A Book of Hauntings Five Ghost Stories by Jon O’Bergh Smashwords Edition Copyright 2012 Jon O’Bergh Discover other ebooks by Jon O’Bergh at Smashwords.com: Song of Fire -- http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/66212 Smashwords Edition, License Notes Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support. The Attic Man Eyes. Not just plain human eyes, but demon ones, staring through the hole in the ceiling where the heater goes up to the attic. Kids don’t like to see things like that. Nobody does. But kids see a lot more than just the eyes. They see monsters grabbing them from their beds. They see boogey men and phantoms and devils taking them to graveyards, and the most blackest, deepest holes in the ground where no one will ever see them again. But nobody cares about what we see. Sure, the grown-ups were once kids, only now they’ve forgotten their fear: they know such things don’t exist. At least, they think they know. It’s just that these spooks never want to show themselves to grown-ups ‘cause they know older people won’t believe in them, and they need belief to feed on. So WE believe in them. “Mom, somebody’s in the attic.” “Nonsense—there’s just a lot of wires and pipes up there.” Shhh! Footsteps, creeping softly as they can, stepping from rafter to rafter as the beams creak under the weight. It’s right overhead, so don’t move! If he hears you, if he knows you’re right under him… Maybe he doesn’t know any kids live here. He might be mixing up our house with Ethan’s. We live on the end of a group of townhouses that all have the same attic, and Ethan’s house is right between us and the Jebsons. His bedroom is next to mine, so every time we hear strange noises, we knock on the wall, but we have to be real quiet so the Attic Man can’t hear. Ethan knocked lightly, in time to my speeded-up heartbeat. I knocked back, then tiptoed to the door. If I went downstairs, I’d have to pass under the trap door, and he might swoop down and take me away forever—unless I could run past in time. A moment later, the trap door was left behind and I passed the furnace door, imagining both flying open just as I raced by. I didn’t dare look back, leaping down the stairs two steps at a time. “Heavens, Rodney, you sound like a buffalo stampede coming down those stairs,” Mom scolded. I raced out the back door. Ethan was waiting for me on the grass. His eyes looked wide enough to swallow the moon, and I thought if they opened any more I’d fall into a bottomless pit along with all the stars in the sky. “I heard him,” he whispered. “He was walking above my room, and I heard him!” “So did I. He was going to bounce out from the trap door, but I was too fast.” Someday that trap door is going to open and he’ll reach down to grab me with his pinching claws, and I’ll be gone forever. Why didn’t Dad nail it shut like the Jebsons did? “I’m scared of that trap door. Why do we even have one?” “My dad says it’s so repair men can climb up to fix things.” There was a funny look coming across Ethan’s face. He always got it when he had the answer to a problem, like the time he got me to distract our teacher so he could take some money from her purse. He would just stare past you, only he wasn’t looking at anything. (It was the kind of stare you’d remember when you laid in bed and thought about spooks and things.) Ethan was always right. After a moment he said, “My sister says she saw him when she opened the furnace door. He was looking down through the big hole where the pipes go up into the attic, and she said it was the scariest thing she ever saw.” I’ve never seen him. Only heard him—heard him creeping around above my room, waiting for the day he can get me. “What did she say he looked like? Does he have demon eyes like Billy Jebson?” I hated Billy Jebson. I think it was ‘cause of his little beady eyes that squinted at you whenever he crossed his arms and said “Prove it.” Ethan hated him even more. He’d always say, We need a “Billy Jebson” about as much as we need two Attic Mans in the same attic. “She said they’re bright, bright red, and if you look at them too long they’ll burn a hole through you.” I shivered. I always pictured how the eyes would look if I saw him. Just like Billy Jebson. Sometimes I imagined the Attic Man’s eyes staring from behind Billy’s balloon face. That’s all I ever thought about, was the eyes— And the Hands. The Hands would be the baddest of all. He’d use them to grab with, and the fingers would be long, so long, ‘cause there wouldn’t be any arms, and they’d stretch until the tips would turn into claws that would scratch and tear things apart. There would be no way to save yourself from them. That’s why I only liked to think about the eyes, ‘cause they just stared. But now Ethan’s sister said the eyes could get you too. “Did she call the police?” I asked. “Why should she? They wouldn’t believe her.” “I know, but somebody better warn them before the Attic Man gets us.” “Who’s that?” asked a voice from behind me. I turned around and saw a fat shadow come out from the darkness of the trees. Beady eyes blinked at me, lonely and curious. “Why would you want to know?” Ethan said, his eyes narrowing. “My mama told me there’s no such thing as boogey men.” “It doesn’t matter what moms tell you, ‘cause they never saw one. But I know there is!” said Ethan. “Prove it!” Ethan leaned toward Billy. “What do you think you hear when they say it’s the floorboards? What do you think you hear when they say it’s the wind blowing?” His thin hair fell across his face so the eyes stared out like an animal. “What do you think you hear when the furnace door rattles as you walk past, or something scratches above the trap door like it’s trying to open it? Is it the floorboards? Is it the wind? Course not. It’s the Attic Man.” Billy didn’t say anything. Ethan was staring right at the beady demon eyes, even though they weren’t looking at him. Billy was staring at his own feet, wiping them in the wet grass. “Well… have you ever seen him?” he asked. “No, but my sister has. You wouldn’t want to see him, anyway.” “Why not?” “‘Cause he steals kids. And they’re never seen again!” That weird look was coming across Ethan’s face again, and I wondered what he was thinking. “But you can take a peek.” Billy looked over at his house. “I don’t know if I—if I should.” “Come on,” Ethan said, touching Billy’s arm. “Rodney and me’ll protect you.” “No, I don’t think—“ Ethan’s eyes fixed right into Billy’s, his voice getting lower and tempting. “It’s okay. If we just look up into the attic for a second, he won’t be able to get you.” No one argued with Ethan, ‘cause Ethan was always right. I went with them into Ethan’s house, even though I wanted to stay outside. His mom and dad were gone somewhere, as usual, leaving him with his sister, but she was over at her boyfriend’s. All I heard was the clock ticking slowly in