Wow, Margaret,First let me say, welcome to my blog.
Second, let me say, you really scared
me with this story. And to think it's real. You make me shudder.
What an eerie tale for Halloween. Tell us about it.
Most people think of houses when they think of something
haunted. They think of dark creaky old wooden stairways, or closed, locked
rooms that groan and whisper in desolate homes overgrown with weeds and twisted
vines. These are the places people usually think of when they talk about a
haunted house. I used to think that too, but not any more.
I live in an apartment building and I know my apartment is
haunted. A shiver can still run down my spine when I remember the first time I
realized this.
Our building, constructed in 1926 is a sturdy four-story
walk up. From our dining room windows we look out onto a charming courtyard
with trees that were planted when the structure was first built. Today the
trees nearly reach the top of the roof, the branches spread out like a canopy,
and the roots stretch far beneath the foundation of the apartment house, or so
we imagine. When our windows are open in the warm weather we can hear the
leaves rustle and chatter in the gentle breezes. No mater what the season,
birds and squirrels scamper about in the trees. Who would suspect in this
tranquil setting there would be something haunting us?
I believe the haunting comes from the cement, the plaster,
the wood, and the paint, and from within the pores of the very brick that makes
this building stand so tall; the haunting comes from the blood and the bones of
the building itself.
There is a pattern to the haunting. Everything is quiet for
a while. The weeks go along, the months, and there is a rhythmic hum in our
ordinary lives. Then it happens. Light bulbs burn out all at the same time;
faucets leak, appliances break down, and milk sours quickly in the
refrigerator. That’s how I know the haunting has come. That’s when I see
something -- a momentary blankness, emptiness in the air, and I think I see a
shadowy image flit down the hallway like quickly moving smoke. But, then, when
I look, whatever I’ve seen is gone. All that remains is a lingering,
disquieting smell. A smell that sits on the back of my tongue, an odor that I
smell as I exhale. And in the air I taste the moldy leaves rotting under the
trees. I sense eyes, too, eyes that look out from behind the layers of paint on
the walls, following me, silently waiting, watching.
At night when everyone has gone to bed I sometimes hear
footsteps coming down the hallway. The footsteps approach the door to my
bedroom, and then stop. Just as suddenly it’s gone and I know now that it
retreats back into the walls. I used to excuse this sound as the wood expanding
and contracting. But it’s footsteps, one after the other, deliberate,
purposeful steps, walking down the hallway.
Other people have thought they’ve seen something, or heard
something in their apartments, too. They discount any strange sound or
movements as being caused by their neighbors on the other side of the walls. I,
too, was once skeptical about the thing that haunts, but something happened,
and I no longer deny what I see or hear.
One day after my son left home and moved into an apartment
of his own, I was moving furniture, turning his newly empty bedroom into a
study for myself. I had taken my son’s bed apart, and then moved his comic book
collection and schoolbooks into the closet. I took his rock music posters down
from the wall and put up my own choice of art, a plaster head of Nefertiti and
a large photo of Billy Holiday. I was hard at work when all of a sudden I
thought I saw something, a movement, perhaps a dust fairy floating past my
vision. At first I ignored whatever it was, and told myself that nothing was
there. However, the image persisted at the corner of my eye. Something stood in
the doorway of my son’s room. I slowly turned. And there in the doorway stood
the strangest little fellow.
“Where the heck did you come from,” I murmured. Then I
closed my eyes. I could not believe what I saw. When I looked again, he was
still there. I waited for him to say something or to move. He did neither. He
simply stood silently watching me. I looked away again; wondering was he only a
piece of lint on my eyeball. I looked back. He was still standing in the
doorway.
This thing, this strange little man stood no taller than a
yardstick. His dark eyes, deeply set under bushy brows, glistened like candle
flames. His face and hands were the texture and color of tree bark and he wore
garments of coarse fabric. Gnarled misshapen toes poked out from under the
ragged edges of his pants legs. Thick, dark, bristly globs of hair stuck out
all about his head and his knobby hands hung at his side.
I remember thinking, “So, this is what you look like. I knew
you’d show up some day.” And I wondered if he had been living in my son’s messy
room all these years.
As we stood watching each other I felt as if we had spoken
before, or maybe we had touched each other somewhere, in the walls, in the
clothes closet, under the trees. After a moment I realized that all those night
of worry and hearing something coming down the hallway, coming toward me,
scaring me, were not so frightening after all. Then as unexpectedly as this
strange little man had appeared he was gone again, like a fading echo.
An icy chill crept down my back while I waited for him to
return. The skin on my hands was sweaty when I locked my fingers together
seeking my own comfort. I sat in a chair by the window and watched the doorway
for what seemed hours, but he never returned.
I don’t know what it was that happened that day, but
I do know that something definitely stood in that doorway looking at me. Some
days I’ve wondered if it had been a dream. I really did see something that day,
though, and I’ve asked myself many times, if this little guy was a part of the
building or was he a part of me. I don’t know which.
I do believe there is something magical about the
building I live in. I think I hear it breathing on some days. I feel it
contracting and expanding as I imagine the structure trying to heal itself,
make itself whole again when it learns of the pain and sadness in the lives of
the people who live inside the rooms. I like to think that the laughter of
children playing rains down on the courtyard and comforts the tired old
building as the giggles are sucked into the cracks of the brick and mortar
walls. And this strange little being, this thing that moves through wood and
plaster, a soul with eyes that flickered at me, has anyone else seen him?
I know that the light bulbs will continue to burn out all at
the same time and that there will be other strange happenings that no one will
be able to explain. And I also know that every once in a while this little
fellow will flit down the hallway making another vaporous appearance to a
purpose I cannot understand.
THE END
Very, very creepy Margaret
To be released in the
spring of 2014 from MuseItUP Publishing
FISH KICKER
by Margaret Mendel
Against the
unforgiving landscape of Alaska, Sharon Wolf, a single mother, struggles to
reclaim her life from alcohol abuse and regain the custody of her daughter. But
first she must overcome dwindling funds and find a place to live before the
harsh winter sets in. She gets a job as a fry cook in a backcountry bar, aptly
named The Nowhere, and begins to reconstruct her life. Her struggles are
further complicated when she is stalked by a murderer who thinks she witnessed
him kill an associate of his. In order to get her life back on track and regain
custody of her daughter, Sharon must call upon her inner strength and learn to
accept help from unexpected sources. Ultimately she learns to trust herself
when the murderer kidnaps her daughter and Sharon finds herself in a life and
death struggle.
About Margaret
Margaret
Mendel lives in New York City and is a past board member of Mystery Writers of
America and Sisters in Crime, NYC. She has an MFA in creative writing from
Sarah Lawrence. Many of her short stories have appeared in literary journals
and anthologies. For more than twenty years she worked in the mental health
field, though now she devotes herself to writing full time. She is an avid
photographer and not only drags a laptop, but a Nikon D7000 camera wherever she
goes. Read more about Margaret on her blog at: http://www.pushingtime.com/home/
Thank you for scaring us to death this Halloween, Margaret.
Well readers? Do you believe? Tell us about the ghost you met. Ahem, personally, I haven't and really don't care to meet any ghost soon.
Oh we do love comments. How about leaving one for Margaret today.
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