Post by Morgan Sierra on Dec 15, 2010 0:14:51 GMT -6
The Haunted House
The house was haunted. At least that is what people said. Lori did not think so. In all of the times she had been there never once had she ever seen a ghost. Not a single spook or spirit had ever materialized out of thin air, nor had any other type of unusual activity ever taken place. It was all a bunch of foolishness as far as she was concerned, just a bunch of nonsense designed to frighten young children like her.
Still, she could not help being fascinated by the old place. She often found herself standing outside the front gate staring wistfully at the front door, longing to go inside...just like she was at that moment. It definitely had some kind of hold over her...almost like it was casting a spell. She smiled at the thought, then slowly pushed the old gate open, its creaking hinges whining in protest.
Everybody else was afraid of the old house. It was easy to see why. The place had definitely seen better days. The faded remnants of white paint was flaking from the old wooden walls and the front porch was starting to sag. Dirt-stained windows were cracked and broken and some of the panes were missing completely, leaving empty spaces like eye-sockets in an old skull. The old screen door was barely hanging on its rusty hinges. Inside the furniture had long since been removed by the previous owners leaving nothing but dust and a few unwanted belongings scattered on the hardwood floors. It was just a skeleton of its former self, empty and barren.
Lori found it irresistible, perhaps because everybody else avoided it. This was her little hiding place, her own home away from home. A place where she could get away from the hustle and bustle of a six-year old's world. She loved every nook and cranny of it, in spite of its eccentricities.
She stealthily made her way up the stone walkway, past the tangled elderberry bushes that lined the front fence and under the gnarled branches of the two peach trees that stood sentry in the front yard. Those old trees still produced fruit in the summer, when the warm rays of the sun kissed the green leaves, and the sweet scent of nectar wafted through the air. The peaches grew big, juicy and succulent...amber yellow with patches of crimson and violet...like blood-stained balls made of gold.
Sometimes the neighborhood kids would build up the courage to jump the fence and grab a few peaches from the lower limbs, then run giggling with excitement and fear, holding their prizes like trophies for the world to see. They had confronted the haunted house and won.
Lori never picked the fruit. She just liked to look at them hanging peacefully amidst the leaves like golden ornaments on a Christmas tree. It was a very pretty thing to see.
That was during the summer though, when the world was still fresh and alive. It was autumn now. The warmer months had long since come and gone, leaving the branches empty and bare. Now they looked bleak and menacing, like scraggly claws on wrinkled wooden hands reaching out to grab anyone who tried to sneak by. She ducked past them, walked up the the front steps, then opened the door and went in.
Inside the house was dark and musty and it took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the low level of light. Not that she needed them to. Having been there so many times, she knew the old place by heart. Every creak of the floorboards was a familiar sound, every odor was a welcoming smell. She tenderly ran her fingers along the walls and over the old mantle where the fireplace stood. With the help of the sun's rays streaming through the curtainless windows she was gradually able to make out the floral pattern on the faded wallpaper. Each room was a different color. Dark green and brown in the living room, gray with blue violets in the kitchen. The two bedrooms were adorned with similar patterns, one a light blue with interwoven vines of tiny little blue and white orchids, and the other a pastel pink hue with miniature red roses. This was her favorite room. She loved the way it made her feel, full of peace and happiness. She wished that she really could live there. Other people had in the past. She envied them.
Once upon a time this had been somebody's home, a place of love and light and laughter. A place where children played and a family grew in a haven of warmth and caring. Those hardwood floors once echoed to the joyful pitter-patter of little feet. Mornings would bring the aroma of fresh coffee boiling in the pot, and bacon and eggs frying on the stove. At night the fireplace would crackle and pop as the young family gathered around the flames, basking in the warm glow and the sweet scent of burning cedar. The house had been filled with happiness.
That was before the madness began, before the horror stories and the nightmares...before John Mathers went crazy and murdered his family. Or so everybody said.
Lori had heard the stories often enough. People talked about them in hushed tones as if they were afraid to be spilling such a horrible secret...ashamed even to be privy to it. Some were shocked and outraged to even hear mention of such a thing. Others rolled their eyes and sneered, like they knew all along it was coming. There were a few who tried to find explanations or excuses.
It was not his fault, they said. He was drunk, an alcoholic who stumbled home in a drunken rage and waged war on his inner demons. His family was caught in the crossfire, just innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time...
He was a drug addict, they said. He must have been stoned out of his mind, high on heroin, or tripping on some newly discovered narcotic. He could have killed them without even knowing what he was doing. Imagine the horror he must have felt to awake and find his hands wrapped around his lifeless child's throat...
He was crazy, they said, totally insane...bats in the belfry, not all there, one can short of a six-pack. Maybe he just snapped. He could not take the pressure, finally threw in the towel and decided to take his family out with him. Too bad he did not have the courage to finish the job...