the dark. We went up the stairs in time to the tick… tock… tick… tock, listening real careful for any strange sounds. I could hear Billy’s heavy breathing, in time to the clock, with a short, dead silence between each beat. Billy was shaking as Ethan put him in front of the furnace door—that door, where the Attic Man and his burning red eyes were waiting. I made sure I didn’t stand under the trap door, but by the stairs, so I could run if the Hands jumped out at me. Ethan was grabbing the doorknob, keeping his eyes on Billy’s face. Quietly he turned the knob, letting go of Billy’s arm. As the door opened, those nightmare Hands flew out at Billy, ripping and tearing him in quick bursts. Billy let out a surprised “Oh!” and was jerked up into the attic as Ethan slammed the door shut behind him. He leaned against it for a minute, waiting for a noise or something to follow. But there was only a little rustle in the attic, and then everything was quiet, except the ticking clock, same as before. My voice was rough and scared, like the scratching of a claw. “Why, Ethan? Why did you do that?” Ethan stood away from the door and stepped into the light from a streetlamp outside the window. There was a smile of relief on his face, and that weird look that made my spine shiver. “Now the Attic Man will think he got me, so he’ll never bother me again.” I glanced up at the trap door, and staring through a small crack I thought I saw two demon eyes—but I wasn’t sure just whose they were. The Unlucky Thirteen Club Many years ago, there was a club in New England known as the Unlucky Thirteen Club. The members met thirteen times a year in defiance of superstition by deliberately walking under ladders, breaking mirrors, keeping black cats as pets, and the like. The club had a maximum thirteen members at a time, and each new member had to undergo an initiation by spending the night alone in a haunted house. One gentleman had been on the waiting list to become a member for several years. He was a slender, nervous sort of man who combed the few remaining strands of his thinning mouse-brown hair across his scalp. One day, a letter came in the mail announcing that there was an opening to join the club. He was instructed to meet the officers of the club on October 13, and he would be taken to an old house located on a small, private island which could only be reached by boat. The house had sat vacant for several decades, slowly falling into disrepair, the property overgrown with weeds. The last owner had left suddenly without explanation. It was said that strange lights could be seen emanating from the house on moonless nights. With great delight, the gentleman wrote back that he would accept the invitation. He met the officers on the appointed day. They drove many miles beyond the city, eventually coming to a small, secluded bay. As dusk fell, they made their way across the water that was deepening to a midnight blue in the failing light. The house grew closer, looming out of the gloom, its windows shuttered like a sleeping beast. “You know the rules,” reiterated the club’s president. “We will give you a key and a flashlight. You are to remain here overnight, and we will return at sunup to retrieve you. You must make your way through each room of the house and mark one of the walls with an ‘X’ using a piece of chalk.” The gentleman laughed uneasily and said he was ready for his ordeal. The boat docked, and he stepped out onto the island. A stone path led up through the weeds and trees to the front door. Behind him, the boat’s motor revved as the boat sped away into the darkness. He switched on the flashlight and walked up the path. A breeze came, like an exhaled breath, stirring the branches of the trees. He looked up to see some dark shapes darting across the spaces where the sky peeked through the trees. Ectoplasmic wisps of cloud floated high overhead. The house was a late Victorian manor in the Richardson style, with large blocks of rough-hewn stone for its façade, Romanesque arches over the porch and first floor windows, and triangular gables along the uppermost floor. A tower capped with a conical roof rose skyward at one corner. He hurried on to the front door, suddenly anxious to get inside. As he fumbled with the key, a twig snapped somewhere in the woods to his left. The key clattered onto the porch, and he quietly cursed, bending to retrieve it. There was another exhale of wind, and branches scraped across the side of the house like cat’s claws. He opened the door and stepped quickly inside, shutting it behind him and turning the lock. Shining the flashlight around the vestibule, he could see cobwebs stretched across the recesses of the room and a layer of dust that had settled on the floor, staircase and banister. Dust motes swirled silently across the flashlight’s beam of light. Let’s get this over with, he thought to himself. He decided to start with the parlor. The room was barren except for one broken chair cowering in the corner. A great hearth stood against one wall, its mantle cracked and a section of marble missing. There was beautifully carved crown molding along the walls. One could see that this had once been a spectacular home, built with craftsmanship and care. He marked an X on the wall. From the parlor he entered the dining room. In one wall was a built-in hutch, its doors ajar like an open mouth, toothy shards of broken glass poking up from the frames where the panes had been. Overhead, he heard the floor creak with the weight of something shifting. Just the sound of an old house settling, he thought, although it was hard to shake the thought that he might not be alone. He hastily marked the wall and proceeded into the kitchen. A large black stove stood against the far wall. In the center was an old table, and beyond that an old-fashioned ice box. A long counter ran along the wall to his right. He walked over to the sink and tried the faucet. No water, of course; I should have brought a thermos. He chalked an X on the wall. Beyond the kitchen was a small back room with a door leading outside. He checked to make sure the door was locked, then marked the wall and retreated through the previous rooms to complete his downstairs circumambulation. On the other side of the entryway was a library—at least, he presumed it had been a library. Shelves sat empty and forlorn on either side of a cold fireplace. The wind whistled through the chimney, and again he heard the floorboards above him creak. His hand trembled as he marked the wall above the fireplace. Back in the vestibule, he stopped at the foot of the stairs and shined his flashlight up the graceful sweep of steps. He took a deep breath and started his ascent. Something silky brushed his head, startling him. He frantically swept it away, almost losing his footing. Only a cobweb—calm down. At the top of the stairs was a hall with