My fiance, Becca, and I rarely followed tradition, but for some reason, sleeping alone the night before our wedding was one we decided to go through with. So, I found myself alone in a Victorian-style little bedroom in the Lanning House, our wedding venue, perched above the rocky shore of the Northern California coast.
I woke up in the middle of the night after having to piss out some of the too many drinks I downed at the rehearsal dinner. I found myself back in bed, praying I’d be able to get back to sleep at some point.
I felt like I was just about to fall back asleep when the door to my room opened. The initial fear and bother that ran through my brain since I thought I locked it quickly washed away when I saw the silhouette of a woman standing in the now open doorway.
Becca had come to surprise me in the night. I smiled as she walked across the room to the end of my bed.
The first thing I noticed which was off was the smell. A sour death smell that might sting your nose when you go into a nursing home overpowered my hose, almost making me gag. The second thing that was off was how frail and thin Becca’s shadow looked as she moved across the space. She looked like she couldn’t have been more than 100 pounds.
I wrote both off as a byproduct of my still-buzzed, foggy brain and the odd setting of the house, though doubt kept creeping in as she crawled up onto the bed and moved up to straddle me.
The smell started to fade - or maybe I just got used to it? She felt good on top of me. I reached up to grab her, but she pushed my hands up behind my head.
She took control and I liked it.
Until a stiff breeze through the open window pushed the blinds out of place and let in a solid shard of light. I got a look at Becca on top of me and saw it was definitely not Becca.
It was a decrepit old woman, at least 80, gray and frail with an angry look on her rigid face.
I screamed and pushed her off of me.
I jumped up out of the bed, that awful smell still burning in my nose. My eyes searched the nearly-dark room, but they saw nothing.
That breeze came back and pushed the blinds back in front of the window and it was completely dark again.
I heard soft footsteps walking away from my room out in the hall.
-
It was nearly dark outside when I worked up the courage to leave my room at 8 a.m. A punishing storm had rolled in and wasn’t going to leave anytime soon. Heavy rains. Gale force winds. Thunder and lightning.
A landslide had taken out the only highway in and out of the tiny little cliffside town where we were having the wedding so only those who were in the wedding party and close family were going to be able to drive in for the ceremony. That was fine with me. The incident of the night before had given me serious jitters.
I wasn’t too enthused about the power getting knocked out and having to do the wedding by candlelight, but it would make for some pretty good pictures.
That tradition of not seeing your wife until the wedding was doing its job. I was racked with every emotion imaginable as I stood there in the candlelit room waiting for Becca to walk in.
It was cold and miserable outside and the heat didn’t work in the venue, yet I was sweating in front of my closest family and friends.
It seemed like it took forever for Becca to enter with her dad and walk down the aisle. Had she found something out about the old woman the night before? Maybe all that was a dream?
Then I saw her - sitting in the back of a row of chairs in the venue - barely visible through the candlelight - the old woman. Dressed in all white, she sat there with a hat that covered the top half of her face, all I could see was her pale, wrinkled jaw.
Who the Hell was she?
Becca walked into the room with her dad. Cutting off the thought.
The two of them walked by the old woman and the woman nodded at them, though they didn’t make eye contact.
I did my best to stay composed as Becca walked up the aisle to me. My heart started to slow down once she got to me and we made eye contact.
Everything was smooth from there. We said I do. I kissed the bride.
The old woman was gone when we walked out of the room.
-
I think the relief of the old woman going away made me drink even more at the reception. It helped that I think the isolation was making everyone else cut loose, hard. The entire group seemed like it was blackout drunk from the signature cocktails.
Becca and I made the rounds, talking to everyone that was there, but also both feeling like we were melting, desperately needing to pass out.
Passing out sounded like the best idea ever when I saw the old woman again - this time in the corner of the room - talking to Becca’s brother.
My entire body burned. I saw Becca’s brother look over at me, catching my gaze on him. He laughed as he listened to the old woman talk to him.
Becca tugged at my shirt, startling me to the point where she noticed I was on-edge.
She asked me if I was okay, seeming to notice that I was looking over at her brother.
I followed her gaze and thankfully saw that the old woman was gone.