Balderdash, said Lori. She liked that word. She had no idea what it meant but her grandpa used to say it all the time, whenever he heard something he disagreed with. Then he would roll his eyes and shake his head and wonder aloud how people could be such fools. He would definitely have thought this story was balderdash, especially since John Mathers' wife had helped pack up their belongings when they were moving, and she was very much alive then. They quickly loaded everything onto a truck and headed out of town like their lives depended on it. It was only after they had left that the rumors began...followed by the ghost stories.
There were things going bump in the night. People began reporting unearthly sounds emanating from the old Mather house. Some said they heard the heart breaking sobs of a lonely little girl. Others heard innocent laughter as invisible children played hide and go seek. At night the empty halls would echo with nightmarish shrieks as if the dead were waging war in their graves.
A few hardy souls who went into the house (in the daytime of course) to investigate found childish drawings and hand prints in the dust on the walls and floor. Those who found the courage to go back a second time said that some of the discarded articles on the floor had been moved around, as if somebody had been playing with them. The news quickly fired the town's imagination.
People passing by in the street would quicken their pace lest they be vexed by the wicked demons that must have lurked inside that wood-framed lair.
Children riding by on their bicycles would stop and throw rocks at the old house trying to break out the few remaining windows, then peddle frantically away when they thought they saw something peering at them from the shadows. It was the ghost of the Mathers girl, they said. John must have murdered her and then fled the scene, leaving her mangled body buried in the vegetable garden or dumped in some deep well. Why else would they have left town so quickly, without even saying goodbye, and leaving some of their belongings scattered all over the floor? Most of the discarded relics were children's items such as books, clothes and a few old toys. If their little girl was still alive would they not have taken her things with them?
Maybe she had come back to wreak revenge on those who had wronged her. Maybe her spirit would not be able to rest until she had found her family again. Or maybe it was all just a bunch of...
"Hogwash," as Lori's mother would say. She remembered a time when her mom had tucked her into bed one Halloween night after the other kids had been telling stories of ghosts and goblins and Frankenstein's monster. "Don't you listen to all of those crazy stories," her mom had said as she kissed her on the cheek. "There's no such thing as ghosts."
Maybe she was right, thought Lori. After all, she had never seen a ghost. Even after all of the times she had been to the "haunted" house she had still never seen or heard anything unusual. There were no screams in the night, no sobbing little ghouls, no moaning or groaning or rattling of chains, or any of the other silly sounds that ghosts were supposed to make. Why would a ghost rattle a chain anyway? Didn't they have better things to do? If she were a ghost she certainly would not waste time rattling a chain. She would run and fly and have fun, and scare all of the boys who had been mean to her in school.
Then again, there were other times when she was not so sure. The nights were especially hard, when darkness would come creeping in like a thief, stealing the colors from the world. That is when the monsters would come, when the spooky stories would make her believe that ghosts and murderers were real. Sometimes she had nightmares that she was the one being strangled. She could feel the cold hands on her throat, tightening and squeezing as she struggled to breath, begging and pleading that she could just take one more breath...then she would wake up screaming, gasping for air, her heart pounding in her chest.
With the darkness wrapped around her, smothering her, she would tremble through the night, praying for the sunrise. Everything would be better when the sun came up and cast its golden glow on the world, its rays seeking out the cracks and crevices where the monsters lived and chasing the shadows back to their lairs. In the daytime the world was pretty again, and houses were just places where people lived...or used to.
She wondered where the family had gone? It had been almost ten years since they had moved away. Did they ever think about the little house they left behind? Would they care that people were saying that it was haunted? Probably not. They must be busy getting on with their lives, going to work, paying the bills, raising their family. The old house was nothing but a shadow of a memory. They had no time for it.
But Lori did. She had all the time in the world. Sometimes she would sneak into the old house and just sit and stare out the windows, watching life as it passed her by. Other times she would think of the crazy ghost stories and laugh and say balderdash, then shake her head and wonder how people could be so silly. But she knew a secret that the townspeople did not know...the hand prints were hers! Sometimes she would write her name or draw pictures in the dust. She was only playing...she didn't mean to fool anybody. She was just a little girl and she wanted to have fun. Maybe that is why she was willing to sneak into a house that everybody else thought was haunted. Maybe that is why she was not afraid when everybody else was. Maybe that is why she refused to listen to the scary stories, or the warnings of danger.
She looked around for something to play with, finally settling for an old plastic doll. It was a bedraggled old thing, wearing dirty blue pajamas with buttons on the back. It had plastic arms and legs that could be rotated at the shoulders and hips, and a head that could be twisted all the way around. A thin layer of brown hair was painted on top of its forehead and faded blue eyes stared back innocently from its little plastic face. The eyes would close when it was laid down sideways and open when it was held upright.
She liked that little doll. It was her favorite plaything. She could amuse herself with it for hours, holding it in her arms and pretending it was her baby and that she was taking care of it. She would feed it and dress it, change its diaper and burp it, and do all of the things that a good mommy would do. When it cried she would hold it tenderly in her arms and comfort it, and tell it not to be afraid because there was no such thing as ghosts.
