Loretta

Loretta
By Sabrina Von Meow



Bethany counted down the minutes until the clock struck midnight. She counted down the seconds.
“5… 4… 3… 2… 1…” She had to stifle her excitement, “MIDNIGHT!!!” She yelled, releasing all her built-up energy.
“Keep it down out there!” called her sleepy, grumpy roommate.
“Sorry!” she replied, although she wasn’t. She was now officially the owner of her own house. Sure it was small, two bedrooms, one bath, with a small kitchen, living room, and an attic. She had gotten a good deal on it too, the young woman who had owned it had died, and her family was eager to be rid of the extra property taxes. She climbed into bed, knowing she should get some sleep; it was going to be a big day. She spent the next three hours tossing a turning until she fell into a light sleep, only to wake up an hour later, and unable to fall back asleep. Restlessly, she got up to make sure she was all packed, and only confirmed that she had done a good job the previous day, and climbed back into bed. She spent the next hour and a half staring at the ceiling before she finally fell asleep, only to be awakened by her roommate getting up and getting ready to go to work, her roommate was a waitress at a local diner that was cheap, dirty, but had a loyal following. Realizing she wasn’t about to get any sleep, she climbed out of bed to go cook breakfast, she herself worked as a maid at nearby motel, the ‘Columbus Inn’, She had taken the day off as to move into her new home, she was friends with her roommate, but she couldn’t wait to move out and get her own place. She skillfully flipped a pancake and caught in the pan on the opposite side, she was, after all, a member of ‘The National Pancake Flipping Society’. Her roommate said her final goodbye as she walked out the door, and Bethany finished eating her maple syrup-soaked pancakes.

Driving up to her new home, she parked her dinky little car (she called it her dink-mobile), and pulled the key out of the ignition. The former owner of the home was waiting inside with the keys. Bethany walked up to the front door (which was open), and stuck her head in.
“Hello?” her voice echoed in the near empty house, which was only near empty because the former owners didn’t have room to take the couch, so they had left it. A middle-aged woman, probably in her late forties greeted her. The woman, Mrs. Myers, wanted to make the exchange as fast as possible because the house had to many sad memories, she quickly handed over the keys, and left. Bethany took her first steps into her first home and screamed with joy as soon as the older woman was down the road and out of sight. She made quick work of her few boxes and did her best to fill the space in such a way it looked… home-y. She filled her cupboards and draws with her plastic silverware and Tupperware bowl/plates; she hung her three knives by the sink, and hung all six of her colorful, paisley towels on her kitchen towel bar.

She lugged in her small T.V., the one she had bought at a yard sale for ten bucks, and placed it on a wooden apple box she had gotten for only five bucks at the same sale. She pulled her mattresses into one of the two bedrooms, now her bedroom, and set up her lamp next to the makeshift bed. Having not yet received the promised desk from her friend, Sarah, she propped her mirror against the wall and set her make-up bag next to it. Stretching her sheets across her bed, she spread her kitten patterned quilt across her small bed, and flopped the pillow where she guessed her head would be when she went to bed, but who knew where it would be when she woke up. She then set about cleaning up the house, it had been nearly three months since anyone had been inside, and everything was covered in dust. She could still see her foot prints from when she first saw the open house, she remembered that she didn’t own a broom. She charged out the door, and drove to the local Grocery store where she picked out a cheap, inexpensive broom.

She headed back home with it and walked up to the door. She pulled out her keys and realized that she had forgotten to put her new house key on her Hello Kitty key chain. She sat by the door wondering how to get in, she turned to the door, and it slowly swung open. “That’s odd…” she thought, “I’m sure I locked it…” but she quickly forgot about the incident as she was caught up in the chore of sweeping, dusting, and vacuuming with a vacuum she borrowed from her old roommate. Relishing the clean house, she carried in a plastic animal carrier and opened it, freeing her young cat ‘Puff’.

Exhausted from a long day of work, and the fact that she had barely slept the night before, she turned in at an early hour. She was almost asleep when the sound of voices in the living room awakened her, Bethany slowly walked into the living room to find the T.V. on and blaring. The Colbert Report was almost echoing around the mostly empty room. She turned off the T.V. and walked back down the hall, into her bedroom, where she climbed into bed., But the second she pulled the sheets up to her shoulders, the sounds of political jokes once again consumed her house. She walked out, turned it off, and unplugged the T.V., and got back into bed, the T.V. turned on again, but this time she just left it alone, and it turned off at the end of the show.

