Ghost Cat - Thelma's Dilemma

by Carol Colbert

  Ghost Cat –

  Thelma’s Dilemma

  By Carol Colbert

  Copyright 2016 by Carol Colbert

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form without written permission from the author, except for brief quoted passages for review purposes.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or collective memories of people she has known in general, put together to form various single characters, and thus, resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, unless explicitly noted, are entirely coincidental.

  This book is dedicated to my precious grandchildren who are the only ones who believe grandma really did have a ghost cat. A special wink to Gertie and Thelma.

  Chapter 1

  Gertie had left explicit instructions on how she wanted her send off to the great beyond to go. She was laid out in a bright red negligee and there was a live band and a catered meal, all arranged and paid for by Gertie the year before. She wanted people to celebrate her life, and not dwell on her death. Living to be one hundred and three years old was reason alone to celebrate. She had been something of a local celebrity, and not only because of her advanced age. Her quick wit and strong will had caused her to butt heads with local politicians and others and the local newspapers and TV stations were always happy to report on her triumphs.

  Gertie had been a good friend to the Gaunter family and had watched the girls on occasion when Jim and Sarah had some event to attend. The Gaunter’s had lived next door to Gertie for the six years they had lived in Henderson, Tennessee.

  Jim had been transferred back to his home state of Michigan just last year. Although it was only November, the weather was terrible for travel. Jim and Sarah knew that they had to come back to pay their final respects to their good friend and neighbor.

  Jim was trying to hurry his family out of the banquet hall that had hosted a wake after the funeral services. He was anxious to get home and was not looking forward to the long drive. It had been a quick trip, they had arrived just the day prior.

  “Where is Suzanne?” Jim asked his older daughter, Riley.”

  “I don’t know, the last time I saw her she was trying to feed Mr. Pickles. She might be in the bathroom.”

  “Go find her will you? Tell her we are leaving now.”

  Riley went in search of her younger sister, pausing along the way to gather a few pieces of fruit from the food table. She walked into the bathroom and looked under the stalls, but she did not see any legs dangling down. She turned to leave again and then heard Suzanne singing.

  “Suzanne! Dad said we are leaving right now! Hurry up or we will leave you in Tennessee!” Suzanne finished in record time and came out of the stall and washed her hands, first laying Mr. Pickles on the sink top. “O.K., O.K., hold your horses! Are we really going back to the hotel right now?”

  “No, we are going back home, but yeah, right now.” Riley said, finishing the fruit and washing her hands. Riley then looked at her six year old sister and smiled at her. “Suzanne, you really were good at the funeral, I am proud of you, you did not cry even once.”

  “Gertie told me once that when she died not to cry. She said that she is going to a wonderful place where she will be young again and happy. She has to wait until all of us left that place where she was sleeping before she could wake up and go there though.”

  Riley did not know what to say to that, she was just glad that Suzanne was not crying or sad. ‘Yeah, well, let’s get going before daddy starts to yell.”

  Sarah was shaking Don’s hand and trying to speak loud enough for Gertie’s seventy-seven year old son to hear her. “We know how much you will miss your mother, Don.” Sarah said. “We all will. The world was a better place with her in it.”

  “Thank you, Sarah, I have something to give you, but it is back at the house.” Don said.

  “Back at the house? I know Jim is anxious to get back on the road. What is it, exactly?” Sarah inquired, knowing this news would cause Jim anxiety if it took too long to retrieve whatever it was that Don had to give them. It was a ten minute drive from the hall where they were to the house Gertie had called home. Ten minutes in the opposite direction of northbound I-75.

  Jim walked up and held out his hand to Don and told him that he would always remember Gertie and how much fun she was. “Don tells me that Gertie left us something and Don would like us to go back to the house so he can give it to us.” Sarah said, not daring to look her husband in the eye as she spoke.

  “Oh. We have already checked out of the hotel and are close to the expressway here, Don.” Jim said, unsure of what to say so that he did not sound ungrateful, but wondering why Don had not said anything when they were at the house last night.

  “Good, follow me.” Don said, apparently not hearing the lack of agreement in Jim’s voice.

  Don walked over to the Gaunter’s van and stood by the front passenger door, apparently waiting for Jim to open it for him. Jim and Sarah exchanged a look. Suzanne, said “Is Gertie’s son going back to Michigan with us?”

  Fourteen year old Riley looked at her mom for an answer to Suzanne’s question, knowing there was not enough room in their van for such a long trip with that many people.

  “No, Suzanne, we are just going to take Don back to the house, just for a minute, and then we will be on our way.” Sarah said.

  “Good, because Mr. Pickles needs his space.” Suzanne stated, hugging her giant stuffed rabbit to her chest.

  They pulled up to Gertie’s house and Jim said “Here you go, O.K. if we wait out here, Don? We really need to be on our way.”

  “I can’t carry it, Jim, you will have to come in, your wife too and maybe the older girl, it is heavy.” Don explained.

  Sarah and Jim were speechless. They had no clue what Don was about to give them and how could they refuse if, indeed, Gertie had meant for them to have it. Whatever ‘it’ was?

