Ghost Shadows (14 page)

As Gladys peeked out the front window again she exclaimed, "Oh my goodness
,
Harold! You should see this! Several of the kids just crossed over to the other side of the street as if they were making a point of avoiding our house. I even saw a couple of them looking back then quickly looked away. The
y
seemed to have looks of terror on their faces. It was like they were afraid to come here or something. Why would anyone be afraid to come here
,
Harold? We're good people. What's wrong with these kids?"

Harold decided to go back to ignoring his wife and continue to read his newspaper.

Outside, the neighborhood kids who Gladys had seen from the window were doing exactly as she had described, walking across the street, pushing and shoving each other playfully, occasionally giving wary glances back toward the house. Every so often one of the kids would point back toward their house then make spooky gestures with his hands at the younger children and laugh hysterically. The small children would look back at the house quickly before hurrying to be back with the group.

The house sat in darkness, illuminated only by the
pale
moonlight shining through the branches of the tall oak trees in the overgrown front yard. The trees had lost their leaves a month earlier and now stood like colossal multi-limbed monstrous sentr
ies
guarding the mysterious home with its battered
,
paint-chipped facade and foot-high weeds surrounding the broken brick walkway.

The neighborhood children all knew about the Millbury place and they had all heard the many frightening stories surrounding the house. They knew both the real history of the property, which was in itself terrifying enough, but they also knew all of the local legends and
those were
certainly enough to keep even the most daring of them away.

As the true story of the house went, a nice elderly retired couple named Gladys and Haro
l
d Millbury had once owned the home. Mr. Millbury had been retired from the railroad and Mrs. Millbury had worked her entire career as a nurse at a local hospital. Every Halloween children from all over would flock to the Millbury place since Gladys was reputed to give the best candy in town.

There was also a false reputation
that
followed the Millburys. Since the couple had no children, lived frugally
,
and both had generous pensions, it was assumed they were quite well off financially. This was completely untrue. The two weren't starving by any means and Gladys was quite generous with her precious trick-or-treaters, but the couple was far from wealthy. Unfortunately, those particular false stories about them being rich had reached the ears of some local undesirables and the result was a horrific crime the likes of which the small town had never seen before or since.

Twelve years earlier to the day, October 31
st
, Halloween night, the couple had opened their home to trick-or-treaters as they had done for so many years before. Gladys waited by the window with her bowl of candy
,
watching for children, while Harold sat in his recliner reading the sports section as always. It had been a very successful evening with many children enjoying their treats.

However, later that night while the couple slept, persons unknown broke into the house, murdered the couple in their sleep then robbed the house of whatever they could find. The place had been ransacked as if the killers had been looking for caches of hidden money. But of course there was no treasure to be found.

And there was much more to the story than just two people being murdered in their sleep. Word had leaked that the murderers had conducted some sort of strange, bizarre and possibly satanic rituals with the bodies. It was said the twisted perpetrators had savagely dismembered the couple's bodies and had arranged the parts in a bizarre manner. Witnesses said the scene resembled something which might be described as a modern art show in Hell. This included limbs from Harold's body being attached to Gladys' torso and vice versa.

It was said that Gladys' breasts had been hacked off and attached to Harold's chest. Likewise Harold's genitals were severed and placed between Gladys' legs. Their stomachs had been sliced open and the room decorated with their bloody intestines like some unimaginable pink and crimson garland. Both of their heads had been decapitated and placed atop their dresser, as if posed to witness the hideous tableau being staged before them. The room stank like the inside of a slaughter house, which was exactly what it had become.

The unholy display of mangled and reordered body parts was so horrifying and beyond anyone's ability to understand, that every investigator on the scene was unable to keep from vomiting. Perhaps the most disturbing part of it all was the writing on the wall behind the bed, as if the killers had wanted to come up with a title for the macabre scene. Written crudely with hands dipped in the couple's blood were the words “Happy Halloween
.
”The criminals were never caught.

If there was any consolation to be taken from the scene of unimaginable butchery was the county coroner's report suggested the couple had likely been killed instantly and did not have to suffer. He even suggested they had probably died so quickly that they might have not even known what had happened to them.

So, from the coroner's single statement the legends began, spread and grew as such legends often did. Stories of late night sightings of Gladys standing, looking out of the front window abounded. And this was especially prevalent on Halloween night, the anniversary of the murders, when it was believed she still stood watching for her beloved trick-or-treaters. There were also tales of the two headless specters being seen floating inside the home.

Because of the savagery of the murders committed in the house,  no one would dare buy it. As a result it soon fell to disrepair and eventually to ruin. And now every year the neighborhood children would make it a point to cross the street on Halloween night in order to stay as far from the Millbury house as possible.

“I just don't get it.” Gladys said as she looked out of her living room window, “They are avoiding us like we have the plague or something. I can't figure it out
,
Harold. Our house used to be a magnet for children at Halloween, but no longer. What's wrong with our house?”

“Forget it
,
” Harold said
.
“Look. This is all pointless. I'm tired anyway. I think I'll head up to bed for the night. “

So, Harold stood and set the newspaper down on the end table and went up the stairs to bed. The date of the paper read October 31
st
but the year was not the current year; it was twelve years earlier. He read the exact same paper every October 31st. And this was the same scenario, which he and Gladys had played out every Halloween night since the horrific event had occurred. But to them, it was always be the first time, always new, always fresh
,
and it would be eternal.