closed doors along its length. He opened the first door and quickly shined his light around the empty room. Without even bothering to enter, he reached in and marked an X on the wall beside the door. Methodically he proceeded through the other rooms and did the same. As he approached the last door leading into the tower, there was the sound of a thud downstairs. He froze, his hand on the knob. Silence. Then the sound came again, a distinctive thud, followed by the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor. He crept back to the head of the stairs and paused, listening. He could hear the wind outside, the trees scraping against the house. There were some scuttling noises across the floor downstairs. Probably just mice. He descended the stairs, their old bones creaking. He could see his ghostly footprints in the dust ascending the stairs like an invisible interloper. As he reached the bottom step, there it was again, coming from the kitchen. He tiptoed through the parlor and dining room, his heart beating fiercely. He shined the flashlight into the kitchen and could make out the counter, cabinets, and the large table in the center. He stopped at the entrance, waiting, but heard nothing. The flashlight dimmed. He walked over to the table and tapped it on the tabletop several times. For a moment it brightened, then suddenly went out completely. With his free hand he began groping along the table to find his way out of the kitchen. Then the sound came again, right behind him now. He started to run, but felt something tug at his jacket, jerking him back. * * * The darkness dissipated as the sun rose over the mists clinging to the still water of the bay. The din from a motorboat sliced through the morning quiet as the boat disturbed the water with undulating ripples. The club president tied the boat to the dock and walked up the stone path with the other officers. They opened the front door and called out the name of the initiate, but no one answered. They noticed the footprints on the stairs going up and coming down, and a set of prints heading into the parlor twice but emerging only once. “He must be in the kitchen asleep,” said one of the men. They walked through the parlor, through the dining room and into the kitchen, where the president gasped. Lying on the floor was the gentleman, his eyes glazed and wide open, evidently dead from a heart attack, and a piece of his torn jacket hanging from a nail that protruded from the edge of the kitchen table. The Corpse’s Wife Back in the day, folks weren’t sophisticated when it came to dying. A coma was as good as dead. The doctor would sign the death certificate faster’n you could say, “Death don’t see no difference ‘tween the big house and the cabin.” Folks were right scared in those years following the end of the Civil War, when God seen fit to send wave after wave of epidemics to torment the nation—scarlet fever, smallpox, cholera, typhoid, yellow fever—as if war hadn’t been torment aplenty. It was bad enough worrying about the vapors that carried those dread diseases, but if you got sick—whew, you better hope not to get buried alive. The papers carried reports of coffins dug up with scratch marks all over the inside lid, the final moments of the living clawing to get out. Rich folks took to buying caskets equipped with an ingenious device. A cord was affixed to the hands and went up a tube from the coffin to the gravesite, where it was attached to a little bell that sat protected from the wind inside a small chamber. If the person came to, he could move his hands to ring the bell and alert the night watchman. The yellow fever epidemic of 1873 was particularly bad. Whole families were practically wiped out. At Graceland Cemetery, they could hardly dig new graves fast enough. Graceland had opened one year earlier in the northeast section of the city, within sight of the Capitol. That was when folks who visited Graceland’s graves still had faith in the men who made the laws, before what came later. Azie Washington lived in a small shack on the grounds of Graceland and served as its caretaker. He would look with pride down Maryland Avenue to the gleaming dome a mile away. Ten years earlier, he had gone to view the bronze Statue of Freedom when it was on display, before they hoisted it to its pedestal atop the dome. But at night, with nothing but farms around, it was dark as all pitch out at the cemetery. Once in awhile a wagon would pass by, lantern jostling as the wheels bounced in the rutted road, a farmer on his way home. Otherwise, Azie’s only companions were the crickets, frogs, and the occasional cry of a solitary screech-owl. One humid summer night, he was dozing in his shack. A full moon was rising over the woods, and the cicadas were buzzing like the sisters after a rousing sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church. The air was deathly still. There had been ten funerals already that week, the earth still dark where the fresh graves had been dug. Through the din, Azie thought he heard the tinkling of a bell. Suddenly alert, he strained to listen. He walked to the door and paused at the threshold. Lightning bugs were flashing in the dark among the gravestones. But he heard no bell. He walked back to his chair and sat, closing his eyes. His undershirt was wet with perspiration. He picked up a whisk and fanned himself. As if by cue, the cicadas all stopped. And there it was again: the unmistakable sound of a bell. He picked up his lantern in one hand and his shovel in the other and walked out. The moon illuminated the gravestones so brightly he almost didn’t need no lantern. He passed the grave of Miss Cleta Jones, who had been buried on Monday. Her family hadn’t been able to afford a coffin with a bell, so it couldn’t have been her grave. Over yonder was Marcus Dunbar, who had fought in the 54th Regiment and survived, only to die of yellow fever on Tuesday. But no, the sound wasn’t coming from his grave. In fact, the bell wasn’t coming from any of the recent graves. Yet still Azie heard it, intermittent but insistent. The cicadas started up again, drowning out the bell so it was hard to tell where it was coming from. An owl hooted nearby, its round eyes catching the light from the lantern and blinking. Azie made his way to each of the graves where families had installed a bell—there weren’t that many, so it didn’t take long. Finally, at the last grave, he heard the bell clearly. But it couldn’t have been this one. This was one of the first graves that had been dug almost a year earlier. Still, he put down his lantern and began digging. The bell kept ringing, urging him on. At last his shovel struck the coffin. “I’m here,” Azie called out. It took another ten minutes to clear away enough dirt to open the lid. The bell stopped. Overhead the moon shone brightly, filling the grave with a ghostly light. Azie