  Everyone got out of the van, the snow started coming down harder. They went into the house and Don led Jim up to the attic. “It is up here.” He said. Jim looked at the big trunk and could not believe that Don expected them to take this with them and at the last moment too. “What is in the trunk?” He asked Don.

  “Don’t know, here, I have some rope, let’s get it anchored to the top of the van. Good thing you didn’t drive a small vehicle here.” Don laughed. Sarah and Jim struggled with the trunk until they were able to secure it to the top of the van. They waved to Don and backed out of the driveway.

  “Well, that added another hour to the ride home, look at this snow, too.” Jim complained. “I don’t remember a November being this cold and icy, not in several years.”

  Sarah actually agreed with her husband on that point, but decided not to add fuel to the fire, so she didn’t comment.

  The trunk was ornate and very heavy, although Sarah didn’t know if that was because of the weight of the wood, or the contents of the big trunk.

  Visibility was low on I-75 Northbound. This had been a difficult trip for the family for a few reasons. First, the passing of such a grand ole dame as Gertie, but also because although it was November, the roads were icy and slick. Jim was having a bit of trouble keeping the family van in its own lane because of the wind and ice rain.

  “Jim, this rain isn’t letting up, do you think we should stop somewhere and wait it out?” Sarah asked her husband as she nervously glanced in the back to make sure Riley and Suzanne were buckled securely in their seat belts.

  “Stop where? The exits here are far and few between. We are driving into the worse of it, so I am not sure if waiting it out would be the best thing to do at this
point. It is already dark. We won’t be home until well after midnight as it is. I thought we would have been on the road hours ago.”

  “I know, Jim. Gertie certainly knows how to throw a party, even in death. It reminded me of Mardi gras in New Orleans.”

  “I wonder what is in that trunk that Gertie left us. Maybe we should have checked it out before we took it.” Riley said. “Doesn’t having it on the roof of the van make driving more difficult?”

  “Yes, it does, but Don didn’t make that possible, giving it to us right before we left like he did. I have to get back to work, Riley, it was easier to just put it on the roof and go. To have opened it there would have added a lot more time before we could get on the road, and who knows what is in it. We couldn’t have just tossed out what we didn’t want to take back with us in front of her son that would have been rude.”

  “I know, you are right.” Sarah said, “And can you imagine if we did open it and Don would have a comment on each item in it? Oh no, we did the right thing by accepting it, but also by putting it on the roof and leaving when we did. I am glad that we went back though, it was nice to see everyone we left behind when we moved back home.”

  “I was surprised that you told Gerties son about our ghost house in Michigan.” Jim said, referring to the house they had rented sight unseen in Southgate when Jim’s company, JAMICO had promoted him and that promotion had meant that they were going to live in Michigan again.

  A series of events had them running out of that rental house. Events the average person would find almost impossible to believe. The Gaunter family now lived in a much bigger, nicer, ghost free home in Riverview, about ten miles from where their ghost house had been located.

  “Gertie was a real character, Jim. You know if anyone would believe us, it would have been her, so when Don asked how we were doing in Michigan. I told him. He didn’t seem shocked and he didn’t look at me like I had two heads and was talking in tongues or anything. He even mentioned that Gertie had had experiences not unlike that herself.”

  “Well, if nothing else, it took his mind off losing his mother for a couple of minutes, I guess. He didn’t look so well himself, what he is – about seventy five now?”

  “Seventy-seven I believe. I think about the stories he must have of his mom. I wish we would have had time to talk more about those experiences. I can fully believe that Gertie would have loved to find herself in the middle of a paranormal situation, maybe her son could give us insight into that sort of thing.” Sarah said.

  “Who is Perry Normal, mom?” Suzanne asked from the backseat.

  “Suzanne!” Her big sister Riley said, looking at her. “There you go again! First Harry Potter and now Perry Normal, you crack me up.”

  Suzanne had heard the term ‘poltergeist’ when she was sitting by her bedroom window and the neighbors were discussing the new arrivals when they first moved into the ghost house. Suzanne had somehow interpreted that term as polder-guy and then Potter Guy – Harry Potter - when they had lived in the haunted house. If she had been able to pronounce the term correctly, it might have saved the family some scary moments.

  “Paranormal” means something that is out of the normal. Something that cannot be explained by science.” Jim offered.

  “Like the floor shaking and the windows blowing out like in that crazy house?” Riley asked. “Yes, exactly like that.” Jim answered.

  “Gertie used to tell me and Suzanne stories when she would baby-sit us. Some were funny and Gertie talked in different voices to make the stories seem more real. She never told us any stories that were too scary though.” Riley said.

  “Yeah, nothing like Perry Normal people pealing people’s faces off or anything.”

  “Suzanne!” The other three of the car’s occupants yelled at the same time.

  A large semi-truck pass the van and splashed a large amount of slush onto their windshield, causing Jim to swerve. The trunk, which had been secured to the van’s roof, shifted, causing the van to further skid. The trunk fell off and it was several seconds after that before Jim managed to regain control of his steering and guide the van to the side of the expressway where it would be safe to stop.

