I was born poor. My dad toiled in jobs that paid horribly and treated him worse. My mom watched other people’s children, assuring our house was always packed with people. My siblings and I had hand-me-down clothes, knew the joys of a ramen dinner, and all started working in our early teens to help with expenses.
Even though we struggled growing up, there were always people that helped us out along the way. One of those people was the owner of the house my parents rented from. George, the gentle old widower, owned a few homes in our neighborhood. Though he could’ve been greedy, he wasn’t. George offered a fair rent, fixed problems as soon as possible, and would let my parents pay in two payments if they needed to. He didn’t have to do that, but he did anyway. He was kind to us when he was under no obligation to do so.
I think he liked our family. When he would come over to fix a problem, he would always say our family reminded him of his own family. He would let me watch him as he repaired something. I soaked up everything like a sponge. It’s fair to say George inspired me. He used to say, “owning a house was a job, but helping out a family was a joy.” I liked that and have carried it with me on my journey.
After I left high school, I started working in a real estate office. As what tends to happen, the more time I worked at the office, the more I wanted to get into real estate. Before too long, I took my exam and got my license. That first year, I was thirtieth in sales in my office. The following year, I was first. Helping families find their forever home made my heart sing. As George would say, it became my joy.
When I had a little extra coin in my pocket, I decided to start flipping houses as well as selling them. It’s a unique job that comes with its own challenges. Some are unavoidable - old homes have outdated kitchens and bathrooms – but other issues crop up because someone screwed up at some point in the home’s long lifespan. Bad owners, shifty contractors, or even “old man winter” can all add to a house’s current issues.
In the flipping game, you roll with the punches the best you can. You try to solve these problems as cheaply as possible and hope to profit from the sale. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but that’s part of the thrill.
The kind of thrill I had with my latest flip is one I’d love to avoid for the rest of my life.
There is an old expression that if something is too good to be true, it probably is. Typically, I heed this advice because, in the housing game, an underpriced house usually means a ton of work hiding in the walls. Good bones are lovely for a house you want to flip, but you need to have SOME kind of skin in place if you’re going to make a profit. Once you start mentally tallying repairs and it slides into the six figures, it’s time to find another house.
That being said, every once and a while, you see a place that captures your head and heart. When that happens, all the old expressions get chucked out the window. When a Realtor sees those stars in your eyes, they’re already mentally writing the offer. 734 Walnut Lane was one of those houses.
It was genuine love at first sight. An old Victorian with a large, sprawling yard filled with old-growth trees. The house needed some work – paint, landscaping, maybe a roof—but an excellent real estate agent will tell you to look past the problems and focus on the potential. A little sweat equity can turn a grain of sand into a pearl. And 734 Walnut Lane had pearl potential.
The inside of the four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath house was a bit rough. Not a total tear-down, but there were going to be some repairs needed. The bathrooms were actually in good shape. The style was so vintage that it had actually come back around. The kitchen was going to need some modern touches. The wall-to-wall carpet needed to be ripped up because I knew there would be fantastic hardwood floors under it. Some painting, electrical, and other odds and ends were going to be done, but I was smitten.
It was two stories – the bottom is where the master suite was located. Upstairs, there were three smaller rooms and a den. The rooms were a touch small, but you just call them cozy in your advertising and stage it to make it look bigger. The den, though, was a strange space. It overlooked the veranda and was flooded with natural light from a skylight – both pluses – but it was also colder than the other rooms. There was also a weird energy I associated with the decor still in the residence.
I had seen enough though, I wanted to go for it. I made an offer, and we got the ball rolling. Even though the house had sat vacant for a year or so, it was surprisingly competitive. I wasn’t shocked. The price was below market value in a hot neighborhood. The agent did not give up much information, only that the owner had said they wanted to sell the house as fast as possible.
That worked to my advantage. In my offer, I shortened the window of inspections down to 72 hours and made the close at 10 days. No one else would do that. My office manager advised against it, and even the listing agent questioned my timetable, but I told them both I was sure.
