I could have put a picture of Alli here. But, then it might seem too close to home. For the record, we have no ghosts… yet!

I’ve known our place is haunted since the day we moved in and the top box of cups and mugs tumbled off the bottom box of pots and pans, rattling its (well padded) contents.
“That’s weird,” I said.

“What’s weird?” Susan asked as she was unpacking a box of dishes

“That box just fell off the other box there,” I said pointing to it.

“Oh,” she said turning and regarding the fallen box. “I thought you just dropped it.”

“Nope.”

“Maybe you stacked it off balance?”

“No, it was stacked on there perfectly.”

“Hmm,” Susan said regarding the box on its side. Then she looked at me looking at the box. Then back at the box. “Well,” she said turning back to the plate box, “I guess it must be ghosts.”

She was kidding…. But she was right.

A few days later we were watching television when a cabinet in the kitchen opened and slammed closed.

“Amy?” Susan asked.

“Yeah?”

“That wasn’t you, right?”

“Did my arm move from around your shoulders?

“No.”

“Okay, yeah, couldn’t have been me.”

“Well, it wasn’t me….”

“Ghosts,” I said. And the cabinet opened and slammed closed again. A few minutes later, bang!

Susan paused the show. “What are we going to do?”

“Hey ghost,” I yelled over my shoulder towards the kitchen. “We recognize you’re here. Hello, how are you? I’m Amy, that’s Susan, you probably already knew that… But we’re watching something here. Do you mind giving us a little peace? Slam twice if you understand.”

Bang. Bang.

“Oh shit,” Susan said. “You just communicated with a ghost!”

“Well, it was doing a pretty aggravating job communicating with us.” And true to its word, it waited until the credits rolled before, bang!

“Thanks ghost!” I called into the kitchen as we got up and headed to the room.

It was like that for months. Lights would turn on or off at will. I lost my Airpods for a week until I asked the ghost to put them back… at which time I found them in the fridge (I did not leave them there. I know that). It did that kind of things with keys, too. There was more banging of cabinets. Doors opening and closing on their own. It never felt malevolent, though. If anything, it seemed like it was acting out because it was…

“Bored,” Susan said. “It’s bored.”

“Excuse me?”

“It makes sense, Amy. Think about it: it’s like if you got a dog–”

“I’ve never had a dog. My mom was allergic.”

“Okay, it’s like if you had a hypothetical dog. If you can’t spend adequate time with it then they get bored and act out – poop on the floor or eat your favorite slippers.”

“Great, you’re saying I’m going to step in some ghost poop?”

“Not literally, silly,” she rolled her eyes.

“Well, then what? Do we put an ad in Craigslist for a play ghost to keep ours company?”

Susan ignored my well-thought-out question. “Hey, why don’t we get a dog?”

“Are you serious?”

“Why not?”

“I mean… it is our house. It’s not like we have to ask anyone’s permission, right?”

As I mentioned, I’d never had a dog. Susan said she had a dog growing up, but I realized she meant when she was too young to participate in the care of said canine. So, well… we pretty quickly realized we picked the wrong dog. See, we wanted a nice, gentle trainer dog. What we got was a pro-level, all-manual, turned-up-to-eleven puppy.

I took Elliot – yes, we named him Elliot – running with me in the mornings. Even though I was tired by the end of the five-mile loop, Elliot acted like he just woke up.

Dropping onto the bed, moaned, “What have we done?”

“We, uh, we got a dog.”

“Hmwff.”

“What?”

I lifted my head from the pillow and repeated, “Why?”

“Bet you haven’t thought about the ghost since Elliot showed up.”

I furrowed my brow in thought. “You’re right!”

Just then Elliot barked and came galloping back into the room with a well-chewed ball in his mouth.

“Did he pick that up on your run?” Susan asked eying the ball.