  “Is everyone O.K?” Sarah said, looking back at her girls.

  “Mr. Pickles bumped his head!” Suzanne exclaimed, hugging her big stuffed rabbit with the white plastic face close to her.”

  “Everyone O.K. besides Mr. Pickles?” Sarah asked again. Jim and Riley shook their heads yes and Jim said “We lost the trunk.”

  “Heck with that trunk. Jim. The road is so bad and we don’t even know what was in it.” Sarah said, just wanting to continue on their way home. The long trip and events of the last few days had exhausted her.

  “Yeah, but what if it is still in the road? Someone could get killed trying to swerve around that thing if they even see it in the dark, and the snow will cover it within minutes. No, we have to go back, if even just to move it off the expressway.” Jim said.

  It was a few more minutes driving before there was another exit and they were able to leave the expressway safely. It was another few before they found the entrance going south. Sarah and the girls were looking across the expressway trying to see if they could spot the trunk, or, God forbid, an accident that might have been caused by the large trunk being in the middle of the road. It was very dark by this time and the snow was falling heavily so they saw neither.

  “Jim, do you remember which exit we were near when the trunk fell?” Sarah asked. “No, not in this dark. Really, it was all I could do to keep my eyes on the road ahead of us, the rocks from the hills and all this sleet, it was hard to see anything.”

  They got back on I-75 Northbound a few exits down and retraced their original path. “There it is Daddy!” Suzanne screamed so loud that Riley said “Aww, Suzanne, do you have to be so loud?”

  “You’re loud” Suzanne told her back. “Girls, knock it off.” Their father said. “I see it too now, thanks Suzanne.”

  “Won’t it be dangerous to stop and get that trunk back?” Sarah asked her husband.

  “Probably, but we are lucky that at this time of night the traffic is lighter, being a regular week day too. Besides, we can’t leave that there for someone else to run over or be distracted by and get into an accident, and we don’t know what is in it either.”

  The sleet was pelting Jim’s face when he got out of the van to retrieve the trunk. Sarah instructed the girls to stay put and she got out to help her husband. “Did it break open?” Sarah asked.

  “It is open and there is a hole in the side of it, let’s just shove these smaller boxes and blankets back in and get it back on the van before we get hit ourselves.” Jim yelled over the noise of the expressway and ice rain. It took longer than it would have if the weather was good, but finally the trunk was back on top of the van and the family was back on their way home.

  Sarah and the girls fell asleep and Jim decided that he was going to drive all the way back to Riverview, only stopping for gas and to check to make sure the big trunk was still secure.

  The Gaunter family got home a little after eight a.m. the next morning. They were all tired. They stopped and picked up their pet puppy, Cooper, from friends of theirs who was watching the little dog while they were away. Sarah said “Just leave the trunk, we can deal with it later.”

  Jim and Sarah took their suitcases out of the van and the trunk off of the roof of the van. They left the trunk in the garage while Jim went to work and Sarah and the girls went inside the house. Later that morning Sarah, Suzanne and Riley took the van to clean it out and when they got home, Sarah started to wash the clothes they had taken with them. She didn’t give any thought to the trunk for most of the day, but when she let Cooper outside, she decided to look in it.

  There were some very nice pieces of jewelry, probably not real jewels, but they could be. There were two quilts that looked homemade, old clothes, a few papers, some of which were beyond ruined by the snow and rain. Sarah took the pape
rs into the house and the blankets in to wash. It was cold in the garage and there was no rush in going through the entire contents of the trunk right now. The trip had worn her out and she knew the girls and Jim were as tired as she was.

  “Were there any toys in there, mommy?” Suzanne asked.

  “Why would Gertie have toys, dummy?” Riley said. “Gertie was too old for toys.”

  “That is not a silly question, Riley, if there are some toys in there, I imagine they would be almost as old as Gertie was and might be very interesting or worth a lot of money. We can go through the rest of the stuff later.” Their mom said.

  Jim got home from work and the family had an early dinner and a much earlier than usual bedtime.

  Chapter 2

  What the…… Thelma shook her head, trying to clear it. Where am I? She looked around her and saw she was surrounded by something yellow. She batted it away from her face and noticed an opening in something brown that she could look through. She realized then that she was in some sort of box. She didn’t have room to stretch or move things around, but she knew she could breath and that at least was something.

  Thelma tried to think back, how she could have landed herself into such a predicament. The last thing she remembered was being with Luna, and they were riding on Hugo’s back. Thelma did not remember how she got separated from her sister, but she did remember being by the edge of the expressway. She had been looking for Luna and Hugo when a big truck came by and splashed her, knocking her over. Then she had seen something big flying through the air that made her jump out of the way before it could smash her.

  The big box thing. Now she remembered, she was cold and wet and did not see any vehicles stopping to get the big box, so she crawled inside of it and snuggled to the bottom where the blankets were. I must have fallen asleep. The hole in the box was not big enough for Thelma to crawl through and she could not stretch to her full height, which was five feet one inch, while in the box.