by Aiden James
“So, what’s up?”
He said this nonchalant and sat on the loveseat instead of his preferred Lazy-Boy, hoping a different vantage point provided an edge. While waiting for a response, he noticed the deep worry on his younger children’s faces. It seemed Miriam worried, too, just beneath her simmering anger. Tyler’s expression surprised him most. His normal upbeat brash demeanor absent, he appeared quiet and sullen.
“There’s something in the house.” said Miriam.
“What do you mean by that?” he replied. His mouth became dry as he considered what she surely meant.
“Sh-h-h!” she whispered, forceful. “It’s starting again…. Be quiet and you’ll hear what we’ve been listening to for the past hour.”
She and the kids glanced in different directions, but all had their heads upturned toward the ceiling as they waited for something to happen. At first, he heard nothing beyond the ceiling fan’s silent whirr. Then a series of gentle taps resounded from the corner of the living room to the right of the fireplace, just a few feet behind him. It sounded like a handful of tiny marbles dropped onto a hardwood floor upstairs. But no such floor existed on the upper level. The only exceptions to the wall to wall plush carpets were the tiled bathrooms located far away from where the taps originated.
What in the hell is that?
More ceiling taps soon emerged directly across from where the initial ones came from, next to the kitchen.
“I guess we’ve got a really big rodent problem,” he said, standing to get a closer look at the corner behind him.
A tough sell, though he could picture a small army of field mice networking beneath the plywood and along the wooden beams separating the two floors. He remembered the fine-filleted job these little creatures did to the fiberglass insulation in the garage, spreading small pink tufts along an intricate maze they created near the hot water heater.
“Sit down, David, and listen!” said Miriam, sternly, motioning for him to return to his seat. “It’ll change in a moment, and you’ll see we’re not talking about mice, rabbits or any other four-legged creatures from around here!”
She returned her gaze upward, this time to the fan/light fixture in the center of the living room. Tyler, Jillian, and Christopher’s eyes were already locked onto that spot.
David brought his gaze over to the same location. Suddenly, a loud scratching noise erupted from just above the fixture. Strong enough to shake the fan’s blades, the closest thing he could compare it to was thick tree branches being dragged across the ceiling toward each corner of the room. Strange whispers reverberated around the room.
It sounded like several voices at first, but he soon realized all belonged to one voice echoing eerily upon itself. The affect chilled him and made it hard to hear what was said. Like the hollow voice he heard two nights ago, this one sounded female in gender. But unlike that voice’s clear diction with a southern drawl, the words here were much more hushed and difficult to decipher. David glanced at his family perched on the edge of the sofa, ready to flee at a moment’s notice.
“What do you hear?” Miriam asked him, the earlier harshness in her voice softened by uncertainty.
Relieved she hadn’t blamed him for this, he could tell she expected him to somehow make it go away; to banish the mysterious pestilence from their home. It brought little comfort to realize he seriously underestimated the scope of this thing.
“I can’t make out the words,” he told her, after straining to hear the whispered message again.
“But you hear the girl’s voice, right?” She sounded hopeful, that she and the kids hadn’t suffered a hallucination.
“Yes…I do,” said David.
He rose to his feet again and moved over to the ceiling fan until he stood directly beneath it. The voice seemed louder here and its diction much clearer. Almost chant-like above the barely audible clicks caused by the fan’s ‘on/off’ chain brushing steadily against the light fixture.
“He’s coming…the moth to the spider…while the butterflies watch!”
“What do you hear now?” Miriam asked, tentative, rising from the couch.
“Well—” His reply was interrupted by an immense slam that shook the entire ceiling. It caused him to duck away while Miriam scurried back onto the couch. She and the kids huddled close together. Several more thumps followed from upstairs, as if the furniture was being pushed across the carpet and slammed against a wall.
David ran upstairs. The ruckus continued until he reached the landing, and then it ceased. The chilled air reminded him of their unheated garage in the dead of winter—much colder than the previous night in the master bedroom.
“David, are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine!”
He heard Miriam’s footsteps along with the children moving toward the stairs from the living room.
“Don’t come up here until I say it’s okay!”
The master bedroom and one of the guestrooms sat above the living room. He stepped toward the guestroom, motioning again for his family to stay put where they presently gathered at the foot of the stairs.
He pushed the door open, which creaked tiredly, and stepped inside the room. Nothing out of place here, except it felt a lot warmer than it did in the hallway. He shut the door behind him and moved to his and Miriam’s bedroom. He heard movement behind the closed door and leaned in to listen. Someone approached from the other side, as if sensing his presence. He turned the knob and threw the door open, flicking on the light.
The room lay empty. He checked the closets and under the bed before moving into the bathroom. Cold as hell, a madd-ening sensation of being watched stayed with him as he moved about the bedroom and bath. When he returned to the bedroom’s doorway he paused to survey the room, listening intently.
“David? Are you all right?”
Miriam’s voice startled hm. She and the kids were now huddled on the stairway.