Engrossed as she was in playing with her little toy baby she did not realize how late it had become until the shadows started moving along the floor, creeping towards her. When she finally looked out the window again the sun was just a big red ball hanging low in the yellowing sky. It was getting late, about the time her parents would be getting worried about her. If her mom had any idea where she had been all of this time she would have thrown a fit. Spooky old houses with a reputation for being haunted were not the type of places little girls should be playing.
She was about to put the doll down and cover it up with a small blanket when she suddenly heard a noise that made her stop. It was a scratching sound, coming from within the closet, like tiny little fingernails were clawing on the wood. Probably just a mouse, she thought. There was a family of them living under the floorboards of the house. She had seen them scamper across the floor every once in a while but they did not bother her. She was not afraid of a little old mouse. This was their home too. But there was something else...something not quite right. She held her breath to listen...
There it was again! Laughter, like children's voices, distant and muffled. She tried to make her heart stop beating so she could make out what they were saying. Then she heard it...a high-pitched screeching noise, like fingernails on a chalkboard. She knew instantly what it was...somebody was opening the front gate! She quietly tip-toed into the living room and peered out the front window.
There were three boys standing on the walkway just inside the fence. Two of them were young, barely older than her. Their little faces showed apprehension and fear. The other boy was older, about sixteen or so. He had a mischievous grin on his face. Lori recognized him from school. He used to sit behind her on the school bus and pull her hair and pinch her. She did not like him very much, because he was so mean to her. He was a bully, and now he was teasing the two younger boys.
Lori knew what was going to happen. The older boy was daring the two younger kids to go inside, calling them names and making fun of them, and even though they would rather go any place else in the world than inside that spooky old haunted house, they would eventually give in. Young boys just could not resist a dare. It seemed to be a shortcoming that they were born with.
Lori watched silently, hoping and praying that they would go away. This was her house, her hiding place, not theirs. She just wanted to be left alone so she could play. But the boys were coming up the walkway, towards the front porch...they were going to come in. What would they do when they found her there? Would they tease her and be mean to her like before? Would they tell on her and make it so she could not come back anymore? She frantically looked for a place to hide but with all of the furniture gone there just wasn't anything to take cover behind. She was still holding the doll, but that did not do any good, and the few other small items scattered about the floor were of no help at all. She could hear the front door creaking on its rusty hinges...they were almost inside!
She quickly ran back into the bedroom where she had been playing and ducked down into a shadowy corner. It was pretty dark inside since the sun was setting...maybe they would not see her. She held the little toy doll tightly in her arms and tried to make herself invisible. Please don't let them see me, she whispered.
She could hear the intruders moving around in the living room, making a lot of noise. She held her breath and tried to be as still as possible. Her heart was pounding.
"What's that?" somebody yelled. "It's a ghost!" Lori jumped in spite of herself. She was almost on the verge of panic.
"That's not funny!" said one of the younger boys. "Stop scaring us!"
The older boy just laughed, menacingly. "What's the matter?" he teased, "You're not afraid of a little old ghost, are you?"
"There are no ghosts," said the younger boy. "My momma said so."
"She just told you that because you're a scaredy-cat."
"I am not!"
"You are too!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
Lori rolled her eyes and frowned. Sheesh, don't these people have anything better to do than argue? She adjusted her position just slightly to make herself more comfortable. It looked like she was going to be there a while.
The older boy continued his teasing. "I hope you don't get too scared when you see the ghost. She looks like a skeleton, with all of her guts hanging out!"
"I'm gonna tell mom!" threatened one of the younger boys.
"So what? Why should I care if you tell her?"
So two of them were brothers, thought Lori. That explains all of the arguing. They were going at it again. So annoyed was she with their constant bickering that when she felt something tickling the back of her neck, like something was crawling on it, she absent-mindedly reached up to wipe the whatever-it-was away. As she did so her arm accidentally bumped one of the toys she had been playing with and it fell over with a clatter. There was sudden silence in the other room.
"What was that?" asked the older boy, who suddenly sounded serious.
"S-stop s-s-scaring us..." stammered the younger kid. He was quickly silenced by the older brother who hissed at him.
"Shhhh...It came from in there..."
They were coming into her room! Lori closed her eyes, pulled her knees up close to her chest and hugged her doll tightly. Please don't let them see me, she prayed. She opened her eyelids a tiny crack and peeked out. A wide-eyed face was peering through the doorway, with two others close behind. They all glanced nervously around the room then three pairs of feet cautiously shuffled in. They stopped just a few feet from where Lori sat hidden in the shadows. Somehow they didn't see her. Instead their attention was turned towards the opposite wall. A sudden solemn oppression seemed to have come over the trio. When next they spoke the words came out in hushed serious tones.
"This is where it happened," the older brother pointed out. "They found her dead body right over there."
"No they didn't," the other youngster protested. "My dad said they never found a body."
"They did too. She had been decapitated and there was blood everywhere!"
