Читать книгу Gay & Lesbian Ghost Stories - Antonio Garcez - Страница 7

After buying the property, Geri and I immediately went to work. With a hammer in each hand and the will to make a home out of a real fixer-upper, we set our goal to start with the most important rooms: the kitchen and bathroom. The bedrooms were next, followed by the living room and dining room. We decided to leave the outside of the house for last. The roof had been patched six years before with hot tar, so we felt it could withstand the elements for another year or two.

We spent the days in our new house hard at work. Our evenings were spent in a beat-up old trailer we bought and parked on the property. It was nice to have the trailer to relax in after a day of dust and sweat. Eventually, the kitchen was completed, and in a few days, so was the bathroom. The two upstairs bedrooms were next. Strange things began to happen to both of us after we decided one day to tackle the bedrooms.

One morning after breakfast, I left Geri at the kitchen table reading the paper as I walked up the short flight of stairs to the second floor. As I reached the top floor, the door in one of the bedrooms slammed shut with a loud bang. The noise was loud enough to startle one of our small dogs. He ran right up the stairs to the door, where he excitedly barked and barked.

Geri, who was in the kitchen, called out to me, “Hey, what’s going on up there?”

I answered, “Nothing. The wind just blew the door shut.”

Geri called to our dog, who was still upstairs with me, and as he ran down the stairs, I approached the door and reached for the knob. I turned the knob and pushed on the door to open it. I heard the clicking sound that the knob made, but it would not open. I thought it might have gotten stuck from the force of the slam, so I played with it for a second or two. I managed to open it about an inch, and then it came flying right back to its closed position. I had the feeling that something was not right. I called to Geri, “Get up here right now!” I told her that I thought someone was in the bedroom. We readied ourselves for the possibility of encountering a prowler. Again, I turned the knob and pushed on the door. This time, it gave a little, and with Geri’s help, it opened.

We entered the bedroom and immediately felt a chill. An overwhelming feeling of what I can only describe as heaviness or thickness hung in the atmosphere of the room. Geri said, “Let’s get the hell out of here!” We both rushed down the stairs and into the kitchen. Noticing our excitement, our two little dogs barked like crazy animals. Needless to say, we decided to leave the cleaning of the bedrooms for another day. The memory of what happened to us that morning stayed with us throughout the day.

That evening, we were having our dinner, once again sitting at the kitchen table. Our only form of entertainment at the time was the radio, which was plugged into one of the few working electrical outlets in the house, in the living room. Suddenly, our dogs began to bark. Above our heads on the second floor, Geri and I heard the hurried footsteps of someone suddenly running from one end of the bedroom to the other. We looked at each other and froze. Between the footsteps, the barking dogs, and the music on the radio, our senses became overloaded. We were scared and again concerned that someone might be in the house. Geri stayed in the kitchen while I ran to the trailer. Ready to confront any burglar, I loaded our shotgun and returned to the kitchen.

With the dogs leading the way, Geri and I cautiously walked up the stairs. Geri reached for the light switch, and the single lightbulb hanging from wires at the top of the stairs turned on. Our dogs dashed into the same bedroom where we’d experienced the negative vibes earlier in the day, and then they ran out crying as if someone had hit them. I immediately thought, No SOB is going to hit our dogs. I yelled out, “Hey, we’ve got a gun! Get out of the room now!” The only sound we heard was our dogs barking behind us. Then I yelled out, “I said, I’ve got a gun! Get out now!” There was no answer. We decided to enter the room anyway.

We soon discovered there was no one in the bedroom. We checked the closet and opened the closed window and looked outside. No one. We then checked the adjacent bedroom, and again, the window was closed shut, and the room was empty. We were at a loss to explain what was going on.

We sat down at the top of the stairs, trying to make sense of something that made no sense. Geri cried, and I placed my arm around her. She was really frightened. Just then, we heard a hideous laugh, followed once again by the slamming sound of the bedroom door! I got up and pointed the gun at the door. “Get out of here, I say. Out of here now!” The laughter began again, and with a courage that even surprised me, I walked to the door and turned the knob and kicked the door open. The room was empty. That was enough for us. We took off out of the house and spent the most nervous night we’ve ever experienced locked in our trailer.

In the comforting light of the morning, we walked out of the trailer and whistled for our dogs. The dogs were nowhere to be seen. They were probably out among the desert brush, chasing a skunk or something. I grabbed my gun once again, and we cautiously reentered the house. It was strange to be walking softly, as though we were visitors in our own house, but we did not want to take any chances. Upstairs, nothing seemed strange or out of place. The feeling was totally different from the frightful night before; everything seemed calm and peaceful.

As the morning progressed into the afternoon, we returned to our normal working routine. When one of our dogs reappeared, Geri became concerned about the whereabouts of our other dog.

After searching for a few minutes, Geri came running to where I was mixing paint. Geri cried, “Come look. I found our other dog, and she’s dead!” I followed her inside the house to the living room. There in the corner, where a water pipe was exposed next to the wall, was our little dog. Her head was at an angle, lodged tightly between the wall and the pipe! There was no rational reason for this to have taken place. None at all.

We had to forcefully pull the pipe away from the wall in order to dislodge our poor dog’s head. We buried her in the yard and, of course, cried for days. Everything was so mysterious to us—the footsteps, the laughter, the slamming doors, the eerie feelings in the bedroom, and now the death of our dog.

The weeks passed, and we did not experience any additional strange happenings. The energy and time we put into the house was showing. It looked great! We then progressed to the second floor. We started with the farthest bedroom. After that one was completed, we entered the bedroom where weeks before we’d experienced the ghostly happenings.

The walls were covered in very old print wallpaper, which we wanted to immediately remove. There were faded square marks on the wallpaper that showed where picture frames had hung for many years. Geri was going to tackle the removal of the paper, while I scraped the old paint off the window and door. Geri can tell you what she discovered.