Three True Tales of Terror: A True Hauntings' Collection

by Rebecca Patrick-Howard

  As luck would have it, despite the fact it had taken several months to secure this job, and be offered the other two, on my way through Maryland I’d received a phone call from the director of a summer camp in Massachusetts. She was offering me a job based on my resume, no interview required. The camp was close to Boston and I was bummed not to be able to accept it. I’d made a commitment to this resort, and felt obligated to follow through with it.

  My mother cried when I left, the same way she did when I departed for college seven years before. We’d spent several months together, just the two of us; she wasn’t ready to let me go. She, too, must have felt that this was the ending of something. Or the beginning.

  The resort, who seemed excited at the prospect of hiring me, didn’t know it was getting a second rate version of me. I was a refugee, arriving beaten and worn in more ways than one. Not only was I sick from the allergies and a few other health problems, but I was also sick in the heart. For the past 2 ½ years I’d worked at a job I’d thought I’d loved and with friends I knew I’d loved. It had all come to a screeching halt months before, though, over things I couldn’t even think about now. I quit my job and, worst, I’d lost my supervisor who was also one of my best friends. Even though some of it was my fault and I could accept responsibility for it, I was still in mourning, fearing I’d lost something I’d never truly be able to replace. Coming to the realization that my place wasn’t there or with the people I cared about was a knife in my soul. I was scared, nervous about the future, and heartsick; I had to get out of Kentucky that summer.

  It took me two days to pack and a week to drive to New Hampshire. I could’ve made it there faster but I made several stops along the way: West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, southern New Hampshire…I got out when the scenery suited me and stared at mountains, valleys, lakes, and the ocean. I took pictures of flowers; wandered around thrift shops and outlet malls; sat in the middle of Gettysburg, without a single soul around, as the sun faded behind the monuments; and ate meals in restaurants alone with a book propped up in front of me to discourage conversation. And I cried myself to sleep almost every night.

  I was ready for the new chapter in my life to start in Wales. Indeed, I was excited about that part. It was a future I could almost see in my mind’s eye; it offered hope, possibility, and adventure. I was not prepared for this limbo period in between. I didn’t know what to do with myself.

  In fact, I didn’t know what to do with myself period. In college I was a star student. Not only did I make excellent grades, I’d been a part of several important research teams and had even presented data for bigwigs in Washington D.C. A former teacher proudly described me as “someone bound for the West Wing.” I worked full-time, took a full course load, and graduated with two degrees. I felt ready to take on the world, yet I had no idea how to proceed. Life seemed to keep getting in the way. I was technically an adult, but didn’t know how to see the forest for the trees, didn’t know how to move forward. I didn’t even know what I wanted.

  I’d floundered since graduation and hadn’t had a real purpose or direction. For awhile I’d even been unemployable; not even the stores in the local mall had wanted to hire me. They said I was “too experienced” or “too educated.” When I got hired at a local nonprofit I felt a huge sense of relief. There, I could earn a paycheck and bide my time until I figured out my next move. Only life got in the way again and that next move never manifested. The years flew by.

  And now, here I was, twenty-five years old, without any real friends or career and I didn’t know what I was doing. Depressed, angry with myself, disappointed, and frustrated I applied for graduate school, got accepted, and fled.

  I hoped the summer job in New Hampshire would fill a void for me until I could get to Wales and start improving the rest of my life.

  The farmhouse that served as the main office/administration building materialized before me, stoic and gleaming white in the dirty fog that looked to be growing denser around me. It rested on a clearing void of trees and undergrowth, the nakedness making it look larger, more imposing than it was. It had three stories, or two full stories and an attic, and black shutters with peeling paint. A line of white-washed rocking chairs grazed the front porch and were turned away from me, looking off into the distance. They were in a little row, perfectly lined up like guards. Without a breeze, none of them moved. Mountains surrounded the clearing in all directions, their brown peaks not yet lush with the summer leaves that would come later. I couldn’t see the driveway from the gravel parking lot and even in the clearing I felt a little closed-in. The chill in the air made me glad I’d packed a sweater.

  There were only four other cars. The resort wasn’t open yet. None of the support staff had arrived. Only the administrative staff were working as my supervisor had explained on the phone. The nearest town was miles away. I’d driven through Malden on the way to the resort. It boasted a store and post office.

  Later, there would be kitchen staff, lots of maintenance workers, an entire building of housekeepers, and even counselors to plan activities for the children. The more than five hundred acres would be alive with laughter, footsteps, activity. Now, it was almost deathly quiet and still. Despite the chill, there was no breeze to shake the tree branches or move the impenetrable fog. It was stagnant.

  From the porch I could see a large body of water off in the distance. It glimmered in sunlight I couldn’t see and lapped against a muddy shoreline. It was called a “pond” on the map, but it was big, more like a lake.

  When I walked through the front door I was met by a fresh faced woman who appeared to be in her early fifties. She had short, curly auburn hair and a smattering of freckles across her nose. While I stood in the entrance, trying to get my bearings, she cocked her head to the side and studied me. She didn’t offer to rise from the desk in which she was seated. “May I help you?” she asked, neither pleasantly nor unkindly.

