Night Stalks The Mansion: A True Story Of One Family's Ghostly Adventure (13 page)

He grasped the banister for support and stood still for a
moment as if searching for words. Then they came in a rush
but his voice was shakier than usual.

"Don't go in there, Bossl Don't bother them people. They
been gone more'n a hundred years. Nobody done disturbed
them in all this timel Nobody but me knew they was there."
He broke into a wail. "Now I done itl 0, Lawdy, I done it!
Me an' my big mouthl"

"But Enoch," I protested.

"Please don't pester them people. Let 'em be!"

At last I understood why Enoch was so reticent about
talking of the phantoms in the old house. He was terrified
of them.

"Why are you so afraid, Enoch? Do you think these people come down to the house at night? Are they the restless spirits that trouble this place? Is this the reason you
won't sleep in the house in a good bed? You can trust me.
I really want to know."

Enoch turned to go up the stairs. Then he hesitated and
turned back. "No, Boss, they ain't the ones. But they might
be should you stir 'em up! 'Nuff goes on already without
that. But I don't know nuthin' 'bout it. I don't know nuthin'
at alll"

He went on up the stairs, mumbling to himself.

As Hal and I returned up the slope with ladder, spades,
and flashlights, we knew that Enoch was watching from an
upstairs window. I seemed to feel his eyes boring into my
back as we continued up the hill. I began to be a little
uneasy-not because I shared Enoch's fear of the burial
place -but for fear he'd get so upset that he'd quit his job.
That would be too big a price to pay for curiosity. Hal
finally broke the silence between us.

"Dad, do you suppose this could be where the night visitor
comes from? The man who walks right by the coach house
sometimes? He could come from the hill."

"I don't know," I admitted. "I tell myself that I don't
believe in ghosts, but crazy things keep happening whether
I believe in them or not. However, Enoch said they didn't
come from the hill and he ought to know. I think he knows
who the two we hear really are, too."

Hal shook his head moodily. "Well, it's darned peculiar,
anyway," he observed. "I'd like to get at the truth as much
as you would. We don't have courses on this sort of thing
in college."

"It might be good if you did," I replied. "Then maybe
the people these things happen to wouldn't be made to feel
like social outcasts."

Soon we were back at the base of the leaning stone and
we went to work. We carefully removed the sod as I intended to leave the place as much like we found it as we could. We
dug through more debris and exposed what had been
definitely an opening. The steps leading downward had
crumbled and given away. Although it was pitch dark beneath us, I played the beam of my flashlight downward.
There was quite obviously a large room below that extended
to our right from the.foot of the marker stone. Enoch had
been rightl It was a brick-walled enclosure with a gothic
arch overhead and had been sturdily constructed.

We enlarged the opening and inserted the ladder. I
admitted to a few goose pimples, but I told myself that an
underground graveyard shouldn't be spookier than the
usual church cemetery or even the aboveground crypts in
New Orleans. I looked at Hal for a moment and took a deep
breath.

"Well, here goes!" I said in what I hoped was a matter
of fact tone.

"Watch your step!" Hal warned needlessly. I went down
first and he followed.

Gingerly we lowered ourselves into the crypt which turned
out to be a room about twenty feet long and only ten feet
high. When I finally stood on the floor of the eerie place
and turned my flashlight upward in order to examine the
top, it looked frighteningly high and far away. The air in
the crypt was stale and fetid. Iron pipes remained, rusted
',ut still intact, which formed the base for wooden platforms
on which caskets had rested. But down the length of both
sides the wooden supports had rotted and fallen and the
caskets had disintegrated. On the floor could be seen piles
of bones and scattered remnants of wood as well as fragments of cloth and silver or pewter handles that had once
been attached to the sides of the caskets. Here and there
among the bones, a skull glistened.

At the moment I could think of a very valid reason for
cremation-it's clean and quick.