My ace in the hole was I had a team of people I could snap into action as soon as possible. This wasn’t my first race - I had plans in place to hit the ground running. After forty eighty hours of sitting on pins and needles, I got the call I wanted to hear – the house was mine.
While having the winning offer was great, I had a lot to do in a very short amount of time. I needed to get my inspectors in there as quickly as possible to ensure this house wouldn’t break me financially. If they came back waving red flags, I still had time to pull out of the deal.
My go-to inspector was Wally. Wally and I have a long history together, and I trust him implicitly. If he said this was a dog, I would walk. If he said there was something to the ol’ place, I was all in. Wally knew his shit, and I hoped he’d be coming back with good news.
The inspection was set for a Tuesday at noon. Inspections can vary in time, and Wally was lovely but slow, so I assumed I’d hear from him at about two, two-thirty. I had a few other things to concern myself with, so I headed off to do my errands after I let him in.
Twenty minutes later, I got a phone call from Wally. He sounded nervous and asked if I could come to the house. He wouldn’t tell me what was wrong over the phone, but you could hear in his voice something was up. I dropped what I was doing and motored back over to 734 Walnut Lane.
Wally was waiting outside when I pulled up. He was pacing and smoking a cigarette even though he had stopped months ago. I walked up to him and asked what was going on and expected him to say that the walls had black mold or the foundation was a mess, but that’s not what he said at all.
He pointed up to the second-story den window with his cigarette and shook his head, “Something is in there.” His voice was shaky.
“You mean besides the 1970s furniture?”
“No, something…evil.”
I laughed because I assumed Wally was making a joke. But when I noticed he wasn’t laughing with me, I stopped. “Wally, what are you talking about?”
“I heard things…shuffling, footsteps, voices.”
The last word caused my hair to stand on end. Shuffling and footsteps can be anything – old houses creak, animals get in, etc. But voices are something different. Voices are a tad concerning.
“Was there a TV left on or maybe a radio?”
“No.”
“Maybe your phone?”
“No.”
“Did someone walk past outside?”
“No,” he said just as firmly as he had the other times, “I was alone in there, and I heard someone speaking.”
“What did they say?” I asked.
Wally took a drag from his cigarette and exhaled a large plume of foul-smelling Carolina smoke, “They said ‘tumble.’”
“Tumble,” I said, incredulously, “what the Hell does that mean?”
“I was walking up the stairs when I heard it. I think it was a warning.”
“That something was going to fall down the stairs at you?”
“No,” he said nervously, “that I was going to fall down the stairs.”
I was taken aback. I hadn’t even considered that. “Was the voice, I dunno, angry-sounding?”
“It was very monotone, but,” he shook his head, “there was a feeling that came with it. I felt it in the base of my skull, ya know?”
I didn’t, but I didn’t want to argue. Wally stubbed out his cigarette and sighed, “I…I don’t know if I can do this inspection for you.”
“Wally,” I said, “I shortened the window for inspections to next to nothing. I don’t have time to find someone else.”
“I know, but…I don’t feel comfortable in there. I’m worried I’m going to get hurt.”
“Would it help if I stayed with you?”
He looked away, embarrassed, but then he responded softly, “Yes. Sorry if that fucks up your day.”
“Hey, we’re a team,” I said, “I can stick around if that helps.”
“If you see or hear anything,” he started, but I interrupted.
“I’ll keep it to myself,” I said with a smile.
He grinned, and we walked into the house together. There was a stillness that seemed typical of all empty houses, but with what Wally told me bouncing around my head, it took a more sinister bend. I was sure it was nothing, but in the darkest corners of my brain, a small candle of thought flickered: What if he was right?
Wally went back to his work in the kitchen, and I decided to check out the rooms upstairs. Not going to lie, as I was walking up those stairs, I half expected to hear a voice start talking, but the ghosts didn’t like me and didn’t make their presence known. I had no issues walking up to the second floor, other than noticing the handrail was a bit loose.
