Title Page
This is the story of a strange encounter I had several years ago. I tried to use as many of my pictures as I could think of to display the events. Others I put together with bits and pieces. None of the pictures until the last one are from the actual scenes so I guess you could say the story is true the settings are borrowed. I tried to use pictures that were as close to what it really looked like as I could.
It was fun putting together. I hope you have fun reading it.
I thought it might be fun to do for Halloween.
Scene 1
The old house stood at the edge of town. Large Elm trees and dust covered ragged bushes guarded it from total view until all that one could see were bits of a dwelling from within their depths.
The inside was filled with moving shadows caused by the many outside trees and though it appeared haunted it didn’t seem all that alien or sinister to me the first time I was there. That was in the late summer of '61 right after my brother and his family moved into the old house. I took a partial tour of the place that day along with other family members. It wasn't until some time later that I realize the shadows were from more than just the surrounding trees.
Scene 2
Next to the living room was a sitting room that looked right out of the Lizzy Borden era. There wasn't anything in the house that seemed to belong to my brother or the family. No family portraits no pictures of the three small boys nothing. They suddenly seemed to be strangers living in a stranger's house. A house that wasn't even in our time zone a house where time had stopped years before.
After a brief glance at the downstairs that afternoon I became bored - as only a young teenager can soon become with such events - and I left to meet a friend. I didn’t go back until late October and when I did I had an encounter that I haven't been able to explain to this day.
Scene 3
I got out of school early on that late October afternoon and decided to stroll the few blocks to the edge of town to see the rest of the house. My sister-in-law had been bugging me to come over and it was a beautiful sunny fall day so I went.
My brother would be at work and the boys were still in school, (only the high school was released early that day) so I knew Ann would be alone.
All the houses along the way were decorated for Halloween and I realized Halloween was the next day.
I wasn't into Halloween, that was for kids, and I equated ghosts goblins and hauntings with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I was soon to discover there just might be some things that are beyond the power of reason whether we choose to believe them or not.
Scene 4
When I reached the house I scuffled slowly up the leaf-strewn driveway not really wanting to be there. I knew I'd have to feign interest where there wasn't any. Everything was not only old and antiquated in that house but the old man that had lived there had painted crude scenes from his childhood on the walls in every room except the sitting room. The paintings looked like pictures children bring home and tape to the refrigerator with square houses, barns and sheds, that leaned, and animals that also leaned. Throughout the scenes were the typical elementary trees with balloon foliage and a scattering of stick people. Though the artwork wasn't totally repulsive it looked as out of place as everything else in the house did. But then... maybe everything fit the house perfectly and the people were out of place. Whatever it was something wasn't right there and some part of me must have picked up on it the first and last time I was there.
Scene 5
I found Ann in the kitchen cooking.
After our initial greeting I volunteered to help with anything she needed done though housework was not high on my list of priorities.
My Sister-in-law smiled and said, “Believe it or not but I have everything done," and thanked me for volunteering my services.
Soon the conversation lagged as we didn't have a lot in common with a 15 year age gap so I was glad when Ann suggested that I go ahead and look around the rest of the house on my own. "You didn't see much of it when you were here after we moved in," she added giving me a knowing look. She picked up a spoon and started stirring the simmering red sauce in a kettle on the stove.
Ann was Italian and made the best Spaghetti I had ever had. She asked me to stay for supper saying that she would drive me home later because it would be dark.
I readily agreed not knowing that soon I would not be able to spend one minute longer than I absolutely had to in that house.
Scene 6
The scent of spaghetti sauce followed me as I went to the back entrance where the back staircase was. I had seen most of the main floor and Ann had mentioned the sewing room upstairs. I didn't think about it at the time but somebody could very easily slip in the back door and up the stairs without anybody knowing it. That was at a time when everybody in small towns were honest and nobody locked their doors. How quickly the Clutter murders had been forgotten, but then this wasn't Kansas nor even close to it.
A fleeting shadow slithered along the upstairs wall but it didn't bother me. I hurried up the steps.
At the top the air grew warm and heavily scented of old attic mingled with the scent of the Spaghetti sauce. Usually cooking odors makes a house seem homey but the mingling of scents somehow seemed unsavory.
I glanced down a long shadowy hall that ended with two windows though I could only see one I knew the other was in front of the second staircase that went down into the living room I had noticed it on my previous visit.