"There was not! My dad said she had been strangled."
"Hey, I was alive back then. I know what happened," insisted the older one. "I even knew the girl who was killed. Her blood was everywhere! You can still see the stains!"
Lori glanced around confusedly. Stains? What stains? There were no stains...were there? She couldn't remember any. There were a few brown splotches here and there but it wasn't blood, was it? What if it was? What if a gruesome bloody murder really had taken place here? Maybe this house really was haunted after all!
Suddenly one of the boys turned in her direction...and froze! Oh, God, begged Lori, please don't let him see me, please, please don't let him see me! But it was too late. The boy's eyes were wide, his mouth slack-jawed as he raised his hand to point in her direction. His companions followed his finger. Lori knew her cover was blown so she may as well quit hiding. She stood up. As she did so one of the boys fell down, right on his rear end. He just sat there, eyes wide, mouth moving, trying vainly to form some words. "Oh...my....God!" he stammered.
Lori stepped towards him and he started to scoot away, still sitting on his behind on the floor. The other two took timid steps backwards as if wanting to run but were unable to do so. They all seemed frozen with fear.
That look...that look on their faces. Lori had never seen a look like that before. It was sheer terror, white as a sheet horror...as if they had seen a ghost!
What are they so afraid of, she wondered? They were pointing at her but she was just a little girl. Nothing to fear there...
With a start it suddenly dawned on her. They were not pointing at her, but at something behind her!
A cold breath brushed the back of her neck, causing her hair to stand on end. Her skin crawled, her blood froze...Oh, God! There was something behind her!
She whirled around and screamed, expecting all the demons in the underworld to come leaping from the shadows and rip her to a shredded mess of blood and guts and gore! The doll dropped from her hands and clattered on the floor, its head popping off and rolling across the wooden planks. She screamed louder...then stared in amazement. She blinked her eyes, unsure of what she was seeing.
There was nothing there. Just the same wooden walls, the same peeling pink paper. The same dirty stains, the same shadows...the same screams. Not hers, but the boys as they fled from the house and ran helter-skelter down the street. She glimpsed them briefly through the window, a flurry of arms and legs, churning like mad and screaming their lungs out. Then she stood there in silence, her heart still pounding in her chest. What in the world had just happened? Something had frightened them, something had frightened her...but what?
She was alone in the house again (the haunted house), her secret hiding place (haunted), the place she had always felt safe. Still, she could not shake the feeling that she was being watched.
Then she saw it...lying on the floor in the square of blood-red light cast by the last rays of the setting sun. The doll's head lie there staring blankly at her with those pale blue eyes. She walked over and picked it up. It felt warm, almost alive, but it was just a piece of plastic warmed by the rays of the sun. Then she realized what had happened. The boys must have let their imaginations run away with them. They had been talking about ghosts and ghouls and murdered little girls and when she walked out of the shadows they must have thought that she was a ghost! Then when she dropped the doll and its head popped off it must have reminded them of the story of the decapitated head. That little blue-eyed piece of plastic rolling in their direction must have scared them witless...and her too, she giggled.
Silly boys. It's no wonder those crazy stories get exaggerated every year. The facts get twisted and blown way out of proportion. Fear is contagious, she realized. She had felt it too, and for a brief moment she had almost believed the ghost stories were true. But now she was alone again in the little house, her hiding place, her home away from home.
She silently picked up the doll and put its head back on, then held it in her arms as she watched the last glow of the setting sun sink below the horizon. The few remaining leaves shivered in the blackening trees. It would be dark soon, and all the beauty would be gone from the world.
She sighed quietly and was soon overcome with a feeling of sadness. It started in the pit of her stomach and worked its way up to form a lump in her throat. Her eyes started to mist. She looked at the doll, its pale blue eyes staring back from a dirt-stained face. She should have taken better care of it. Her little hand wiped the dust away exposing a pink blushing cheek, then she raised it to her lips and kissed it softly.
She loved this little doll. It reminded her of a time long, long ago when her daddy had first presented it to her. She had cherished it more than anything for it was the last gift he had ever given her. One final token of a father's love. For that was the day the madness began...the day John Mathers murdered his daughter, Lori. That was the day she had died.
She reached up and rubbed her eyes then moved to the shadows in the corner of the room where her bed had been.
"Why, Daddy?" she sobbed. "Why?"
Slowly she slumped to the floor and glanced around at what had once been her bedroom. She remembered where the furniture had been...all of her toys...her closet full of clothes. She remembered the doorway that her mother used to come through to tuck her into bed at night and kiss her on the cheek and tell her not to be afraid...but she was afraid, and she always would be.
She held the doll tightly in her arms, rocking it back and forth, trying to comfort it...and herself. But it was no use. It could never answer the question that forever raced through her mind. "Why did you want me to die?"
Faced with an eternity of uncertain torment, she hung her head and cried.
