thought those memories would vanish, become vague and distant, surrounded by dense fog, or confined to an impenetrable mental vault, sealed, escape proof, soundproof. I was wrong.
I cannot reveal much to even a confidant because the story is too bizarre unless you were directly involved. At times I still feel as if I’m being watched, stalked, and can still feel cold spots in a warm room where the paranormal embraces me.
Vocalizing the experiences makes me sound crazy, in need of a psychiatrist, or a priestly exorcism. Being an atheist makes prayer, holy water, silly incantations, the use of rosary beads or scapular, sprinkling salt near windows and doors and other bullshit like burning white sage for the purifying smoke, all of no use to me. False beliefs only make me more susceptible to other false beliefs. It’s a chain reaction, very well known to impressionable children who inherit their parent’s religious beliefs without question and of course, well known to religious leaders.
My secret terror used to be a family secret when my mom, Hellen, and dad, Ted, were alive. Now, seventeen years later, Mom and Dad are dead, Blizzard, my old dog, too. Thinking about all three of them blurs my vision with tears. My parents were afraid to talk about it and, not wanting to upset them, I ceased all references to it when I was with them.
I’m alone now, except for my new, white dog, Frosty. I’m unmarried by choice. Why would I subject a wife and kids to these sorts of terrible memories that occasionally consume me? I still feel the ice pick type nightmare headaches. I still feel that invisible, invasive presence, the claws reaching out for me, trying to dig a bigger, deeper pit in my brain. I still experience unexplained bloody noses, and body bruises that appear like overnight tattoos to remind me that my mind and body are not safe but rather fragile, thus vulnerable.
As I stated, it all started shortly after my thirteenth birthday. We had lived in the noisy, crime ridden city where children’s playgrounds were often in the streets. It was so crowded that one could open a window and spit on the neighbor’s house. So, as long as we were moving, we moved to a rural environment. Dad bought a cheap, fixer-upper home that needed much work, especially the exterior. It had been for sale for years, so Dad bought it for a reduced price. The inside was old, but comfortable. Dad said we would be repairing and making the place more up-to-date for a couple of years before the house became a comfortable home.
We had to move quickly to take advantage of my dad’s new job working for Grandpa Comstock (William), so I couldn’t have my thirteenth birthday surrounded by my city friends. It was so disappointing that, when in my room alone, I cried quietly. When my birthday did arrive while at our next home, it was just my family celebrating it in the evening when Dad was home. Mom did take me to a movie in the town nearest us, but I don’t remember too much about it. I do remember the title, The Fly, and Mom’s comment about Vincent Price being creepy, but perfect for his part in the movie. My attention was on my friends. I told Mom that I enjoyed the movie. I hugged her, kissed her on the cheek and thanked her. The best part about Dad getting home that day was the .22 rifle he handed to me. He couldn’t get it in time for actual day of my birthday, a couple of days late gift right now, sure did lift my poor feelings tremendously. I hadn’t smiled in a few days, but when the smile came, it felt as if my lips had stretched so far, they would split.
There was an unused barn, a large shed, and weed infested, unused pastureland, and an old, large maple tree whose limbs spread out like giant arms ending with twiggy fingers. In full bloom it looked like a huge, green umbrella. It supplied a large canopy of shade over one whole side of the house—my side. Dad said whoever planted it didn’t realize how fast it would grow and how close to the house the branches would grow.
It was quiet, peaceful, bucolic, and not overcrowded, the opposite of our city life. But the city neighborhood had all my friends and now I had none. When summer vacation was over, I’d make new friends in school, hopefully. I wondered how difficult eighth grade would be at the new school. At that time, I was a lazy student, just getting by with acceptable grades.
My second story bedroom window was face-to-face with the mid-section of the maple tree. From my bedroom window the branches seemed as if they were reaching out to me, perhaps wanting me to build a swing or a tree fort. I liked both ideas, but a tree fort would be nicer.
Being an old farmhouse, and in need of much repair, it was drafty. The windows rattled in their frames as if they had lost weight over the decades, leaving thin gaps. The floorboards, although sound, were dry, so they shrink during the daytimes hot weather, but on cool nights the settling house made noises from the expansion of boards and beams being affected by the cooler nighttime air which made them contract.
It seemed odd that items of furniture would be left behind by the previous owners as if they were in too much of a hurry, or didn’t have room to take everything, or perhaps both. Some of it, like the ladder-back chair that was left in my bedroom, was in decent shape. I’d keep the chair. Minor scratches in the wood didn’t bother me.
I slowly turned my body 360 degrees to view the whole room. My new bedroom, at first, seemed nice, spacious, and accommodated all the interests of a boy my age.
My baseball bat leaned into a corner of a wall, being kept company, lying on the floor, by my baseball, my glove, hat, and my model airplanes and cars that I built from kits. My new rifle partnered with my bat, while a box of .22 bullets and a cleaning kit also lay on the floor. I had no shelves or closet, yet.
Mom and Dad were busy bees making the house comfortable. Thankfully, Dad didn’t have to worry about the plethora of drafts until fall weather arrived. Mom almost always scooted me out of the kitchen unless it was time to eat. She once said that she was the queen of the kitchen domain. I think, when translated, ‘domain’ would mean, “Stay the hell out of my kitchen, unless invited.”
Dad was gone most of the day. He’d gotten his new job as an auto mechanic and farm equipment mechanic at Grandpa’s garage. My Dad would be working with his dad. It must have worked out really well because Dad almost always came home smiling, though tired. He’d laugh while eating and Mom and I knew that Grandpa had told him a naughty story or joke. The convincer was when I asked him to tell me and he said I was too young. I could see Mom’s eyes boring a hole in him, an obvious warning. Dad would partially hide his face and wink at me.
That first night in the house was a shock. First, I hadn’t noticed in the daytime that there was no electric light switch on the wall near the door. So, now I need a small bed-stand and a small lamp for nighttime use. Then, being in a strange place, I couldn’t fall asleep due to all the strange sounds the house made, plus the hooting owl, the rattling windows, the banging barn door, tree limbs clapping together in the wind as if for some nighttime, joyous occasion. Sometimes the wind blew twigs and leaves against the window. I could hear granules of dirt hitting the side of the house. Even the ticking sound of my wind-up clock sounded louder than usual.
Little by little I got used to those rural noises, but not too long after that I started hearing noises that were stranger and I could not attribute them to a cause like I did the other house noises. My imagination went to work, and I could swear that some of the noises were present in my bedroom. I ridiculed myself for being so silly and babyish. When the strange noises stopped, I relaxed, then finally slept.