“I’m okay.” He backed out of the bedroom, turning off the light before pulling the door shut.
“What did you find in our bedroom?” She met him in the middle of the landing, before he guided her back to the stairs.
“Nothing,” he replied, and then let out a low sigh. “Other than feeling like Siberia up here, I didn’t find anything that explains the noises we heard.”
She shivered, folding her arms tightly across her chest. Near the top of the stairs, the kids waited…anxious. Looking at them all, David had no idea what to do next...how to effectively deal with an unseen menace he knew virtually nothing about. He urged everyone downstairs where they grabbed their coats, and after he coaxed Sadie out from her latest hiding place beneath the sofa, the family fled their infested home.
Chapter Eleven
“How do we make it go away?”
Miriam took a sip from her strawberry shake after posing this question to her husband, who had finished his second burger. They sat in the minivan’s front seats, parked beneath a streetlamp at a local family-owned burger drive-in called ‘Pops’, in Littleton’s older business district.
“I don’t know,” said David, quietly. He paused to sip his chocolate shake and turned to face her. “But we’re not going to be driven out of our house by whatever this thing is.”
“Maybe we should call somebody,” she suggested, her tone worried. “Don’t they have people in the yellow pages who deal with stuff like this? I remember watching a program on the Travel Channel last week before we went to Tennessee, where this family brought in some researchers and psychics to investigate why their home was haunted.”
“Ghostbusters?” David chuckled. Seeing his joke wasn’t appreciated he added, “So, you think we really have a ghost?”
She nodded she did.
“Well, I’m not so sure,” he said, determined to keep his personal experiences out of this discussion. “I imagine there are folks like that available. But I doubt they’re in the phone book. Besides, how would we know if they were crackpots or not? I watched a rerun of t
hat show with you, remember? As I recall, the house was still haunted when the camera crews and everybody else were done. I’ll bet that family’s now the butt of every joke in their neighborhood—just like we’d be.”
She frowned.
“Like I said, I’m not letting this thing take over our house,” he said gently, to reassure her. “If worse comes to worst, I guess we can contact a priest or whoever else to come over and bless the place.”
“We’re not even catholic, and neither of us has been to church in years. So, how’s that supposed to happen?”
Her anxiety worsening, it was obvious she’d already made up her mind that a malicious entity took over their home. Of course, he thought the same thing. He glanced in the rearview mirror where all three kids watched, and then back at his wife’s troubled expression. Sadie sat perched on her lap with a near identical look.
“All right, you’ve got a point,” he conceded. “But, let’s be careful to not overreact to any of this.”
“Do you think something followed us home from Tenn-essee?” Miriam asked this as if she considered the idea for the first time. “I mean, the strange experience we had in Cades Cove.... Maybe we weren’t supposed to go to that ravine, David. Don’t you remember the weird look the park ranger gave us when you asked him if he heard of the place?”
“I think his reaction was based more on his unfamiliarity with the spot,” he countered. “Ned told me not many folks knew about the place, and it sure as hell looked like it when we got there.”
“Yeah, it did.” She glanced back at the kids.
They all leaned forward in their seats, eager to learn what went on during their parents’ anniversary excursion. She smiled and assured them everything would be fine and not to worry. She returned her gaze to him.
From the look on her face, he could tell what she thought about now: Allie Mae. But he knew she wouldn’t mention the girl from Cades Cove tonight. Not if it meant further frightening their children by giving a possible identity to the unseen menace in their house.
“Let’s not make any assumptions just yet,” he advised, intending to move her thoughts as far as possible from what happened in Cades Cove.
“Maybe it’s not from the park itself,” she wondered aloud, and then eyed him, suspicious. “Do you recall hearing a loud ringing sound in the chalet during the last night we were there?”
Shit! He assumed only he heard the ringing noises that night.
“I don’t know…maybe it’s what woke me up,” he said, trying to be evasive while his mind sought a new distraction to bring her mind back to Littleton, Colorado and their present situation only. “Remember when I broke the glass in the kitchen? You know I don’t often wake up in the middle of the night, a noise like that might’ve been what did it.”
Her expression changed. Subtle, barely detectable, and he knew she restrained herself for the kids’ benefit rather than his. A small fire ignited in her eyes, and she straightened up in her seat while she held him in her gaze. It was if she could somehow see his mental images of the strange nocturnal events from the last two nights. If only he’d possessed the foresight to dispose of the little cloth bag before they left Gatlinburg...or better yet, never lifted the damned thing out of the ravine’s cool grass in the first place.
“No, it was earlier than that, David,” she said. “It happened just after you first fell asleep, and the ringing happened twice. I thought about waking you up, but the second ring was weaker and sounded further away than the first ring, like it might’ve come from outside the chalet.”
She continued to eye him intently, and the fact he was unaware of this earlier ringing that night made him feel even more vulnerable. He realized he had to be extremely careful with what he said, as well as what he chose to omit. To escape her stare he turned his attention back to the kids.
“Did anything unusual happen while your mother and I were gone?”
They all shook their heads ‘no’.