straddled the coffin and, using his shovel, pried open the lid. Staring up at him was a skull with traces of skin still clinging to the bones, the mouth agape as if screaming. Scratches on the inside lid were embedded with bits of nail and dried blood. Azie stared down at the corpse, and scratched his head. Why hadn’t he heard any bell a year ago? He climbed up out of the grave and brought his lantern close to the bell housing. Sure enough, the cord connecting the bell to the casket had been cut. Someone had not wanted the occupant to ever get out. The cord hadn’t made the bell ring tonight—something otherwordly had. Azie brought the lantern close to the gravestone and read the inscription: Clayborn Payton May 10, 1823 - August 29, 1872 He knew what he had to do next. With lantern in hand, he headed into town, walking the two miles toward the the home of Mrs. Henrietta Coleman. Sister Henrietta was the kind of woman who always wore the newest fashion to church. She was vain, and felt she was better than the darker-skinned maids and laborers who shared the pews at Ebenezer Baptist. Six months after Clayborn Payton died and she inherited his money, she had married Lemuel Coleman. Azie approached the grand Victorian house and knocked on the door, untroubled by the lateness of the hour. He heard footsteps within, and after a minute or so Mrs. Coleman’s maid, Flozie, answered the door, candle in hand. “What you want at this hour, Azie?” she asked. “I need to see Mrs. Coleman,” he said flatly. “Can’t it wait ‘til mornin’?” “I need to see her now. It’s about Mr. Payton.” Flozie’s expression grew grave. “Hold on, then, I’ll get her.” Azie waited at the doorstep for awhile. After a bit, Mrs. Coleman appeared, clearly annoyed. Azie held out the bell and the clipped cord. Mrs. Coleman gazed down, aghast, and recoiled. “I think you know why I brung this,” Azie said. Mrs. Coleman opened her mouth as if to speak, but nothing came out. Azie set the items down at the doorstep and turned to leave, when he heard the tinkle of the bell. He turned back to see Mrs. Coleman and Flozie both staring down at the bell, which seemed to be sounding of its own accord. “Stop that right now,” commanded Mrs. Coleman, but the bell continued to ring. She looked horrified. “Flozie, take that and throw it away.” Flozie picked it up gingerly and stepped back inside. “No, not through the house. Take it around out back.” Mrs. Coleman silently glared at Azie. She pulled her lace shawl more tightly around her shoulders and watched him as he walked down the street. In the days that followed, Azie pieced together news of what happened next. All night and the next day, Mrs. Coleman had been followed by the sound of a tinkling bell. She finally had shut herself up in the bedroom, with her hands over her ears. “Stop that infernal bell!” she had screamed to Flozie. But there was nothing that Flozie could do. Still the bell kept ringing. She developed a fever and grew weaker, refusing to eat. “The bell…” she hoarsely whispered. It was the only thing she seemed able to say. Her eyes shrunk in her sockets and her face took on a wicked yellowish hue. She vomited black bile. “It’s one of the worst cases I’ve seen,” said the doctor. He remarked on the curious sound of the bell that sounded in her presence, but Flozie just shrugged, although she had her suspicions. Mrs. Coleman’s breathing grew increasingly filled with gasps. “Look, there!” she cried out. “Do you see it?” “See what, missus?” asked Flozie. “The corpse sitting in the corner, with the bloodied, bony fingers! Why does he sit there hour after hour, just waiting?” “But there’s no one there.” “Don’t you see him?” she screamed. “There! There!” Flozie took the wet cloth and wiped Mrs. Coleman’s face, but she brusquely shooed her away. Then at last the ringing stopped. A death rattle emerged from the emaciated body of Henrietta Coleman, her eyes still fixed on the corner of the room. She was buried in Graceland Cemetery, in a coffin equipped with a bell. Azie watched the coffin being lowered into the grave and the clods of earth being piled on top. He just shook his head. On windless nights, they say you can sometimes hear a bell ringing softly in the dark. The Ride With the Stranger A black, ‘61 Chevy Impala convertible pulled up to the stop sign as I crossed the street—only it wasn't the shiny, gleaming black of a well-kept classic car but a weathered, dingy black like ash. The car idled roughly as the driver, a gaunt-faced twenty-something with dark glasses and a black hooded sweatshirt, watched me pass in front. “Can I give you a ride?” he asked. “Well, uh, actually—” He leaned across the passenger side and opened the door, which groaned on its hinges. I hesitated, looking down the street ahead of me, then slipped off my backpack and climbed in, pulling the door shut. “I’m going a few miles down that way,” I pointed. The car backfired as he accelerated and turned without signaling. The car smelled of age and must. Cracks criss-crossed the dashboard. I must have been looking intently at the dials, because he said after a few moments, “Radio’s busted.” The hood of the car stretched beyond the windshield, the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. I started to say, “They don't make cars like this any more,” then realized it sounded trite, a poor attempt at small talk. Instead, I looked to my right at the houses we were passing. “I’d like you to tell me a story,” he said. I heard his words, but the request startled me. “What?” “A story. You know any good ones?” He sensed my hesitation and added, “I always ask people to tell me a story. Anything you want.” “You mean like a real story, or something made up?” “Tell me about something you remember.” Maybe it was the slightly tattered hood hiding his face in shadow, but I suddenly thought of the summer I spent with Carole and Roger and the camping trips when, each night as firelight from the adults’ campfire cast long shadows against the side of our tent, I regaled my nephews and their friends with ghost stories, long epics that continued from night to night. “Okay,” I said, and told him about the old, deserted farmhouse. * * * The Teanaway River cuts through the Cascade Range that is the backbone of Washington state, creating a narrow valley dotted with farms and orchards. On one of our camping trips that summer it threatened to rain. Roger had a friend who had recently purchased a neglected farmhouse on the Teanaway River, not far from where we were camping, and we arranged to sit out the storm in that drier refuge. We drove down the quiet country road and arrived at the farmhouse as dusk chased the already wan light from the sky. Spotlighted by the car headlights, Roger opened the rickety gate, then got back in. We jostled down the driveway to the sound of gravel crunching under the tires. The farmhouse sat ahead of