The house

It was in Missouri somewhere, we moved around so often in those days, my Mother and sisters and me. I will always remember that house tho.

It was a simple house, white inside and out, small and rather old. There was
a large living room with a bathroom, kitchen and two bedrooms off the main
living area. We were so thankful for it, a real house. My mother took one
bedroom and we three girls took the other. It seemed fine in the beginning,
we were so glad not to have to live in a car or barn. We had no immediate
neighbors, just empty lots on either side. Nice and private. In the
following days we would come to understand why.

The first thing was the odd smell. It was unpleasant but not necessarily
intolerable, something like dead, rotting flowers. Wet and moldy smelling.
It was always in the living room outside the bathroom door. With the
bathroom being right there we thought maybe it was a sewer problem. It
wasn't.

The continuous odor was soon followed by what sounded like hundreds of tiny
people marching around in army boots up in the attic. But only above the
living room in front of the bathroom door.

My mother checked out the attic standing on a small ladder just outside the
bathroom where the crawl space was. But she saw nothing at all, even as the
marching continued. Rats maybe ?

The stench and noise alone would have probably driven most people out, but
we couldn't leave. My mother made very little money and we had spent what we
had on getting the house, so we just put up with it.

Then, one night not long after the sounds of marching had begun, we were
awakened by the toilet flushing, again and again and again. We girls
gathered on the old couch in the living room, crying and afraid, while my
mother investigated. She was scared too, but I think, also excited. We were
just scared.

After some minutes she called us over and we could clearly see the handle
moving, as if an invisible hand were flushing. It didn't stop. Then, as if
to say, "you think that's something?", the faucet handles on the sink turned
on full force and water began pouring out. My mother said not to be afraid,
she was sure it was a nice ghost! We all slept in her room that night.

The next morning we begged my mother to stay home from work but she said we
couldn't afford it, so we girls stayed outside all day. When she pulled in
that evening we went inside together. Everything had stopped. The smell, the
marching, the flushing, the sink, all quiet. As if none of it had ever
happened.

We ate supper that night in the kitchen instead of the living room where we
usually ate. My mother was telling us about her day when suddenly, a few
feet away, from the broom closet, a radio began blasting rock n roll music.
We owned one radio only and it sat quietly on the kitchen counter beside us.

My mother jumped up and flung open the closet door only to find silence and
a broom. Then it was at the window blasting away like a live band there
under our sill. She rushed outside after it, shouting for us to stay where
we were. The backdoor slammed shut after her making us scream, but worse,
the music was back in the closet.

My mother came back into the kitchen and started to say something when she
heard it again too. She moved to be between us and it, looked at us
strangely, then turned back and screamed at the music to leave her house now
and not return. The sound of her voice scared me more than the music had but
not as much as what was to come.

As if in response to my mothers words, the music just stopped. Nothing but
the sound of our crying remained. My mother gathered us into the living room
and onto the old couch, where we talked quietly about trying to find another
house soon. Maybe in a month or so. But as we talked, dust began to fall
from the crawl space cover to the attic.

We shut up at once and my mother got up and began to walk slowly toward it.
She hadn't taken three steps when tiny holes started appearing all over the
crawl space cover, as if someone were up there punching thru it with an ice
pick over and over again. We all froze, as much out of amazement as fear.
Hundreds of holes appeared in seconds and then just stopped. We watched as
the last bit of dust floated to the floor as if in slow motion.

There is a silence of space and time that occurs only rarely thru out our lives, an
instant when everything in the universe ceases. This was one of those times.

Then, like a cold hard slap in the face, everything started again. The odor,
the marching, the flushing, the sink, the music and the hole punching. All
at once, all together, and this time it didn't stop.

We were screaming and crying hysterically as my mother ushered us out into the damp night and into the car. We slept in the car that night and in the morning, with a police officer and the landlord present, we moved out.

The house was empty and still when we left. Certainly no sign that anything
unusual had ever happened there. Well, except for the hundreds of tiny holes
in the crawl space cover, which the landlord ask my mother to pay for.

My mother laughed at him, so hard i thought she was having a breakdown, but
suddenly she stopped, said excuse me, got us all into the car and drove
away.

Think what you will, but I was there.

Juli