“No…” I said. “I haven’t seen that ball before…”

“Yeah, me either…”

“Well, you did say I hadn’t thought about the ghost in a while. Susan, I’m thinking about the ghost now…”

The first day we both had to work and we left Elliot home alone I stopped in at lunch to check on the beast to see what he’d destroyed in the few hours we’d left him. When I got there, though, Elliot was asleep in his crate. I went to the computer and logged in to our Furbo treat-dispensing camera – yes, of course we got the treat-dispensing camera for our new puppy. Who did you think we were?

Anyway, I scrolled through the morning’s footage and… first there was a lot of motion. I watched as the ball bounced down the hallway into the family room. In bounded Elliot, scooped up the ball in his mouth and then jogged back down the hallway and out of sight. A moment later, the ball came bouncing into the family room again, and there was Elliot racing after it. I put the replay on double speed and watched that scene repeat itself scores of times until Elliot had walked into the frame to retrieve the ball and then finally he walked in and fell over like a tipped cow.

I grabbed my cell phone. “Susan?”

“Yeah, what’s up? How’s Elliot? What’d he destroy?”

“Nothing. He’s fine. He’s asleep.”

“Wait, what? That devil-spawn is asleep? How can that be?”

“Well,” I said watching the video of Elliot asleep until the ball bounced into frame again and bounced of him, causing him to jump up and chase the ball again. “I think we have ourselves a built in dogsitter…”

I don’t like to be scared. Which is funny, because I keep seeking out creepy experiences that would seem scary. Like visiting cemeteries in the middle of the night. Or camping by a lake where people have repeatedly seen La Llorona. Or broke into abandoned sanitariums. At night. Alone.

I know, you don’t believe the “I don’t like to be scared” part. But it’s true. It’s not about being scared, it’s about getting a glimpse of the paranormal with my own eyes. And so far… I’ve been a little disappointed.

The cemeteries definitely have that creepy factor, but I mostly just got cold. And a twisted ankle when I tripped on a root. No La Llorona, at that night around the lake. Thought I did catch a trout for breakfast that morning. Maybe there’s a fish ghost out there now?

The sanitarium was probably the closest. There were unexplainable sounds… flashes of lights I couldn’t explain. Doors even opened and shut on their own – when they were out of view. Did I actually see anything? No, no I did not.

So, when I made a reservation at the Golden Sky Inn for room 319 I had high hopes (I always had high hopes), but no real expectations.

First, though, they tried to talk me out of it.

I made the reservation online and specified the room. This room was well known in the paranormal community. On the message boards numerous people reported to have been prodded or jostled in the middle of the night. One woman woke up to a shadowy man sitting at the end of the bed staring at her. A man recounted a sleepless night when the bed shook and bucked and even hovered a foot off the ground before dropping violently. One terrified guest said she tried to open the bathroom door but it was stuck shut and as she tried to open it, she heard the sink faucet turn on by itself.

Almost immediately after I submitted the reservation my phone rang. It was the hotel. The man was courteous and tried to get me to change my room. I explained I knew what I was getting in to and, yes, I was quite sure room 319 was the room I wanted to stay in. He tried valiantly, offering free breakfasts, another night… part of me wanted to take him up on the offers and mentally noted if I needed to stay here again to book room 319 with no intention of actually staying there, but every intention of getting freebies.

I don’t bring a lot of equipment. When I arrived that Friday night I had a normal overnight bag and my backpack with nothing more than my laptop and a digital recorder. I left the recorder running in the empty room while I went to dinner and reviewed the two hours of uneventful taped silence when I got back before taking a shower and turning in for the night – recorder again on.

Just after midnight I was jostled awake – literally, something jostled my foot. I was about to scream, but I opened my eyes and the scream froze in my throat. There, at the foot of my bed sat a bald man staring intently at me and smiling. Only, I could see he wasn’t completely solid. My initial fear that this was an intruder were replaced with real terror that this was not just a ghost but a full-bodied apparition… and it was staring at me.

And then it spoke. “Good,” it rasped, “You’re awake.” If being awakened by a full-bodied apparition wasn’t terrifying enough, to have it then speak… “It is now time…” it started, “to party!”