us, presiding over a wide, overgrown field. A line of dark trees marked the path of the river at the far edge of the field. As we got out of the car, the trees that bunched protectively around the farmhouse were creaking in the wind. We entered through the back door, which led through a hallway into a large kitchen. A single, bare bulb on the high ceiling illuminated the kitchen, whose corners remained half in shadow. Carole went over to the sink and turned on the tap, testing the water. Beyond the kitchen were a side room with two beds, the main parlor, and a huge bathroom that dwarfed its tub, toilet and sink. Carole speculated that the room had been converted to a bathroom sometime after the second world war. From the back hallway, a closed door sat on the bottom step of what must have been the stairway to the second story. It seemed odd to build a doorway off the floor like that. I opened the door and groped for the light switch. Flicking the switch several times resulted in no light, however. “Here, give me one of the flashlights,” I said to the other boys. I shined the beam up the stairs into the dark recesses above. “There are thirteen steps!” my nephew Perry counted, thrilled at the discovery, but that only added to my trepidation. He nudged me forward, and we started up the stairs. As we neared the top, we sensed the light from the hallway behind us suddenly dim, and turned to see the door noiselessly shut. Perry screamed and we bounded down the stairs, flinging open the door so hard it banged against the wall. Drawn by the commotion, Roger ran into the kitchen where we were cowering. “What happened?” he asked. “A ghost closed the door on us,” Perry said. Roger went over to the door in the hallway and opened it, then let go. We watched as the door slowly swung shut. “It’s not sitting evenly on its hinges,” he explained. He opened the door again. “There are thirteen steps!” Perry blurted out. Roger shined his flashlight up the stairs. The wind suddenly raced outside, howling through the rafters. “I think we’ll stay down here,” he said, shutting the door. As Carole prepared dinner, we took turns bathing in the oversized bathroom. I sat in the tepid bathwater, listening to Roger and my sister talk in the kitchen. “I’ll bring in the cots and sleeping bags from the car,” Roger said. “We can set them up for the kids in the front room.” “I want to sleep in your room,” Perry insisted. “I want to sleep with Perry,” mimicked Kevin, the youngest. “Okay, we’ll all sleep in the same room.” We ate dinner seated around the kitchen table. Rain began streaking the windows. The wind continued to howl intermittently, spitting the rain against the panes like a schoolyard bully. The bare bulb sputtered, then went out. “I better get the lantern from the car,” Roger said, grabbing his flashlight. Someone went, "Woooooo.” “Stop it!” demanded Kevin. The mind imagines frightful things in the dark. Lurking outside the window I saw a skeletal face, the nose eroded away, jagged teeth splintering out from the gaping mouth, thin blades of hair falling across the forehead, dull eyes gazing from dark sockets—the Phantom of the Opera, whose Silent Screen photo haunted my childhood. I heard Roger’s footsteps on the back steps, growing louder as he entered the hallway and rounded the doorway into the kitchen, carrying a lantern. The light chased away the face at the window. The fortress of cots and bed frames was assembled in the side room, wagons circled protectively. We assumed our positions in bed, side by side. Tree limbs scraped against the siding of the house all night long, nocturnal visitors clawing to get inside. No one slept soundly. When the wet, gray dawn at last arrived, our nightmares were temporarily washed away. * * * “I’m going east, so you can let me off at the light,” I told the driver. “Turn left?” “Yeah. But you don’t have to take me all the way.” “No, really, it’s okay. I enjoyed your story.” I laughed nervously. “So this is how riders pay their fare.” He said nothing in response. We turned east. “You must like ghost stories.” “Most definitely. So tell me another.” * * * Several years later, after Carole and Roger had moved to Michigan and I was in high school, my parents, Grammy and I drove across country for a visit, taking along Sherry's middle son. Rob and I were crammed in the back seat with Grammy. I had brought along my cassette tape recorder, and on the long journey over the Rockies, Rob and I amused ourselves taping Grammy snoring. We dropped Grammy off with some relatives in Denver and continued eastward, across the Great Plains to southwestern Michigan. When we arrived at the house on Indian Lake, no one was home to greet us, so we walked around back to the lakefront lawn. Rob and I picked up croquet mallets and took turns hitting balls through the wickets while Dad sat in the swinging chair and Mom nervously smoked. Finally, Carole and Roger returned home. “I thought you weren’t arriving until the day after tomorrow!” Carole said. She introduced us to another couple and their ten-year-old son whom they had known back in Washington. “Roger and I will move into the living room, and you and Dad can have our bedroom,” Carole hastily improvised. “The boys can all sleep downstairs, and Jim and Mary can remain in the second bedroom.” I took my suitcase downstairs. The two adjoining rooms looked very much as they had two years earlier when I had spent the summer. I put my suitcase down in the room with the beds and cots and walked into the second room that was used as an all-purpose family room. The land from the front of the house sloped down to the lake so that the back of the house was two-story. The lower-level windows and a back door looked out onto the lawn and the lake. On the far wall of the family room I noticed one of my Dad’s abstract paintings. “Look,” I pointed out to my nephews. “There’s a face in that painting.” “Where?” asked Perry. “See the outline of the skull? Your parents probably never told you that story when they bought the house.” “What story?” asked Kevin. “About the man who was murdered by the previous owners. He was buried in the wall, right there, and now his death’s head is starting to emerge through the painting.” Kevin shuddered. Perry’s friend walked up to the watercolor. “That’s a bunch of crap,” he said. “Suit yourself.” I grabbed my tape recorder, went upstairs to the bathroom and locked the door. I recorded moans while leaning into the reverberant space of the bathtub, then dropped a bar of soap onto the ceramic basin. It made a resounding thunk that sufficiently imitated a ghostly knocking, so I repeated it several times. I heard a flurry of voices downstairs, then a stampede of footsteps coming up the stairs. When I emerged from the bathroom, Kevin was whimpering to Carole about strange knockings that were coming from the closet. She took him