by John Brhel
“I think it scratched me when I asked if you were walking
around. But then it left after I was quiet for a while. I’m not going to say anything else until the alarm goes off. Just please don’t leave, Joey.”
“Really? What was it?” I asked. But Jenny didn’t
respond. Not long after, I heard a low growling from inside the room that my sister occupied. I backed up from the door and considered retrieving my aunt. But I was stuck between my fear of receiving the same punishment as my sister, had I gotten my aunt, and my youthful skepticism regarding the authenticity of the sounds coming from within the room.
My sister liked to scare me, and had gone to great lengths in doing so over the course of our childhoods.
I nearly panicked, and backed toward the stairs when I
heard a shuffling from within the root closet. Then I heard glass tumble and break, and practically jumped onto the
staircase, ready to make my escape. “Jenny! Are you okay?
Did the shelf fall?” And as I said it, the wooden door itself began shaking, as if it were trembling from whatever horror
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CzARNY LUD
that was taking place inside.
But I couldn’t leave her, no matter what. She had saved
me from experiencing whatever was taking place within the
dark cellar room. I remained still, prone on the staircase, silent, and the door eventually ceased trembling, and the
noises waned, and I slowly crept back to my place of vigil on the stool. I couldn’t exactly tell time, and was just waiting on that bell to chime so I could free my sister.
As I waited, terror balled in my drying throat, the likes
of which I wouldn’t feel again until my first night at Army boot camp. The alarm ringer practically tore my heart from my chest when it went off. I jumped up and immediately
twisted the bottom latch, then retrieved my stool so I could reach the top latch. And though it took longer than I would have liked, I finally twisted and yanked the latch free from the ring.
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CORPSE COLD: NEW AMERICAN FOLKLORE
I feared the worst as I rushed to free Jenny. The door
was light, and it flew open at my over-exuberant tug. My
sister shuffled out, rubbing her eyes as she got used to the natural light from the cellar windows. Her pale, glazed
expression was indescribable. To this day, I still say she came out a different person.
“What happened?” I asked, as I peeked into the small
root room. Broken glass from six or so Mason jars littered the floor; none remained on the seemingly intact shelving.
“Did you accidentally knock over those empty jars?”
She looked me up and down, and for a brief moment it
felt as if she had to recall who I was. “The jars weren’t empty when I went in.”
“Huh? What’s up with your arm.” I grabbed her
forearm and pointed out a long scratch, not exactly deep,
but certainly fresh.
“Joey, the jars were full of blueberries when I went in.
It ate them.”
I asked Jenny a million questions that day, and the days
after, but she didn’t go into much detail regarding her time inside the root room. She didn’t say much to Aunt Cecelia
about her time in the room either—but it was like they
didn’t have to talk about it. Jenny had learned something about herself that day. When I asked her about the room,
from time to time, Jenny would simply say that the Czarny
Lud was very real.
Soon enough, we were fully invested in our elementary
school lives, and only saw our beloved Great-Aunt Cecelia
on holidays and at birthdays. While the memory of those
days near the tail end of the Summer of ’88 really stuck with me, because of what I didn’t know—the opposite seemed
to be true for my sister. My parents were bewildered for
some time by the sudden change. Why their once-fearless
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CzARNY LUD
daughter now refused to enter dark rooms, and wouldn’t
sleep with the light off until her early teenage years.
• 47 •
• IV •
CORpSE COLD
There was a group of medical students at Binghampton
College that loathed one of their own—a popular, and
successful, student named Natalie Zietz. Roxi Gasaway hated Natalie. She was obsessed with the young woman; she made
up rumors about Natalie, and badmouthed her to all her
friends. Roxi wanted to hurt Natalie for taking the research position that she believed she had rightfully earned. Not
only did Roxi resent Natalie for her superior position at
their medical school, she had seen Natalie out with one of her ex-boyfriends the weekend prior to spring break.
It was a Friday night in late April, and Roxi was plotting her revenge. She knew Dickie Greene, who dated Natalie’s
roommate, Jordan, also despised Natalie—likely because
Natalie had turned him down for dates ever since they were undergrads at Geneseo State.
“So, Dickie will get Jordan to stay in his room tonight.
She can’t know because she’ll tell Ms. Zits,” said Roxi, as she and her crew gathered in Dickie’s room on the floor
above Natalie’s in their dormitory. “While we’re at the bar, Pete and Dave will get the cadaver from Dr. Stone’s morgue and get it into Natalie’s bed. Hopefully, she’ll be drunk
enough to fall asleep with the stiff.” Everyone laughed.
“Wait, Roxi. How are we supposed to get a dead body
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across the quad without campus security noticing?” asked
Pete. “And does Dickie have the key to Jordan and Natalie’s room?”
Roxi sighed, handing a key to Pete. “This is the Resident
Director’s key. It will open every room in the medical
dorm. And I don’t care how you plebs get the cadaver across campus and into her bed; you frickin’ figure it out. Third-year med students have access to just about everything in
the Vanderwyck Building. Bodybags, stretchers—heck, I’m
sure Dave could just drive the student ambulance to the
backdoor of the dorm.”
