A Summer of Fear: A True Haunting in New England (10 page)

T
he sun was setting behind the trees, the sky purple with streaks of red. I could see the pond from my window and shivered at the implications my server had made. What was in there? Was it just an urban legend? My bedroom door was open, inviting. I expected the Czech girls to come visiting soon. The room across the hall was already deep in shadows. A thin pale light ran from my room, down the short hallway, and flooded the doorway. Like a trail of breadcrumbs, it seemed to welcome whatever was in there, possibly lead it right to my door. I didn’t care that night.

I’d already burned some sage and cleansed my room again. A line of salt was laid across my doorframe; nobody could supposedly enter if they meant me harm. I’d meditated over a necklace I bought in Boston and wore it as a talisman to offer more protection. Now I stood by my door, my hand on my knob, and watched the dark room across from me.

“Hello?” I called, doing my best to keep my voice steady. “Are you there?”

Nothing happened.

“I know what happened to you,” I said. “And I’m sorry. You must have felt sad, empty. Maybe you didn’t know what to do. I’ve felt that way, too. I’m sorry you felt this was the best option for you. And I know this is your home and I’m an intruder here, but you can’t keep scaring me. I don’t know that I can help you. You know the way you felt before you died? I’m starting to feel that way, too. And I don’t want to. You have to give me a break, cut me some slack.”

The house remained quiet, but the pale light that once reached to the other door now started dissolving. As I watched in dismay, a dark shadow edged over it, creeping inch by inch until most of the line was gone. I could feel eyes on me, someone or something looking not only at me but through me, inside of me. Was there something standing across from me, mere feet away, studying me from their doorway as I tried to study it? The hair on the back of my neck stood up at point and cold chills ran down my arms. My instinct was to slam my door and lock myself inside, but I couldn’t make myself move.

“It’s not just the noises, I might be able to live with that, but you’re
always
here, always watching me and messing with me. It makes me nervous. I’m scared. I don’t know how to help you. I don’t know what to do. So I want you to just leave me alone.”

The last word was no sooner out of my mouth then the door to the empty room slammed shut with a force that made my own door quiver in its frame. The pale line of light reappeared now, unhampered by whatever had made it vanish.

Moments later, two sets of footsteps came running up the stairs. I could hear Merricka and Sarah panting. “Are you okay?” Merricka called as the neared the top. They were staying in a cabin on the other side of the resort and had already walked nearly half a mile to reach me at the farm house.

“We heard a loud bang,” Sarah wheezed.

“It’s just my neighbor,” I pointed to the closed door. “I don’t think he wanted to play.”

The girls talked me into going out that night, drinking with them at a local bar. I obliged, but I didn’t drink. When I returned home the door to the empty room was open again. Nothing changed. The whispers and thuds against my door, if anything, grew louder.

It doesn’t care that it’s bothering me
, I told myself as I pulled my blanket up over my face.
I think it likes the fact that it’s driving me insane
.

I
thought
knowing
would help me deal with what was going on.

It didn’t.

That first night, I turned my music up and was actually able to ignore the sounds. I did okay on the second night, too. When I came out of the shower after work and heard a loud “thump” above me, I ignored it. Singing to myself, I nonchalantly walked up the stairs, paying no mind to the light footsteps that paced back and forth across the hall. I let myself into my room, smiled, and closed the door. Then I collapsed on the bed. But it was progress. I had a good four hour stretch of sleep without waking up and didn’t even flinch when I went to the bathroom in the middle of night, in spite of the loud exhale that filled the stairwell when I started down it.

A sad man
, I told myself.
A man who couldn’t deal with whatever was in his heart and found a long-term solution to a short-term problem
.

Above, a crash and moan amplified my thoughts. It was quiet after that.

But the next day, after work, I had another kind of surprise. As I let myself up the stairs and started towards my door, a nasty surprise met me. I nearly stepped on it but just happened to look down at the last moment and caught myself. The whole house could’ve heard my scream, had anyone else been in it.

There, neatly placed where I couldn’t possibly miss it, was a mutilated rat. It wasn’t just dead; it had been cut into at least four parts. The blood pooled and ran under my door in thick lines.

