by Ron Schwab
She would always awaken at this point, her eyes peering just above the sheets to investigate her bedroom for reassurance that indeed she was alone in the room. After the second appearance of the face, her bedside lamp had been left on when she closed her eyes to seek the sleep that was now so long coming.
Maybe the face would not visit her here. The plane would be landing in Denver soon. She would be met at the airport by a van that would take her to Camp Rosewood in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.
She looked forward to the summer at Rosewood. She had never been there before, but she had been spending most of her summers at one camp or another since she was eight years old. Homesickness would not be a problem. Karen’s mother always had other plans for her own summer, but Karen didn’t mind; she hardly knew her mother, Trudy Nelson.
Her mother was wealthy, she knew that, evidently the beneficiary of a substantial inheritance from Karen’s grandfather. Trudy Nelson’s financial circumstances enabled her to send Karen to private boarding schools during the school term and to camp during the summer.
The month she had recently spent in her mother’s stately mansion was the longest visit she had in the home since she was five years old, and the face had come to visit her the first night she was there. Of course, Trudy had been in Europe during this time, and Karen had been left in the care of the family servants.
At least she knew who her mother was. That was more than she could say about her father. Oh, yes, his name was Richard Nelson, but he had left Trudy when Karen was less than a year old, and Trudy had apparently taken great pains to destroy every shred of evidence that he had ever existed. Karen had not seen so much as a photograph of her father and knew virtually nothing of his background except that, according to Trudy’s version, he was a vicious, evil man.
For most of her life, she had accepted her mother’s judgment at face value, but now, as she approached young womanhood herself, Karen suspected there might be another side of the story. Perhaps her father had a good reason for absenting himself these many years.
That night after arrival at Rosewood, Karen lay awake in her bunk struggling against the sleep that was trying to overtake her, feeling with certainty that the face would visit again if she succumbed. In the stillness of the one-room cabin, the breathing of her three cabin mates, all in deep slumber, reminded Karen of the irritating hum of a vacuum cleaner. The soft hoot of an owl drifted through a window screen near her bedside and called her to the more soothing, pacifying sounds of the outdoors.
She rose from her bunk and, pulling a terry cloth robe over her flannel pajamas, stepped out into the cool night air. Her attention was drawn to girlish laughter and giggling coming from one of the cabins down the trail, and she padded barefoot down the dusty path toward the noise, hoping to find some companions who were not yet ready to surrender to exhaustion.
But as she neared the other cabin, a huge figure loomed seemingly from nowhere and stepped into her path. It was a man, a large, big-boned man with muscular arms. She shrank back, startled, and looked up to see the friendly face of her dreams, this time attached to a head and a human form.
“I have missed you so much, Karen,” the man said. “I am pleased you answered my call.” He extended his hand and, helplessly, she received it, acutely aware of its roughness as his fingers closed tight around her own. “Come with me, Karen,” the man said.
“No,” Karen whimpered, “please . . . no.” She tried to scream but the words choked in her throat and the man held on with a vice-like grip. She followed him obediently away from Rosewood through the endless maze of gullies and draws that sliced through the shale-covered slopes surrounding the camp.
Much later, they walked out onto a winding, one-lane road partially grown over by grass and weeds. As the man pulled her firmly, but gently, down the steep incline, she stumbled, falling to the ground, scraping her knee. For the first time she became aware of the pain where the rock and shale had gouged and bruised her bare feet and ankles.
“I can’t go any further,” she said, “. . . my feet.” She thought she detected a softening in the big man’s deep-set eyes.
“I’ll carry you,” he said, “it isn’t far.”
Lifting her gently in his arms, the big man carried Karen down the deserted road. Karen, exhausted and frightened, slipped into semi-consciousness.
Later, she was awakened rudely by the creaking of metal against metal, her eyes opened to the macabre scene of an old, long-forgotten cemetery. She screamed and struggled to break free from the man’s arms, but they tightened around her and held her close.
“Hush, child,” he said, “you will not be harmed.”
The iron gate clanged shut behind them and the man’s feet made a swishing sound as they shuffled through the tall grass that almost hid many of the shorter granite markers that decorated the hillside.
Soon he stopped, placing Karen on the ground with her back leaning against one of the newer stone monuments, one with a rounded top.
“Please,” Karen sobbed, “let me go. I don’t like this place. Please let me go back to camp. I won’t tell anybody.”
“I am your father, Karen,” he said. “I have been calling for you, and you have answered my call.”
She lifted her eyes to the man’s face. She saw no malice there, only sadness, perhaps tenderness. “How do I know you’re my father?” she stammered. “And how did you call me? I don’t understand.”
“I was never able to tell you how much I cared, Karen,” he said. “I could not rest until you knew. I want you to understand that I did not want to leave you. I was a common laborer when I married your mother. For a time, she was apparently fascinated by my physical strength and unsophisticated manner; perhaps I was a novelty. But soon she tired of me, like a child with a new toy. I did not fit into her society and I was a burden on her social life, an embarrassment she felt impelled to explain to her friends. After you were born, she told me these things, and said she planned to file for divorce; she ordered me to leave the house. I loved you, Karen. You were a beautiful baby, and it broke my heart to leave you. I came out here and found work with a mining company in a now-deserted town not far from here. I intended to return and try to obtain custody of you. Realizing my chances of success were poor, I planned to find work near your mother’s home so we could be together from time to time. But a mining accident intervened and I was unable to return. Now, I only want you to be secure in the knowledge that you had a father who loved you.”