However, after a few more sleepless nights I started to get a little scared. I heard noises from my closet, the hangers rubbing each other. I thought I saw shadows that moved, but what bothered me the most was the bumping, scraping noises under my bed. I had Mom’s and Dad’s old queen size bed—they had bought a king size bed for our new residence. My queen size bed was roomy. I liked that.
One Saturday morning we started to make more minor repairs. Dad must have been thinking about it during the week because I saw his long list of jobs to do and supplies to do them in his truck. I liked working with Dad. He was patient, just like his dad was to him as a young boy. We had an hour break for lunch, then worked until dinner.
I think Blizzard, my large, white dog, missed my attention so I remained on the porch to pet him. Dad sat in the rocking chair that crunched every time he rocked because of the granules of road and driveway dirt, sand, and dust that settled on the porch floor. He petted Blizzard behind the ears. While we worked Blizzard stayed on the porch watching us, whining for attention occasionally.
After dinner I fed Blizzard, then Dad and I worked for two more hours. We quit as the sun went down behind the distant forest. As we walked into the house, then to the living room, I saw that Mom had quit for the day, also. She looked up from her book to say, “About time you two stopped. Catch your breath and relax.”
I watched TV while Mom and Dad talked about his new job with his dad. He worked with Grandpa Comstock at the All-Star Garage doing auto and farm equipment repairs. He usually talked about work with a grin or smile plastered across his face because he liked working with his dad. They liked each other. Dad and Grandpa were close while Dad was growing up. As adults they drifted apart. I heard Dad telling Mom that Grandpa said he was getting too old and wanted to partially retire the following year. Grandpa had said that he was only the shadow of a former shadow and needed time off. Plus, he said, Grandma Comstock held cast iron frying pan in front of his face and shouted, “Retire! Quit being a stubborn ox!” So, Grandpa asked Dad if he would be his partner and take charge of running the garage without him being there every day.
I was watching Gunsmoke on TV, my favorite western, but I turned around to look at them and they were both smiling from ear to ear. Dad looked really happy as Mom said to him, “I’m happy for you.” Then there was that ‘lip lock’ thing that adults like to do.
Sunday was a repeat of Saturday, except for Blizzard romping around the maple tree chasing squirrels. He stood on hind legs, with his
paws up the tree and barked. I imagined him thinking that the game wasn’t fair because he couldn’t climb trees. His bark wasn’t angry, but a playful, mild bark as if he liked this ‘chase the squirrel’ game. Blizzard was my best friend. Being with him, hugging, petting, and playing with him made me feel good. I’m sure he liked the attention.
During lunch I was yawning, so Mom asked me if I was still tired.
“Almost all night I hear noises that keep me awake,” I told her.
“It’s an old house with a lot of expansion and contraction in the windowsills, walls and floors. You’ll get used to it soon.”
Dad was quiet. I could see that he was unusually tired.
I didn’t mention to Mom or Dad the growing feeling of fear that was sending an icy chill up my spine, nor how cold my bedroom occasionally gets while in the middle of summer, or how the sheet and blanket keep ending up around my thighs or ankles or on the floor. I still thought I was being silly, babyish and that I should act my age. But it was embarrassing and humiliating just thinking of myself reacting like that, so I hesitated to say anything.
*****
I seldom date and will probably never marry—too much of those events still linger in my memories and psyche—I still lose focus, still feel as if I’m being watched. Paranoid. I still zone-out occasionally, so I don’t think getting married would be fair to a spouse or kids. I live out of state now, away from my rural childhood area, in a small suburban home, in a quiet town, with a good school system. I have never had any paranormal experiences here but at night I still leave the bedroom door open and the hallway light on. My bedroom has a ceiling light and baseboard night light. Sometimes that embarrasses me because it’s something a scared infant might insist on having. It’s a good thing I don’t meet any genuine mind-readers, or they would start screaming. Scary stuff seeing disembodied, skeletal arms, and fingers covered in blood and gore coming through your bedroom walls. I’m taking anti-depressants. They help with stress, anxiety, but have no effect on those spooky memories. They have become etched in my brain.
When I first meet people, they often consider me to be aloof or egocentric. I don’t want to be those things, but I’m always on guard, watchful for questions from someone who knows or has heard of the incidents. Most of my colleagues are used to me now, but I shy-away from parties, reunions, and after school get-togethers. Meditation is helping me get over those kinds of feelings better than antidepressants.
*****
I remember my Dad and I had worked hard the following weekend. We were both exhausted. I went to bed early. I didn’t even undress, or shower, I only removed my sneakers. I didn’t care how dirty or stinky I was. I must have fallen asleep at once because the last thing I remember is how refreshingly cool my pillow felt on my face and neck.
My room was almost always slightly darker than other rooms due to the dense shade made by the large maple tree outside my window. Combine that with the tree canopy blocking most light from a full moon and the room got darker and faster than the rooms on the opposite side of house.
Awakened from a peaceful sleep at 1:58 A.M., I tried to detect where the sound came from, but the unrecognized sound had stopped suddenly. I lay back into my pillow, unable to get back to sleep and feeling disoriented. I stared at the ceiling, but I shouldn’t have because the ceiling was coming downward and soon would be on top of me, squeezing me into the mattress, suffocating me. As I rolled off my bed, onto the floor, I looked up and the illusion was gone. I sat on the floor until the feeling went away. I noticed that the house was unusually quiet and asked myself, where are all the noises the house usually makes at night and early morning? I thought that I should get back into the bed that I hoped was a safe area.
I went back to sleep. I must have placed one arm over the edge of the bed. I was startled awake when that arm got cold up to the elbow. I tried to withdraw my arm as I felt the coldness increasing. An unexpected fear made me feel as if something grabbed the cold arm. As I pulled it back, I felt resistance. Now my arm grew numb, so I couldn’t feel if something had ahold of it. I thought, what the hell was that? I pulled harder and the arm came free, resting within the border of the bed. My withdrawn arm was cold, like being a step away from frostbite. So, for some reason my bed boundary was a safe area. My cold arm was hanging outside that boundary. I realized that scary illusions may occur in my safe area, like the ceiling dropping illusion, or ceiling and wall figures and scary deigns but, while in bed, within its boundary, no physical harm has occurred except for almost wetting the bed a couple of times.