I entered the first small bedroom on the left. It was painted a light blue, and I assumed it may have been a little boy’s room at some point. There was a window that looked out towards the street. I took in the view and nodded – the yard needed some work, but it had so much curb appeal.
Just then, I heard the floorboards behind me creak. Without turning around, I said, “Do you know a good landscape guy? Jerome has seemed to run into a creative funk lately, and I want to spice things up.”
But there was no response. “Wally,” I said again, this time turning around, expecting to see Wally’s face looking at me. Instead, it was just the empty room.
I walked out into the hallway and glanced around. No one was there. I called out, “Wally!” After a few seconds, I heard a muffled, “Yes?” come back to me from somewhere downstairs.
“Nevermind, I found it,” I lied. He said something I couldn’t hear and went back to work.
I left the blue room and walked across the hallway to the next bedroom. Once upon a time it had been a bright yellow but it had faded to a Dijon mustard color. This room had more furniture than most – an old bed that looked like it was never comfortable and a chest of drawers straight from a Sears and Roebuck catalog.
This room felt smaller than the blue room, but it was probably because of the furniture. If I remember correctly, the dimensions were the same. I walked over to the backyard-facing window and glanced out at the old-growth trees. From this window, you could scoot out onto the roof and climb down the tree, and escape. This would be a perfect room for a trouble-causing teen.
I walked over to the chest and pulled open the top drawer. To my surprise, a photo came sliding down. I plucked it up and saw a picture of an old woman sitting alone on the edge of a bed. How old, I couldn’t tell, but she was up there. She was short - I’d wager around five feet flat - with dark black eyes and graying black hair. She looked frail and if I’m honest, miserable. You could just see it on her face – she didn’t want her picture taken nor, it seemed, to be alive anymore.
I was about to place it back in the drawer when something caught my eye in the photo’s background. I pulled it closer to my face to make sure my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me. But when I saw it up close, I felt a cold chill run down my spine.
The old woman’s shadow did not match up with her body.
Now, this wasn’t some trick of the light or something. The shadow created by the flash just didn’t resemble the old lady sitting in the photo. It looked bulkier, and, I swear to god, if you squinted, it looked like there she had horns. At first blush, you’d probably never notice it. But when you give it a good, hard look, the photo becomes unsettling. It’s unnatural.
That’s when I realized the photo’s location was also familiar – it had been snapped in this room. The old lady was sitting on the same bed that was next to me. I put the photo back in the drawer and looked down at the bed, half expecting to see the unpleasant woman staring back at me. Thankfully, it was just the same brown and gold comforter that had been there when I walked in.
I decided that I had seen enough of this room and headed back out for the hallway. When I was about to cross the threshold, I heard a pronounced WOOSH near my ear, like someone was striking a match. I jumped back out of instinct but laughed when I realized there was nothing there. That being said, I quickened my pace.
There was one last room I hadn’t been in yet, and that was the bedroom at the end of the hall. As I walked along the hallway, I could hear the floorboards creak underneath me. Normally, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but in light of some of the weird shit going on, it caught my attention. Nothing could creep down here without letting you know it was there.
I pushed open the door to the last bedroom, and it, of course, squeaked open. It was darker in this room than in the other two, partially from the trees in the backyard providing shade and partly from a pair of old, ratty black curtains on the window. I made a note to swap out both the curtain and curtain rods before staging this room.
Like the other rooms, the space was cozy. There was a day bed in the room pressed against the wall it shared with the yellow room. Across from the bed was an old bookshelf with a few old books and magazines, nothing recent or too exciting sounding, and few odds and ends. Some knickknacks had tribal-looking designs, but it was probably just some company trying to ape the style. All in all, it was pretty pedestrian.
The room itself was painted a green color that must’ve spoken to the previous owner in a profound, meaningful way because it was NOT having the same effect on me. Unless someone explicitly requested it, I wouldn’t use this shade if my life depended on it. It just felt off-putting.
I heard the floorboards in the hallway creak, and I called out for Wally. Again, he didn’t respond, but the floorboards creaked again like someone was approaching. “Can I help you?” I asked loudly and with bass in my voice.