Tears streaked Karen’s cheeks. She jumped up, “You are my father . . . I know it. Oh, I’m so glad you found me.” She reached out to hug the kindly man, but her arms encircled only empty space and she fell again to the ground. The man was gone. Almost before her eyes he had disintegrated into nothingness. “Father,” she called, “where are you? We have so much to talk about. Father! Father!” She lay there on the ground, hiding her face in her arms, sobbing uncontrollably and hysterically until, insensitive to the chilling air, she surrendered to deep sleep.
She awoke at first light to the summer chorus of the mountain birds. It was strange, she thought, how daylight transformed the little cemetery into almost a happy place. Now she knew no fear.
But what about the man and the events of the night before? Was it all a dream? Had she been walking in her sleep and somehow wandered by accident to this place? She rose, brushing the dust and grass from her robe, when out of the corners of her eyes she saw the inscription on the tombstone she had leaned against the night before: Richard Nelson . . . birth date unknown . . . died July 8, 2000. The date was only a few months after her father would have left home. She touched the stone gently then turned and headed toward the road, confident she would find her way back to camp. The face would haunt her no more.
The Claw
EVERYONE HAS HEARD of Big Foot, the Abominable Snowman, and others in the cast of legendary creatures. It seems that every part of the world has some type of monster-creature that cultivates the imaginations of
its inhabitants. There are some who will swear to having seen such creatures, and there has been substantial photographic and other evidence supporting existence of the legendary subject on occasion. Of course, some will insist that the monsters are the product of tall tales or even a hoax.
Our own county is the home of such a creature. He had been dubbed “The Claw” by those who have studied his habits. We first became aware of his existence a few years back. The sheriff’s department had been called upon to investigate a number of strange animal deaths and mutilations, mostly cattle and hogs. In every instance, the unfortunate animal had its belly slashed open and its entrails removed. In all other respects, the carcass was undisturbed, and the farmers of the area were incensed at the senseless killing. Coyotes, bobcats and other wild creatures would at least devour the prey.
At first, it was thought that the killings were the result of teenage pranks or the work of some deranged cult, but the investigators were soon convinced otherwise.
Early one morning, the sheriff was called out to the Bauer farm a mile or so north of Borderview. There he was shown a prize bull that had been killed and disemboweled in the same manner as the other animals. There had been a light rain the night before, however, and this time there were tracks to follow. The sheriff and his two deputies agreed they had to be the tracks of a giant bear, perhaps a grizzly, although they had never known any bears to inhabit this part of the state or anywhere else in Nebraska, for that matter.
Armed with high-powered rifles and accompanied by a pair of good coon hounds, they headed along the wooded river bottom where the tracks led. The dogs ranged far ahead, and from their howling, the men knew they were on the trail of something. In a short while, they lost sight of the dogs, but soon they heard the frantic barking and baying of the hounds and then their terrifying cries of pain as they engaged in some ferocious battle in the distance. Above the howling, they could hear the loud grunting, growling noise, not unlike the sound that might come from a wounded bear.
In a few moments, the howling of the dogs stopped and there was only an ominous silence. The men quickened their pace and charged breathlessly over a ridge to come face to face with the murderer, two grotesquely mutilated dogs at his feet. Standing on two legs like a primate, it was a hairy, bear-like creature, close to eight feet tall. Its face was more like that of an ape or a man, but the appendages at the end of its powerful arms were what shocked the onlookers most. It had neither hands nor paws, only a single, giant claw, shaped something like a bear claw, but as long and sharp as a hunting knife, emerging from the end of each arm.
The creature lurched menacingly toward the men, but suddenly turned and lumbered off into the woods, leaving them frozen in their tracks. What the sheriff and his deputies had seen apparently dampened their enthusiasm for the hunt, and they made no attempt to follow.
After they related their tale to the press, the sheriff and his deputies became the laughing stock of the county, and soon after, all three resigned and moved away from the community.
Since that time, however, other sightings of The Claw have been reported from time to time, and every few years it seems like there is a streak of the otherwise unexplainable killings.
The Hazing
MORGAN MANSION SAT on the outskirts of town, almost hidden by the towering trees and tangled undergrowth that surrounded it. When I last saw the old frame house, the stone foundation was beginning to crumble and the weathered, two-story structure above was starting to sag and lean. I suspect it has been razed by now and leveled to the ground. Whatever its fate, I have no desire to return to the site of the old mansion to find out.