As if that wasn’t enough for the night, I felt movement under my bed—a scared little boy, again. “WTF,” I said in a whisper. When scratching noises came from the same place, I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out, not even a tiny squeak or a muffled grunt. I reached for my bedside light. I thought I did, but my arm didn’t move. I couldn’t move my whole body, except for my eyes.
Matters got worse when I panicked and had trouble breathing. I inhaled deeply, but only barely got enough air to remain conscious. I was on my back and helpless. This can’t be happening. It can’t be real. Ghosts don’t exist, paranormal crap really is crap, I thought, unable to talk, unable to convince myself that there was no such thing as ghosts.
I was paralyzed, but my eyes raced around the room looking into shadows, places to hide. I saw a shadow move. Was that how the specters roamed without being seen? Their dark shapes blending in with the shadows. When I stared at the shadow there was no longer any movement. Then I heard scraping on the floor at the foot of the bed. My bed covers were being pulled down to my feet. I screamed, but it was only in my head. My mouth was a desert with a dehydrated lizard trying to move on the sand. Then my eyes became waterfalls. I could feel the wet pillow on both the side and back of my neck. What if the ceiling comes downward again? I thought.
The room got colder. I shivered, but still couldn’t move my arms, or legs. My breathing became more rapid, uneven, and my heartbeat felt as if I were being hit with a hammer. What little cold air went into my lungs felt chilly, as if I were outdoors at the North Pole and my breath would come out in a frozen, misty fog.
Suddenly I began having trouble breathing and felt faint, my eyes blurred by tears and brain saturated with doom while it seemed my room was being emptied of its air. A noise caught my attention.
The door began to open slowly, squeaking like a baby mouse. Then the outlined shape of a head became visible. I was helpless. I couldn’t move, nor talk, and my terror was rising every second as the shadow became a shape of a torso, but it was still just an ominous shadow. It became larger, taller and was coming at me slowly, its hands reaching for me, wanting to grasp me, and take away my final breath. I felt its touch as my bedside light came on and I saw its face, the face of my dad.
“Are you having a nightmare, son?”
For a few seconds I didn’t pay any attention to him. Now I could move, I could talk, I looked around the room. Nothing. How can that be, I thought? Because it, or they, exist in shadows, thrive in darkness, avoid the light, I whispered to myself.
“What’d you say?” Dad asked me, then, “Billy, are you having a bad dream? I hope not. You know your mom is part Native American
Seneca. She always places ‘dream catchers’ under both our beds, head and foot. To Native Americans, a dream catcher prevents bad dreams from reaching you. A dream catcher is a thin, wooden circle with threads made sticky with tree sap. The sticky threads go in every direction, like a spider web. It usually had charmed feathers and beads. I know it might sound silly, but I placed two of them under your mattress, at your mother’s request. One is at the foot and one at the head to your mattress. It’s one of her family traditions, though she doesn’t talk much about her heritage. She probably never even mentioned it to you. You know what I’m talking about?”
“Yeah. I know what a dream catcher is.”
She also crushed dried holy herbs, White Sage, and Palo Santo, into powder and asked me to powder your mattress with it when I was making your bed that first day we moved in. It’s the pine and lemon smell that you mention once and a while. You said it helps you relax and fall asleep faster.”
“Yeah, I remember now, but it wasn’t a dream. I thought I saw a shadow moving, and I thought I heard whispering sounds,”
I felt as if I were in a confused daze. I could hear the bathroom toilet still running as the tank filled. My father’s routine, a middle-of-the-night pee. Dad hugged me and I grabbed him around the neck as if he were a boat’s life preserver and I was close to drowning.
Though I could move and was safe, I feared getting out of bed, even with my Dad there. I felt as if I needed to stay within the confines of the mattress, which I started treating as my ‘castle keep.’
I started deflating. I didn’t know that I was holding my breath. Now my breath rushed out of my lungs as if they were an overfilled balloon that was gratefully emptying.
“It must have been a nightmare, son. It’s over now. You can relax.”
I wiped the tears from my eyes, finally feeling that the evil twins, Menace and Malice, had left my room. More than one. There’s more than one, I thought. I nearly choked on my stress, anxiety, and terror, but my dad’s warm embrace relaxed me, and the terror began to drain like milking a snake to extract its poison.
“I’m OK now, Dad. Yeah, it was a bad dream. Real scary.”
My Dad rose from the edge of the bed, walked to the door, turned with a worried look on his face. He said in a concerned voice, “Good night, Billy.” I gave him a thumbs-up signal, even though I didn’t believe it. The door closed with a click. Even a little thing as that “click,” felt like a shot-gun blast to me.
I can’t say how long I lay awake. But thirty minutes can seem like several hours when you’re scared. I should stop trying to be brave, like Blizzard, and get out of this room. No wonder he won’t sleep near my bed anymore. He senses the out-of-the-ordinary and is either confused or afraid. Probably both. Yeah, some guard dog he is. He should be protecting me, I said to myself, disingenuously.
Then I remembered the look on Dad’s face when he was shutting the door. I stared at him. He was scared, too, but at least he didn’t try to hide it. I think he chose well, for himself and for me. I wouldn’t want any harm coming to him, especially if the floor wasn’t safe for him plus, I wouldn’t be able to stop him from jumping off the bed if the floor was a danger zone.
Eventually my friend, sleep, carried me away to dreamland and I wasn’t disturbed for the rest of the night. I was startled awake as my alarm clock blasted me into the new day.
The scratching at my bedroom door startled me enough to bring last night’s fear back as a spine-tingling chill. However, the low bark of Blizzard calmed me, and I let him into my room. I kneeled and petted him, then hugged him loosely around the neck. As he walked to my bed he sniffed curiously underneath it. I shivered at the sight.
“Could this really be happening to me or am I going crazy,” I whispered.
When I was eating breakfast, Mom came down the stairs, boards squeaking, and asked, “How did that dirty handprint get on your wall? You need to wash your hands before you brush your teeth, prior to bedtime.”
I shot up off my chair so quickly that I startled her. I ran, took the stairs two at a time, Blizzard at my heels.
I entered my room, Blizzard remained at the doorway. I hadn’t noticed the handprint when I woke up this morning. I rubbed the dirt. My finger came away with a blackish smudge. I rubbed it, again, smelled it. Ashes? It smelled like campfire wood turned black from partially burning. It wasn’t dirt, grease, oil, or anything that I could think of that I may have gotten on my hands while helping my dad.
Blizzard and I returned to the breakfast table where my Mom was now seated, looking directly at me, waiting for my response. When I didn’t answer she got up and started washing dishes. I was at a loss for words and confused. Should I be truthful or lie? My mental debate.