The house was haunted. At least that is what people said. Lori did not think so. In all of the times she had been there never once had she ever seen a ghost. Not a single spook or spirit had ever materialized out of thin air, nor had any other type of unusual activity ever taken place. It was all a bunch of foolishness as far as she was concerned, just a bunch of nonsense designed to frighten young children like her.
Still, she could not help being fascinated by the old place. She often found herself standing outside the front gate staring wistfully at the front door, longing to go inside...just like she was at that moment. It definitely had some kind of hold over her...almost like it was casting a spell. She smiled at the thought, then slowly pushed the old gate open, its creaking hinges whining in protest.
Everybody else was afraid of the old house. It was easy to see why. The place had definitely seen better days. The faded remnants of white paint was flaking from the old wooden walls and the front porch was starting to sag. Dirt-stained windows were cracked and broken and some of the panes were missing completely, leaving empty spaces like eye-sockets in an old skull. The old screen door was barely hanging on its rusty hinges. Inside the furniture had long since been removed by the previous owners leaving nothing but dust and a few unwanted belongings scattered on the hardwood floors. It was just a skeleton of its former self, empty and barren.
Lori found it irresistible, perhaps because everybody else avoided it. This was her little hiding place, her own home away from home. A place where she could get away from the hustle and bustle of a six-year old's world. She loved every nook and cranny of it, in spite of its eccentricities.
She stealthily made her way up the stone walkway, past the tangled elderberry bushes that lined the front fence and under the gnarled branches of the two peach trees that stood sentry in the front yard. Those old trees still produced fruit in the summer, when the warm rays of the sun kissed the green leaves, and the sweet scent of nectar wafted through the air. The peaches grew big, juicy and succulent...amber yellow with patches of crimson and violet...like blood-stained balls made of gold.
Sometimes the neighborhood kids would build up the courage to jump the fence and grab a few peaches from the lower limbs, then run giggling with excitement and fear, holding their prizes like trophies for the world to see. They had confronted the haunted house and won.
Lori never picked the fruit. She just liked to look at them hanging peacefully amidst the leaves like golden ornaments on a Christmas tree. It was a very pretty thing to see.
That was during the summer though, when the world was still fresh and alive. It was autumn now. The warmer months had long since come and gone, leaving the branches empty and bare. Now they looked bleak and menacing, like scraggly claws on wrinkled wooden hands reaching out to grab anyone who tried to sneak by. She ducked past them, walked up the the front steps, then opened the door and went in.
Inside the house was dark and musty and it took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the low level of light. Not that she needed them to. Having been there so many times, she knew the old place by heart. Every creak of the floorboards was a familiar sound, every odor was a welcoming smell. She tenderly ran her fingers along the walls and over the old mantle where the fireplace stood. With the help of the sun's rays streaming through the curtainless windows she was gradually able to make out the floral pattern on the faded wallpaper. Each room was a different color. Dark green and brown in the living room, gray with blue violets in the kitchen. The two bedrooms were adorned with similar patterns, one a light blue with interwoven vines of tiny little blue and white orchids, and the other a pastel pink hue with miniature red roses. This was her favorite room. She loved the way it made her feel, full of peace and happiness. She wished that she really could live there. Other people had in the past. She envied them.
Once upon a time this had been somebody's home, a place of love and light and laughter. A place where children played and a family grew in a haven of warmth and caring. Those hardwood floors once echoed to the joyful pitter-patter of little feet. Mornings would bring the aroma of fresh coffee boiling in the pot, and bacon and eggs frying on the stove. At night the fireplace would crackle and pop as the young family gathered around the flames, basking in the warm glow and the sweet scent of burning cedar. The house had been filled with happiness.
That was before the madness began, before the horror stories and the nightmares...before John Mathers went crazy and murdered his family. Or so everybody said.
Lori had heard the stories often enough. People talked about them in hushed tones as if they were afraid to be spilling such a horrible secret...ashamed even to be privy to it. Some were shocked and outraged to even hear mention of such a thing. Others rolled their eyes and sneered, like they knew all along it was coming. There were a few who tried to find explanations or excuses.
It was not his fault, they said. He was drunk, an alcoholic who stumbled home in a drunken rage and waged war on his inner demons. His family was caught in the crossfire, just innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time...
He was a drug addict, they said. He must have been stoned out of his mind, high on heroin, or tripping on some newly discovered narcotic. He could have killed them without even knowing what he was doing. Imagine the horror he must have felt to awake and find his hands wrapped around his lifeless child's throat...
He was crazy, they said, totally insane...bats in the belfry, not all there, one can short of a six-pack. Maybe he just snapped. He could not take the pressure, finally threw in the towel and decided to take his family out with him. Too bad he did not have the courage to finish the job...
Balderdash, said Lori. She liked that word. She had no idea what it meant but her grandpa used to say it all the time, whenever he heard something he disagreed with. Then he would roll his eyes and shake his head and wonder aloud how people could be such fools. He would definitely have thought this story was balderdash, especially since John Mathers' wife had helped pack up their belongings when they were moving, and she was very much alive then. They quickly loaded everything onto a truck and headed out of town like their lives depended on it. It was only after they had left that the rumors began...followed by the ghost stories.
