The name on the sign was Haunted Street. I had always thought that was strange but I wrote it off as a joke some developer had played back when the homes were first built. I’d known about the place all my life because that’s the road my grandmother lived on but we’d never spent the night so I never really got a chance to put the name to the test.
It was spring break and I was out of school for a week so my parents decided that would be a great time to visit. I was in the ninth grade at the time and didn’t have much else going on so I was fine with it. It’d be nice to see old Grandma Gable again. Last time she saw me I was half my height and age.
She lived alone in that old house. I felt kinda sorry for her but she had a bridge club she went to and kept herself busy with charity work. She was getting really old and we were starting to worry about her. My folks even toyed with the idea of moving in with her so if there was an emergency, we’d be there to call for an ambulance.
We arrived on a Monday night in a rainstorm. The road was bumpy and in disrepair so my mom kept hitting potholes causing the car to bounce up and down. Water blurred the view out the windows while blue flashes from the sky sent blinding shock-waves through the car. The thunder was deep and rolling. The mood in the car was odd and apprehensive as we rounded the corner and the headlights illuminated the street sign. Haunted Street. It felt like we were starting a cheesy B Horror flick, only myself, my mom, and dad were the main characters.
The house came into view through the downpour, its dim glow fading in through the storm. It was an old Victorian thing with three floors, a basement, and an attic. The attic was small and rose above the roof like a little tower on top. It had a large round window with lots of ornate designs. The windows on the lower floors were all lit a dim red from fabric curtains. Its appearance was reminiscent of the Bates house in Psycho. The developers must have had a strange sense of humor when they built this neighborhood.
We got out and ran through the rain to her front door. She had a small foyer so we just walked in as my mom called out for her. She came around and gave us all hugs and the usual. She sat us down in the living room and got us all dry towels and hot tea she had made.
The interior had high ceilings and lots of bare wood. There were rugs on the floors and a creaky stairwell at the back of the living room. All the furniture was antique and ornate like everything from the old world. There was a small graveyard out back where Grandma had buried all of her various pets over the years. She even had little headstones made for them with their names on them. It was sweet and sad at the same time.
Gable was a strange old woman who had lived a mysterious and bizarre life for her time. She had traveled with a carnival as a fortune teller, managed a Wax Museum in Salem, and finally settled down with my grandfather who had been a semi-famous spiritualist in the 1940’s.
Grandma Gable loved to get out her scrapbook and go through her photos with us and tell us all about the old days. It bored my father but I enjoyed looking at the faded and aged black and white photos of people I didn’t know, most of whom had long since passed. We moved to the dining room table where she was going to give us the standard family history lesson.
The display of old photographs spread across the table told the story of her travels with images of unusual and strange people. The bearded lady, a carnival barker, a lion tamer, and others sat contrasted by images of wax figures of the Queen and other notable historical figures. There were photos of Gable with her crystal ball and of grandpa holding a seance. The figures in the pictures were all fascinating characters but there was something off and disquieting about them that I couldn’t put my finger on.
As I sipped my Earl Grey tea she told us we’d be having guests for the week. She was excited for me to meet some of her old friends. My mother looked confused and asked her who was coming but Gable just smiled and told her it’ll be a nice surprise.
After the storm let up, we got our luggage out of the car and put them into the rooms we’d be sleeping in. My parents were going to take the room down the hall from Grandma on the ground floor, and I was given my pick of anywhere else in the house. For some reason I thought the third floor would be fun, up away from the others with a view out the window that looked over the front yard and street below.
The wooden stairs creaked and groaned as I ascended. I wondered how long it’d been since the wood had endured the weight of a human body. At Gable’s age it was unlikely she’d ventured up them in some time.
The second floor was dark and quiet. I peered down the hallway at the row of doors. A sense of some presence there arose within me, followed by a chill and mild fear. I wanted to go check to make sure the rooms were empty but my apprehension held me back in an uncomfortable way so I continued up to the third floor were I’d decided to spend the night.
I chose a room to the front left side of the house if you were looking at it from the street. There was a bathroom that adjoined the rear left side room and two more rooms across the hall which also shared a bathroom. At the back of the hallway was an iron spiral staircase that led to the attic. Both floors had deep red plush carpeting and framed black and white photos of people hanging on the walls. Some of them I recognized from the photos Gable had shown us. The hallway was lit by a small chandelier and the bedroom used a few Tiffany style lamps.