Dave nodded. “We’ll figure it out, Roxi. Nat’s a bitch
and we’re all-in on this.”
“Couldn’t we just put a severed hand in her closet,
or an amputated leg under her pillow?” said Kimmie, the
final member of the group. “A cadaver could get messy, and it might be a felony…”
Roxi interrupted Kimmie. “Stop! All you have to do is
keep Natalie drinking with you at the Belmar after Dickie
takes Jordan home with him.”
Kimmie eventually relented, giving in to her
overbearing best friend, and they set Roxi’s plan in motion.
That evening, around 9 p.m., Natalie and Jordan left for
their usual Friday night hangout, the Belmar Bar. They
drank and talked with guys and other medical students for
hours, before Dickie arrived.
“Sorry, Nat. I owe him one,” said Jordan, winking at
her best friend.
“Keep it safe, girl,” laughed Natalie. She watched
Jordan leave with her boyfriend, a guy she despised for
putting her in many uncomfortable situations over the
years.
• 50 •
CORpSE COLD
Natalie finished her drink, and was about to leave,
when Kimmie grabbed her by the arm.
“Hey wait, Nat,” said Kimmie. “Let’s get a drink and
/> catch up.”
Natalie hesitated, looking around. She knew Kimmie
from high school, but she was also wary of the girl, as she hadn’t really spoken to her since she became close friends with Roxi Gasaway. “Um, is Roxi around?”
Kimmie shook her head.
“Okay then; let’s drink!”
The girls talked of high school, and what had become
of old, mutual friends. Kimmie seemed genuine enough
to Natalie that she let her guard down, and Natalie drank
more than she had intended to. It was well after midnight
by the time the girls left the bar. They walked back to the medical dorm together and parted ways in the stairwell, as they lived on different floors.
Natalie unlocked her door and didn’t even bother
flipping on the lights, stumbling into her room. She
undressed, got into bed, and fell right to sleep.
Roxi, Pete, and Dave intercepted Kimmie as she came up
the stairs. “Dickie has Jordan in his room. The body is in place,” stated Roxi, giddily. “Let’s all go down and wait for her to lose her shit!”
The foursome hurried down the stairs, and hung out
in the student lounge, which was within earshot of Natalie’s room. They waited a few minutes in silence, anticipating
the climax of their complicated plan. After twenty minutes had passed, Roxi began to get antsy. “Are you two sure you put the cadaver in the right room?”
“Yeah, we’re not exactly idiots,” whispered Pete.
Roxi took the key and went out to the hallway, while her
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CORPSE COLD: NEW AMERICAN FOLKLORE
friends watched from the lounge. She looked both ways,
then went to Natalie’s door, listening for a few minutes
before unlocking it and peeking inside. Roxi then closed
the door and returned to the lounge, visibly upset.
“You fuckups! You put the cadaver in Jordan’s bed!” said Roxi, visibly upset, but still trying to keep her voice low.
“Goddamn, Roxi. The guy was a fatty,” said Pete. “We
must’ve got turned around. He was heavy and we were in a
hurry.”
“Shut up! Let’s go back upstairs and figure this out,”
said Roxi.
They went to Pete and Dave’s room and talked over
their options.
“Maybe we should just get the corpse and put it back,
Roxi,” said Kimmie.
“No! It’s too late. We’re already invested, and we’re
going to get this bitch back for wrecking my life!” said Roxi.
Dave really wanted to impress Roxi. He had an idea.
“Pete’s got this sick hunting knife under his mattress.”
“I’m listening,” said Roxi.
“What if I go into Nat’s room and act like I’m Ted
Bundy, stabbing up co-eds in their beds?”
Roxi laughed. “Fucking perfect, dude. Stab that
fucking corpse and make her think you’re stabbing her best friend—she’ll shit her bed thinking she’s next! ”
They talked over the logistics for the next hour. Dave,
dressed in black, put a knit cap on his head and a dark
bandana over his face. They all returned to the lounge on
the floor below and readied Dave for his murderous debut.
“Okay, no one’s around. Keep the knife hidden and
unlock the door—go in, and make fucking sure that you don’t stab Natalie,” said Roxi, pausing to think over the strategy and the inherent dangers within. “Actually, she’s probably
• 52 •
CORpSE COLD
sleeping pretty heavily—so shake her to wake her up, then
go over and start stabbing the corpse. When she starts
screaming, chase her out of the room with the knife and
just run back upstairs to your room.”
Dave nodded. They were all a little scared, that is,
everyone except for Roxi. She felt a small, dark bliss welling up from the pit of her stomach, in anticipation of Natalie’s reaction.