back downstairs and opened the closet. “See, there’s nothing in there,” she reassured him. “But we heard a knocking sound,” Rob protested. “It was probably just the pipes.” Outside, clouds were slowly collecting into a thunderstorm. The air was almost liquid with humidity. Fireflies were flashing in the dark trees down along the shore of the lake; in the distance, a thin line of lightning ripped through the sky above the lake. There was a long pause, and then a faint rumble of thunder. “Guys, go out and put away all the stuff you left on the lawn,” Roger instructed. We went outside and began gathering up the croquet set and other items. Perry dragged a yellow rubber raft up to the back porch and secured it. I watched the sky intently, trying to will the storm to come our way. There was another silent flash of light in the distance. I strained to hear the thunder, but none came. All through dinner, I kept looking out the window at the sky that was now an inky black. Scattered lights twinkled along the far shore of the lake and were mirrored in the surface of the water that was as calm as the sky. “I want some more potatoes,” demanded Perry’s friend. His mother scooped a helping of scalloped potatoes onto his plate and he went back to the kids’ table. “Mary, how long have you been visiting?” Mom asked. “We’ve been here almost two weeks. We’re planning to go back to Seattle on Sunday.” I saw Carole roll her eyes. “Is this your first time in Michigan?” Mom continued. “Yes. We’ve never been east of the Rockies. Carole and Roger took us to a quaint Dutch village today. It’s in Holland—just like the country.” Mary laughed nasally and slightly too loud. “Then we took a river cruise out of Saugatuck.” “You would really enjoy Holland, Mother,” said Carole. “It’s very picturesque. There's a windmill and tulip gardens, and the downtown has lovely old Victorian buildings.” By the time we finished dinner, it was late. The boys took turns showering, and I went downstairs to hide my tape recorder under a pile of clothes in the corner beneath the watercolor with the Rorschach face. When everyone had gotten into bed, I said, “I’ll check the back door to make sure it’s locked.” As I returned, I pressed the play button on the tape recorder and turned the volume up high. I switched off the light and laid down on my cot, throwing back the only sheet as it was still warm and humid. A hint of a breeze came through the back window. A few minutes passed, and then a muffled moan emerged from the family room. “What’s that?” whispered Kevin, suddenly alert. “What?” Another moan. Kevin sat up in bed. “Did you hear that?” There was a faint rumble of thunder. The screen puckered against the window frame and I felt the air rush by me like a sharp intake of breath. A prolonged moan, slightly louder. “There’s something in the other room!” Kevin whispered hoarsely. “I heard it, too,” said Rob. A flash of lightning illuminated the window. “Maybe we should investigate,” I suggested. Perry and I crept out of bed; the other three boys followed. As we entered the family room, there was the sound of something scraping in the corner, followed by muffled knocks. “It’s coming from the corner,” Perry cried out. Lightning illuminated the face in the watercolor, making it more distinct, two empty holes for eyes and a gaping mouth with splintered teeth. In the darkness that immediately followed, there was a loud groan followed by a crack of thunder that sent us scurrying back into the bedroom to huddle by the foot of the stairs. “I’m not going to sleep down here,” Perry’s friend insisted. A wailing moan emerged from the family room, and the boys went racing up the stairs. I retrieved the tape recorder and put it back in my suitcase, then followed them. “There’s a ghost in the basement!” Perry’s friend was crying to his mother. “I think someone is buried in the wall.” Raindrops began splattering at the windows, and the flashes of lightning grew brighter, followed closely by peals of thunder. “Oh, that’s nonsense,” Carole said. “There aren’t any ghosts here.” “But we heard it!” Kevin implored. “I want to sleep with you and Dad,” Perry’s friend demanded to his mother. An especially loud clap of thunder made everyone jump. “I don’t want to sleep downstairs, either,” said Kevin. Carole sighed. “Okay. You can sleep up here.” Blankets were laid out on the floor upstairs, and everyone tried to fall asleep while the storm passed overhead. The next morning, Mary and Jim rose early. I heard the latches of a suitcase being clicked shut as I went into the bathroom. When I came out, they were standing at the front door saying goodbye to Carole, their suitcases lined up like the Three Bears. “I’m sorry that we’ve decided to leave so suddenly. Don’t wake Roger, but please tell him goodbye for us,” Mary asked. Carole wished them a safe drive. They picked up their suitcases and walked out to their car on the street. Carole held the screen door open a moment, watching them leave, then pulled it shut and turned to look at me. “Thank God they left,” she said. She paused, and looked at me suspiciously. “Did you have anything to do with those ghost noises?” I nodded. “Well, then, I owe you a big thanks.” She laughed softly, which started me laughing, and the next minute we were both howling. Roger stirred in the living room. “What’s going on?” “Nothing,” Carole said, and smiled. * * * “Okay, we’re here,” I said. My hooded driver pulled the Impala to the curb beneath the shade of a large maple tree and turned off the motor. “One last story,” he said, turning toward me, “only this time I’ll tell it to you.” A shiver passed through me in the coolness of the shade. * * * There was this guy who liked to give rides to strangers. He would ask each rider to tell him a story. If he liked the story, he would let the rider go. But if he didn’t... One time he picked up a hitcher and asked him for a story. “You mean a made-up story or something real?” asked the rider. “Doesn’t matter. Whatever you want.” So the rider told him a story. But it wasn’t a good story. They finally pulled up at the rider’s destination. “Thanks for the ride,” came the usual reply. “Do you deserve to live or die?” asked the driver, looking straight ahead. “What kind of question is that?” The driver said nothing, just kept looking straight ahead. After a moment, the rider said, “I’ve got to go.” “You won’t get far,” said the driver. The rider struggled with the door, but it wouldn’t open. He propelled himself over the door to the sidewalk, but lost his footing and stumbled. When he looked up, the driver was standing right over him. He scrambled to his feet and turned to run to the door of the house. He wildly twisted the doorknob, even though he knew it was locked, then fumbled for his keys while behind him he heard the footsteps of the driver drawing closer. His hands were shaking, and he