I vomited twice as I cleaned it up. And I swore I could hear the faint tinkling of laughter.

The next evening, after taking the Czech girls to the movies, I returned to find a dead bird in the same position. It was so mutilated, I couldn’t even tell what kind of bird it had been.

“Maybe someone plays bad joke?” Sarah demanded in disgust. They helped me clean this one up.

“Maybe,” I replied. “But that’s pretty sick.”

I informed Janet of the dead bird and rat. “Maybe they ate some poison,” she shrugged. “We DO lay out traps around here.”

“And cut itself into several pieces afterwards?” I countered.

She didn’t have an answer for that.

John Paul, the Scotsman, came in later that afternoon. “I’m in some serious need of cash,” he demanded as he marched up to my desk.

“You and me both, buddy,” I laughed.

“I’m not your ‘buddy,’” he retorted.

“Geeze, relax,” I sighed. “It’s just an expression. What do you need?”

“Cash, I told you. Are you deaf?”

Highly offended, I sat back and glared at him. “Um, first of all, you don’t need to speak to me in that tone. And secondly, as much as I’d like to have a wad of hundreds stuck behind my ear, I don’t. What exactly do you want me to do about your situation?”

“Don’t you have some petty cash in your desk you could give me?” he gestured towards my drawers.

“No, they don’t give me that kind of money. Do you need something for the resort?”

“No, I need to go out tonight,” he whined.

“Well, you definitely couldn’t use petty cash for that,” I advised. “But go talk to Tina. She might be able to give you an advance on your paycheck or something.”

He stomped out, muttering under his breath. I heard the word “bitch.” Maybe Sarah was right. Maybe someone was playing a bad joke on me. He was a good candidate.

An hour later, Kory sauntered into the office and approached me. “Janet told me I need to train you on how to use the fax machine.”

“Oh, it’s okay, she showed me on my first day,” I said. “I’ve got it.”

“Yes, but there are certain procedures you need to know. Like how to address a fax, how to fill out a form, what kind of heading to use.”

“Isn’t there a fax cover sheet? I thought I saw a stack of them here,” I said, confused.

“Yes, but you have to make sure your spelling is good, that you use proper grammar. I’m meant to train you on that.”

I must have looked at her like she had two heads because she took a step back. “So you’re not going to train me on how to send a fax…you’re here to train me on how to spell correctly?”

She nodded.

“Kory, let me ask you all a question…Why did you hire me? I thought it was because I had eight years of office experience. I started working as the assistant to an executive director when I was seventeen years old. I can understand being trained when it comes to where things are, how to use programs that are exclusive to your organization, and what your protocols are. But these are not things I’m being trained on. Instead, I’m being trained on how to talk on the phone, how to use a stapler, and how to dust. Did anyone actually read my resume when I was hired?”

Her mouth dropped open a few inches and then her lips curled in anger. “You don’t have to be so rude to me,” she snapped.

“I knew that when I was hired here it was to do some general office work, but I’m barely doing that. In fact, I get treated like I’m an idiot,” I snapped back.

“Well, some of it is the way you speak.”

“You mean my attitude?”

“No, the way you pronounce your words,” she chided. “Janet and Linda are afraid to have you on the phone. Customers can’t understand you. We were going to work with you on that.”

I was stunned. “I’m from the south,” I muttered. “I’m not losing my accent just because someone from the north doesn’t understand me. Nobody’s ever had trouble before.”

I excused myself then and stalked outside. Merricka was sitting on the porch, waiting for Sarah. One look at my face showed her I was upset. “Are you okay?” I told her what had transpired.

“Oh God!” she seethed. “You’re one of the only people here I can understand at all! They are just being mean. Just mean.”

“I don’t know what’s worse,” I mumbled. “The ghosts or the people.”

T
hat night I was getting ready to bed when a low grumbling sound filled the room. It started low, like the beginning of a clap of thunder, and steadily grew louder until my walls began to shake. An earthquake? I ran to my window and looked outside, but nothing was moving. It was just inside. Behind me, my doorknob began rattling, the door shaking in its frame as though trying to open on its own. I ran to it and placed my hands on the wood. It was burning hot, like it had been outside in the sun all day. Then another horrific thought struck me. A fire? Oh God! But the knob was cool to the touch. It was just the wood that was hot.