Becca asked me if we could go back to the wedding suite. It sounded like a great idea.
-
Our wedding suite was at the very top of the venue. We laid in bed in the dark, fighting the urge to just go to sleep, Becca lying in my arms, soft music on, and our dog at our feet.
The day officially over, I think both of us were bathing in sweef relief.
Until that putrid death smell drifted into my nose and our dog woke, and started to bark at the door.
I looked at the door, but couldn’t see anything. I tried to play it cool. I didn’t want to alarm Becca or have her find out anything about the night before, if I could.
But the smell remained and the dog kept barking.
Becca started to wake up and get agitated, wondering what was happening.
“Oh my God!” Becca exclaimed as she jumped up out of my grasp.
“What? What?”
“I can’t find my ring,” Becca explained, drunk and distraught.
Becca started to search the floor around the bed.
“Did it fall off my finger?” She asked.
I didn’t answer, distracted by something else I was hearing…
Someone singing the melody of the ballad leaking out of the speakers of Becca’s phone, a gravelly drawl of a voice, and it wasn’t coming from anywhere near the door.
It was coming from right above us.
I looked to the ceiling and saw the old woman perched up above the ceiling fan, holding herself there.
I could see the old woman’s yellow eyes, shining in the dark almost. I could see a crooked smile on her face.
She just held herself there as Becca kept frantically looking for her wedding ring and not finding it.
I was frozen there, not knowing what to say or do, just staring up at the old woman.
“I can’t find it,” Becca lamented again.
I watched in horror as the old woman dropped down from the rafters and landed on the bed at my feet. She then crawled off of the bed, reached down and grabbed Becca’s hair.
Becca screamed in pain and tried to fight her off, but couldn’t.
I moved swiftly and grabbed the old woman by the back of her head, pulling away a handful of stringy gray hair and falling backward onto the bed. The old woman was still on top of Becca, her naked blue-skinned back shining back at me in the night.
“What are you doing?” Becca screamed out.
I reached and grabbed the naked old woman around her slippery torso and tried to pull her off of Becca as hard as I could.
I pulled back as hard as I could and felt the old woman slip off of Becca.
I fell back onto the side of the bed with Becca in my arms.
We both took a moment to catch our breath and try and figure out what the Hell had just happened.
Becca thought that I had attacked her from behind. I couldn’t explain what happened. Had someone come into the room? Maybe? We weren’t sure. We went out to our car and spent the rest of the night out there.
Becca didn’t want to tell anyone else about what happened. I don’t think she believed me that I hadn’t been the one to wrestle her from behind.
A great way to start our marriage…
-
Becca and I kept straight faces the next day as we said goodbye to our friends and family members.
We decided to give up on the wedding room. We didn’t want to go back in that room once we left. There was sentimental value since it was in the ceremony, but it was insured and could easily be replaced.
That all changed when we got back in the car to drive home.
Becca announced she knew it wasn’t me who wrestled her in the room the night before. She had spent some of the morning Googling the venue and trying to see if there was anything which could explain what happened to her.
She found a very old local newspaper article about something that happened at the venue in the 1890s. Supposedly, a woman who worked at the venue named Luann had a fling with a groom during his wedding weekend, but was spurned by the man after the wedding when he left with his wife.
The story was Luann tracked down the groom a year after his wedding and murdered him and then went back to the venue and murdered herself.
That was all Becca could find.
-
The first year of marriage went well. Becca and I are still very much in love and the whole incident is past us.
We spent our one-year anniversary not too far from our wedding venue, in wine country, and a quaint little inn.
Everything was good. We were out to dinner and I was digging through the pocket of an old jacket when I was in the bathroom.
I found something which felt peculiar when I was in one of the side pockets.
I pulled out a round ball of what was clearly gray hair, wound together like a ball of yarn with something hard in the middle of it. I started to pull the ball apart, digging to get to what was in the middle.
I eventually revealed the item in the middle. I was unmistakable. It was Becca’s wedding ring.
I flushed the thing down the toilet.
-
It’s been a few months since I found the ring and got rid of it. Most things seem normal.
There’s just one thing.
Everyone once in a while I get that terrible smell of death of the old woman from the wedding venue in my nose.
And I keep waiting to see her again…