The Visitors: chapter 1

Most people wonder if all the horror stories they’ve heard throughout life are true or not. I myself believe that many of them are false because there’s a lot of people out there with boring lives who get jealous over others’ exciting stories. The story that I am about to write for you readers is a very scary one; in my opinion at least. I spent many restless nights during the time of the event. I even used to be awakened around midnight every night with the feeling of two very cold hands tight around my neck, stealing my breath. Though it was about twelve years ago, I remember it as if it was just yesterday.
In the summer of 1964, I had just gotten back from my honeymoon with my beautiful, young wife, Elizabeth. I was about twenty then and madly in love her. Earlier in the year, while I was dating her, her parents were planning on moving across the country which would’ve torn us apart. That’s when I decided to marry her, keeping us together.
We then began to search for a piece of land to build a house on because at the time we were living in a small, one-bedroom apartment. Eventually, we found a small piece of property, about half an hour away from the apartment we lived in, in the town of Douglas in Massachusetts. From what I’ve heard, this town was known for the axe-making company back in the 18th and 19th centuries. Shortly after the property was bought, we hired a contractor to build the house. During the process of building the house, Elizabeth and I would stay at the apartment in Bellingham, where we grew up.
By the time the house was finished, a year had already passed and Elizabeth and I were expecting. The day we had gone to see our house, I noticed that the contractor was acting a little nervous about something. His hands were shaking like leaves on a trees and every time he spoke, he would stutter a lot. At the time, I didn’t think much of it because he might not’ve felt very good.
It wasn’t until he was getting ready to leave us in our lonesome when I first noticed what he was doing, though I didn’t know why. I was watching him through the picture window in the living room as he stood out in the driveway. He looked like he was talking to someone who wasn’t there and that someone wanted him to do something that he really didn’t want to do. When his “conversation” ended, he walked toward his 1959 Dodge Coronet (I asked him later what type of car it was). But before he opened the driver’s side door, he turned back around and did the sign of the cross. Then he noticed me watching him and he gave one of those nervous waves with the smile to go with it. He then left our driveway in his car and drove off.
Strange things were occurring from day one. That first night, Elizabeth was visiting her cousin in Bellingham while I stayed at the house and unpacked our things from the many boxes we brought there. It was around ten and I was down in the basement unpacking the last of the boxes, which were filled with keepsakes.
Just as I was about finished unpacking, I heard footsteps outside the basement windows near the power box. I stopped what I was doing and went near the window to see what was going on and I couldn’t see a single thing. Then I heard a snap near the power box and the power immediately went out. I thought of yelling at the top of my lungs but what if whoever cut off my power had a lethal weapon? I couldn’t be sure so I just stood there in the moonlight, trying not to make any noises, including my own breath.
I kept listening and I could hear the back door opening up. The footsteps came in the house and seemed to stop right above me as if this intruder knew I was there. I then tried to sneak toward the stairs with a wooden bat in my hand. As I approached the stairs, the intruder’s footsteps seemed to follow me. With my heart thumping against my chest, I resumed up the stairs but the door slammed shut. Without thinking, I dropped the bat and bolted up the stairs and tried to open the door but the door knob wouldn’t turn. I didn’t even hear the door being locked.
After a few minutes, I went back to grab the bat and knock the door down. But when I went back upstairs with the bat in my hands, the door was wide open. As I walked through the doorway, the power quickly restored itself as if it had never happened. I then turned around to shut the basement lights off and close the door so I could go to bed. I got ready for bed and placed the bat by my bed in case the intruder returned.
I just lied in bed and stared at the ceiling and occasionally glancing at the clock. The last time I saw the clock that night, it read eleven-thirty. What felt like only a few minutes of rest was actually about eight hours. The next thing I remember is waking up with the morning sun in my face. I then took a quick glance at the clock and it read somewhere around eight.
The first thing that came to my mind was that I better call Elizabeth in Bellingham. I needed to know how she was doing. I went to the kitchen and picked up the phone to call her cousin’s house. The phone rang several times before she finally answered.
“Hello?” she asked. Her voice sounded as if she had been up all night.
I answered back, “Hi, Elizabeth! How are doing this morning?” The way my voice sounded, I seemed more excited than afraid.
“Not too bad, Jack.” There was a slight pause. “Are you done unpacking yet?”
“Nearly. I still have another box to go.”
“Well, I should be home later today. Cousin Rob is taking me to lunch and I’ll be home shortly after that.”
We said our byes and then I went back to work in the basement. I hesitated briefly before I finally went down there, thinking about what had happened the night before. I gave it a lot of thought and then I finally walked down the stairs. It was my house. I shouldn’t be afraid of it. I’m the man of the house.
It wasn’t long before I was finished unpacking. When I came back upstairs, it was about nine. I then decided to fix myself some fried eggs and bacon, which took nothing more than ten minutes or so. I grabbed my plate and headed for the screened-in porch so I could feel the nice summer breeze and the music of the chirping birds somehow soothed me and took my mind off of other things.
As I held the morning paper and took sips of my tea, I listened to the town’s teenagers rev their hot rods by my house while some walked by. I listened to the trees that swayed in the summer breeze. As I sat there reading the paper, I soon began to think about the night before.
As I got into deeper thought and farther away from reality, my thoughts became more superstitious. What if this intruder was no intruder, but a spirit instead? What if this intruder was the spirit of a man who once owned the land that my house sits on? Then I would be the intruder of his land. And as I had wanted the spirit out of my home, the spirit will try harder to do the same to me. Could I be in some sort of danger?
Just then, I rushed back into reality and the thought of a spirit in my house stuck in my mind like a magnet. I tried to convince myself that it was just an intruder or maybe it didn’t happen at all. But no matter how hard I tried, the thought of there being a ghost in my house could never leave my mind. It was at that moment when I became afraid of my own house.