“Let me rephrase that,” said David, his first question too vague. “Did anything we should know about happen while we were in Tennessee, from Thursday night until we came back this past Sunday afternoon?”
This time, they all glanced at each other, and he noticed Tyler’s stern look to his younger siblings, who appeared to debate silently whether or not to tell their dad some secret.
“What is it?” He moved his gaze from oldest to youngest, settling on Christopher, who seemed the most nervous. “Tell me what happened, Chris.”
“Ty broke a window,” he said, his voice a whisper, and looked down at his feet.
“What??” This caught David completely caught off guard. “In our house? Which one??”
“The one in his bedroom.” Christopher glanced up at his older brother, who let out an exasperated sigh.
“It was an accident, Dad!” Jillian piped in. “Any of us could’ve done it, because we were playing football too close to the house!”
“I’m sorry,” added Tyler, for the moment refusing to look up, shaking his head in regret.
Normally quick to berate his kids for being careless, this time David refrained from a lecture, having found a perfect detour from the world of shit he was headed towards. As for Tyler’s window, he recalled noticing something odd about it the other night when he investigated the mysterious voice. He smiled a little at the ingenious effort to conceal the window’s damage under the guise of a Halloween decoration.
“What’s so funny?” asked Miriam, eyeing him curiously.
“I take it you knew about this?” he asked, his smile turning into a wry smirk.
“Jan told me when we got home, while you and the boys were taking the luggage upstairs,” she admitted. “Only one pane was actually broken, and two others are cracked. I already called a glass company and they’re supposed to send someone to replace it on Friday. Jan and the kids did a great job covering the hole in the window after it happened. So, as long as the blinds are down, it should keep the outside cold air from getting inside the house.”
She glanced back at the kids while patting Tyler’s knee, who continued to look down at his lap.
“Something else is making the house so cold!” added Jillian.
“Well, can I count on you three to be more careful next time?” David asked them, his smile widening. “If so, I’m willing to let it count as a learning experience. What do you all say to that?”
Tyler raised his head in surprise. He looked over at his mom and then at his younger brother and sister before returning his gaze to David.
“Sure, Dad,” he told him, his smile hopeful. “I promise to think before I act next time.”
“Me, too!” said Jillian, and Christopher echoed her enthusiasm.
“All right, that’s settled.”
Pleased by the response, David shifted in his seat so he could face everyone. Miriam seemed grateful for how he hand-led this situation. He now understood its importance to everyone, until the more recent unsettling events took precedence.
“Did anything else happen from the time of the football incident to when your mom and I came home on Sunday?”
“Nothing happened until Sunday night with Sadie, Dad,” said Jillian. “Remember when we couldn’t find her, and she hid under the bed? And, she wouldn’t come to anyone but Mom? So, Mom said something scared the ‘h’ out of Sadie, and you asked her if she thought we should take Sadie to a vet?”
“Yes, sweetie, we all remember.”
David chuckled at how his daughter turned into a motor-mouth when she got excited. Tyler had once been like that, and Christopher would go through this stage someday. His eldest son’s concerned voice snapped him out of his moment of nostalgia.
“Sadie’s been acting pretty weird ever since,” added Tyler.
He seemed less upset than earlier. David hoped that after going easy on the window incident it would help Tyler confide in him more.
“Anything else from Sunday?”
They all said ‘no’.
> “How about you, babe?” he asked Miriam.
“Nothing I can think of,” she said. “The next thing, I believe, was on Monday afternoon when Jill heard the knocking upstairs.”
David felt relieved that nobody else heard the eerie voice and laughter Sunday night. He finished writing Miriam’s observations down on the pad when Jillian spoke up.
“Do you remember how my room got really cold, and all of a sudden Grandma’s dresser started shaking?” she reminded her mom. “It rose into the air and then slammed back down on the floor!”
David frowned and looked over at Miriam, momentarily forgetting his own white lies while ready to admonish her for this omission.
“I should’ve told you about it,” she confessed. “But after neither of the boys could confirm the knocks and the loud slam against Jill’s door, I honestly didn’t know what to think. Sorry about that, sweetheart.”
She reached back to where Jillian sat and gently clasped her hand. Jillian squeezed her mother’s hand tight.
“Are you boys sure you didn’t hear or see anything unusual yesterday afternoon?”
“No, Dad, we didn’t,” said Tyler, after a brief glance at Christopher, who confirmed this by mouthing ‘no’ again.
“So, there’s nothing else from yesterday or last night.”
“Oops, Daddy, I just remembered something,” said Christopher. “Sadie was acting really strange when Jill and I came home from school yesterday. It was my turn to take her outside, but she acted like she might’ve had an accident somewhere in the house. I never found any dog poop or pee, but she whined a lot when I checked the dining room.”
“Sadie’s not been herself since we got back from Tennessee,” added Miriam, stroking Sadie’s neck while she sat contented in her lap. “You know, they say animals can see and sense things we can’t. Isn’t that right, ‘baby girl’?”