I just blurted out the sentence. “There’s a ghost, or ghosts, in my room. That’s why I look tired. I can’t sleep, and if you look closely, you’ll see the handprint on the wall isn’t mine.”
Mom ignored my comment. “Your Dad said you had a nightmare last night. A bad dream. Apparently, a realistic bad dream. Billy, there’s no such thing as a ghost. It’s your room, so it’s your mess to clean-up.”
There was no point in arguing about something that’s unbelievable, though true. I cleaned up the handprint when I was done with breakfast, Blizzard by my side, as if he wanted to help me.
*****
As I look back and remember that incident, and parents who wouldn’t believe me, I could understand their disbelief. I realized that I was alone in this struggle. I couldn’t sleep on the couch. Mom and Dad would think I had mental health issues and take me to a shrink. I didn’t want my brain being poked and prodded by a professional brain archaeologist.
I was a boy feeling all alone. Even in the daytime I thought I could feel the walls closing in on me. When I stared at what I thought was movement of a shadow, it stopped moving. Was I a mental case? Could it all be in my imagination, an illusion, or a paranoid delusion? Alone with wretched, ephemeral ghosts, specters, wraiths, assholes. My mind drifted off as I now wondered if ghosts need to shit. No, I thought. No eating, no shitting.
I resigned myself to the fact that no physical help, and no sincere advice was coming. Not at this time, anyway. I’d have to try to be strong, learn what I could, try to figure out why they haven’t hurt me. Is it something to do with the bed, my dog, something to do with the previous owners, or the distant, original owners, or not so distant owners?
*****
As I remember myself at that young age, I had already graduated from a skeptic to an agnostic concerning religion, but ghosts? How the hell do they fit in? I settled on the thought that I could not believe that a god exists, but can I believe in ghosts. At least ghosts are willing to show themselves, to speak, even if it is with ill-intent. Another thought occurred to me. Why are ghosts always bad? Are there any good ghosts?
Now, as an adult and an atheist, I was in an even bigger conundrum. I reasoned; can’t an atheist also have paranormal experiences? As a scientifically minded adult, reason, logic, and facts dominated my thinking and beliefs. And, dammit, ghosts did not fit into those categories.
*****
Back in my bedroom I looked around at the old ladder-back chair, my dresser, with its attached mirror, my useless baseball bat, my baseball sitting in the glove, my old fishing pole, camping and hiking gear, comic books, baseball cards.
You’d think that by 1960 all roads, even rural ones, would be paved. Riding a bike on dirt roads is barely any fun, especially without friends. Rutted, pot-holed, bumpy, and rock littered dirt was not appealing for bike riding, so my bike was imprisoned to the barn.
Finally, summer vacation had ended. I got back to school and started to make new friends. I met a kid my age who lived a half mile away, though a thick copse of trees blocked a view of his house. Mike’s dad ran a dairy farm. I was often with Mike, either at my home or at his. I finally found a use for my bike. It was short bike ride to Mike’s house, on an unusually named road called, Farm to Market Road. It must have been a really old road because there were no farms that brought anything to a market. But that road, after a distance of eight or ten miles, led to my new high school, Maine-Endwell High School. It was a new high school named after the two towns that sent students there. I was not only new to the school, but the school was newly constructed only two years ago.
I was an average student situated comfortably between the academically poor and the academically superior students. That’s the way I liked it because then I could go relatively unnoticed, keep my head down, follow the rules, and see what happened at this school.
One day I was looking out my bedroom window, after returning home from school. I felt an unexpected shiver when the thin, twiggy branches at the far end of the limbs of the maple tree looked as if they were boney fingers reaching out to me, waving to me. Imagination running amok, again, I guessed. I didn’t like the realization that these mental aberrations were happening increasingly lately. Sometimes my stomach felt as if it was pulsating as a rolling wave of nausea came over me with a sense of impending danger. The stomach ache was a burning sensation, like what might follow if I swallowed gasoline, then lit a match to smoke a cigarette, but, of course, not quite that bad.
At times, my stomach did feel as if it were on fire. At those times I would drink cold water to dampen that burning sensation. Perhaps it was all psychological, but it usually worked. If it didn’t, I would tell Mom and she would give me a thick pink liquid to drink. Probably the water diluted the acid that had built up in my stomach while the pink stuff neutralized the acid.
I had homework from Mr. Phillips, my science teacher, Miss Perry, my geometry teacher, and Mrs. Sullivan, my English literature teacher. I grabbed my books and sat at the kitchen table since I had no desk or table in my room. Actually, I was glad of that. I wouldn’t be able to focus on homework while in my room.
The days passed and I lived with the ghostly noises and vague movements, but my fear grew less intense. I tried to figure out what the ghosts were. Were they apparitions of the dead who may have lived on the farm previously, and something horrific had happening in this room? What was their purpose for scaring me? To communicate something. Did they wantflash the room to themselves? What was it? If they were apparitions of the dead, how and who killed them? The house had been vacant for a few years before Dad bought it. Maybe the ghouls got tired of wandering and settled in this room. Can science explain this? By now I was certain that my bed was a safe place, but why? If I did not get out of bed during the night, I was safe from their touch, just not safe from the smells, sights, and sounds, none of which ever escaped the confines of my room. Mom and Dad heard nothing, nor did they smell or see anything unusual. From then on, I did not discuss my haunted room with them, or with anyone else.
I had gotten used to this way of thinking. It brought me only mild apprehension lately. Sometimes I even slept through the noises and shadowy movements. Maybe that’s why the violence started. Too peaceful. Too quiet. Ghosts are action oriented, not peaceful and quiet. At least that’s the way it seemed to me.
One night I woke up to the sounds of scratching on the floor, especially under my bed. Outside my bedroom door I heard Blizzard’s whimpering, and low growling. Then the unusual occurred. The wooden slats, under my mattress began to move. I could hear the dragging noise against the bed’s metal frame. I could also see and feel the movement of the mattress.
The noise that woke me first came from the rattling window frames. The wind was blowing furiously, the maple tree bending over to one side, in tune with the wind. Bend not break. I took that to heart. Outside the window it looked and sounded as if we were having a hurricane. The window frames started whispering indistinctly. Not rattling, or a vibrating type of banging, but harsh voices mumbling ominously, like a choir of asylum inmates.