The wood beneath the carpet creaked and bowed as I walked across it making me wonder if choosing the third floor on such an old house had been a mistake. I tested the bed and it seemed solid and secure on the floor. I decided I probably wouldn’t fall through if I sat on it, took the risk, and found to my relief that it was safe. It was late and so I climbed under the covers and drifted off to sleep.
I woke sometime in the night to the sound of raindrops bluntly tapping on the window glass. I could reach the curtains without getting up and so I pulled them back and watched the watery spectacle backlit from the streetlight below. The light rain was calming with its muffled tones and distant thunder. I was cozy under the covers and glad to be out of the wet, chilly, night air.
I glanced towards the back wall in the room and watched the shadow of the water on the window draining downward interrupted by light splashes of new raindrop strikes against the glass. It painted the wall with a dreary display that seemed like a psychedelic movie without the vivid colors. As if watched on an old black and white TV.
There in this display of light and shadow, the moving fluid lines made images when combined with the ornate pattern of the wallpaper. I could see faces there. Long and twisted. Morphing. Laughing maniacally. Staring right at me from the wall as if the shadows somehow were aware of my presence.
I knew it was mere illusion. A coincidence of patterns on the wall and moving shadows of the rain on the window. But it was unnerving just the same. The faces moved as the water flowed causing a menacing animation. But why only faces? Shouldn’t the shadows take on a variety of formations?
Then I saw it. One of these faces looked like a man I’d seen in Grandma Gable’s photo collection. He had a thin mustache and deep set eyes with short, slicked back, dark hair, parted to one side. He seemed to display an evil grin when i recognized him as if he were reading my mind.
Just out of a perverse curiosity I thought to myself that if he really were reading my mind somehow, I asked him to nod. Just then some wind kicked up and several gusts of blew the running water on the window up and down causing the shadow to nod and laugh.
This freaked me out so much I sat up in bed, turned on the light, and closed the curtain. For a few minutes I just sat there still. I breathed deep and listened. The house was quiet. I looked around the room at everything. I was alone. Nothing seemed odd about the room at all.
I convinced myself that it had just been a strange coincidence. It had to have been. I went back to sleep, this time I left the light on.
The next morning my mom rapped on the door. I called out and she said breakfast would be ready in a few minutes. I sat up and opened the curtain. The sun wasn’t fully up yet and the sky was a deep medium blue. There were a few birds chirping in the distance somewhere. Things seemed normal.
I walked over to the bathroom door and opened it hoping the plumbing was in adequate condition for a shower. I stopped, dumbfounded. There was a man in trousers and a sleeveless t-shirt, leaned over gazing at himself in the mirror whilst shaving his face. He did not turn to look at me as if he hadn’t noticed the door opening.
I thought it must have been one of Gable’s friends she had said were coming over. The fact that he was shaving implied he had spent the night, or been driving all night. I decided not to startle him lest he cut himself in the moment so I gently closed the door.
I wasn’t sure if there might be other guests in the other rooms, so I just made myself as presentable as I could and headed down for breakfast instead of taking the risk of disturbing them to use one of the other showers.
Halfway through breakfast the man still hadn’t come down. I asked Gable about him but she said no other guests had arrived yet. The four of us were the only ones in the house she said. I thought she was trying to be spooky and play a little joke so I let it go.
After eating I went back upstairs to check. I knocked on the door to the bathroom and called out to the man. There was no answer so I opened the door. The room was dark and empty. I turned on the light. The sink and bathtub were bone dry. The whole room was as if no one had been in there for quite a while. I had seen moisture on the mirror earlier but there was no sign of it at all. In fact, the mirror was dusty.
The door that led into the other bedroom was slightly ajar. There didn’t seem to be any light on in there. I knocked on it and again called out to the man in case I was just losing it. I said out loud that I was opening the door then slowly pulled the door open revealing a dark and empty room. The bed was made. There were no bags or luggage to be seen. No sign of the man at all.
I checked the other two rooms on the third floor as well and they were both empty. I wasn’t ready to believe in the disappearing man just yet but I was creeped out enough to use the shower on the ground floor where my family was nearby.
I decided to check the rest of the house out after lunch. I asked Gable if any of her expected guests had shown up while I was in the shower. I didn’t want to walk in on anyone who may have occupied a room during that time, however brief. She said they hadn’t.
I quickly checked all the rooms on the ground floor. My parents room had my father in it. My mom was coming out of the ground floor bathroom as I passed. I glanced inside Gable’s room. No one was in there. I searched the whole floor including the kitchen. I even checked all the closets. No one else was on the ground floor other than my parents and my grandma.
