The House on BayView Road

         The plane circled over Bangor, Maine and started its' descent. Dee and I were talking about Stephen King. We knew he lived in Bangor.

"Lynn, did you know Stephen King was in a horrible accident not too long ago?"

"No, I haven't listened to the news in a while. It tends to depress me."

"Yeah, he was taking a walk on the side of the road, and someone in a minivan lost control and hit him. They said he was in stable but critical condition. They had to do surgery on him."

"Goodness, I hope he lives," I said.

Little did we know we would be stepping into a King-like adventure of our own.

"Come on Lynn and Dee, lets get our suitcases." Walker said.


Chapter I


         With the rental van packed, we headed to Manset, Maine where we had rented a house for a month. Arriving in Manset, we stopped at the Realtors to pick up the key and directions. Then we started looking for the house. We turned down the last street in the directions and found ourselves in a large parking lot of

a church. Walker turned around and went back to the main street thinking we had missed something on the directions. But it was the right one. Then we realized it fed into a small street and he followed it as it curved right.

"Look!" Dee shouted. "Look up the hill, there's the house. See the sign in the window way up there? It says 1942 Bay View. That's it," Dee exclaimed.

We stopped and looked up the hill at the dark three story house. A chill ran down my spine.

Driving slowly through the parking lot, we found the driveway, which looked more like a pathway for an old covered wagon, and turned down it. It was unnerving being surrounded by seven to eight foot grass on both sides of the car. But it led us to the back of the house. We pulled up and the three of us sat quietly. Before us

loomed this huge house with peeling white paint and faded green trim. A covered stairway shot down from the second story. One single light bulb burned on the back porch giving off an eerie glow.

"We don't have to stay here." Walker said. "I can take us to the Bar Harbor Hotel."

"No, let's give it a chance. We haven't seen the inside. If it isn't any better, then we'll go to a hotel." I said.

We stepped out of the car into the warm sticky air, and very hungry marsh mosquitoes. We made our way through grass that tickled out knees, and reached the rickety back porch. It took a few minutes to get the key to work in the door. Once inside we found ourselves in the mud room. From there we went through the utility

room and into a country type kitchen. While my husband was bringing in the groceries and suitcases, Dee and I looked around the downstairs for bedrooms. Before we went down the hall, there was an odd room right next to where the kitchen was. It had a sink with a small mirror over it and a toilet paper holder. Nothing else.

Next there was a pretty nice size bath and two bedrooms. One had an old iron bed and the other one next to it had been renovated and spruced up in blues. Dee said she would take that one. All three of us went up the stairs to the second floor. The stairs seemed creepy and made a hazardous spiral turn to the left. That's

when I felt my knees and my legs gave out. Lucky for me, my husband caught me before I fell backwards. Once upstairs there was another kitchen with a refrigerator, but no other the appliances. On more investigation we found the door leading to the outside. It was spooky and looked like it had not been used for some time.

There was lots of wasps nest at the top. Then we found a nice little bedroom which had been added on. It had twin beds and a bricked up fireplace.

Just right for my grandsons sleep in, I thought.

We walked to the other side of the stairs and found a nice old bathroom with a claw-foot-tub for bathing. There were an L shaped hall, one, had a bedroom with a double bed. Walker and I were going to sleep there. Down the other way was a bedroom with twin beds, but no closet. Actually, the only room with a closet was ours

and it was very small. Typical of old homes. High ceiling, and large rooms. We went back to the porch which had been added on. It had large fans, chairs and a swing and it was screened in. We stayed there for a while sipping on our wine and looking out over the water. Then we went down with Dee to get her settled in. Once unpacked, she took a lamp off the chest of

drawers and brought it to the bedside table to plug it in. She pulled back the headboard, and there was a large black hole in the wall. It stretched from one end of the headboard to the other and went all the way down to the cellar. This was the spookiest thing I had ever seen, and it made me think of all those scary movies I

had watched before.


         "Dee, come upstairs with us and take one of those bedrooms. You don't have to stay here and go to sleep with a horrible black hole right behind you," I said.

