II.
When Debbie was sure Cliff was giving her his undivided attention, she sat down on the edge of her seat, carefully balancing her shaking legs on the tip-toes of her sneakers. Cliff had seen her sit like this before, but only when the two of them had been watching scary movies, or talking about things that made her uncomfortable. "This happened when I was a little girl," Debbie began. "I've not told many people about it, because I don't like to think about it, even now, all these years later." She steadied herself, and swallowed hard. "This happened in a really old church in downtown Wilmington. My older sister was competing in beauty pageants at that time, and she went to that church's fellowship hall to practice a song she had to perform with her boyfriend at that time. He played the keyboard, and she sang, and since he was a member of that church, and sang in that church's praise band, he had access to the building. He got permission from the pastor to use the fellowship hall, since it wasn't in use, because he liked the acoustics of the place. I was little kid, maybe 3 or 4 years old, and I was invited to tag along." Debbie looked off in the distance, lost in frightful memory. "Being a curious child, I decided to explore the place and, since the fellowship hall was right beside the kitchen, I thought it would be interesting to see what the kitchen looked like." She paused. "I'll never forget the door that led into the kitchen. It was white, and when I opened it, I noticed there was a table there in the shadows, much larger than I was and, I thought, a person. A lady, to be exact. And not just any lady - a lady in a wedding dress. A bride. I thought, 'wow, how neat; there's a bride in the kitchen,' and figured she must have been getting ready for her wedding day." Debbie's lips began to tremble as a tear slid down her cheek. "I remember the door closing behind me, and the shadows becoming larger, as if they were swallowing me, and when I looked up and into the bride's face, I noticed, I noticed that her face was burnt. Her skin was like, well, a prune with eyes, and I realized her dress was singed, and that she had one burnt arm extended toward me, as if she were beckoning me to come forward, silently calling me over to her. Her face seemed pinched. It was cruel, mean. Angry, and full of rage, and she wanted me to come to her. For what purpose, I do not know." Cliff tried to get her attention when she began to stare off silently into space. "What happened next?" "Well," she replied, "I ran out of that dark kitchen as fast as I could, straight into the arms of my sister. I was so scared that I couldn't say a word. I stood there, shivering, and my sister tried to calm me down, and her boyfriend even tried to take me back into the kitchen to prove to me that no one was there. But I knew better." Cliff was puzzled. "Who was it? Did you ever find out?" "Sort of, I guess." Debbie continued. "My sister had me draw what happened, after we got home, and I couldn't verbalize that I knew I had seen something supernatural, so I expressed it the best way I could, and I depicted the thing I saw as a witch but, now, I think it was probably a ghost, or something. Mainly because my sister went to see the pastor of the church later, and fished him for information. She told him she was curious about the history of the church, and asked him if any parts of the facility had been added on to over the years. He told her that, yes, there was one area that was newer than the rest - an area that was built on property where an old house once stood. A house where a young woman burned to death on her wedding day, and in her wedding gown - in the very room where the kitchen now stands." Cliff looked into Debbie's eyes, trying to determine whether or not she was playing with him. "That," he said, "is the DUMBEST thing I have ever heard in my life!" He actually laughed out loud, and stood up from his chair. "I can't believe you expect me to believe that story! This one's almost as bad as the one where you told me where your dad gave his uncle a ride home and found out later he'd been killed several hours before he picked him up! I mean, Come On! What have you been DRINKING, honey?" The question was hurtful to Debbie, especially when considering that she was the descendant of a long line of alcoholics, and had always been a tee-totaller for fear of becoming one herself. "This is EXACTLY why I don't tell you some things, Cliff!" Debbie shrieked. "You never believe me, and you're always making fun of me whenever I talk to you about stuff like this!" Her face was flush with rage, and her fists were clenched at her sides. "How ELSE do you expect me to react when you tell me stories like this, Debbie? What is it you expect me to say, or do? You know how I feel about this stuff - it's all psychological, or else it's easily explainable when you analyze all the data! Arthur C. Clarke once said that he believed that certain places and things naturally contained residual memories of events, and would sometimes naturally replay those events, sort of like magnetic tapes do in a tape recorder - only, it's all natural, and we don't understand it. So you entered a dark church kitchen as a kid and imagined a witch bride was in there - so what? What kid WOULDN'T imagine such a thing? Why does everything like this always have to have a supernatural component to it?" Debbie didn't know what to say, so she remained silent. Cliff continued. "Look, Debbie, one Halloween before I was a teenager, my cousin Jeff and I decided to cut through a wooded area to go Trick-or-Treating. When we got to the thickest and darkest part of the woods, we heard what sounded like a pack of wolves surrounding us, growling and snarling at us, but we couldn't see anything. We high-tailed it out of there, and nothing followed us. Later, we found dog bones in those woods. Dog bones that were perfectly intact. Now, am I supposed to believe those woods were haunted by ghost dogs, or could it have been that there was a dog out there that night, or maybe even two dogs, and their growls were echoing through the woods, making it seem like we were surrounded by a pack of wild beasts?" Again, Debbie didn't know what to say, so she just listened in disgust as her husband went on with his tirade. He liked to hear himself talk, she told herself, and it almost made her sick to her stomach at times - NOW being one of those key times. She had poured her heart out to him, and he had stomped on it. It would be a while before she told him anything else about what she felt. "There was another time," Cliff continued. "My brother and I heard what sounded like a woman weeping in our front yard. It was dusk, and getting darker by the minute. We went outside to see if we could help this person, and when we looked around, we couldn't see anyone there. The weeping was loud, and plain, and we even walked around the spot where we thought the weeping was originating, asking out loud if we could help, but there was no one there. Now, either it was a ghost, or it was an echo. I choose to believe it was an echo of a voice from somewhere else in the neighborhood. Now, to be honest, I've also been spooked by the thought of supernatural things. Some things just give me the willies, like those dried apple witch faces I saw when I was a kid, but that doesn't mean that they have some kind of weird, magic power. I choose not to believe in stuff like that. Witches, and voodoo, and whatnot. I believe in what I can see, and I wish you would, too. Find something else to do with your time other than looking for something to scare you witless, and that includes pondering stuff that you thought happened to you when you were a kid. I'm going to do some work on the laptop. Go watch a funny movie or something." On that note, he walked out of the room. Debbie looked down at the picture of the ghost bride she'd drawn when she was a kid, and she sighed. This wasn't the first time he'd reacted to her stories about the mysterious things she'd experienced while growing up. She doubted she'd ever be able to tell him about such things ever again, and it made her both angry and sad. She had a lot of questions now, and they were beginning to nag at her since they'd moved into the Devaroh house. She just wasn't sure where to get any answers from.
0 comments:
Post a Comment