  “I’m sorry,” I said in a rush, “I’m Rebecca. I came a day early. I just wanted to come and say hello and make sure I could find the place. I’m staying in a hotel tonight…”

  I waited for some kind of greeting or even a happy acknowledgement but didn’t get one. Instead, she continued to look perplexed. “Oh, I see,” she said at last, tapping her fingers on her desk. It appeared what used to be the living room of the farm house had been turned into a front office. The hardwood floors and old radiators were still in place and I felt like I was intruding on someone’s home. “Well, I’m Janet. And we weren’t expecting you until tomorrow. But I guess since you’re here now it’s okay…”

  It was silly, but her reaction made me want to cry. I’d come so far and now there I was, feeling as though I was inconveniencing them (or at least her) with my presence. She was my supervisor and had seemed excited about my coming. On the phone she’d been affable, enthusiastic. There was nothing of that now. Not even a handshake. Didn’t they want me? It was not a good first impression for me. “I wasn’t planning on hanging around,” I tried again, determined to show her I wasn’t going to be a problem. “I just wanted to make sure I found the place. I got a hotel room about thirty minutes from here, in Hampstead? So I’ll just go on there.”

  I took like I was making for the door when she laughed. It wasn’t a reassuring laugh, but it was friendlier than the look she’d been giving me. “Oh no, it’s okay. I was just surprised to see you. Here, I’ll introduce you.”

  Feeling a slim wave of relief wash over me, I let her lead me around the house. There were a few other women working, all of them full-time employees. Most were middle-aged, although there was one young woman named Kory who appeared to be a year or so younger than me. Janet didn’t tell me what she did. I tried out my best smile on her, hoping we could be friends. I’d need one there.

  After Janet made the introductions I decided to take another leap and satisfy my curiosity, since I was there and all. “Could you maybe point out where I’ll be living while I’m here?” I asked. “I was
just curious. And will I be living with anyone?”

  “Oh, sure,” she said. “I can take you. You’ll be sleeping here in the house.”

  “In the house” turned out to be the attic. The narrow staircase was dark and steep and had a sharp turn that had me wondering how I’d get my small refrigerator up there, but I figured I’d worry about that later. The room was a pretty good size and had a nice view of the pond. It boasted a narrow bed, nightstand, small table, chest of drawers, and rack to hang my clothes on. There was nothing stylish about it, it was actually a little drab and sad looking and had a layer of dust over everything, but I had things with me that could spruce it up. It was cold, but she promised they’d bring me up a portable heater when I returned.

  “Now, your bathroom with your shower is downstairs next to the photocopier,” she explained.

  That’s going to be awkward, I thought to myself. I’d just have to make sure I was up, showered, and dressed before everyone got there in the morning. But at least I wouldn’t have to worry about being late for work…

  As Janet walked me back out to my car I turned and looked up at the farm house again. My bedroom windows looked like two eyes peering down at me, framed by their dark shutter-eyebrows. They were darker than the other windows in the house, as though they really might be seeing something.

  “Janet, where are the others staying?” I asked as I got into the car.

  “What others?”

  “The other staff. If I’m up there, starting tomorrow, where will other people be sleeping?”

  Janet laughed. “Oh, well, for the next month you’ll be the only one living here. Everyone else goes home at 5:00 pm.”

  Getting Settled

  It didn’t take long to get settled into the room. Janet was even a little warmer and sociable once I returned. Maybe she just didn’t take changes in schedules well.

  I didn’t have a closet, but I had a clothes rack and hung as much of my stuff on the rack as possible by hanging as many things on one hanger as I could. I’d brought “work” clothes for the office (khaki shorts, button-up shirts, jeans, long dresses) but I’d also brought nice summer clothes for the trips I planned to take on the weekends. To help lighten things up my mother took me shopping at Wal-Mart before I left home and bought me a hot pink bedspread, hot pink and purple throw pillows, and a pink shag carpet. Once I got these unpacked and covered the chest of drawers with framed pictures of my mom and grandmother there was a world of difference. I finished things off by tacking postcards to the wall in place of framed pictures. The old attic was looking homey in no time.

  In “town” I found the small store offered a few grocery items and there I bought homemade bread, cheese, and fruit. The house didn’t have a kitchen but it did have a microwave and I had my small, dorm-sized refrigerator. The resort kitchen wasn’t open yet so I was on my own for the time being. I was fine with that. I planned on exploring the area just as soon as I could. I hoped to find some area restaurants. I had saved a little bit of money and brought it with me but it would be a few weeks before my first payday and I’d need to budget wisely. Not only did I need to get through the summer, I’d also need to save money to take to Wales with me.

  I made sure to call my mother after I got settled. She wasn’t pleased about the living arrangements. “You’re up there by yourself?” she asked.

  I wasn’t too thrilled about that either. “I guess so. I didn’t know I would be. I knew it wasn’t open yet, but I had no idea I’d be in the house alone, much less on the grounds.”

  “Just keep your phone on you and lock the doors,” she warned. I didn’t have the heart to tell her the problem with those things yet.