“What,” I heard Wally say from the bottom of the stairwell, “Did you call my name?”
“Yes,” I said, sighing in relief, “I thought I heard you down there.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I was gonna come up and start poking around in those rooms. Can you, I dunno, watch me walk up the stairs, just in case?”
I smiled to myself, “Sure.”
“Thank you,” he said sheepishly.
“Also,” I added, “we are gonna have to paint this whole place because, whoa.”
“Wait until you see what they did to the kitchen.”
Great, I thought as I headed towards the door, a larger painting budget. Suddenly, I heard someone running away down the hallway. I rushed out in hopes of getting a glimpse of someone but didn’t catch anything.
I walked down the hallway but kept my head on a swivel. I didn’t know what I thought I’d see, but I wanted to be prepared regardless. Now, what would I do if I DID see something…I hadn’t quite figured that part out yet.
As I got to the top of the stairs – thankfully, having seen nothing but my own shadow – I smiled down at Wally.
“Were you running,” Wally said from the bottom of the stairs.
“I tripped,” I lied. “Ready to come up?”
“If I fall,” he said, gripping the railing, “know that it wasn’t my fault.”
“Something I say every time I have a few too many drinks at a party.”
Wally took a second and then bolted up the stairs. He was focused – he kept his head down and powered up the steps two at a time. Before too long, he joined me at the top of the stairs. He was a touch out of breath – not sure if it was from lack of exercise, fear, or both.
“Any voices?” I asked.
“Nothing this time.”
“Maybe we scared them away?”
“I don’t know if that’s how this works,” he said, pushing past me.
“Let’s say it does work that way so we can get someone in here ASAP,” I said with a wink, “preferably to someone with a pulse.”
“I wouldn’t joke about that,” he said, crossing into the blue room.
While he went off to do his things in the room, I walked into the den and took the space in. The loft above the stairs is a small but functional space. I imagined a place for kids to play, a small home office, or even a nice reading nook. There was a skylight above that gave a good amount of natural light. The rays felt warm but not too hot.
The space was empty, save for an old chaise that I was worried might not hold body weight, but I decided to test it out and take a seat anyway. It groaned under my weight, but it held. I pulled my phone out and clicked away at some mindless game, and let the sun’s ray warm me up.
Like I mentioned earlier, this part of the house was noticeably colder than the rest. I assumed the AC was a dinosaur awaiting its own comet and would need to be replaced at some point in the near future. New ducting probably too. The bills kept adding up.
As I settled into the chaise, I could hear Wally working the blue room. Every once in and awhile, I’d hear him mutter to himself and bang around on something. I was focused on seeing how far I could hit a baseball with an umbrella (it’s an odd game) when I heard footsteps on the stairs.
I peered over the top of my phone, expecting to see Wally darting down the steps, but I didn’t see anyone. But as I watched, I heard the stairs creak under the weight of something ambling up. It was like they were teens trying to sneak upstairs after curfew. I looked at the carpet at the top of the stairs and, unless my eyes were playing tricks on me, saw it compress like something was standing there.
I yelped. As I did, something sprinted from the top of the stairs and into the yellow room, slamming the door in the process. Wally popped out of the blue room, and his gaze met mine.
“Did you slam that door?”
“I,” the words got caught in my throat. I cleared the logjam, “I didn’t do that.”
“The wind,” he offered but knowing it wasn’t going to be the wind.
I shook my head “no.” Have you ever seen the color from someone’s face just disappear in an instant? The blood was gone from Wally’s face, and his skin looked like a white subway tile. He pressed his body against the wall, trying to add space between him and the newly closed door to the yellow room.
“You okay?” I eked out.
“No,” he answered honestly, “I’m pretty fuckin’ far from okay.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Burn this place to the ground,” Wally said, “something is off about this house. Bad vibes all over.”
“I’m going to open the door,” I said to Wally and my own will.
“Why the fuck for?”
“There isn’t anything there. We’re spooked, and we’re making this worse than it is. You’ve been in hundreds of houses,” I added, “you know that sometimes there’s a bad energy about them.”