Dave unlocked the door, entering quietly. The room
was darker than he would have liked, but he could make
out forms in each bed. He crept toward the bed on the left, like Roxi had said, and heard a light snoring. He grabbed
Natalie by the nape of her neck, and shook her until he
could make out the whites of her eyes from the little light that shone from the walkway lamps out on the quad.
Natalie mumbled something as she awoke, and Dave
got into position across the room at the foot of the other bed. She quietly turned over onto her elbow, and stared at the dark form in her room. Before she could make a sound,
Dave began stabbing at the body in the other bed, wildly
thrusting into the corpse, watching for Natalie’s reaction as the knife plunged in, the mattress below him creaking.
The young woman’s screams were deafening—shrill,
piercing, life-altering screams. Dave was startled, not quite expecting the intensity of Natalie’s cries. He jumped up,
forgetting about his plans to threaten Natalie, and ran
from the room, now terrified at getting caught.
Natalie didn’t move; she continued screaming until
the entire hall came to her door. Campus security was on
the scene within minutes. They corralled everyone out
into the quad while they figured out what was going on—
assuming there was an active, knife-wielding attacker on
the premises.
• 53 •
CORpSE COLD
While the students milled about outside the dorm,
Kimmie noticed a groggy Dickie stumbling out the front
doors. She ran over to him, and her friends saw and
followed.
“Dickie! Where’s Jordan?!” said Kimmie.
“Oh god, don’t yell—my head’s pounding,” said Dickie.
Roxi grabbed Dickie by his t-shirt and restated
Kimmie’s question.
“What?! We had a fight and she went back to her room,”
said Dickie, smiling to himself, still intoxicated. “She was being a real bitch. Just like her roommate. Ha! Whatever happened with the cadaver and all that?”
No one responded. Roxi ran to the dorm entrance,
but she was held back by a policeman.
“Nope. Wait out here, sweetheart,” said the officer.
“Make way! Make way!” He pushed Roxi and her friends
aside, as two stretchers were brought out of the building.
The first carried a rotund, lifeless corpse under a white
sheet. The second held the body of a young woman who
had been stabbed to death in her bed.
Roxi began sobbing when she saw the bloodstained
sheet over the girl on the second stretcher. She looked
Natalie in the eye, as Natalie walked past, accompanying her murdered roommate to the waiting ambulance. Roxi had
gotten what she wanted. Natalie had been hurt, certainly
traumatized, and would never again be the model student,
or person, that Roxi had once detested.
• 55 •
• V •
AmITYVILLE BEACH
My son Jesse was acting especially strange that afternoon
at the beach—even for a ten-year-old boy who was ‘on
the spectrum.’ He was waving his hands, jumping up and
down in the surf, trying to get my attention. It was Fourth of July Weekend, and I couldn’t tell what he was looking at, as the beach was really crowded. He was trying to point out something, and was growing frustrated that I couldn’t see
what he needed me to see.
I wa
s trying to change his little sister, Missy. She was
flailing around in the hot sand, refusing to put on her
bathing suit. The kind of attitude that only a four-year-old would cop on her first-ever trip to the ocean. It’s hard being a single parent and taking your young kids on vacation.
You imagine making the sort of memories that might last a
lifetime—and then they act out, fight, and whine the entire time. Still, I had one eye out for my son. And I was doing my best to make sure he didn’t wade out too deep, as I had heard that the rip current was strong that afternoon.
Eventually, he accepted that he wasn’t going to get his
message across, and ran to where we had set up for the day.
“Mom! There’s a lady who looks just like you a little
way down the beach! And she saw me!” He leaned over,
huffing and puffing from his exertion. Seawater ran from
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CORPSE COLD: NEW AMERICAN FOLKLORE
his sodden, navy-blue board shorts and down his spindly
legs.
“Relax, dude,” I replied, as I finally maneuvered the
straps of Missy’s swimsuit over her shoulders. “You want a drink or something?”
“Mom! She was even wearing khaki shorts and a white
top!”
I looked around, to humor him. It was uncomfortably
crowded that afternoon, but not all that hot for Long Island in early July. “Jesse, half of the women here are wearing
khaki shorts and white tops over their bathing suits.”
“Christ! It’s really weird.”
“Don’t cuss!”
He sat down and drank a soda for a few minutes while
Missy occupied herself in the sand. I finally had the chance to crack open my copy of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.
“Mom, can we drive past the ‘Amityville Horror’
house?”
I couldn’t help but sigh—and at times like this, a sigh is more a warning than an expression of frustration. “If you
behave today, and give me a chance to read a little, we can drive past those poor folks’ home.” He grinned. Cute kid.
“How would you like it if people stopped in front of your bedroom window, most every day of the year?”
“I think I’d be more worried about the poltergeists
inside!”
It wasn’t a half-hour later when my wish had finally been
granted. My feet were buried in the sand as I reclined in my beach chair, thirty pages into my novel. Missy slept under a towel beside me, and Jesse frolicked in the waves, close to shore. I couldn’t help but laugh. In a few years, he wouldn’t be caught dead out in public that carefree and completely