"No,I will be fine,," Dee said.

You couldn't have paid me to sleep in there. Walker and I went upstairs to our bedroom. We couldn't help noticing the extra stairs leading to the third floor. This bothered me, but I was too tired to care at the time. As a matter of fact, we didn't even notice what our bedroom looked like, we were so tired. The next morning was a

whole different matter. After waking we went down to cook breakfast. I have never seen a stove as filthy as this one.The bowls under the flame, had old grease standing in the them and yucky stuff stuck to it. I took pictures because I wanted the realtors to know we did not leave it this way. The refrigerator was not much

better. We cooked our food over all of this mess. But we were careful not to let anything touch the stove. We needed to go to the little store in town to and buy more groceries. I went upstairs to bath and get dressed. As I entered our bedroom, I noticed a very old-fashioned vanity. I could put on my make-up and

comb my hair there. But the mirror was old and hard to see yourself in it. As I dressed, I began noticing the walls. The wallpaper was very old and I would have bet it had never been changed. The majority of it was coming down and in its wake was a lot of black mold going up the wall. We didn't know at this time, this type

mold would make you very ill or kill you. The windows were the old push-up kind and someone had opened them halfway. One of the windows was held up by a board. It reminded me of my grandmothers' sister-in laws house in Arkansas. They were farmers and didn't have an in-house bathroom until the seventies. All of the

windows were dirty. The poor house was in such distress.


Chapter II


         We drove down to the coast and found a great place to eat lobster. It had been brought in from the water. They served it with corn-on the cob, potatoes and bread. That was the best lobster we had ever put in our mouth. Not flown in, but fresh out of the cage from the water. Yum! With full

tummies we drove along the shore road.we saw so many marsh swamps. We stopped at another place later on and had a drink.

"Look there's a Sardine factory. Lets go see if we can take a tour." Dee said.

Walker walked over and asked a gentleman about touring it and he said sure. All three of us went through the large opening. You walked among the barrels of sardines. Man did it stink! The sardines were packed in the barrels to marinate before canning them and shipping them out.

"Lynn, you and Dee want to take a tour on a boat to see how they fish for lobsters." Walker said. It leaves in about fifteen minutes."

"Yes, lets go!"

On the flat boat, they explained how the cages were lowered into the water in the morning. They checked them in the afternoon,and then pulled them up in the evening. The lobsters had to be a certain size or they were thrown back into the bay. The remaining large ones, were shipped out to restaurants, grocery stores and

individual people. Each family had their own color and territory and none were not allowed to fish in anyone else's spot. Otherwise it was a hefty fine. And I imagine some very hurtful feelings and tempers. I would say this worked out most of the time and everyone got along well. We left and drove back to

the house.

"Hey, ya'll want to go upstairs and sit on the porch to watch the sunset," Walker asked. "I'll bring some wine and glasses up for us."

"Sure," we both said.

"Dee," I said, you should see the stairs going up beside the bedroom we sleep in. It gives me the creeps."

"Oh, I want to go see them," Dee said.

"Did you know there are thirteen different colors of carpets through-out the house?" Dee asked.

"No," I said. "That's creepy."

"It makes me nervous. I wonder who rented or lived here before," Dee said.

We walked to my room and went up the wooden stairs. At the top were two doors. One right at the top, and the other facing the street. Dee tried both but they were locked. I didn't rest very well that night because I was scared with those stairs being right next to our bedroom.

Someone could have been living up there and we wouldn't have known it. The whole house made me uneasy.

Chapter III


         The next day our friends came in. They were going to stay for a couple of days with us.

"I thought you said you rented some pretty homes Lynn," Mark said with a joking tone.

"I do, but this one is the exception," I replied.

"Let's put your suitcases in here," I said as I showed them the bedroom next to Dee's. "This house is over a hundred years, old so it has a lot of wear and tear on it."

As they placed the suitcases on the floor there was a loud crack, and the front corner of the bed fell. One of the iron legs had broken in half. The hair on my neck stood up. We called the realtors and they sent the caretaker to look at it. He used bricks to put them under the bed's leg.