“Yeah, bad bones, not ghosts,” Wally said.
I stood and, though I didn’t show it, my legs felt like Bambi taking those first few steps and nodded towards the door. “I’m going to open the door, okay. Just stand near me, okay?”
“I dunno,” Wally said as he started sliding back into the blue room.
“Wally, I need you to stand near me as I turn this handle, okay? If someone’s in there, I’m going to need help.”
Wally made a sign of the cross and pulled out a screwdriver. “If there is a ghost in there, I’m assholes and elbows out this bitch and into my car.”
“If there is a ghost in there, I’m running right behind you and not stopping until I get to escrow and break this deal.”
I slowly walked to the door of the yellow room. My heart pounded like a bass drum in my ears. I couldn’t feel my legs, and it was like I was floating. Before I knew it, I stood outside the door of the yellow room and put my hand on the handle.
I looked back to make sure Wally hadn’t split, and he was true to his word. He stood by, screwdriver at the ready. I nodded to him and took a deep breath.
“One, two, three,” I whispered and then slowly turned the handle and pushed the door open. The door squeaked on its hinges as it opened to reveal nothing out of the ordinary in the yellow room…until you looked at the bed.
Someone was hiding underneath the brown and golden comforter.
I felt weightless. I didn’t anticipate anything, but now I was staring at a bulged-up comforter on the ancient bed. Someone or something was in here, trying to hide from us. I looked for movement, but I didn’t see any. It was like there was a fan under the blanket, blowing it up.
“I can see you,” I said, my voice shaking, “I just want you to know.”
Then the blanket went flat on the bed. There wasn’t a soul there. As my brain tried to comprehend what the fuck I just saw, I felt someone brush past me and heard their footsteps as they dashed into the green room and slammed the door again.
I looked back at Wally, who lived up to his other promise to split if he saw a ghost. He ran so hard down the stairs, some of his tools fell from his belt, and he just left them. He rushed out the front door without even slowing down.
That’s when I heard the whispers. “Tumble, tumble, tumble.”
I started to absentmindedly back away from the voices. They became louder, “TUMBLE, TUMBLE, TUMBLE.” I took a step back and felt the floor disappear. I had reached the top of the steps. I started to fall back but, at the last minute, I shot my arm out and caught the door-jamb of the blue room.
“TUMBLE, TUMBLE, TUMBLE!”
“No,” I screamed as loud as I ever had. It seemed to do the trick because the voices stopped. I pulled myself back up and stood defiantly in the hallway. I glared down at the green room door.
“That shit ain’t gonna work with me,” I said, tapping into a reserve of courage I didn’t know I had.
That’s when I watched as the handle of the green door twist. A second later, the door opened slightly. I took it as an invite.
“If I go in there and you pull some shit, so help me, God.” While the threat sounded nice, I had absolutely no idea what I would do if things got worse. I was operating on pure adrenaline at this point.
The door blew open further. I gathered whatever strength had kept me from joining Wally down those steps and walked down the hall. I pushed the green room door open and glanced around. There wasn’t anyone in here at first glance.
I walked into the room.
I’ve thought about what the hell convinced me to enter that room and, all this time later, I have a few ideas. Natural curiosity, a deep-seated need to be thrilled, fear of losing investment, and just being dumb were all legitimate reasons. But one idea stood taller than the rest: I didn’t want to be afraid anymore.
I may have a tough exterior, but it’s only because, in this business, I have to. Any sign of weakness or, weirdly, humanity can be latched on to by jerks and taken advantage of. In those moments, almost anyone could be bullied or forced into timidity.
But it hits harder as a woman, especially in a male-dominated field. Never mind the everyday threat of physical violence (something I have to be keenly aware of at all times because of, ya know, society), but the constant barrage of extra shit that comes with being a woman. It takes a mental toll to be talked down to or taken advantage of or having everyone in the room assume you don’t understand or know what’s going on even though you’re in charge. Each event doesn’t weaken you much, but the cumulative effect does.