There were things going bump in the night. People began reporting unearthly sounds emanating from the old Mather house. Some said they heard the heart breaking sobs of a lonely little girl. Others heard innocent laughter as invisible children played hide and go seek. At night the empty halls would echo with nightmarish shrieks as if the dead were waging war in their graves.
A few hardy souls who went into the house (in the daytime of course) to investigate found childish drawings and hand prints in the dust on the walls and floor. Those who found the courage to go back a second time said that some of the discarded articles on the floor had been moved around, as if somebody had been playing with them. The news quickly fired the town's imagination.
People passing by in the street would quicken their pace lest they be vexed by the wicked demons that must have lurked inside that wood-framed lair.
Children riding by on their bicycles would stop and throw rocks at the old house trying to break out the few remaining windows, then peddle frantically away when they thought they saw something peering at them from the shadows. It was the ghost of the Mathers girl, they said. John must have murdered her and then fled the scene, leaving her mangled body buried in the vegetable garden or dumped in some deep well. Why else would they have left town so quickly, without even saying goodbye, and leaving some of their belongings scattered all over the floor? Most of the discarded relics were children's items such as books, clothes and a few old toys. If their little girl was still alive would they not have taken her things with them?
Maybe she had come back to wreak revenge on those who had wronged her. Maybe her spirit would not be able to rest until she had found her family again. Or maybe it was all just a bunch of...
"Hogwash," as Lori's mother would say. She remembered a time when her mom had tucked her into bed one Halloween night after the other kids had been telling stories of ghosts and goblins and Frankenstein's monster. "Don't you listen to all of those crazy stories," her mom had said as she kissed her on the cheek. "There's no such thing as ghosts."
Maybe she was right, thought Lori. After all, she had never seen a ghost. Even after all of the times she had been to the "haunted" house she had still never seen or heard anything unusual. There were no screams in the night, no sobbing little ghouls, no moaning or groaning or rattling of chains, or any of the other silly sounds that ghosts were supposed to make. Why would a ghost rattle a chain anyway? Didn't they have better things to do? If she were a ghost she certainly would not waste time rattling a chain. She would run and fly and have fun, and scare all of the boys who had been mean to her in school.
Then again, there were other times when she was not so sure. The nights were especially hard, when darkness would come creeping in like a thief, stealing the colors from the world. That is when the monsters would come, when the spooky stories would make her believe that ghosts and murderers were real. Sometimes she had nightmares that she was the one being strangled. She could feel the cold hands on her throat, tightening and squeezing as she struggled to breath, begging and pleading that she could just take one more breath...then she would wake up screaming, gasping for air, her heart pounding in her chest.
With the darkness wrapped around her, smothering her, she would tremble through the night, praying for the sunrise. Everything would be better when the sun came up and cast its golden glow on the world, its rays seeking out the cracks and crevices where the monsters lived and chasing the shadows back to their lairs. In the daytime the world was pretty again, and houses were just places where people lived...or used to.
She wondered where the family had gone? It had been almost ten years since they had moved away. Did they ever think about the little house they left behind? Would they care that people were saying that it was haunted? Probably not. They must be busy getting on with their lives, going to work, paying the bills, raising their family. The old house was nothing but a shadow of a memory. They had no time for it.
But Lori did. She had all the time in the world. Sometimes she would sneak into the old house and just sit and stare out the windows, watching life as it passed her by. Other times she would think of the crazy ghost stories and laugh and say balderdash, then shake her head and wonder how people could be so silly. But she knew a secret that the townspeople did not know...the hand prints were hers! Sometimes she would write her name or draw pictures in the dust. She was only playing...she didn't mean to fool anybody. She was just a little girl and she wanted to have fun. Maybe that is why she was willing to sneak into a house that everybody else thought was haunted. Maybe that is why she was not afraid when everybody else was. Maybe that is why she refused to listen to the scary stories, or the warnings of danger.
She looked around for something to play with, finally settling for an old plastic doll. It was a bedraggled old thing, wearing dirty blue pajamas with buttons on the back. It had plastic arms and legs that could be rotated at the shoulders and hips, and a head that could be twisted all the way around. A thin layer of brown hair was painted on top of its forehead and faded blue eyes stared back innocently from its little plastic face. The eyes would close when it was laid down sideways and open when it was held upright.
She liked that little doll. It was her favorite plaything. She could amuse herself with it for hours, holding it in her arms and pretending it was her baby and that she was taking care of it. She would feed it and dress it, change its diaper and burp it, and do all of the things that a good mommy would do. When it cried she would hold it tenderly in her arms and comfort it, and tell it not to be afraid because there was no such thing as ghosts.
Engrossed as she was in playing with her little toy baby she did not realize how late it had become until the shadows started moving along the floor, creeping towards her. When she finally looked out the window again the sun was just a big red ball hanging low in the yellowing sky. It was getting late, about the time her parents would be getting worried about her. If her mom had any idea where she had been all of this time she would have thrown a fit. Spooky old houses with a reputation for being haunted were not the type of places little girls should be playing.