 

 

 

Grundies

 

 

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative.

—
H. G. Wells
 

 

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

—
Lao Tzu
 

 

 

Chad looked out through the windshield onto the dark slick expanse of highway ahead of him and suddenly realized he had absolutely no idea where he was. Up ahead a road sign reflected in his headlights through the fog and misty rain, becoming more visible the closer he got. The sign read “Erie 50 MI
.
” Chad was suddenly perplexed.
 

The last road sign he had remembered seeing had indicated that he still had eighty miles to travel. And now this sign said only fifty miles. He wondered if the previous sign had been wrong or perhaps he might have read it incorrectly. But he was almost certain the sign had said eighty miles. If he were right, then it meant that for the past thirty miles or roughly forty minutes, he had been essentially driving on autopilot, completely oblivious to his surroundings. Chad looked at the clock on the dashboard display and confirmed that forty-five minutes had actually passed.  

He was not completely surprised by such a concept, since Chad was quite certain
that
at one time or another everyone found themselves driving on autopilot. He assumed nothing had happened of any
note worthiness or most certainly he would have snapped out of his trance; at least he hoped that would be the case.
 

He remembered having experienced similar events on several occasion in the past. But this was the first time in his many years behind the wheel that he had zoned out so extremely as to not be able to recall one single detail of the past three quarters of an hour. He was beside himself with confusion.

Chad supposed it was his own fault. Usually when he drove from eastern Pennsylvania to the far
n
orth
w
est side of the state he traveled via the turnpike, taking it past Pittsburgh, almost to the Ohio border before heading north toward Erie. This route took him on all main highways, most of which were set up to accommodate four lanes of traffic or better.
 

That particular route was longer in terms of miles traveled as it formed the left and bottom sides of a right triangle. However, with the higher speed limits those expressways offered with such an open roadway it often made the trip go quickly; however it was also an extremely boring driving experience. Chad would often listen to audio books to help him deal with the monotony, but sometimes
it
just got to be too much for him.
 

For that reason, Chad had chosen not to take the turnpike on this trip. He had instead gotten the no
t
-so-ingenious idea that it might be more interesting to get off the turnpike after
Some
rset and head northwest along the hypotenuse of the triangle, thereby taking the theoretical
ly
shortest route to Erie. At the time it made perfect sense to him because everyone
knows
the shortest distance between two points
is
a straight line. But although it may have been shorter in terms of miles traveled, the trip ended up being much longer in terms of hours spent on the highway.
 

Unlike the turnpike, most of the roads Chad took along the scenic route were country two-lanes, which wound through rural areas, small towns
,
and vast forestlands. He couldn't recall how long it had been since he had seen a familiar fast food restaurant. There were few if any gas stations along the route
either and those he did see appeared to be of the Mom and Pop variety; looking frighteningly like those run-down shacks often depicted in horror movies about deranged hillbil
l
ies. He suddenly had a flashback to a scene from the 1970s movie
Deliverance
, which caused his stomach to tighten just a bit.
 

Chad recalled with displeasure how just before he zoned out he had stopped at a local combination gas station and general store. It was the sort of place that
kept
fish bait in the same cooler as popsicles. He remembered the deplorable condition of the store with peeling paint on its exterior and the well-worn dusty wood plank flooring inside. The place had a dank and musty smell common to such old buildings.
 

And the old man working behind the service counter was equally as disheveled in appearance. That character had been a scrawny old coot in a stained and yellowed wife-beater, wearing a soiled camouflaged trucker's cap with a brim blackened
from
filthy finger smudges. The old-timer looked as though he had not showered for days nor had he shaved for weeks, apparent by the grizzled stubble which covered his face in irregular patches.
 

Across the room from the service counter an odd looking overweight young man
,
perhaps thirty-five
,
was precariously perched on a rocking chair
and
staring slack-jawed at Chad who stood sopping wet, dripping water onto the aged plank floor. When Chad first walked into the store the rocker had been in motion but it stopped as soon as he approached the counter.
 

It was apparent to Chad from the odd man's demeanor he was a dullard, perhaps mentally retarded. Although Chad knew both of those terms were considered politically incorrect, they seemed to fit that particular individual
.
Chad thought to himself in words
that
would be considered even less socially acceptable, What a bunch of inbred mutants. This idea solidified Chad's earlier
Deliverance
impression even further in his mind, which made him feel very uncomfortable. He recalled how that single movie had bothered him in ways no other movie had ever done before or since.
 

But despite his many misgivings and his discomfort with the place, Chad completed his transaction without incident. He could not however, seem to shake the unusual sensation slithering down his spine as he walked out of the store. Even though he didn't bother to look back, Chad was certain both the owner and his subhuman associate, perhaps the man's own offspring, were still staring at him. He could almost feel their eyes boring holes in his back. Chad had climbed uneasily behind the wheel then quickly drove away, deciding not to stop anywhere again until he saw some signs of real, honest-to-goodness civilization.