couldn’t fit the key in the lock. The keys clattered to the ground, and he cursed, quickly bending to retrieve them. The driver was only a few steps away now, almost taking his time, and the closer he got, the more frantically the rider tried to open the door. The lock finally clicked open. He rushed inside and shut the door, firmly bolting the lock. But when he turned around, the driver was standing right in front of him. “How did you—” stammered the rider. “I told you, didn’t I?” said the driver. The rider pushed past him and ran through the house to the back door. But when he swung it open, standing there was the driver. The rider slammed the door shut and ran upstairs to his bedroom. He locked the door and pulled out his cell phone. “It’s no use,” said a voice behind him. The rider turned sharply to see the hooded driver standing there in front of him. The driver gently took the cell phone out of his hand. “You’re coming with me now,” said the driver. “Let’s go.” The rider’s knees grew weak and he collapsed to the floor. He must have passed out, because the next thing he knew he was back in the convertible and they were heading down the street. “Where are you taking me?” he meekly asked, his body slumped and cowering against the car door. The driver said nothing, just kept looking straight ahead. * * * I sighed warily. “Well, thanks for the ride.” I opened the heavy, creaking door, and grabbed my backpack, when a hand suddenly gripped my arm, holding me back. “See you,” he said, then let go. I stepped onto the curb and shut the door. The car shuddered as he started the motor, then suddenly backfired, and even though I should have expected it, the sound still managed to startle me like a gunshot. I watched the Impala make a U-turn and head back down the street. A stylized chevron stretched across the ample trunk, its “V” dipping in the center like a downward arrow. That’s when I noticed there was no license plate, just an empty space where the plate should have been. I thought of his parting words as I hurried into the house, remembering to bolt the door firmly behind me. The Witch The year they chopped down the oak tree out at Bailey’s Crossroads was the year “it” happened. The oak tree had stood in that spot long before anyone could remember. It was a towering tree when Old Man Hawkins was still a boy—that’s what he said. And he would repeat the story he heard as a kid, about the witch who was hung from that tree. The oak had grown weak with age, so the town council decided it was safer to chop it down than wait for it to fall across the road during a storm. So one day in October a tree trimming company was dispatched to Bailey’s Crossroads. By the end of the day all that remained was a stump. They cut the trunk and limbs into small chunks and the town sold it as firewood to the locals. But Old Man Hawkins refused to buy any. “I won’t bring that tainted wood into my house,” he said. Neighbors laughed together over his superstitious fear. October had been uncommonly warm that year. Then the weather abruptly changed the week before Halloween, a chill hanging in the air even during the day. The Longacre family was selling their harvest apples from a fruit stand at Bailey’s Crossroads, along with huge pumpkins that were perfect for carving into jack-o-lanterns. In the cornfield behind the stump, the wind rustled the dry stalks as the sun dipped low in the horizon. Chuck Suarez pulled off the road into the dirt next to the fruit stand and got out of his truck. “I think you may be the last customer of the day,” said Roy Longacre. “I’m looking for some good-sized pumpkins for my yard,” said Chuck. Every year he decorated his house and yard with the most elaborate scenes for Halloween, carrying on the tradition after his wife had died. It had been her passion, but now he made it his own, making sure to keep the decorations up through the Day of the Dead. There were ghosts swaying from trees, a body in an old steamer trunk that he arranged to look like a coffin, tombstones lining the path to the porch, cobwebs draped across the banisters, and a skeleton with a top hat and tails sitting in a chair beside the door. Chuck gazed over at the oak stump across the road. “I miss that old tree. The crossroads just don’t look the same without it.” “I know what you mean. It gave some nice shade on a hot summer day.” Chuck picked out four pumpkins, and Roy helped carry them to the scale. “You gonna try and outdo yourself this year with the decorations?” asked Roy. Chuck laughed. “I sure am.” “Well, the kids love it. At least the older ones. My girls still talk about when they used to go trick-or-treating and how scared they’d get walking up to your door. Isn’t that right, Melissa?” “Johnny Cottler had to bribe me with a dollar to get me to knock on your door,” Melissa Longacre said. “I had nightmares for a month.” “You planning on going out in costume this year?” Chuck asked. Melissa wrinkled her nose. “She’s too ‘mature’ for that business,” Roy said, using his fingers to imitate quotation marks. “Well, you come on out and check out the decorations anyway.” Roy rang up the price. “What do you have in mind for this year?” “Oh, the usual, plus… I don’t know yet.” He looked over again at the stump. “Do you believe what Old Man Hawkins says, about the witch who was hung from that tree?” “Naw. He’s a superstitious old coot. I think it’s a story his granddad told him just to scare him when he was a kid.” “What do you think, Melissa?” She shrugged. “Yeah. Well, I may have an idea.” All week long Chuck planned the decorations. He carved a scowling face into one pumpkin, and into another one a fearful expression patterned after Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” These would sit at the foot of the porch steps. The other two pumpkins, with more traditional faces, would sit on the third step. He pulled down the boxes marked “Halloween” from the rafters in the garage. There were assorted skulls, cardboard black cats, gravestones, plastic vampire bats, ghostly sheets, masks, a tattered black smock and skeletal green hands… almost everything he needed. He drove over to an antique shop in the next county and there, in a dusty corner of the store, he found what he was looking for: an old hand-crafted broom in the style of the 18th-century, with stiff stalks of broomcorn. Halloween arrived. A dry breeze scattered dead leaves down the street in front of Chuck’s house. He hung the ghosts from the trees, laid out the coffin with the body, placed the gravestones firmly on the lawn, and set out the jack-o’-lanterns. In the window he arranged his prized miniature band of mariachi skeletons. By the time he had completed his newest creation, the streetlights had started to come on. Standing in the shadows of the porch was a witch in a tattered black smock. All you could see of its downward glancing face