My bed shook harder, then the foot of the bed lifted off the floor. I had to brace myself on the headboard to stop from sliding into it. But that wasn’t the worst of it. My whole bed lifted off the floor about two feet, all four posts. The bed turned 180 degrees, then smashed down to the floor.
In the dark mirror I saw two yellow eyes inside a dark black hollow where the human orbital bone structure is located. Then the outline of a skull gradually started to appear and . . .
My bedroom door slammed open against the wall so hard that the inside doorknob put a hole through the drywall.
A flashlight beam focused on my bed, then on me. Pressure on the edge of my bed turned out to be my dad sitting. Then Mom turned on my bedside lamp. The room was lighted, but nothing out of the ordinary was visible, except my bed. The foot and head of the bed had changed position. Dad was looking at the floor as if confused and mute. Mom sat on the chair after pulling it close to me. I flinched when Mom touched my shoulder through the bed blanket. I didn’t realize that I was hiding under my blanket.
When I lowered the blanket, Dad asked, harshly, “What’s all the damn noise? Why would you turn your bed around? What’s going on with you, Billy?”
“You heard it? I didn’t think you or Mom heard the noises.”
My eyes felt like they were bulging outward as Mom used tissues to clean my bloody nose. “How’d you get a bloody nose, Billy?”
“I don’t know,” I told her, then I stuttered trying to say, “Goo, gho, ghost. Nightmare. Real.”
Mom and Dad sat with me a while. I was noncommunicative. I felt stunned by shock and the belief that Mom and Dad would not believe me.
I heard Mom say to Dad, “You’ve heard of sleep walking? Well, I read that sleep walking doesn’t have to be simply walking. A person can be doing other things and not even know.
When I heard that, I just covered my head again and silently cried.
*****
Now, as an adult, I’m not nearly as fearful. My thinking now is that the paranormal was confined to that old bedroom, not the rest of the house, nor had anything ghostly followed me to my new home. It was there already. However, I still put myself through regular sessions of meditation which helps me control the thoughts that cause the troublesome emotions that have never, and will probably never, go away. Also, as my family and I got away from the house, my maturity increased with each year and I was able to relax more, shoving the trauma in a vault that’s on a train’s caboose, and five miles away from me down the tracks. And each year it becomes farther away. And each year I feel better, more relaxed.
No longer a child and with the aging process taking its natural progression, I have comfortably adapted. Thinking of myself as a child, I understand that in that house, many noises had a sinister cause. Those sinister noises, not the house structural noises, piled up into a mountain of fear in me. The fear at that age was like increasing the natural stomach acid ten times. I also remember threatening emotions that made me think that I’d rather pierce my eardrums with an ice pick than continue to hear those frightful sounds. I can also remember wishing for the eyes of a hawk and its talons, too. What little courage I could hang on to wanted to see the beastly ghouls that were tormenting me for reasons I did not know and would never know. In retrospect, I probably wouldn’t want to see them. Nature versus ghosts? Are ghosts a natural occurrence in a natural world? For me they sure are. Nature and ghosts. The two don’t fit. They are not compatible with mature logic.
*****
I didn’t go to school that day. I was, literally, sick, exhausted, anxious. Dad went to work and asked Grandpa about the old house, but he didn’t say anything about ghosts because he thought creepy stories of haunted houses were bullshit. Grandpa agreed with that, but he mentioned that it had a mysterious and rumored history. Some beastly men used the house to evade the law and partake in some gruesome activities, including torture, murder, and child abuse. These men supposedly worked for a ruthless and perverted leader of a city gang by eliminating the gang’s enemies and at the same time pleasing their sadistic needs to cause and enjoy pain. Grandpa told Dad that he wouldn’t have mentioned the old house was for sale if he thought any of that crap was true.
But Grandpa became terribly upset, guilty after I came for a visit, and he had a chance to talk to me privately. I told him everything. Dad said he wished that I hadn’t done that because, for days, Grandpa could not forget how he’d accidentally harmed his son’s family, especially me, his grandson. He continued to be upset and it increased over time. He missed work and actually made himself sick. Two months later, his guilt and stress resulted in a heart attack and Grandpa died. We all died a little. A piece of our hearts died. It peeled off and slid into our circulatory systems, a floating, blood saturated piece of sorrow and daily sadness. I viewed it as a dead piece of my heart traveling endlessly in my blood. However, it also provided an increased closeness to a loved one because now Grandpa would always with us, where love belongs, in the heart.
*****
Mom tried to engage me in conversation one day before dinner. She noticed my apprehensive nervousness and she wanted me to clarify it. She said, “Dear, what’s wrong?”
When I said, “My room is haunted,” she sat silently, took a deep breath, and sighed as she exhaled.
She didn’t know what to say, so I filled the gap, with a question. “Mom, do you believe in ghosts, or anything paranormal?”
“No, Billy. I don’t. Never have.”
Now it was my turn to be silent. I grabbed my book, Island of the Blue Dolphins, a homework assignment reading, and went to the living room couch to read. I plopped down heavily on the cushion.
While I was reading, Dad came home from work. I had already heard Mom placing dinner on the table. I stopped reading and listened. I heard Dad’s chair lightly being pulled out from the table, then heavily pulled in as Dad put all his weight on it. But I didn’t hear him clinking a fork on the dish, nor set down a glass of water. He wasn’t eating. He was talking extra quietly with Mom, discussing me, obviously.
Shortly after that, Mom announced that dinner was ready. It was one of the rare dinners where the atmosphere was awkward. No one wanting to talk, especially me. I ate quickly, excused myself and went to my bedroom with a flashlight. I thought I could read away from Mom’s and Dad’s desire to ask multiple questions. I decided to leave my door open. Maybe Blizzard would finally come in. I’d let him get in bed with me if he would enter the room. He wouldn’t enter. His whining was breaking my heart, so I could not focus on reading.
Leaving the door open was a mistake because now I could be convinced that something really did move when it went between the open door and me. Then my eyes could catch the moving shadow easier due to the dim light coming from the hallway. I lay in bed, blanketed by darkness, gathering courage, and pushing back nausea.
About an hour later, as I was groggy and about to fall asleep, I could hear Blizzard’s feet going down the stairs. Shortly after that I saw the shadow move past the open door. I couldn’t describe it very well, only that it was an amorphous shape, as if its body were pliable and could change shapes with each step. It could have been wearing a cape or maybe a robe. . . “Ah, shit,” I said to myself. “How silly are you going to be, you dumb ass.” I immediately turned on the flashlight. The light caught a vanishing profile. It looked triangular with a ball on top. Body and head? I only had a fraction of a second glance at it. I worried because the shape looked as if it were falling towards the floor.