“Stop it!” I called, banging on the door. “Stop it!”

The door vibrated in response, the heat now coming off it in waves. I could actually see them.

Probably not my best move, but not knowing what else to do, I gave the door a tug and flung it open. The door across the hall was closed but when I took a step outside it started inching over, faster and faster. I couldn’t stay and watch so I turned and began clamoring towards the stair. Two steps down, though, and the overhead light blew above me, sending the stairwell into almost total darkness. The door at the bottom was shut, something I didn’t remember doing, and I picked up speed, feeling for the banister for balance. Above me, I could hear footsteps picking up their pace; it was following me.  A few steps from the bottom I reached for the doorknob I knew was there when what felt like a ton of pressure pushed me from behind. Losing my balance, I tumbled towards the door, banging my head on the wood with a clunk. My hand found the knob, though, and I fell off the stairs, face first, onto the landing.

Dazed, I lay there on the floor, my face pressed against the cool tiles. The footsteps had stopped. The room beyond kept fading from light to dark. My head was pounding.
Well
, I thought,
maybe I’ll just lay here for a minute and take a little nap
.

Sarah and Merricka found me. They helped me up and led me back up the stairs where the two of them mothered me and put me to bed. I had a large bump on my head and my leg was bleeding. I’d cut it on the wooden stairs somehow. They cleaned this, too.

“You get out tomorrow,” Merricka chided. “You tell them to let you move to another place.”

I nodded my head in agreement. “I need to go email David,” I said woozily.

“You do it later,” Sarah said. “He will understand. We will stay for a long time with you.”

When I woke up at midnight and, again at 3:00 am, they were still there. They were still there the next morning, too, when it was time to go to work. They were huddled together on my floor, my bathrobe wrapped around them.

W
hat’s on your head?” Janet asked. She didn’t sound particularly interested, though.

“I fell down the stairs last night,” I said. “Or something pushed me.”

“I don’t think we’ve ever had someone so clumsy,” she mused. “Isn’t this the second time you’ve done that?”

“The light blew out. It was dark.”

“Hmmm…”

I went about my filing and later dropped a note to David and Mom. David was looking at airline tickets again. He was ready to book his. I couldn’t wait to see him. I wanted him there now. I’d glossed over the incident from the night before in my email to him, but I planned on going out later and calling him to tell him all about it. Merricka and Sarah were enthralled with our relationship; they wanted pictures, they wanted details, and they wanted to meet him. “He’s a little like a dream,” Sarah had cooed after glancing at one of his messages to me. “He’s so caring.”

“It is my dream to meet an American man,” Merricka admitted. “Maybe one from the south with a mansion.”

“You and me both, girlfriend,” I laughed.

I couldn’t believe how much better I was feeling, despite the horror from the night before. Just having friends and girls I could talk and laugh with was enough to lift my spirits. I briefly wondered if that’s why the attic was mad. Maybe because it wasn’t pulling me in as hard as it had been. Misery loves company, after all.

I’d taken time with my looks that morning. I was tired of looking and feeling tired all the time. I applied my makeup with care, picked out a matching skirt and top and low heels, and even curled my hair. I felt and looked a little more like my “old” self, even the self before all the sadness back in Kentucky.

Despite my pounding head and the scratch on my leg that really hurt more than it should have, the morning flew by. The filing and emails gave me something to do. I was looking at hostels in Vermont, too, for the weekend. It was time to branch out and try a state I’d never visited. Why not take that opportunity while I was here?

I can do this
, I cheered myself on,
I can still make this a fabulous summer
. Ghost be damned.

After lunch, Janet and Linda, the director, called me into Linda’s office. I gathered up my courage. Now was the time to demand I be moved. I wasn’t staying another night in that attic. Enough was enough. If nothing else, the injury should’ve worked in my favor.

When I walked in, Linda pointed to a spot on her couch. I sat there while Janet sat beside me. Linda sat across from us in a rolling chair. Both doors to her office were wide open and other staff members walked by, their chattering filling the air. Both women had pleasant looks on their faces, but neither one had smiles that reached their eyes.