According to local legend in the small town where I attended college, the huge, castle-like structure had once been the gracious home of the community’s most prominent family, and, in its day, had been the hub of social life for most of the town’s elite. The home’s builder was dynamic, ambitious Albert Morgan who harbored visions of a family dynasty, but, unfortunately, his line was doomed to die out. Neither his daughter, Gertrude Morgan, nor his son, Arnold Morgan, chose to marry, and, after the death of their parents, resided together in the stately mansion, presiding over the decline and demise of the Morgan empire and the mansion that symbolized it. The depression of the 1930s brought the final disintegration of the Morgan fortune. Although Arnold and Gertrude had apparently preserved sufficient resources to maintain themselves in relatively humble style, the two withdrew entirely from the community’s social scene, and, over a period of several years, became complete recluses, seen only on rare occasions by the grocery delivery boys and other persons who provided their essential services.
Those who saw Arnold said he was prone to leap into long tirades and sermons about the drunks, indigents, and other parasites of society who should be destroyed and eradicated from the earth. Although in his sixties at the time, it was reported that he seemed in excellent physical condition, his lean, upright body belying the age evidenced by his white, flowing mane and creased, craggy face. His eyes allegedly flashed with fire and brimstone when he launched into one of his angry sermons. The children of the community soon tagged him with the nickname, Crazy Arnold.
Gertrude, on the other hand, was a tiny, spindly woman, a few years her brother’s senior. She was quiet and demure, seemingly a kindly woman, who had some reputation for offering a meal or refreshments to any wayward soul who might come to the mansion’s kitchen door. More than once, some hungry tramp had been referred to the Morgan kitchen.
One dry August day, a frightened, hysterical tramp, exhibiting a ghastly, raw rope burn on his neck, showed up at the local police station. According to the vagrant, Arnold Morgan had overpowered him at the Morgan kitchen table while Gertrude was serving him a meal. The brother and sister had bound his hands behind his back and taken him upstairs to a room they called the execution chamber, where he was greeted by a thick noose suspended from a heavy beam. Arnold had forced the man to stand on a chair, while Gertrude placed the noose around his neck. When Arnold had kicked the chair out from under the vagrant, however, the man somehow wedged his head free from the noose and tumbled to the floor. He had thrown his shoulder into Arnold’s chest, leaving the old man gasping on the floor while he made his way awkwardly down the stairs and out the door.
A short time later, when the police entered Morgan Mansion with a search warrant, they found Gertrude and Crazy Arnold hanging side by side from the beam in the execution chamber. Apparently anticipating the investigation that would surely follow the vagrant’s escape, they had chosen to take their own lives.
In the days that followed, more than a dozen bodies were exhumed from the grounds around the house. The house was closed up by the next of kin and efforts to sell it were fruitless. Some in the community maintained it was haunted and that fluorescent-like outlines of Arnold and Gertrude could be seen through the dusty windows at night.
The guys in our fraternity had all heard the story of Morgan Mansion, and I suggested that the place would be a perfect setting for initiating the pledge class of 1993. The idea had unanimous support, so the night of our fraternity initiation, after relating the story of Morgan Mansion to the pledges, we led them through the iron gates of the deserted estate. In order to pass the test, it was required that the pledges enter the house one at a time, climb the stairway to the second story, go to the window and wave acknowledgment to the fraternity members who would be waiting outside.
The first pledge to enter the house did not make it to the second floor. Not more than ten minutes after he climbed through the basement window and started his journey up the stairs, he crashed through the main floor window screaming in terror. After calming him down, we gathered from his babblings that he had heard some ghostly moaning from the upstairs room, and then had seem some gaseous, transparent figure at the top of the stairs with a rope in his hand.
We laughed uproariously at the young man’s display of imagination, but two of the other pledges did not. They turned and ra
ced down the path toward the gate before anyone could stop them.
That left Charles Weatherby who was apparently not frightened by his fellow pledge’s story. Weatherby picked up a solid hickory stick and clutched it tightly in his hand. “I don’t know who you guys put in there,” he said, “but he’s going to get a surprise if he makes a move for me.” He laughed contemptuously at our insistence that we had not planted anyone in the house.
The other pledge begged Weatherby not to enter the house and then implored us to stop him. But Weatherby marched bravely up to the open basement window and crawled in without a moment’s hesitation.
Ten minutes passed; then twenty, and finally, a half hour. Weatherby should have made it to the window easily in ten minutes time. Now we began to feel uneasy; perhaps he had fallen somewhere and was injured. Could some dangerous maniac be occupying the house? Perhaps a tramp who had taken up residency there?
Then we saw the light at the designated window. No, it was the glowing outline of an old man. Was that a rope suspended in his hand? Then it disappeared as quickly as it had come. We looked at each other in astonishment and disbelief; no one said a word and no one moved.
The huge front door of the mansion creaked slowly open and a white-haired man staggered out onto the porch and down the warped, wooden steps. Someone or something closed the doors, which had been locked earlier, behind him. The figure started toward us and I moved to lead the exodus from the grounds, when I realized the man was wearing Charlie Weatherby’s clothes.
“Wait a moment,” I whispered to the others.
As the form approached, I knew it was Weatherby, but his face was pale and his eyes totally expressionless as they stared straight ahead, almost unseeing. His hair, formerly coal black, had turned white as newly fallen snow.