"Who would believe this?" I asked. My voice seemed to
disturb a stillness that had prevailed for many years. I was
glad that Enoch had declined to accompany us. I leaned
forward and secured a souvenir. This was a silver handle
from a casket. I wanted to prove to myself later on that we
really had been in this unbelievable place, this contrast to
the peaceful rolling hill above us. Hal did the same thing
and was curiously examining his find by the light of his
own flash.

I raised my head and, as I did so, my light reflected on
the rounded arch above me. It was moving with a circular
motion. I waited a few seconds, conscious of a feeling of
dizziness and nausea. Then I gasped a warning to Hal.
"Let's get out of here!"

We scrambled up the ladder-at least we tried to, but
our knees were weak and we were gasping for air. After I
had pulled Hal up the remaining steps, we collapsed on the
grass and lay there for several moments, realizing what a
narrow escape it had been.

"Thank you, Godl" I said fervently.

"What happened down there?" Hal's face was white. "I
sort of jumped when you told me to, but I barely got up
that ladder."

"No oxygen," I answered, still taking deep breaths of
precious air. "We used up what little came through the
opening. It wasn't enough. When that ceiling started moving around, it was evidence of my dizzy reaction in that stale
atmosphere. Thank God I was conscious enough to realize
the danger!"

"And thank you, too, Dad," Hal said quietly.

I felt in my pocket where I had thrust the casket handle.
"Where's your souvenir?" I asked him.

"I dropped it," he replied grimly. "And I'm not going
back for it, either!"

When we felt better, we pulled up the ladder. Then we covered up the entrance, replaced the turf and made our
way back home. Both of us were still considerably shaken.

"You know, Dad," Hal said soberly. "We could both have
died down there and no one would have known where to
look for us. I didn't tell Mom where we were going."

"Neither did I," I admitted. "I don't think she would
have approved any more than Enoch did. But he would
have known where to look for us."

"That's small comfort," replied Hal shortly.

I knew what he meant. Enoch would have known, but
if we had failed to return would he have told of our planned
expedition-or would he have been too scared, believing
that those spirits we had disturbed had taken care of us in
their own fashion? He might also have believed that if they
were riled up to that extent, even talking about them would
bring swift retribution on his head. In that case, Enoch
might have remained silent and simply left the house. After
all, he had been the one responsible for our going there in
the first place. He and his big mouth.

I only knew that we had a narrow brush with death that
bright Saturday morning and were fortunate to be alive. I
thought about the blessed privilege of being able to breathe
as we neared the mansion. At the moment, all secrets of
the past and my own curiosity regarding them were forgotten.

After our visit to the crypt on the hill, Enoch was apprehensive for days. He would watch us covertly to see if we
continued in good health or acted strangely in any way. He
was unusually alert for noises around the house and seemed
more nervous than usual. As time passed, however, with
no incidents as an aftermath of what Enoch had termed
our "discommoding of them people," he grew more friendly
and was more at ease. He was obviously relieved that our
visit hadn't "stirred them up," as he had feared. I was also
conscious of a sort of grudging respect on his part, for it
seemed that I had done something that he could admire,
if not emulate.

Later on, I pondered over Enoch's words that had been
spoken in fear and apprehension. He had been emphatic
in his statement that our phantoms in the mansion itself were not the same as those on the hill. He had only feared
more ghostly manifestations in a house that had enough
things going on in it already.

If it hadn't been for this conviction of Enoch's, I would
have been convinced that our visitors had come from the
old crypt. Certainly the tragedy connected with the first
building could be the basis for such events. But Enoch had
said they weren't the same-leading to the logical conclusion that he knew who our mansion visitors were. Our problem was to gain his confidence. I still felt he was the only
living person I might contact who could enlighten us on our
mystery. He had worked in the house since he was "knee
high" as he said, and what he hadn't witnessed himself, he
would have learned from family discussion. Thus, the most
important thing to do now was to cultivate Enoch's friendship. Our motives weren't entirely ulterior, either, because
we all liked Enoch for himself. He, in turn, remained quietly
unobtrusive during the day, going efficiently about his
work, and returning to the tackroom each night-as soon
as it grew dark.

