A Haunted Memoir

Around 2003, my siblings and I moved to a densely wooded area of North-East PA called Shohola.

I was 10 or 11 at the time.

My mother was obsessed with the idea of living in a log cabin and her dreams came to fruition much to our dismay.

It wasn’t a bad house, really. Aside from the carpenter ant problem, it was quiet back there.

I much preferred this to living in a nosy community where people fussed over the length of your lawn.

Here, we were in the wild.

Most of our days were spent outside exploring, turning over rocks, chasing frogs and inspecting animal tracks. We felt like pioneers, catching crayfish in the creeks and building rafts to float down the lazy river.

Our mom gave us a limit to how far we could wander, but we never listened.

Biking as far down the dirt road as we dared, we passed houses belonging to neighbors we barely talked to. Most days we stuck together, but occasionally I would sneak off to go on my own adventures.

That’s when I found it.

My sister didn’t believe me at first. The driveway was well hidden, tree branches hanging low over the entrance and dead leaves blanketing the cracked pavement.

But it was real and it was a mystery.

Ducking under some rusty chains, we passed a decomposing car half swallowed by long grass.

At the end of the long driveway, the abandoned house loomed before us.

It had several stories and a two car garage, but every door was locked. The windows were boarded up. There was no visible way in or out.

Parking our bikes, we walked around the building, searching for clues to the previous owners or some way to look inside. The back porch was so rotted, my brother broke the steps leading up to it. We decided going inside might not be a great idea, who knew how bad the interior was?

Poking around revealed some old toys, a moldy doll with a strange bob-cut and some other curious items buried in the leaves. My sister searched for more trinkets as I listened to the forest.

The trees groaned back there.

It was a common noise, trunks swaying in the wind would creak and moan but for some reason that sound seemed eerie to me.

You ever get a bad feeling about something? A weird chill that you can’t explain?

Well I felt very cold being around that place, so I got on my bike and called for my siblings. At first my brother said I was a wuss but he agreed that there wasn’t really much else to do there so we all headed back home.

My sister kept the doll to show my mom.

She said the style was from the 70′s, but that it was filthy and she should get rid of it. Naturally my older brothers decided to blow it up with some firecrackers and burn the remains in the fire pit.

Later that night, I asked my sister if she felt anything strange about the abandoned place. “Yeah, it gave me some bad vibes too. We probably shouldn’t go there again.” Laying in bed, I thought about this.

Something about the locked doors and boarded windows made me wonder what happened.

It wasn’t long before I started to dream about the house.

The hidden driveway stretched endlessly.

Dry leaves crunched as I trudged through them, pushing my little bike. Something was pulling me towards the decaying structure. Whether it was my curiosity or something more sinister, I didn’t know.

All I knew was that I couldn’t stop my legs, even as the growing dread started to squeeze my heart.

The house was close now. I tried to get on my bike, to pedal away and never look back.

But my feet didn’t listen.

They were under a spell, hypnotized by whatever beckoned me.

The skeleton of the car watched me pass, weeds strangling the broken headlights.

And then I was before the decrepit building.

The front door lay open.

No boards on the windows, nothing stopping me from entering.

I screamed at myself as I dropped the bike and walked inside the gloomy entrance.

My mother said I was having night terrors.

I didn’t want to tell her that I was dreaming about a place I’d found, venturing far beyond the line she set down for us.

The next day, I vowed to visit the place and face my fears.

But the driveway was exactly how I dreamed it.

I swallowed nervously, wondering if the door would be open when I got closer.

As I snuck under the chains, the dull rattle echoed; following me as I walked reluctantly.

My heart raced as drew nearer. The old car grimaced, the corroded grill jutting like teeth.

I was standing in the shadow of the house.

Hands shaking, I parked the bike and looked up.

The door was shut. The boards were still on the windows. I sighed in relief.

Looking up, I squinted at the attic window.

There was nothing barring it, except for curtains shrouding the interior. A slit of darkness separated the faded cloth, but I couldn’t see anything. There was a funny smudge on the glass. It was different color than the rest of the fabric.

Then it moved and the curtains closed.

I pedaled home faster than the wind that day.

Sometimes I think about those curtains, wondering if it wasn’t my imagination.

Maybe it was a rat, the breeze, some plausible explanation.

I try to tell myself that it could have been anything.

Anything but a hand.