A test reader read my new story 'Hot Date' and gave the following review:
"It is Dark, twisted, graphic, and not ready for the mainstream." LOL! Easily the greatest review I've ever received! (This reader is not a personal friend and has never read my work before.)
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Sunday, April 14, 2013
A Simple Ghost Story
I've never been the type to get spooked
when it came to things the go bump in the night, but recently, there
was an occurrence in my home that refuses to be ignored.
My home is one half of a duplex that is
one hundred and twelve years old and stands a couple of hundred yards
from the ancestral home of Abigail Adams.
The house itself is rather unimpressive,
being of the standard suburban Boston fare. When entering, you must
pass through what in the past was a screened porch that had been
converted into an entry way and an addition to the dining room. The
staircase to the upstairs bedrooms is the very first thing that you
see when entering the house. To the left of the entryway is the
dining room which is where the original house terminated; the kitchen
lies beyond that if you were to continue to the left. To the right of
the entryway is the living room, or parlor.
The stairway that leads to the upstairs
bedrooms wraps around on itself, so if you climb the stairs from
below, you will end up facing in the opposite direction when you have
reached the top of the first staircase. There is a window immediately
in front of you and a bedroom to the left and the right. The stairs
wrap around again to ascend to the attic bedroom, whose door lies to
the left once the stairs have been climbed.
Having lived in the house for several
years and not having experienced anything strange, My wife and I had
assumed that the house was to be considered 'inactive' in the
paranormal sense; boy, were we wrong!
My wife and I had both had interests in
the world of the paranormal in the past; having both been involved
with various investigation groups and fancied ourselves rather
accomplished whenever the subject arose in conversation. So, when the
following account happened, it did not take long before we'd realized
that we were not quite up to snuff.
It happened while the two of us were
lying in bed in the attic bedroom, reading, as we were wont to do
before going to sleep. There was a ruckus that appeared to come from
the first floor; it sounded like furniture was being thrown and
broken.
"What the hell was that?!" I
exclaimed. The noise was extremely loud and had continued for several
seconds.
My wife had already leaped out of the bed
and was at the doorway peering down the staircase. "I have no
idea. It sounded like a table had been flipped over or something."
She replied. Her voice never betrayed the looked of concern in her
eyes.
Fearing an intruder, I rose from the bed
and searched the room for something, anything, that could pass for a
weapon; I had no intention of wandering into a dangerous situation
without some form of protection in hand. I had to settle for a
miniature wooden baseball bat that Wendy, my wife, had purchased at a
major league baseball game some years prior; why it was so handy,
I'll never know, but it fit the bill as well as anything else I would
have found in the bedroom.
Clasping the tiny bat, I began to make my
way down the stairs toward the second floor. I would never have
admitted it at the time, but I was petrified of what I might discover
when I had reached the first floor.
I made every effort to keep my footsteps
as silent as possible, but the old wooden stairs seemed bent on
announcing to the world that I was descending them. With every creeeaak of the steps, I winced as though I was stepping on
upturned nails. Eventually, I made it to the second floor landing,
sweat had begun to bead up on my brow.
The second floor landing is small enough
that I could peer around the corner to the first staircase that leads
to the next landing; the darkness was unnerving enough, but the sound
of footfalls from below made the hair on my neck stand up and my
heart skip a beat.
Looking up the stairs toward the doorway
of the attic bedroom, my eyes met those of Wendy; She's heard the
footsteps as well. "Want me to call the police?" she
whispered, the fear in her eyes had multiplied by this point.
I shook my head and turned my attention
to the stairs leading to the first floor once again; gathering my
resolve, I began the slow descent into the unknown.
I was about half the distance down the
stairs when another deafening crash sounded from the floor below me;
I froze instantly; every fiber of my being was tensed as I fought to
keep myself from darting back up the stairs to relative safety. The
darkness of the staircase was no longer my friend, it had become an
even more potent enemy than whoever, or whatever was trouncing around
the first floor of my home. I resisted the urge to turn the lights
on; they could keep me from obtaining any semblance of the element of
surprise on the intruder.
There were more footfalls, heavy
footfalls. I silently prayed that this person wasn't so large that I
would be overpowered too quickly to be able to make this trip
worthwhile. The beating of my heart had become deafening, and I took
a moment to try to calm myself down somewhat; the effort hadn't
accomplished much.
Once I had at least gained some
composure, I began to descend once again when the footfalls from
below grew louder; they were approaching the stairs! I stood
stock-still and gripped the small bat to reassure myself that I would
be able to knock someone unconscious in the event of a struggle. I
also realized that I was holding my breath. As I exhaled as quietly
as I felt was possible, the footsteps ceased; at what sounded like
the bottom of the stairs.
Had they heard me? Was my position
compromised? I had no idea; no idea that is, until I heard the steps
resume, and they were now ascending the staircase,
Fear gripped me tightly. I prepared
myself for the fight that was surely coming up those stairs. Each
step that the intruder took shook the small amount of resolve that
remained within me. I was standing solidly on the landing above the
first floor when the footsteps of the intruder indicated that they
too, were now on the landing with me. I swallowed hard and decided to
tell them that I had a weapon and wasn't afraid to use it.
"Stop right there!" I croaked.
"I don't want to have to hurt you!"
The footsteps ceased and there was a long
silence; a foreboding silence, and I could swear before a judge that
I heard breathing that did not belong to me.
With a blinding flash, the hall light
snapped on and I found myself staring directly at the wall of the
staircase.
"Are you okay?" Wendy called
from directly above me. "I heard you yelling."
I was dumbfounded; Where had the intruder
gone? How the hell could I be alone on the landing?
"Are you okay!?" she called as
she made her way down from the bedroom.
"I'm fine, I don't- I don't
understand it." I stammered.
We embraced briefly as Wendy explained
that once she'd heard me calling out, she couldn't bear to stand idly
by. I reassured her that I was okay, regardless of the sheen of
perspiration that had collected on my face and soaked through my
t-shirt.
Making our way downstairs, we
investigated the first floor entirely; nothing was out of place,
nothing was broken, and all doors were closed and locked. Eventually,
we decided that perhaps we'd heard noise from one of our neighbor's
homes and turned in for the night. Though neither of us was really
convinced.
To this day, I have no idea what had
really happened that night, and I'm not sure that I want to, but I know that I was not alone on that landing, and no one will
ever convince me otherwise.
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