It was Enoch who identified Old Mattie for us. This
ancient crone who was apparently demented sometimes
appeared, walking about the place dressed in a strange
outfit. It was dirty, loose, flowing. She had numerous
pockets pinned up in the folds of this garment in which she
hid all sorts of things-pieces of string, bottle tops, bits of
metal or cloth that she spied lying about. She only came
near the house once, but that once was enough. At that
time she stood on the gravel path beneath the front windows, shaking her fist and screaming epithets.

"Get out of my house!" she yelled. "You've no business
here! It's mine! Get out -or you'll be sorry!" Then she broke
into obscenities that made Dorothy back hastily away from
the window and brought Enoch to her side in a protective
manner.

"Who's that old witch?" I demanded angrily.

"That's just Ole Mattie. She ain't right in the head,"
Enoch replied.

"What's she doing around here? What does she mean this
is her house?"

I had already determined that she was definitely in the
flesh-and dirty flesh at that. It was a new experience for
us. Here we were faced with an apparition-but this was
one we could actually seel

"She lived here a long time ago," Enoch replied. "But
she don't rightly own nuthin'. Her people - they just feed
her and that's all."

"Does she ever come down to the barn, Enoch?"

He gave a small grin. "Once in a while she come down
at night. Couple of times she crawled into bed with Butch
an' me."

I blinked. "What did you do then?" I asked curiously.

"Me? I just tumbled out the other side, that's what I did,"
he answered emphatically. "I got Butch trained now so he
don't let her in no more."

So much for Enoch's virtue, I thought. But as we couldn't
depend on Butch being in two places at once and we weren't
sure we could let the chows stay out unsupervised at night,
I phoned the agent and complained of the visitation.

"You tell the owners to take care of this," I ordered
shortly. "It's one thing we don't have to tolerate-and we
don't intend tol"

After that she never came up to the house, but we did
glimpse her once in a while in the woods and down near
the barn, picking up her treasures and stowing them away.
Old Mattie lent yet another touch of local color to the mansion, but it was color we could do without.

Proof of Enoch's evasiveness and caution was the fact
that we had lived in the big house for months before we
even knew of his existence. Up to that time he had been an elusive shadow when spotted at all-a shadow with no personality or features. I was to learn more about Enoch as I
gradually won his confidence and continued to ignore his
"happy hours" after payday. One Saturday he approached
me in his shy and diffident manner.

"Boss," he asked in a low voice, looking around to see if
we were alone. "Could you please take me in your car 'bout
three miles down the road?"

"Of course, Enoch," I replied. `Just where do you want
to go?"

He grinned in a conspiratorial manner, then answered,
half-proudly, "I want to see my girl friend."

It took me at least thirty seconds to recover. A dog and a
mouse I could accept as companions for a man approaching
the century mark. A woman shocked me.

"Why, sure, Enoch," I replied weakly when I got my
breath back. "You bet I'll take you. And if you'll tell me
when you want to come back, I'll pick you up, too."

Enoch disappeared and came back with his straw hat
on. He was wearing his white shirt and one of his new pairs
of blue pants. He climbed into the car and we were off.

"What's her name?" I asked him in a kidding manner.
"Delilah?"

I should have known better than to pull that line with
Enoch who knew all about Delilah, and Jezebel, too. "Nuthin'
like that, Boss," he replied with dignity. "Her name is Willie
Mae and she's a right smart gal -a fine figger of a woman."

"Bigger than you are, Enoch?"

"Shucks, yes! Willie Mae 'bout two hundred fifty pounds,
Boss. We're real good friends. We got insurance on each
other."

"You mean if anything happens to you, she gets the cash
and if anything happens to her, you get it?"

"Yep. Every dime," he agreed, as if it were something to
be proud of.

I thought about Enoch's financial condition when I offered
him the job. "But when you aren't working-who pays the
premiums?" I demanded.

"Oh, she pays 'em. She's a real good friend."