From the scratching, rubbing noises it made, I could tell it was crawling towards the foot of my bed. A large sliver of icicle traveled up my spine and punctured my brain stem. I experienced brain freeze and felt an intense migraine headache swelling inside my head.
The door closed. I felt sick, nauseous, but I would not leave the safety of my bed. It had been a safe place so far.
It was under my bed, sounding like fingernails scratching furiously on old, dry wood, like a person who is mistakenly buried alive would scratch at the top of his coffin. Then the sound stopped and reminded me of Blizzard pawing, scratching, rearranging a rug to make it the way he wanted it so he could sleep comfortably on it.
It was quiet, except for the breathing of animal-like sound. The breaths became increasingly quiet. I thought the thing must be breathing slowly and shallowly. Then all I heard was the faint whisper of breath that reminded me of something sleeping or resting.
WTF I thought. Do I have a sleeping, malevolent presence under my bed? My bowels sent a warning to my tightening sphincter and urinary muscles. I clenched the controlling muscles and hoped for no childish accident.
I lay awake most of the night, dozing off occasionally, but waking up at every little sound the old house made. I must have finally fallen asleep during the middle morning hours. Luckily, it was Saturday morning, so I slept later than usual with the sheet pulled up over my head. My blanket was lying on the floor with a putrid smell wafting upward to assault my nose. The smell made the blanket unusable, so I stuck it in the clothes hamper. I put a fresh blanket on the bed. The room still smelled, but less intensely.
My room looked as if nothing had happened. No scratches, or drag marks, no evidence of ghosts. No wonder I looked like a fool when complaining about nightly disturbances, visitations, and strangely moving shadows.
After breakfast, I helped Dad. It was nice being with him, learning his carpentry skills, and simply talking to him about sports, cars, the garage, and Grandpa. Dad got emotional while talking about the good times he had as a kid with Grandpa. I changed the subject back to our work. We made the repairs and painted one room, then stopped for lunch. Dad told me I was free to do whatever I wanted after lunch, so after lunch I hopped on my bike and cycled down the road to Mike’s house. I found him shooting baskets on his improvised basketball court. He waved and smiled at seeing me.
We played the old game of H-O-R-S-E, then went to his bedroom to read comic books, tell jokes—the dirtier the better—and talk about girls. Mike was a handsome guy, a ‘chick magnet’ that pretty girls flocked around. I often envied his handsomeness and his ease dealing with adoring girl. But ripe plums turn to prunes, ripe grapes to raisins, and a carved face on a ripe apple, in time, becomes shriveled, wrinkled, the features widened or contracted, skin and eyelids drooping, thinning hair or extra hair in unwanted places. Those starlets and studs will hate mirrors.
I didn’t mention my nighttime ghostly experiences to Mike. Why drag him into this nightmare? Also, if I’d mentioned it to him, then on Monday, by noon, most of the school would have heard about it and the
teasing would go on for the remainder of the day. It would be too out of character for him to keep a secret. If I’d told him, then the remainder of the day I’d hear, “Scaredy Cat, Billy,” then whispers of, “You afraid of pussy, Billy?” then laughter would fill classroom and hallways, the echo would be continuous. Even some teachers would laugh when they saw me, their crippled grins expressing their negative thoughts.
I had to be home by dinnertime, so when it was time, I departed on my bike. Coming to Mike’s house was an easy downhill ride but going home was a harder uphill trek, but good exercise.
That night I made an excuse so I could sleep on the couch. I had a peaceful sleep which had been a rare occurrence. No frightening noises, just the ticking sound of the kitchen clock and the regular settling structural noises from the old house as it reacted to the cooler nighttime air.
When I woke, I went to my bedroom. There, on the bed, was my baseball bat, broken in half. The leather cover on my baseball was torn off, and my glove looked as if it had been slashed with a razor blade. Apparently, my bed wasn’t a safe zone if I wasn’t on it.
Was this a warning for me to be in bed at night, or was it a physical threat to do the same to me, or did they merge? These thoughts made the hair on my forearms stand straight up as if my forearms were pin cushions. I expected tiny dots of blood to become visible, but that didn’t happen.
I called my mom and dad so they could see the bat, ball, and glove damage, hoping they would take my experiences much more seriously. They were startled at first, then mom and dad grinned, saying, “Nice try. Ghosts don’t exist.”
A month went by without any major occurrence, though some noises aroused mild suspicion. Why would there be quiet times? I was grateful because I had been sleeping better, but not soundly. I still hadn’t completely been able to ignore all bedtime noises.
It was hard to believe that a year had gone by so quickly. I liked this rural setting. I enjoyed shooting my rifle for target practice at paper targets, pinecones, knots in trees, bumps on a deadfall tree, and rabbits during hunting season. Mostly I liked to go to the woods, walk for a bit, then sit by a tree and look around, but being quiet. Once a deer nearly walked up to me until he smelled me and trotted off to safer ground, its antler rack brushing and pushing against tall weeds, bushes, and low branches.
The next month included my fourteenth birthday. I had a party with a few of my school friends, especially Mike. There was a girl I wanted to invite, but it would have been too awkward for her, so I didn’t invite her. It was the usual party with cake, ice cream, cookies, spilling Pepsi due to our playful pushing and shoving, followed by silly laughter—though it wouldn’t be funny having to clean up after they left. However, I thought the best part was going to my room where we could swear when we wanted to, tell dirty jokes, talk about school, then lock the door to sneak peaks at my pile of Playboy centerfolds. We were all at that age where sex was a major topic but then the room filled with a putrid smell and turned cold, very unusual in the daytime.
Mike, Brad, Dan, and Larry all stared at me with grimacing faces.
“Jesus, Billy. Did you blow an elephant fart? The whole room smells of something awful. Check your pants. I think, maybe, you shit them.” Everyone laughed as they pinched their noses.
Mike said, “Maybe we all farted and didn’t know it. Hell, I know Larry has the wickedest farts you can imagine.”
We all stared at Larry. The room was not only intensely stinky, but filled with our chorus of clownish laughter.
“Maybe an elephant took a shit in Billy’s closet. Just don’t open the door or we’ll pass out.”
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. I didn’t want to share my ghost stories with them.” I put my disappointment and depression on hold so as not to ruin what was left of my party. I took them out of my room quickly. We played basketball with the backboard and hoop that Dad set up last weekend, in anticipation of my party.