Instantly the dark room was awash with flashing-colored lights and the prismatic reflections of an unseen disco ball. Deafening electronic dance music filled the room with a thumping bass beat. The bald-headed man was standing now, gyrating with the beat. But he wasn’t alone. I looked around and could see other figures – most not as defined as the bald man, but clearly entities – dancing to the beat. More than see them, I could feel the bodies around me moving and dancing.

“Get up and dance!” the bald-headed man took my hand and pulled me out of the bed like I was weightless. With the ease at which he pulled me I thought at first this must be a dream… right up until I stubbed my toe on the bed. I bent over grabbing my foot and the bald-headed man was right there next to my face. “Are you okay?” he asked, concern on his face.

“Uh…” I stammered, “Yes… I mean, my foot hurts but it’s fine. I’m more concerned with what the hell is going on here.”

“It’s a rave!” he said straightening up and bouncing to the beat.

“Yeah, I can hear that,” I yelled back over the pulsing beat. “But why? Who are you?”

“Why? Because you’re here!”

I couldn’t help but start moving to the beat myself, but asked, “Me? What about me?”

“You’re the right mix.”

“Mix?”

“You believe, but you’re not hunting. You’re open but you’re not inviting. And you’ve got a little pinch of psychic ability that pulls the whole thing together.”

“I do? So, what?”

“So, your energy is like a key that allows all of us to just let loose!” he danced and spun in a circle.

A disembodied head of a woman apparated near my head and spoke, “We’re so tired of the normal turning-on-the-faucet routine! We needed a break!”

From the other side a figure existing out of dark smoke spoke, “Even the dead need to get funky sometimes!” Its incorporeal smoke pulsing to the beat.

“But who are you guys?” I asked.

“We’re the ones that haunt this room,” the bald man said.

“All of you?” I asked. The room seemed quite crowded with energies bouncing and moving.

“Well,” a headless torso spoke, “I haunt 237, but I heard the party was here tonight!”

“Almost all of us haunt this room,” The bald-headed man said.

Just then three loud knocks came from the door to the room. “Hotel Security!” came through muffled through the door. I moved to the door doing my best not to touch any of the dancing entities around me. Reaching the door to the room I flipped on the lightswitch and opened the door. Immediately the music stopped and when the security guard looked into the room, he saw an empty room and me in my pjs.

“Is there a problem?”

He stared at the empty room behind me without speaking.

“Sir?”

“Uh… yeah, we’ve gotten a number of noise complaints – something about a dance party going on in this room?”

“Well,” I said opening the door wide. “You can see there’s no one in here but me. I was just sleeping.”

“Sleeping? With that noise?”

“What noise?”

“I could hear it when I knocked on the door – electronic music?”

“From this room? Are you sure?”

He stared around at the room. My laptop was still in my backpack and aside from the day’s clothes on the floor, there was no visible indicators that anyone else had even been in the room. “I’m… I’m not sure about anything right now. You have a nice night,” he said and turned around.

“Thanks,” I said and closed the door. I flipped the lightswitch off and the dance music and strobing lights started again with all the ghosts dancing like nothing had interrupted them.

“Go Laurie, it’s your birthday!” the bald-headed man chanted, and a number of other entities joined in. I couldn’t help it, I gave in and danced the night away with the ghosts.

Annie and Jay stood on the front porch in front of the door. Jay clutched a nice bottle of zinfandel while Annie clutched a glass trifle bowl like it was a life preserver.

“Jay, press the doorbell,” Annie said with more bravado than she felt.

“You press it,” he returned.

“You’re right there,” she countered.

“I don’t want to be here,” he said. “No one wants to be at this house, ever. How they’ve managed to stay here for six months…”

“And what kind of neighbors are we that we never even said hi?”

“No one has stayed in this godforsaken house for more than two weeks. The fact that they’ve been here so long is solid evidence that they’ve clearly sold their souls to the devil.”

“That’s not fair, Jay.”

“You’re right, not even the devil would want to be here!”

Annie rolled her eyes and reached across Jay’s body and pressed the button for the doorbell.