When you remove confidence, fear creeps in and stays. I didn’t want it to roost in my brain anymore. At the moment, I’m not sure I was consciously thinking of any of this, but as I’ve moved away from the incident, my mind has tried to color in the details. I mean, if I could face down a ghost trying to kill me, some jackass construction worker wouldn’t stand a chance.
I walked into the middle of the room, scanned around, looking for any sign that someone was in the room with me. I knew whatever had been under the blanket had scampered into here. At first blush, nothing looked out of the ordinary. Same dark curtains. Same heavy bookshelf. Same weird-ass tribal figures on the shelf. Totally normal.
Then the door slammed behind me.
I jumped out of my skin. I spun on my heels in hopes of getting a glimpse of something but, not surprisingly, nothing was there to meet my gaze. My heart was jack-hammering at this point, and I didn’t think it could beat faster, but then I saw a pair of feet below the curtains.
“Look,” I said, “I’m going to buy this house….”
That’s when I hear the sound of a match near my ears again. I swatted at the air but didn’t hit anything. What I did hear was the unmistakable WOOSH of fire starting. I spun around and, in front of the bookcase, I saw flames dancing on the carpet.
I rushed over and started stomping on the fire, trying to put it out before the entire house went up in flames. As I was stomping my foot on the ground, I heard the voice again, but it was different now. Deeper with more venom in the tone.
“TUMBLE! TUMBLE TUMBLE!”
Just then, the curtains wavered. I looked for the feet, but they were gone. I suddenly realized the sound of the fire was gone too. I looked down and noticed the carpet wasn’t on fire anymore. In fact, there was no sign there ever really had been a fire. Then one of the tribal figures fell off the bookshelf and hit my foot.
“TUMBLE! TUMBLE! TUMBLE!”
I turned just as the heavy bookshelf was tipped over. As it came crashing down, I managed to jump and roll out of the way. It clipped my ankle, and I later had a bruise the size of Nebraska, but at the moment, I was mainlining too much adrenaline to notice.
As I stood back up, I noticed the void where the bookcase had been. Only, it wasn’t just a blank space on a wall. The bookshelf had been covering some tiny, secret room. Inside that room, the walls were charred like they had been burned in a fire years ago. On the floor of the charred hidey-hole, someone had drawn a circle in chalk. Inside the circle, there was a melted candle and an older and slightly torched photo.
I walked over to the hole in the wall and squatted to better look at the picture. It was the same old lady from before. She looked as miserable in this photo as she did in the last. She was sitting on the day bed, staring out at the bookshelf that nearly killed me. It was like she was keeping an eye on it, waiting for something to appear.
I poked at the candle. I guess it had started the fire, but this was the only place in the house where there was flame damage. Had someone burned this room and hid it with a bookcase? While that seemed logical, something about the candle was off. I couldn’t tell because the wax had melted years ago, but it looked like some symbols had been carved into the candle before it was burned.
The room seemed to get colder, and I suddenly felt very uncomfortable. I wasn’t supposed to be in this little alcove. I stood up and turned to face the daybed and gasped. I staggered back, nearly falling to the ground.
Standing in the middle of the room, staring at me with dead eyes, was the old lady from the photo. There was no emotion on her craggy face. She just stared ahead like she was waiting for something.
I stood and collected myself. “I’m going to buy this house,” I said slowly and softly.
She didn’t like that. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, the room seemed to get darker. The curtains whipped in a sudden breeze that swirled around us. My hair was in my face, and I raised my hands to block the wind, but the severe and sudden draft didn’t bother the old lady at all. She stayed still and just stared at me with those black eyes.
“I’m going to buy it, and I need you to stop all this bullshit.” I may have said this with gusto, but inside, I was dying. All I thought about was wanting to sprint out of the door.
The old lady let a smile cross her lips. Then, in a raspy and hushed whisper, she dragged out a single “No.” That’s when a ring of fire appeared on the floor around her body. She cackled and then fell through the floor and disappeared. As soon as her body slipped through the ground, the flames went out.
But I could still smell something burning.