*****
I can’t explain why the room seemed good for a few weeks, then changed when my friends came to it. I have many memories of my childhood. I remember Dad and Mom worrying about me, after the party was over. I cleaned up, but did not talk, nor did I want to be talked to. I was definitely in a bad mood. That fucking paranormal, ghostly shit, was screwing up my life. I wondered if Dad and I could demolish the room and start over by building a new bedroom. If it was only my room where this shit occurred then, I reasoned, get rid of the damn room. How about calling the local priest and have him do his exorcism routine and devil castration prayers for my benefit and entertainment, though I thought it was fake bullshit.
I was often in bad moods after that. After the party I started losing weight and feeling unusually tired. I was already slim as it was so the weight loss was easily recognizable. If you combine that with my moodiness and a teacher becomes concerned. One of my teachers wrote a note to my parents concerning my decreasing grades, unusually poor behavior, and not turning in some homework assignments.
So now Mom and Dad, once again, whispered about bringing me to see some kind of ‘shrink.’ Shrink? Sure. Can he shrink the ghosts, shrink the coldness, shrink the noises, shrink the foul smells? No? Then what good would he be? I don’t know how I made it out of those depression episodes because they lasted longer than any other depression episode that I’ve ever had. At that time, I had no idea that my situation would drastically get worse.
*****
When the evil returned, it did so like a two-year-old’s mega tantrums. By now I had a flashlight by my bed. One night, when I heard my dresser drawers opening, I quickly shined the flashlight toward the dresser. A dark shape appeared for only a second. My underwear, socks and undershirts were flying out into the room. It was raining underwear. Some were being ripped with invisible hands and with invisible, sharp fingernails. “Fucking pervert!” was my inappropriate and ridiculous thought, but I laughed at the flying underclothes.
That was a big, bad mistake. It was as if I were really laughing at a two-year-old child. This, however, was not child. My laugh was cut short when the side of the bed suddenly lifted, and I fell out. Immediately I was assaulted by that foul, putrid smell. It filled the room, as skeletal hands squeezed my neck. I was desperate for a lifesaving breath. The ethereal thing was squeezing so hard I thought I’d die of a broken neck instead of being strangled.
Then I was thrown to the ground, picked up and slammed high into a wall. My feet were not touching the floor; I was dazed. Bloody, disembodied arms protruded from the walls, all grasping for whatever they could grab, but all were windmilling frantically, seeking victims. Blood streaked their boney arms, some had ugly compound fractures, some just greasy and dirty, others still had shredding, gory sleeves, while others showed lose, rotting skin, with pus and blood dripping steadily off the damaged bones. Muffled grunts or agony and shrill screeches penetrated the peeling and cracking walls, as if the skeleton heads were behind them, their heads and knees crashing into the inner walls to escape decades of confinement.
The ghost that I had been seeing, materialized, and slammed me to the floor. It picked me up, drew me close, it’s fetid mouth open, but not breathing. Its mouth smelled of advanced decay and putrefaction. My eyes rebelled at the sight of maggots thriving on the pus of decay and the smell of a blackened, rotting tongue that would not stop thrashing, banging, and clicking from jawbone to jawbone. I was violently pulled nose to nose with the skeletal presence as if it were intent on biting or swallowing me. I felt faint, dizzy as I heard my name being growled. I was dropped near the wall and a pair of disembodied arms grabbed me, pulled at me, dug me, ripped my flesh until I screamed in pain and terror. I grabbed the fingers and broke as many as I could until the hand couldn’t hold me. I threw myself away from the wall. I grew cold and felt like the guy in Jack London’s story Make a Fire, hallucinating and numb while freezing to death. I thought, “Is that my fate?”
My body lay on the floor, contracted into a protective, fetal position. Dad found me like that and woke me. I was bleeding but not badly. I heard Mom picking up underclothes, her footsteps so much lighter than Dad’s. She was crying hysterically. Through her tears she was saying, “It’s really true, Ted. It’s real. It’s not his imagination or the start of a mental illness. He’s being tortured by malevolent presences and we didn’t believe him. How awful of us not believing him.”
Loud, deranged howling, and screaming came from all the apparitions in my room and in the walls. Their howling and screeching echoing off the walls like cannons shooting into the Grand Canyon. But these echoes were punching holes in the walls from which ran oozing, thick, terrorizing blood that turned black as it hit the floor and began to pool, then ran slowly, like syrup, trying to surround us. The blood started bubbling as if it were boiling tar. I vomited.
The dresser mirror flashed like a spotlight. It blinded us, then dimmed. When we could see, we saw the unhuman face of ultimate hatred, cruelty, violence, and rage. The mirror exploded, the shards of glass racing across the room to rip our flesh, to gouge, gash, tear, slice us into giving up our blood. Our blood combined, pooled, then gradually disappeared as if being slowly drunk by a now visible fiend, the bright white skeleton against the black background of its cape, but it was the bleeding, bulging eyes that were prominent, plus the intestinal gore hanging from and slipping off it fingers and sharp, talon-like fingernails.
Dad picked me up in a fireman’s carry, grabbed Mom and dragged us out of the room before the flowing blood or the fiend could reach us. Mom tried to close the door but couldn’t. The thick pool of blood poured toward the door frame and we—I was on my feet now—raced down the stairs. We left our own spotted trail of blood on the stairs. To our surprise, the pooled blood did not pour down the steps.
We quickly withdrew to the kitchen where Mom grabbed the wall phone as the whole house began to shake, breaking windows, knocking items off shelves; light fixtures popped or crashed to the floor, plates, cups, glasses fell out of the cabinets, glass shattered, the TV picture tube exploded as easily as a fragile lightbulb.
Water pipes broke, the sink faucet became a fire hose, the refrigerator fell sideways, the gas stove fell forward. My eyes locked onto the kitchen table and chairs a second before they fell in pieces as if crushed by a huge boulder. When we smelled gas, we ran from the house toward the barn as the kitchen area caught fire. The fire progressed quickly to the upstairs bedrooms. We grabbed our ears to assuage the sounds of screeching, screaming, and howling that were so loud and high pitched that they would have ruptured our eardrums.
When the firemen came, the chief, who looked older than dirt, said that the flames sounded like the hounds of hell because, even though it was an old and dry house, there’s always moisture in many places. He informed us that when moisture instantly turns to steam it makes a wailing, screeching sound. If the fire were less intense, the chief said, you’d hear an elongated hissing sound as the moisture slowly turned to steam.
I got up the courage to say, “It sounds to me like demons on fire.”