The next morning she got up at an early hour, it was about a hour before she had to leave for work, so she made some coffee, cooked a pancake, and sat down with the paper she scanned the headlines for anything interesting. ‘Local Mom Discovers Child Has Pet Alligator’… Bingo. It was a short article, so she quickly scanned for something else to read, ‘Judge Convicted for Taking Bribes’ (yawn!), ‘Bieber Gets Hit By Flying Water Bottle’ (heard about it, like, a month ago.), ‘Local Man Dies in Drunk Driving Accident’, that sounded interesting so she read the article, and finished her coffee. She was about to settle down for her daily crossword when she realized it was time for her to leave for work, she hurried out the door, and left for ‘The Columbus Inn’.

It was an uneventful day at work, just another day of replacing sheets, trying to communicate with the Spanish lady who didn’t speak English she worked with, although recently she had learned some English, words like, sheet, wash, shower, and scrub. This made work only a tiny bit easier. Oh, and today she got to set up the continental breakfast. Fun.
She headed home around seven, she got off early that evening and came home to an odd smell, it wasn’t unpleasant, it was just, odd. It kind of smell like a perfume her roommate wore. Since it didn’t smell bad, she chose to ignore it and went about cooking a pot of Top Ramen for dinner. She settled down on her new couch with a bowl, chopsticks, and the newspaper. She was almost done with it when she came to ‘a six letter word for potassium filled fruit’, her mind went blank, so she turned the page to look at yesterday’s answers while she thought about it. She still hadn’t thought of it when she flipped back to the puzzle to find ‘Banana’ written in the blank squares in loopy handwriting, much unlike her own, sloppy print. Before she went to bed, she hung up her scenic calendar and wrote in on tomorrow’s date, “Cousin Sarah and Molly coming over”.

She got off work even earlier than usual, she got home only an hour before her cousin, Sarah, and Sarah’s daughter, Molly, arrived at her front door. Molly had brought along her Speak ‘n’ Spell toy, a toy with a key board on it and when you pushed the letters, it would say them out loud. Sarah was an odd mother; she didn’t allow her two year old any non-educational toys. After three hours of catching up, Sarah had to leave for a dentist appointment and left with Molly. Sarah’s car was out of sight by the time Bethany noticed that Molly had forgotten her toy; she set it on her couch so that she would remember to give them later.

She jumped when she heard something in the kitchen knock over. She ran in to find Puff crunching up spilled cat food; she tipped the paper bag of kibble upright before she noticed the words. Spelled on the laminate floor of her kitchen in ‘Yummy Bites’ cat kibble, were the words “I hope I don’t bug you”. Before she could think, she uttered the words “Who are you…?”. She heard an electronic female voice in the living room, “Hello, come to play did you?” she ran into find the Speak ‘n’ Spell giving off a stream of letters. “L-O-R-E-T-T-A” the voice recited electronically. Bethany watched in horror as the toy’s off switch clicked as if pushed by an invisible hand.

Convinced she was dreaming, Bethany walked down the hall and into her bedroom where she climbed into bed and tried to wake up. When she woke up the next morning, she remembered her odd dream the night before, she chuckled at the oddness of it and climbed out of bed to find her arms covered with small bruises. She remembered the fact she had tried to wake up in her dream by pinching herself, and figured she had pinched herself in her sleep. She yawned and stumbled into the kitchen to find an already made pancake with the words “It wasn’t a dream” written in syrup with the same loopy handwriting. Let’s just say Bethany screamed.
That morning when she went into work she was as white as a sheet, “What’s wrong?” her manager asked, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”. “If only he knew…” Bethany thought as she went about her job. She worked overtime that day, her excuse was that she had left early two days in a row, but she knew the real reason, she didn’t want to be home with… with Loretta.

She returned reluctantly, she had seriously considered having a ceremony done to put the spirit to rest, until she realized she had no idea where to get one. Hesitantly, she slowly creaked open the door to her very own haunted house, every light in the house was on. She found the words “I get scared when I’m home alone.” Scribbled in loopy handwriting on a notepad she kept on her counter. *SIGH* A ghost that’s afraid of the dark, that’s a new one. “I think I could get used to this,” Bethany said, “I really do.”

The End~