"That was interesting," Diane said as she rolled her eyes.

"Hey, we rented some movies." I said. "Honey put "The Ring" on. It's a Scary movie and I thought you might enjoy it. I've seen it, but wanted you to see it too,"

None of us thought too much about it. During the part where the girl had climbed out of a well, and was crawling on all fours towards the edge of the TV, all the lights went out, even those on the island. No one said a word or took a breath. You could have heard a Kleenex hit the floor. We sat in total blackness.

When the lights came back on, we turned the movie off.

"I am not sleeping in the broken bed," Diane said.

"Come upstairs. There's two bedrooms with twin beds."

Diane said. "Mark, you push those beds together. I'm not sleeping by myself."

I completely agreed with her. We had just had the scare of our life. Besides, we were all tired. Diane and Mark were drained from their flight and driving down to Manset. Everyone was ready to go to bed. I tossed and turned, trying to get to sleep. With all that had happen, I continued to think of the stairs next to our bedroom.

"Good morning," Walker said as we stumbled down to breakfast. "I hope everyone likes eggs, bacon and toast."

when breakfast was over,Walker cleaned the table while Diane washed the dishes. Mark and I were drying them. I looked up towards the vacant bedroom. that's when saw her. the young lady, her hair was wound in a bun, and she was dressed in a skirt which hung just above her feet, and a blouse. She walked from the

empty bedroom into Dee's room.

"What's wrong?" Mark asked me.

"You're not going to believe me, but I saw a lady walk from the vacant room into Dee's bedroom."

Everyone had to think I was crazy, but didn't say that. As a matter of fact, I don't think anyone said anything about it.

"Let's take Diane and Mark on a drive along the coast," Walker said. "We found some pretty neat places to see."

We drove down the coast, stopping in little towns and getting out to walk a bit. By lunch time, we drove down to the little lobster shack, and once again indulged ourselves of lobsters. After eating, we drove down to Bar Harbor and walked around the quaint little town.



Chapter IV


         "Hey, you want to go Whale Watching?" Mark asked.

Sure, it sounds like fun. We walked down to the Harbor and bought tickets for the afternoon of the next day.

Again, I had another restless night trying to sleep. The next day we drove back to Bar Harbor and went whale watching. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful clear day. Once we got out into the Ocean we began looking for the Whales. The Captain would alert us by saying

"Whale spotted on the port," and everyone would rush to the left side.Then it was "Whales spotted on the starboard." Everyone rushed to the right side. The four of us couldn't help but start laughing.With everyone rushing to the different sides of the boat, it would tilt to that side. However, we got to see many whales and I

took a picture of one shooting water out of his spout. The sun was shining through it and it showed a rainbow shinning through the water from his spout. It was beautiful. The Captain said there weren't many who had captured this picture.

"Wow, what a great day after last nights fiasco," Diane said.

"You're right," I said.

"Let's head back to the haunted house," Walker said teasingly.

Mark and Diane had to leave in the next morning. I'm sure they were ready to leave our lovely old house. The next day we bummed around the house and walked down the small street which went in front of it.

"Let's eat at the restaurant down the hill from us tonight," Walker said.

"Yeah," I said. I've been curious about it."

That night three of us walk down the hill to the restaurant. It was called XYO and the food was excellent. What was Interesting is they had a bunch of old black and white pictures of the house hanging on their walls. We wanted to ask questions, but they were busy.

Walker had to leave the next morning to go back to work. He wouldn't be back for almost two weeks and when he came back he was bringing our four grandchildren. They were from the ages of of teens, the girls, to younger boys of 10 and 12.


Chapter V

         After Walker left, Dee and I noticed a picture in the living room had broken. It was a nice little replica of a sailboat in the water. Something you would buy at a garage sale. It had cracked from corner to corner. One day Dee went out the old, large front doors. Before she walked down the steps,one door fell on her head.

"Oh my gosh, Dee are you all right?" I asked.

"I think I'll live, but I will also have a large bump on my head." she said.