She was about to put the doll down and cover it up with a small blanket when she suddenly heard a noise that made her stop. It was a scratching sound, coming from within the closet, like tiny little fingernails were clawing on the wood. Probably just a mouse, she thought. There was a family of them living under the floorboards of the house. She had seen them scamper across the floor every once in a while but they did not bother her. She was not afraid of a little old mouse. This was their home too. But there was something else...something not quite right. She held her breath to listen...
There it was again! Laughter, like children's voices, distant and muffled. She tried to make her heart stop beating so she could make out what they were saying. Then she heard it...a high-pitched screeching noise, like fingernails on a chalkboard. She knew instantly what it was...somebody was opening the front gate! She quietly tip-toed into the living room and peered out the front window.
There were three boys standing on the walkway just inside the fence. Two of them were young, barely older than her. Their little faces showed apprehension and fear. The other boy was older, about sixteen or so. He had a mischievous grin on his face. Lori recognized him from school. He used to sit behind her on the school bus and pull her hair and pinch her. She did not like him very much, because he was so mean to her. He was a bully, and now he was teasing the two younger boys.
Lori knew what was going to happen. The older boy was daring the two younger kids to go inside, calling them names and making fun of them, and even though they would rather go any place else in the world than inside that spooky old haunted house, they would eventually give in. Young boys just could not resist a dare. It seemed to be a shortcoming that they were born with.
Lori watched silently, hoping and praying that they would go away. This was her house, her hiding place, not theirs. She just wanted to be left alone so she could play. But the boys were coming up the walkway, towards the front porch...they were going to come in. What would they do when they found her there? Would they tease her and be mean to her like before? Would they tell on her and make it so she could not come back anymore? She frantically looked for a place to hide but with all of the furniture gone there just wasn't anything to take cover behind. She was still holding the doll, but that did not do any good, and the few other small items scattered about the floor were of no help at all. She could hear the front door creaking on its rusty hinges...they were almost inside!
She quickly ran back into the bedroom where she had been playing and ducked down into a shadowy corner. It was pretty dark inside since the sun was setting...maybe they would not see her. She held the little toy doll tightly in her arms and tried to make herself invisible. Please don't let them see me, she whispered.
She could hear the intruders moving around in the living room, making a lot of noise. She held her breath and tried to be as still as possible. Her heart was pounding.
"What's that?" somebody yelled. "It's a ghost!" Lori jumped in spite of herself. She was almost on the verge of panic.
"That's not funny!" said one of the younger boys. "Stop scaring us!"
The older boy just laughed, menacingly. "What's the matter?" he teased, "You're not afraid of a little old ghost, are you?"
"There are no ghosts," said the younger boy. "My momma said so."
"She just told you that because you're a scaredy-cat."
"I am not!"
"You are too!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
Lori rolled her eyes and frowned. Sheesh, don't these people have anything better to do than argue? She adjusted her position just slightly to make herself more comfortable. It looked like she was going to be there a while.
The older boy continued his teasing. "I hope you don't get too scared when you see the ghost. She looks like a skeleton, with all of her guts hanging out!"
"I'm gonna tell mom!" threatened one of the younger boys.
"So what? Why should I care if you tell her?"
So two of them were brothers, thought Lori. That explains all of the arguing. They were going at it again. So annoyed was she with their constant bickering that when she felt something tickling the back of her neck, like something was crawling on it, she absent-mindedly reached up to wipe the whatever-it-was away. As she did so her arm accidentally bumped one of the toys she had been playing with and it fell over with a clatter. There was sudden silence in the other room.
"What was that?" asked the older boy, who suddenly sounded serious.
"S-stop s-s-scaring us..." stammered the younger kid. He was quickly silenced by the older brother who hissed at him.
"Shhhh...It came from in there..."
They were coming into her room! Lori closed her eyes, pulled her knees up close to her chest and hugged her doll tightly. Please don't let them see me, she prayed. She opened her eyelids a tiny crack and peeked out. A wide-eyed face was peering through the doorway, with two others close behind. They all glanced nervously around the room then three pairs of feet cautiously shuffled in. They stopped just a few feet from where Lori sat hidden in the shadows. Somehow they didn't see her. Instead their attention was turned towards the opposite wall. A sudden solemn oppression seemed to have come over the trio. When next they spoke the words came out in hushed serious tones.
"This is where it happened," the older brother pointed out. "They found her dead body right over there."
"No they didn't," the other youngster protested. "My dad said they never found a body."
"They did too. She had been decapitated and there was blood everywhere!"
"There was not! My dad said she had been strangled."
"Hey, I was alive back then. I know what happened," insisted the older one. "I even knew the girl who was killed. Her blood was everywhere! You can still see the stains!"