My body was physically trembling, but I held it together. I turned and walked out of the room and into the hallway. As I walked past the yellow room, the door opened and slammed, but I didn’t run. The same thing happened when I passed the blue room, only this time I heard another faint cackle.
As I got to the steps, the cackle was replaced with a crackling of flames. I saw black smoke pouring out from the downstairs kitchen. That bitch had started a fire.
I started down the steps when I heard the now-familiar refrain fill my ears. “TUMBLE TUMBLE TUMBLE.” Only this time, I felt something touch the small of my back and push me forward. I lost my balance and started to trip down the stairs, but I grabbed the railing to keep from doing any severe damage to myself.
I stood and screamed defiantly, “FUCK YOU!” as loud as I’ve ever said anything in my life.
The cackling returned, and I felt another shove. I stumbled down two more steps, grasping at the railing to steady myself. Only this time, the railing snapped, and I fell a good five feet onto the floor below.
The landing knocked the breath out of me. As I gasped for life, I looked up and saw the dark smoke clouds billowing out of the kitchen. In the middle of the flames was the old lady. She smiled and started walking towards me. As she did, the flames followed behind her. Both she and the fire were advancing towards me.
I scrambled to my feet and ran out of the front door. The fire had engulfed so much of the house now. Outside, a small crowd of people gathered around to watch. In the distance, I could hear the approaching sirens of the firetruck.
A neighbor ran over to me and asked if I was okay. I nodded, but my eyes never left the front door. As they helped me to my feet, I saw her again. The old lady was hiding in the billowing black smoke, but I could see her form – her true form.
It wasn’t a frail old lady.
The creature, matching the bulky shape of the shadow in the old photo, stood in the doorway. It stared out at me with its cold dead eyes and watched me to make sure that I was leaving. Confident it had won. The neighbor helped me off the ground and, when I looked back, the creature was lost to the smoke.
According to the fire department, old faulty wiring was the cause of the fire. Wally and I were questioned but were cleared of any wrongdoing. Neither of us mentioned the ghost to the investigators. They would’ve probably locked us up in the loony bin if we had said anything about it.
I did tell one person about the ghost – the listing agent. Turns out, 734 Walnut Lane had quite the history with spirits. There were reports of phantom flames, people being pushed, people having nightmares. Most residents didn’t stay in the house too long. Renters left every day. It was why the house sat vacant for as long as it had. You don’t have to disclose if a place is haunted in our state, so most agents didn’t.
I do.
734 Walnut Lane burned to the ground. A crew came to clean up the mess, and, from what I heard, a lot of those tough guys went through some shit during that job – three of them quit and never returned. Wally is better and felt horrible about leaving me. I told him not to worry about it, and we still do business, only now he gives me a much better rate. It’s his way of saying sorry.
Everyone told me to back out of the deal. I mean, everyone. People at escrow, my boss, people on the real estate Facebook groups, strangers I told the story to - literally everyone said to leave that place alone. But I couldn’t do it. The lot was too nice of a spot in too good of a neighborhood to sit vacant forever. Someone would snatch it up, build a house and invite a family to make memories there. That creature would be there, waiting to make their own memories.
After what I went through, I couldn’t let that happen to someone else. I talked the listing agent down CONSIDERABLY on price and went through with the sale. It’s all mine now, and I can say with confidence that the lot at 734 Walnut Lane sits vacant and will until I die. People can still enjoy the old-growth trees, and I hired a landscaper to make it look nice, but as long as I have a breath in my body, no house will stand there.
The real question is, was the house haunted or the grounds? Will the frail old lady appear again in the yard of my lot or wait until I shuffle off this mortal coil and haunt the next house built there. Does she still have powers, or were they taken when the house became ash? Only time will tell.
I find myself driving by the empty lot every now and again – sometimes because I have business in the area, sometimes not. I’ve even gotten out of my car a few times and stared out at the barren land, waiting and watching for something to stare back. The weird thing is, I want them to stare back. I want them to see they didn’t beat me.
I’m still here, and I’m not afraid.