"Let me get this door off of you." I said. Somehow I managed to pull the door off of her. Funny? No. Odd, yes. With all of the weird things that had been happening, it made me wonder who or what wanted us to leave. We had two maids cleaning the house. One of the maids called the realtors.


         "Hello, yes, the front door fell on the ladies head. Can you have someone to come and fix it?" The maid asked. She was very calm about it all. she told us they would have the caretaker come over. He showed up later and fixed the door. No apologies, nothing.

"Let's go check out the cellar and see what's down there." I said.

Dee and I were cautious going down the steep stairs. We could smell the damp musty room. It was dark and frighting. We found the light switch and turned it on.

We saw nothing but pumps and heaters.There was a walled up stairway near the side of the house. Dee and I decided we would go to the small library and look up the history on the house. We found out a lot. It belonged to a Sea

Captain who had built it for his wife. He was lost at sea and left his wife and baby boy. The little boy became ill and died at a very young age. The widow lived there until she died. The captain originally owned all the land as far as you could see, and then some. he had the only ice house for miles and ships would come in to

buy the ice. One interesting fact, the room off of the kitchen, which Dee and I had

wondered about, was a birth and death room. They were always next to the kitchen. I guess it was there because they always needed hot water and cloths for bathing the person who was there at the time. We don't know who added onto the house or where the original fireplace was. We did learn the names of most of the

original people who lived there. It was interesting and made it a little easier for us to stay by ourselves. We found out from the maids the house had only been rented to bikers over the years, and we were the very first family to stay in it. They also said everyone knew it was haunted. Knowing only bikers stayed there made

sense as to why it was so filthy. They even rode their bikes inside it.

Dee and I decided the lady would like it if we added a touch of flowers to each room. We found a nursery and bought a bunch of flowers. We placed them all around and It seemed the house came to life and looked pretty. The caretaker came in one time to work on something and we talked him into opening the two doors

upstairs. One was a maids room with a bed and a sink, nothing more. This was at the front of the house directly above our bedroom. The other was a very big room filled with old, but historical furniture, it went a long way back and then there was another door. He would not let us go any further than to look inside. He quickly

locked the doors and left.

"It's movie time," I said to Dee. We went to the video store often and became friends with the lady who ran it.

"Where are you staying," she asked.

"We are in the Bay View house. Do you know about it?" Dee asked.

"Oh, yes, I do. How do you like it? It's a strange house," she said.

"We haven't passed judgment on it as of yet," I said and laughed.


Chapter VI


         The following day, Dee's sister Lyn drove in, and then her daughter Car. We told them about them house and all that had happened. The house really scared them so they slept in the bedroom where I was going to put the boys when they came. They went whale watching too, but they went in the morning. It was very cold and

foggy, and there were no whales to be seen. Almost everyone on board was sick and throwing up. Not a pleasant trip for them. Later we took a raft to an island not far down from us and visited it. It wasn't very big. It did boast of an old house which housed a museum in it. Most people were having picnics on the lawn.

Because of the mosquitoes, we ate lunch at the only place to have it. We fought off the mosquitoes as we listened to the owner of the restaurant yell at a customer. Then it was back to our safe little, sort of, place. Or so we thought.

"Let's have a seance", Car said.

"I guess." I said.

"We should start in the bedroom with the iron bed." Dee said.

With a candle in hand, it was placed in the center of the bed and we sat around it.

"I call upon the lady of the house. Please come and talk with us." Dee said. She did this several times, but nothing worked and we laughed about it.


"Let's try it in my bedroom," Dee said.

Once again we placed the candle on the floor, closed the door adjacent to the hall and another bedroom and the door that went into the hall where the front doors were. We sat down around the candle. Car had her back to the door that led to the other bedroom. We let Dee call the spirits again. Dee was born with a

Caul over her face. This was suppose to mean she would be more sensitive to these kind of things. Once again, she called them. "Spirits of the house, come and be with us. Tell us who you are? Dee asked. Then all of a sudden there was a loud pounding and banging on the door we had shut, it sounded like whoever was

there was coming through it. The sound was something none of us could duplicate. It scared all of us. Car screamed and spider-crawled into my lap and then turned on a flashlight. None of us said a word. Finally I got enough nerve to stand up, turned the light on, put the candle up, and said never again would I do this and I

haven't. I don't think anyone else has either. Lesson learned, don't mess with things you don't understand or know about.