Lori glanced around confusedly. Stains? What stains? There were no stains...were there? She couldn't remember any. There were a few brown splotches here and there but it wasn't blood, was it? What if it was? What if a gruesome bloody murder really had taken place here? Maybe this house really was haunted after all!
Suddenly one of the boys turned in her direction...and froze! Oh, God, begged Lori, please don't let him see me, please, please don't let him see me! But it was too late. The boy's eyes were wide, his mouth slack-jawed as he raised his hand to point in her direction. His companions followed his finger. Lori knew her cover was blown so she may as well quit hiding. She stood up. As she did so one of the boys fell down, right on his rear end. He just sat there, eyes wide, mouth moving, trying vainly to form some words. "Oh...my....God!" he stammered.
Lori stepped towards him and he started to scoot away, still sitting on his behind on the floor. The other two took timid steps backwards as if wanting to run but were unable to do so. They all seemed frozen with fear.
That look...that look on their faces. Lori had never seen a look like that before. It was sheer terror, white as a sheet horror...as if they had seen a ghost!
What are they so afraid of, she wondered? They were pointing at her but she was just a little girl. Nothing to fear there...
With a start it suddenly dawned on her. They were not pointing at her, but at something behind her!
A cold breath brushed the back of her neck, causing her hair to stand on end. Her skin crawled, her blood froze...Oh, God! There was something behind her!
She whirled around and screamed, expecting all the demons in the underworld to come leaping from the shadows and rip her to a shredded mess of blood and guts and gore! The doll dropped from her hands and clattered on the floor, its head popping off and rolling across the wooden planks. She screamed louder...then stared in amazement. She blinked her eyes, unsure of what she was seeing.
There was nothing there. Just the same wooden walls, the same peeling pink paper. The same dirty stains, the same shadows...the same screams. Not hers, but the boys as they fled from the house and ran helter-skelter down the street. She glimpsed them briefly through the window, a flurry of arms and legs, churning like mad and screaming their lungs out. Then she stood there in silence, her heart still pounding in her chest. What in the world had just happened? Something had frightened them, something had frightened her...but what?
She was alone in the house again (the haunted house), her secret hiding place (haunted), the place she had always felt safe. Still, she could not shake the feeling that she was being watched.
Then she saw it...lying on the floor in the square of blood-red light cast by the last rays of the setting sun. The doll's head lie there staring blankly at her with those pale blue eyes. She walked over and picked it up. It felt warm, almost alive, but it was just a piece of plastic warmed by the rays of the sun. Then she realized what had happened. The boys must have let their imaginations run away with them. They had been talking about ghosts and ghouls and murdered little girls and when she walked out of the shadows they must have thought that she was a ghost! Then when she dropped the doll and its head popped off it must have reminded them of the story of the decapitated head. That little blue-eyed piece of plastic rolling in their direction must have scared them witless...and her too, she giggled.
Silly boys. It's no wonder those crazy stories get exaggerated every year. The facts get twisted and blown way out of proportion. Fear is contagious, she realized. She had felt it too, and for a brief moment she had almost believed the ghost stories were true. But now she was alone again in the little house, her hiding place, her home away from home.
She silently picked up the doll and put its head back on, then held it in her arms as she watched the last glow of the setting sun sink below the horizon. The few remaining leaves shivered in the blackening trees. It would be dark soon, and all the beauty would be gone from the world.
She sighed quietly and was soon overcome with a feeling of sadness. It started in the pit of her stomach and worked its way up to form a lump in her throat. Her eyes started to mist. She looked at the doll, its pale blue eyes staring back from a dirt-stained face. She should have taken better care of it. Her little hand wiped the dust away exposing a pink blushing cheek, then she raised it to her lips and kissed it softly.
She loved this little doll. It reminded her of a time long, long ago when her daddy had first presented it to her. She had cherished it more than anything for it was the last gift he had ever given her. One final token of a father's love. For that was the day the madness began...the day John Mathers murdered his daughter, Lori. That was the day she had died.
She reached up and rubbed her eyes then moved to the shadows in the corner of the room where her bed had been.
"Why, Daddy?" she sobbed. "Why?"
Slowly she slumped to the floor and glanced around at what had once been her bedroom. She remembered where the furniture had been...all of her toys...her closet full of clothes. She remembered the doorway that her mother used to come through to tuck her into bed at night and kiss her on the cheek and tell her not to be afraid...but she was afraid, and she always would be.
She held the doll tightly in her arms, rocking it back and forth, trying to comfort it...and herself. But it was no use. It could never answer the question that forever raced through her mind. "Why did you want me to die?"
Faced with an eternity of uncertain torment, she hung her head and cried.
Catch ya later.
I'm going to keep bugging him until he writes it. ;D
It sort of tells things froma ghosts point of view. I never really thought that a ghost might be sad or scared but maybe they are. They used to be people so why wouldn't they still have emotions like people have? I think they would.
I guess it was already tore down by then. 
Where did it used to be at? maybe there are still ghosts there. It wouldn't hurt to look. 