There were two closed doors along the corridor, but the third and closest door stood open. I walked over and started to step inside a mini sewing factory then caught my breath and quick-stepped back out into the hall my hand over my heart.
Scene 7
An old dress form stood like a headless talisman in the shadows and a play of light on it made it appear to move.
The house had been inherited with everything in it as though the people that once lived there had simply walked away never to return.
The deceased owner had created many things in that room. She was known for her fur coats, but her fortè had been designing and sewing wedding dresses. She also gave lessons so there were many sewing machines scattered around the room.
When I stepped into the room I caught a glimpse of a sudden streak out of the corner of my eye and heard what sounded like every marble in my head tumbling to the floor. I froze ready for fight or flight.
Scene 8
The cat had jumped on a sewing machine knocking a box of bobbins to the floor.
Above Scruffy's head was a bulletin board displaying several yellowed and tattered newspaper clippings. I stepped into the room and strolled over to it scratching the cat's head while I glanced at the clippings. They were mostly wedding announcements with pictures of women in flowing white gowns. Each announcement stated, Bride's dress designed and created by Mary Reed.
The room chilled and gloominess surrounded me like a cloud covering the sun on a summery day. I glanced out the window. The sunny day had turned slate gray.
The cat arched his back and hissed at me then jumped to the floor and shot out of the room and down the stairs as if the devil him self was chasing him.
The quick departure gave me pause and I too felt like I had to get out of that room. I started toward the doorway when the door slammed closed. I felt trapped!
Scene 9
A window at the side of the sewing room was open and a cool wind had swooped in closing the door.
I went over and closed the window then hurried out of the room.
I strolled down the dim hall passing the two closed doors on my right and the wall that enclosed the second staircase on my left. I stopped at a floor to ceiling bookshelf at the end of the hall. A huge ragged scrapbook caught my eye and I lifted it and started leafing through it expecting to find more wedding announcements but instead it was a collection of old newspaper clippings on newsworthy events. I don't remember what they all were, but one was about two prisoners that had escaped from the prison farm a couple miles down the road. That happened a long time ago so it didn't interest me much. The item that really caught my attention was the story the first successful sex change of a man transformed into a woman that took place in Switzerland. It was almost more than my young mind could comprehend. I couldn't believe that the beautiful woman that posed in the pictures was actually a man, or had been a man.
I turned so I would have better light from the window and something suddenly lodged against my back feeling like a gun barrel. I froze not knowing whether to drop the book and throw my arms in the air or to scream and run.
Scene 10
Without moving too much I tried to see what was behind me and a book shot to the floor. I must have somehow dislodged the book when I turned around and the edge of the spine caught me in the back. Feeling somewhat foolish I picked up the book and shoved it back on the shelf.
Hearing a rapping sound, like a bird pecking on glass, I glanced at the window. Rain made rivulets down it. I was glad I wouldn't have to walk home.
I carried the scrapbook to the head of the main staircase and sat down on the top step glancing down the long dim hall on the other side of the stairs. The boy's bedrooms were down that hall. I'd check that out later.
Placing my left shoulder against the wall I started to read more of the unbelievable story.
A while later I heard my sister-in-law rattling around in the sewing room but I didn't think anything of it. I was immersed in the article complete with several pictures of Franklin the man and Frances the woman.
Footsteps shuffled along the hall on the other side of the wall that I rested against and stopped right behind me. Assuming it was Ann I said, "This is an amazing story," without turning around.
When Ann didn't say anything I quick-glanced over my shoulder.
Shock riveted through me like a jolt of electricity!
Scene 11
A cold chill swept over me and every hair on my head stood on end. Nobody was there!
Throwing the scrapbook I charged; half falling; down the stairs, then ran through the living room and dining room to find Ann still in the kitchen where I’d left her.
Breathless I told her what had happened. She chuckled and said that I "looked like I'd seen a ghost."
I had a pretty good idea she didn't believe me. Shoot, I wasn't sure I believed it either. Yet, I knew a presence of some kind had walked up behind me. But what it was I didn't know and why it was I didn't know. All I know is that for a brief moment I seemed to have been caught up into some other time and place with an unknown and unseen presence that couldn’t have scared me more if it had been Norman Bate’s mother standing behind me with a butcher knife. Even unseen it was more real. But then when you stop to think about it Norman Bates'mother was never real to begin with.