The next day we took a drive and came up on a dirt road, which of course we took to see where it would go. We went quite a ways, but decided to turn around. Just as Dee turned the car and backed it up to go back the other way, one of the girls said, "look! There's a cemetery there." Of course we had to pull over and check

it out. Little did we know we would get the surprise of our life. In this little, old cemetery was worn headstones.

"Oh my gosh, these are the people who lived in the house we were staying in." Dee said.

Sure enough, From the mother and child to some of the relatives.

"Look at the weird mound," I said. "There were a lot of old flowers on it. Someone has to be keeping these graves up."

Some flowers were real and some artificial, but weather worn. The mound was very high and made with pine needles, leaves and parts of the forest. It gave all of us the chills, but we felt as though the lady wanted us to see this.

Driving back to the house we couldn't stop talking about what we had discovered.

The next day we took them to the lobster place and bought our lobsters, then brought them home to cook. We played with them for a while, just like kids. We even had one stand on its head and took pictures of it. Poor thing. Then we put them in

boiling water and ate them. Yum! The next morning, Dee's sister and niece had to go back home. We wished them well and sent them on their way.

Chapter VII


         We were back to being alone, but not for long. Within the next week, my husband and grandchildren would arrive. Now, we are talking about four

spirited grandchildren who were the ages, girls in the teens and the boys still under twelve. I had no choice but to put my oldest granddaughter Erica, in the bedroom no one wanted. We never said a word to her. But, every night the curtains were pulled down and every morning, Walker had to put them back up. This continued

until the day we left. We took our grandchildren to Bar Harbor the first day and drove into some other little towns. They had a good time. Now, here is the really strange part. All of us adults were upstairs, the boys were in the bedroom playing. The older granddaughter, Erica came running up the stairs

saying that Mae had lost her mind. We asked what she meant, and she said Mae was shaving her hair in the little room downstairs. I left to go see what she was talking about and sure enough, there was Mae with half her head shaved and a tear running down her cheek. I asked her what she thought she was doing and she

said she wanted to shave her head. I said okay and went back upstairs. That's just the way I am. If they do it, they have to live with it, not me. Walker had a fit and went down to stop her. To this day she says she was not crying, but I know what I saw. I found this unusual as she was in the death room. Was she crying for

a lost one and didn't know it? Who knows. This house had a life of its own, and we were visiting. Dee and I grew to love the old house because we were there for a solid month, not like the others, who came and went. I think we began to understand it and the lady who haunted it.

I must say, when the caretaker saw my husband and my room, covered with the black mold, and the wall paper falling down, he was shocked at how bad it had been kept up. When we returned the key to the realtors we found out they had never been in the house and had no idea what it looked like.

When I got home I was sick for several months. The doctors had to keep changing my antibiotics. It took a long time to get better. I am sure it was from all of the mold I was exposed to. But I did wonder, "Was it from living in the house with ghost?"

This is a true story. It happened to me and my friends. Later, I, along with Dee, painted a picture of the old house for her sister and she loves it. I also painted a picture of the bedroom where our friends slept. You could tell it was a nice room, and the window had a breeze blowing, and it lifted the curtains. It was a reminder for

them of where they stayed and the stories they could tell. I tried to find out what happen to the old place, because before we left, I heard a gentleman had bought it to renovate it back to what it originally looked like, then he was going to sell it. He had bought several of the old houses on the block and renovated

them. They looked wonderful. Dee and I visited some of them when they had an open house. I would have bought the place myself, but it was already taken. The price had to be pretty low because it was a wreck, but a sturdy built one. One note, the wiring in it was done in 1917 so I thought it would have to be changed.


I hope you enjoyed my story, and I would love your comments.

Scorpio/Lynda M. Miller


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