The second floor was still dark and foreboding. I slowly walked along the hallway there eyeing each picture on the wall as I passed. At the far end of the hallway were four empty frames up on the wall. Two on each side of the hallway.
The bedrooms were laid out the same way as on the third floor with two sets of rooms on either side of the hallway connected by a shared bathroom. None of them had anyone inside.
I was sure the man must be hiding in the attic. He must have been a squatter, living there without Grandma Gable’s knowledge or permission. She never went upstairs anymore, I thought, she couldn’t climb the stairs at her age. That has to be it. He’s a squatter.
I ascended the spiral staircase cautiously, and slowly entered the attic. The only light up there was coming from the round window. It dimly lit the room but failed to illuminate the dark edges on either side.
And in those spaces was clutter. Boxes and papers. I could see the edges in dim black and shades of grey. There was enough room for a body to be lying in the dark there. I scanned the blackness with eyes wide open and straining to see. I tried the overhead light but it did not turn on.
I took a step closer and noticed a box full of crumpled paper. In the gloomy light I thought I could make out something there. I couldn’t tell if it was more clutter in the box or some fingers sticking up. Whatever they were, they were solidly still.
I took another step towards it to make sure. Just more clutter, I thought. Then it lifted up and rotated over as if it were a hand connected to an arm somewhere in the black.
My heart felt a punch and I flailed backwards reeling in terror. I stumbled down the stair calling out for my father.
Within ten minutes we were both back up there with a flashlight and a baseball bat. No one was there. I found the box and all it had inside it was some packing paper and party streamers. My father told me I was freaking myself out and that I should take a bedroom on the ground floor with the rest of the family.
He re-searched the entire house with me to set my mind at ease. When we were both satisfied that no one was there, I packed my belongings and moved into the room closest to the stairwell on the ground floor. Just up the halfway from my parents and Gable.
I felt both confused and embarrassed. I knew I’d seen these things.
At dinner my grandma told me she had a surprise for me. She wasn’t going to tell me but in light of my needing a bit of cheering up, she said, she decided to break the news early. She’d left me the house in her will. I’d almost thought it was a joke.
After we ate I went out back to sneak in a cigarette in Gable’s pet cemetery. The air was cool as the sun glowed through the cloud cover on the horizon. The little gravestones looked lonely and for a moment I wished I’d spent more time with Grandma over the years so I’d have some fond memories of the little creatures.
One stone had a depiction on it of the doggy that I’d presumed was buried there. Little white thing with black spots and one big black spot around his right eye. Just then I heard a scratching on the rear door of the house. I looked up and there was that very dog. He tilted his head to one side as he looked at me. Then he turned around and seemed to disappear into a crack in the wood. It was as if he stepped into it. The crack was no wider than a few centimeters yet the dog slipped into it with ease.
At this point I was convinced I was having full blown hallucinations. I went back inside to talk to my father about it but Gable said they’d gone to bed early. That sounded like a good idea to me so I told her I wasn’t feeling well and I was going to do the same.
I woke again in the middle of the night to the sound of someone coming down the stairs pounding their feet on each step. I thought maybe Grandma was falling or something, so I quickly went out to the foot of the stairwell where I saw nothing. No one else got up. I found it hard to believe they hadn’t heard it.
I stood there for a minute and listened but the sound did not return. I stared up the stairwell and found myself afraid to climb it. I knew I should check to see if Grandma had gone up there and needed help but I was reluctant to do it.
Eventually, I forced myself to go up after retrieving the flashlight my father had used earlier. It shone a circle of light on the steps as I ascended. On the second floor I had the impulse to look at the pictures again. When I got to the empty frames at the end of the hall I found to my horror that two of them now had pictures in them. One was a black and white picture of my father and the other was of my mother.
Things were getting too weird for me. I went back to bed determined to tell my parents that I wanted to go home the next day.
Morning came and at breakfast Gable sat at the table alone. She said my parents were sleeping in. Going to bed early was out of character for them but sleeping in was just plain a lie. I didn’t know what was going on but I was going to find out. I ran to their room and opened the door. They were not there.
I ran back to scold Grandma and demand answers but she was no longer at the kitchen table. I scoured the house searching but all three of them were gone. However, on the second floor another blank frame now had a photo in it. Just like the others it was a black and white picture which looked like it had been taken in the years prior to World War II. It was a picture of Gable. I looked at the last empty frame on the wall and I knew it was meant for me.