Ghosts VI
Ghosts VI Posted on April 4, 2008 at 10:34 PM
This will be the last chapter dealing with the house in Oakland, where I lived for ten years. I told you in the beginning, I am not sure if the house was inhabited by at least three spirits, or perhaps it was all the work of demons; but I think there were separate entities involved. You have already met Mrs. Operhall, who was harmless, Mr. Jones, who was questionable, and now the one I feared the most, who I referred to as Hank.
Hank dominated the third floor. I think he died there. Hank is just a boy, but I did not know that for a long time, although I had my suspicions. I told you about the two girls who tried to live up there with Hank. The one told me she thought it was a kid when I told her about him. She said she could feel him in the room with her and hear him crying and that he really scared her. The other said the same and that he moved stuff around, which he did.
I was in the bathtub one night when I first encountered him, myself. After the girls had left I moved most of my dolls and my studio up there. I did it all jungle leopard theme, but also had a house big enough that I could fill it with dolls. The bathroom up there was a big old walk-in closet for the nursery back in the days. I had a claw foot tub up there; and I love them. Well, I'm in the tub, listening to Bjork, when I hear someone crying outside the door. My blood ran cold, I hate to be cliche, but that is exactly how I felt at that moment. My brain was trying to settle me, telling me it was the dog, MacDuff, although my mind knew better, and the door knob began to jiggle as I sat there, scared to death. After I was done, I went to look and see what I already knew, that MacDuff was shut downstairs, and he never once came to the third floor either, only the cat would, actually, and she died up there, under the bed.
It was lovely up there, because it was so high as the moon shone through into the windows at night. There was open space in the one room, and I used to dance there, not a lot though, because that would bring him on. The Voodoo ladies are right when they say dancing calls the spirits. You would just feel him in the room with you. He used to move pictures around a lot. Someone would visit, and he would turn their picture face down, which scared me. Nobody else would have, could have, done that. My cat did not mess about like that, like other cats do, and it would be wyrd, because it would always be the same pictures of the same people after a visit like that. I had this print, The Faery Kissed By Pixies, by Brian Froud up there, it's big. He took that one down all the time. The nail was always, certainly secure, as I would always check it, but he did not like fairies hanging in his room, and I guess I should not blame him for that. If I was ever up there in the bed, by the window, crying, he would always come sit at the foot of the bed. You could feel it and see the comforter actually move. This was the only time that he was comforting.
Once I was cleaning the impossible steps when I saw him, sitting on the landing, looking up at me. He was only about eight, I would say, but big for his age. He had his head shaved and was very pale. He was wearing a navy blue, what seemed to be a school uniform to me, with shorts on, with little military type piping up the sides. There was something on his jacket lapel, and his eyes and head were big. He looked sad. I wasn't really scared of him at all then, and I seemed to hear his name in whispers reverberating off of the walls.
I was in bed one night when he said, "Mommy, I'm scared", as clear as anything in my ear, and I flew down the three flights of stairs cursing like I never curse, all sorts of blasphemies concerning the house, to the extent of, I hate this house, I can't wait to get the hell out of this house. I hate You! I felt very bad, afterwards, of course, but it scared me, because I knew all at once that he was always going to be scared. I felt bad for him, but I really did not like it that he wanted me to be his mother either. I think he died there of tuberculosis, or the flu. There was a flu epidemic in Pittsburgh in the twenties that killed one in seven.
I had moved from the house on several occasions, but it had a way of sucking you back. The first time that I moved from there I had a terrible headache like I've never known; I actually felt faint and the room seemed to spin as if I was drunk. It felt like somebody was pushing down on my head. When I left and came back for the rest of my stuff all of the doors were wide open, front and back. Of course I had locked them, because I am obsessive compulsive about locks like that.
The last time, right before I moved out, I felt something in the bed, up there, with me, jumped up, turned the light on, freaking. Another time I was in the bed I could hear wings flapping in the room, big wings, flapping. It could not have been an angel, or at least, I didn't think so at the time. Just before I left I saw a demon, only for a second, on the counter top in the kitchen, by the sink. This is why I wonder if it is not just that little demon, alone in the house, playing tricks. He was only about as big as a little dog, and was gray with wings like a bat. He was hairless, and had little horns. He would have looked like a gargoyle if it were not for the horns. I'm glad to be out of that house. Next time I'll go on to ghost stories about places that I have visited, The Jean Bonnet Tavern being the first of them.