  The job itself was easy. I mostly filed documents, answered telephones, and looked up things on the internet for people. Or at least, that’s what I was supposed to be doing. In the job I’d just left I’d been an administrative assistant for a very busy nonprofit organization and before that I was the transportation director for a summer camp, responsible for organizing the transportation for thousands of children. For the entire first week of the job at the resort Janet and another woman in the office named Lucy spent almost their entire time training me on how to properly answer the telephone. It was irritating.

  “When you answer, make sure you speak slowly and enunciate your words clearly,” Janet ordered.

  “And try to smile when you say hello; they can hear it in your voice,” Lucy added.

  “I think I’ve got it now, ladies,” I tried to joke.

  “Oh, we take our responsibilities very seriously,” Janet said. “Our voice is often the first introduction anyone has to us so we have to sound professional.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was accusing me of not sounding professional or just assuming I didn’t know how to act it. Either way, they continued to “train” me on how to turn the computer off and on, how to photocopy documents, and (no joke) how to use the three-hole punch. I’d organized charity events in the past, given senators tours around our university, worked in the office of some of the highest administrators in town. Yet there, at the resort, they were training me on the right way to collate papers.

  I tried to take it in stride, figuring that at least it was an easy job; I could sit back and relax all summer and enjoy my time in New England before the pressures of grad school set in. And this was just the beginning, after all. They didn’t know me and what I was capable of. Things would get better and they’d give me more opportunities as the summer wore on. But the feisty side of me wanted to rebel. Two months ago I was planning events and running correspondence to board members; now I was being trained on what a search engine was.

  Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t quite what I’d expected it to be. The fog never really let up. It stayed cold and cloudy the entire first week. And then there was the heat, or lack thereof. The farm house just couldn’t get warm at night. I walked around in long pants and a sweater and sometimes my bathrobe over that after everyone went home. I even drove in to Hampstead (not its real name) and purchased fleece-lined jeans from an LL Bean store. Even with my flannel pajamas, space heater, and comforter my attic bedroom was a veritable freezer. I couldn’t tell where the draft was coming from but the cold air filled the room and found even the smallest openings in my fabric, chilling me to the bone. During the daylight hours it was fine; people even complained about it being hot downstairs. At night, however, I huddled in my bed, my laptop in my lap, trying to take my mind off the cold and dampness that slicked my skin.

  During the day, the house was filled with the sounds of business as the telephones rang, the fax machine sputtered, doors slammed, and people chattered with one another. It was a beehive of activity. But after the last person drove off down the hill, it became quiet. I was left standing in the middle of the room, alone, without a thing to do with myself.

  I tried to explore the grounds but the terrain around the pond was thick with mud and there were lots of insects that bit me and left huge welts on my skin. No amount of bug spray could keep them away. I spent more time slapping at them and waving them off then I did enjoying the view. As the wind whipped through my hair and the bugs flew around my face and mud seeped into my boots. It just didn’t feel worth the effort. The weather seemed to change down there, but there was something more than the bugs that made me uncomfortable. Something besides the mosquitoes pricked at my skin and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. The first time I walked away I felt eyes on my back. The second time I visited I heard laughter that sounded so close I was sure someone was standing behind me. When nobody turned out to be there I chalked it up to an echo, someone on the other side with a traveling voice. I didn’t go back down there much after that, though.

  Still, the first week went by without much of a hitch. I hadn’t found my groove yet, or really made friends (Kory was friendly but distant), but I was trying. It would get better, I told myself. It would get better.

  The second week started off alright. I was cold and stil
l feeling slightly uncomfortable with being isolated up there by myself, but nothing bad had happened. I didn’t feel scared; not yet. That would come soon enough.

  Janet and the general manager, Linda, continued to distrust me with the phones and most documents (although Lucy had backed off) so I didn’t have a lot to do, but they didn’t seem to mind if I kept myself busy doing other things. I tried to make myself look busy and found that as long as I had Word open on the computer they were generally happy. I don’t know what they thought I was doing, but they didn’t complain. I used my empty hours working on a novel I was trying to finish writing and composing long emails to my mother.

  The living arrangements were a little strange and the advantage of living so close to my job soon wore off any luster it had offered. I had an awkward encounter on Tuesday morning when I came out of the shower wrapped in my towel and found a middle-aged man making a photocopy. Unfortunately, my day started an hour later than everyone else’s which meant I could sleep in a little later. I quickly learned this did not mean I could shower later–I’d have to do it the night before or get up extra early and miss my chance to sleep in. I couldn’t go wandering around in front of everyone in my robe.

  I also learned that my cell phone didn’t get service anywhere on the grounds. The whole place was a dead zone. I had to drive all the way into Falcon, a town half an hour away, before it got a signal. Even that might have been okay, except for the fact that I was unable to call out on the office phone in the evenings since once everyone left they turned the phones off and routed them to another site. My mother could call me if we set up an arranged time so that I could get to the phone quickly but basically, the only access I had to the outside world, at least communication-wise, after 5:00 pm was through the internet.