was a pointed green chin, its eyes out of view under a ragged black hat. In its arms it held the old broom. Chuck poured out the bags of candy into a large dish beside the door. In the fireplace he placed some of the logs from the dismembered oak tree, and soon the first wisps of smoke were climbing up the chimney. Along the street, the youngest children were already walking hand in hand with their mother or father, tykes dressed up as Batman and Spiderman and the Little Mermaid, but none ventured into his yard. The ghosts swayed in the trees, and the candles flickered inside the jack-o’-lanterns. As the light leeched from the October evening, the older kids began to emerge: witches with pointed hats, silver robots, a creature with scales. They approached the house warily, never taking their eyes off the witch in the corner of the porch. Like a black cat slipping through a fence, night arrived. Soon the middle schoolers were finally out: devils, pirates, a group dressed like Easter Island megaliths, a ghoulish rabbit with a skeletal face. Melissa Longacre came down the street in a trio of teenagers. One was wearing a blue wizard’s hat decorated with stars and moons. They walked up the path and climbed the steps to the front door. Just as Melissa rang the bell, her companion said, “Hey, the witch moved.” Melissa looked over at the bent figure. “Yeah, right.” Chuck answered the door to a chorus of “Trick-or-treat.” The guy in the wizard hat held out a bag already bulging with candy. “Awesome decorations,” said the wizard. “Thanks,” said Chuck, dropping an extra helping of candy into the bag. As they turned to go, Melissa looked again at the witch and gasped. Its head was now lifted and looking straight up at them. Then she laughed. “Hey, how did you do that?” “Do what?” asked Chuck. “The witch. How did you make its head move?” “Huh?” Chuck peered out onto the porch and was startled to see the position of the head had changed. “Okay, guys, enough with the pranks.” He approached the witch and tilted its head back down toward the floor. “We didn’t do anything to it,” protested the wizard. Chuck ignored the comment but grinned. “Well, anyway, enjoy the rest of your Halloween.” As they headed toward the street, Melissa looked back at the witch. Its head was still facing downward, but she thought she saw the broom move. “This place always creeps me out,” she said to her companions, and they hurried down the path. When the next batch of trick-or-treaters rang his bell, Chuck spotted Paul and Joyce Rivkin standing on the path. He stepped out onto the porch. “I didn’t even recognize your kids,” he laughed, patting the youngest one on the head. “Great decorations, Chuck,” said Joyce. “Even better than last year.” The kids scampered back down to their parents. “They wouldn’t go up to the door unless we came half way,” said Paul. Joyce waved goodbye and they went on to the next house. As Chuck turned to go inside, he noticed the witch’s head had lifted up again, staring right at him. “Damn teenagers,” he muttered, and went back over to re-position the head. As he walked back toward the door, he heard something skitter behind him. He whirled around and nearly stumbled off the porch when he saw that the witch was standing right behind him. The body was still in the same bent position, head still looking down, face partly obscured, hands holding the broom, only it had moved about ten feet. There was no one behind it. How could it have moved? He felt around the figure for strings, and felt the arms and shoulders to make sure there was nothing but the stuffing he had placed in there. Carefully he lifted the witch and moved it back to the corner of the porch. But this time, he backed away from it, never letting it out of his sight. The fire was burning strongly now, warming the room. He added another log and stirred the fire with the poker. He heard young footsteps outside on the porch, followed by the doorbell. Just as he opened the door, the two girls screamed. Instinctively he looked toward the corner and was shocked to see the back of the witch as it jumped over the railing and disappeared into the night. The two costumed girls who were at his door turned and fled. Chuck started to dial the police, but stopped before he reached the last number. What would he tell them—that a stuffed figure had leaped off his porch and taken off into the woods? He canceled the call and instead dialed Roy Longacre. “Listen, Roy, something very strange has happened. The story that Old Man Hawkins tells about the witch—what do you know about it?” “A little bit. Why?” “Who did the hanging?” “Well, it was so long ago. A bunch of people from town, is what he always said.”
“But who led the mob?” “I don’t know. Or… Well, I think it was his great-great granddad.” “Meet me over at Old Man Hawkins’ place—quick! I’ll explain there.” From his truck, Chuck tried calling Old Man Hawkins on his cell, but there was no answer. He arrived just as Roy was pulling up. “What’s going on, Chuck?” asked Roy. “I don’t know.” A light shone from an upstairs window, but the rest of the house was dark. Chuck noticed the front door was ajar. “Hawkins!” he called out as he pushed the door open and stepped inside. He groped for the light switch and flicked it on. “Hawkins!” Above them they heard a scuffle followed by something crashing to the floor. Chuck ran up the stairs with Roy trailing behind. “Chuck, what’s going on?” A light was coming from the doorway at the top of the stairs. They rushed inside and abruptly stopped. Before them was a ghastly scene. The bedsheets were disheveled, a chair was overturned, and the bedside lamp had fallen to the floor, illuminating the slumped body of Old Man Hawkins. His neck had been sliced clean open, blood spilling out over his chest and pooling on the floor. The two men suddenly became aware of another presence in the room, lurking in the corner in shadow beside the armoire: a bent figure in a tattered black smock. The witch slowly raised its head, and in the sockets of the mask-like face were two eyes glowing like coals that stared directly at them. But before the men could move, the witch vanished, as if it had never been there. For a moment, Chuck doubted whether he had even seen anything. That’s when he noticed on the floor, not far from the body of Old Man Hawkins, an old 18th-century hand-carved broom. # # # About the Author Jon O’Bergh is a musician and author. He has released 7 CDs, performed with the jazz/funk fusion band Gemini Soul, and written a memoir titled Song of Fire that explores the essence of music in our lives. He traces his interest in ghost stories back to his childhood, when his mother would gather the neighbor children on the lawn during summer evenings and delight them with ghoulish stories. This book is dedicated to her memory. Visit http://obergh.net to explore Jon’s music.