The chief looked sideways, then down at me and grinned. “Now there’s some irony for you. Demons on fire.”
Then I saw him pull dad away, out of hearing range. Much later he told me and mom that the chief said the rumors were that the assassin gang members were said to have buried bodies in the cellar’s dirt floor, and even in the hastily added room had a sinister purpose added the chief—Dad said the chief was having fun laughing throughout the entire story. The added section of the house, my bedroom, supposedly, made it much easier to wrap bodies in heavy plastic sheets, then wedge them into the unfinished walls, between the studs. When there were enough bodies, so the rumors said, they’d simply cover the unfinished walls with drywall material.
We were silent, mesmerized while watching the tall flames and smoke as the sky was being littered with large sparks, as if red hot embers were light enough to floating skyward. Demon eyes?
I noticed Mom reach into her pocket. It seemed as if she were rubbing something. She was. I saw her pull out a black obsidian crucifix, clench it in her fist, then loosen her fingers and rub the cross constantly, as if unaware that she was doing it. Yellow, red flames danced in the shiny black obsidian, as if it had an inner light of its own. All these years I had never seen it
I noticed that sometimes two large sparks remained together as they floated away. I thought of red eyes, eyes filled with tremendous rage. I wondered if ghosts and other paranormal things were fearful of fire. Was that an unknown weakness, that they burn like tinder? More pairs of eyes, red with fury, rose out of the fire. The ghosts were deserting their haunted home, like rats deserting a sinking ship. I stared, then noticed that the ghostly sparks were being sucked into a dark spot in the sky. The wailing sounds lessened as all those ghostly sparks, the eyes, were sucked into a void, an abyss, their haunting screams diminishing as they were sucked lower and lower into its infinite depth.
We heard popcorn popping but realized that it was mine and Dad’s bullets. My .22 and Dad’s shotgun shells were being destroyed, but that was certainly worth it.
Incredibly I thought, where would we live now?
Blizzard wouldn’t stop barking, so I kneeled and hugged him. He didn’t calm down. He was staring at something. In the light of the fire, I saw him staring at the maple tree, as if in sorrow for lost friends. I let him bark until they turned to whimpers and whining. “We are all safe,” I said to him. “That’s the most important thing.”
The tree would live on, but the side that faced toward the house fire was dead, charred, blackened. It would look like half an umbrella, but the squirrels would have a home.
We waited outside. The two police cars arrived in twelve minutes; the ambulance was only a couple of minutes behind the police. Two policemen rushed to us while the other two walked toward the house. Dad screamed at the policemen headed toward the house. He warned the policemen of a gas leak, so they did not attempt to enter. They turned and walked toward us to join their colleagues who checked them for injuries. Their families would be forever thankful they did not enter the house as the gas exploded just like a bomb, shrapnel reaching out 360 degrees. The house fire was now blazing. The shock wave knocked the two policemen off their feet and threw them to the ground, toward us standing by the barn. Some shrapnel hit us because we were standing, but the cuts were minor. The policemen who were knocked to the ground were actually lucky because most of the shrapnel flew over their heads. Those policemen stood awkwardly, picked up their hats and, wobbly-legged, completed their walk to us. Their two colleagues checked them for injuries. Nothing physical.
My family and I looked like bloody messes, but when the paramedics checked us, they said our cuts were mostly superficial, though they bled a lot. Our heads were bloody, hair matted with sweat and blood. “Don’t worry,” one paramedic stated. “The head area bleeds excessively, even minor cuts.”
*****
Yeah, even as an adult the incidents were unforgettable, though I’m probably the only one who vividly remembers, since Mom, Dad, and Blizzard are dead. They all died of old age, I’m glad to say.
Mom was always the smart one. As it turns out, she had been paying for home insurance secretly, just in case of a fire. She knew the decades old dry wood was a tinderbox. When she told Dad about the insurance, I remember his eyes, bright, big, glazed with unequaled happiness. He picked Mom up and twirled her around in circles. She accidentally dropped that black obsidian crucifix, then she said, “OK, handsome, put me down before you crush me.” Dad loosened his grip around her waist, but didn’t immediately let go, although Mom’s feet could touch the ground now. They kissed and hugged. I watched them and wondered what marriage was like, to be so close and in love with someone that you’d do anything possible to keep them happy. I’ll probably never know that feeling unless some kind of romantic miracle occurs in my life.
Mom casually bent over and picked up the crucifix. I went to her. I asked her what the obsidian crucifix meant to her. She said, “It a talisman. Look it up. Believe in it because when I’m gone it’s yours.”
Dad sold the property to Mike’s dad so he could increase his acreage and get more dairy cows. Everyone came out happy with the deal. Grandma asked us to come live with her. She said she was old and needed some help and in return she would leave us the house when she died. Talk about a gloriously happy family.
I lost touch with Mike, except in school, but since we didn’t see each other much we went in separate directions with different friendships, though occasionally we got together at a sports event and talked like we did in the old days, comfortable with each other. I was told that he always spoke well of me, and I returned the compliment.
For a few years it was a distressful and unforgettable history. I would look inward as if looking through a window to the past and see the events. Now things are easier. I don’t know how I did it, but I had the ability to gather almost all those horrible memories, chain them together and locked them away in a secure vault, in the caboose in my mental train. That train, over the years, traveled farther and farther away. Its nearly silent now. Incarceration of those tormenting memories makes me relatively free from going mad and being institutionalized. I must say, however, that in my dreams those memories can somehow escape the vault and occasionally visit me in my dreams, but their exhausting efforts to escape severely weakens their effect in my dreams.
Before Mom and Dad died, they sold the garage, put the money in the bank, in my name, and told me to go to college, if that’s what I wanted to do with the money. I did and became a science teacher.
But I’m not totally free and unencumbered by those past events. Sometimes—I’m glad to say it is rare—I feel a vibration and thumping as if that vault door is being kicked, pounded on, and tampered with. When that happens, I mentally add more mental fortification to the vault. I know, that sounds crazy, but it works for me and, of course, I don’t mention any of the ghostly past or the vault. Those memories of paranormal trauma will die with me, but when will I die? Should I trust that the vault will remain secure during a long life, or should I kill it with my own early death? That evil will never be allowed to haunt another human being. Never.
Smiling, I rubbed the obsidian crucifix. It felt warm, comforting, and still occasionally looked as if it had an internal light.
Goodbye to whomever is reading my story. The final outcome hasn’t happened yet. Let’s hope for the best, OK?
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