When I was fresh out of college, I moved into my grandmother’s house. She had lived alone for the better half of thirty years, ever since my grandfather died in the Korean conflict. However, since age had ravaged her body, leaving her a shell of her former self, I pledged I would be her caregiver given that I was unemployed and had ample free time.
The days sitting with my grandmother were long and boring. She would watch the same channel everyday and she wasn’t much of a conversationalist anymore. I read and did crossword puzzles. This went on for several months.
My friend called me one night after I had put my grandmother to bed and invited me for a night out on the town. My grandmother, once asleep, usually stays that way until morning. I tiptoed into her bedroom and discovered that she was sound asleep, snoring ever so slightly. I told my friend I’d meet her in an hour.
I showered and dressed. Once again, I peaked in on my grandmother to see her still asleep. I left for the club.
The club was loud and heat from many bodies clumped on the dance floor caused me to sweat. I danced like I had never danced before, glad to break out of my monotonous routine even if for only a few hours. We closed the place down, leaving at about two o’clock in the morning. I had a joyous glow about me all the way to my grandmother’s house that shattered as I saw the red and blue lights of police cars and fire engines and smelt smoke. I realized that the commotion was coming from my grandmother’s house and as I drove up, I saw that the house was engulfed in flames. Several firefighters were going in and out in a hurry.
The chief firefighter told me that my grandmother must have lit the stove and went back to sleep with it still lit. He told me she didn’t make it. At that moment, I looked over the fireman’s shoulder to see two firemen wheeling a body in a black bag on a stretcher. I fell to my knees and cried, gasping for air.
I moved into an apartment after that. I had been there for a week when the paranormal instances started happening.
Sleeping one night, I heard a shuffling and a slight thumping. I lay awake listening and trying to place what I was hearing. My heart pounded and I felt blood rushing in my ears. It was getting louder like whatever was making the noise was getting closer. Until, suddenly, everything went deafeningly silent. I cowered under my blankets until I managed to fall asleep.
I had almost daily panic attacks and I could barely eat. Sleep came scarcely and restlessly. I would lay awake shaking and covering my ears to block out the sound. I was too afraid to tell anyone what I was experiencing for fear that they would think I was crazy.
Every night, I would wait for the sound and every night it would come at exactly two o’clock, shuffling and thumping. I didnt dare get out of bed. After a couple weeks of listening to the sound night after night, a realization struck me like a bolt of lightning, causing me to sit bolt upright in bed. It sounded exactly like when my grandmother would walk with her walker. She would shuffle her slippered feet and would always run into door jams and such.
After that the occurrences seemed to stop. My anxiety significantly decreased and I even got a job as a book reviewer. That was until the phenomenon returned with a vengeance.
I was up late finishing up the latest novel that I was assigned to review. I, once again to my dismay, heard the shuffling and thumping, alerting me that it was two o’clock. I hadn’t planned on staying up this late as I did not want to be out of bed, still afraid that I would hear the noises, and obviously, for good reason. The shuffling and thumping cresendoed, but this time it didn’t fall away. It continued along with a painful wailing and moaning that I had never heard before.
Fed up, I followed the sound to the hallway outside of my bedroom. When I flicked on the light I saw nothing there but, the myriad of sounds continued to ring in my ears, moaning, wailing, shuffling, thumping. That’s when I smelled smoke along with the smell of burnt hair. I ran out of my apartment and slept at my friend’s house.
Finally, I returned to my apartment, thinking that what I experienced had to be a manifestation of deep seeded guilt.
³The last night that I ever spent in my apartment I woke up and as I came out of sleep, I realized that I was standing over the stove, the heat from the open flame of the gas range warming my face. I was sleepwalking, I determined, something I hadn’t done since I was a child. At that moment, the hair on the back of my neck stood at attention. I look at the clock which read two o’ clock.
I heard shuffling, thumping, moaning, and wailing, louder than it had ever been. I smelled the sickening smell of burning flesh and felt a rasping breath on my neck.
My blood ran cold as I spun around to find my grandmother standing so close that I could feel the heat radiating from her charred skin. The smell was abhorrent and I gagged. The worst part was her eyes that looked like runny eggs melting down her cheeks. She opened her mouth and croaked, “Come burn with me,” before she disappeared.