When she did, the porchlight went out and the doorbell emitted a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream.

Jay screamed shrilly and leapt behind Annie. For her part, Annie knocked frantically on the door.

A moment later, the door opened to reveal a woman with wild tangle of red hair held in place by a pair of chopsticks. “Oh! Hi Annie!” the woman beamed. “Oh, did you try the doorbell? It hasn’t worked since we got here. It’s on the list for Jason to fix, but you know how it is? With so many things, it hasn’t gotten to the top of the priority list! Come in! Come in!”

Annie, still shaken, clutched the trifle glass in both arms as she gingerly stepped over the threshold.

“Trifle? Oh, that looks delicious,” she started to take the glass from Annie who didn’t seem capable of releasing it. After a moment of gentle tugging, she said, “Well, okay, you hang on to that.

“And you must be Jay? I’m Samantha, she reached out to shake Jay’s hand, but he had gripped the neck of the bottle holding it like a club, cocked back to beat someone. “Oh, you brought wine, too! That’s so sweet!” Samantha reached out and plucked the bottle from Jay’s hands. “Come in, come in, both of you!”

Jay stepped in still shaken.

Samantha closed the door behind them and called upstairs, “Jason! Annie and Jay are here! I’m going to decant this lovely zin they brought. Come on down and say hi!”

From upstairs they heard, “I’ll be right there!”

Samantha flashed them a big smile and said, “Make yourselves at home. I’m going to get this decanted!” And she disappeared into the kitchen.

“I take back the sold-their-souls thing – redheads don’t have souls!” Jay whispered.

The cruelty snapped Annie from her reverie. “Jay!” she snapped a whisper back. “You be nice! I’m sure that doorbell just… malfunctioned.”

“Uh huh,” he said. “It accidentally opened a portal to hell!”

Annie was about to argue but they both heard footsteps start to descend the stairs. Both turned to greet Jason, but instead watched in terror as a man covered in blood staggered down the stairs, caroming from banister to railing and back, missed a step and fell forward, the body tumbling the remaining steps to land with a sickening thud three feet from them. Annie could see the head twisted at an unnatural angle as blood started pouring from the mouth. Annie opened her mouth too scream but…

“Hello!” Jason said as he started down the stairs. “I’m so glad you guys could make it,” he rushed down the remaining steps and stepped on… nothing. Nothing at the base of the stairs. Annie and Jay looked up to see the blood prints, but the stairs were unmarred and clean. “Did you hear that thump a minute ago? We’re still working on the pipes…Hope you didn’t have any trouble finding the place,” Jason said and then laughed uproariously at his joke. When neither Annie or Jay reacted he clarified, “It’s funny because you live next door… See…. Nevermind…. I’m Jason,” he said reaching for Jay’s hand and shaking it vigorously.

“Uh, pleased to meet you, Jason,” Jay managed to say.

“And Annie is it?” Jason said, reaching for her hand. She stared past him at the empty landing again and then snapped out of it and shook his proffered hand.

“Yes,” she started unsure, “Uh… Yes. I’m Annie. Pleased to meet you, Jason.”

“Great to meet you both,” he said realizing Annie hadn’t let go of his hand. “Umm, dinner has a little longer if I know Samantha’s cooking. Please, let’s go sit in the family room.”

They all started into the family room which looked… really cozy, Jay thought. He stepped down into the sunken room which had plush tan carpet and was decorated in a very modern style with leather couches that  flanked a brick fireplace with built- in bookshelves and tasteful recessed lighting lining the walls behind the couches.

“Wow, this is a gorgeous space,” Annie said echoing Jay’s thoughts.

“Thanks,” Jason said. We’ve been working room to room. This was the first to really feel like… home.”

“It’s really nice,” Jay said settling onto one of the couches. 

“Thanks! Can I get you anything to drink? Wine? Beer? A drink?”

“I’ll have a glass of wine,” Annie said feeling herself start to relax.

“Beer?”

“I’ve got a really nice hazy IPA. That work?”

“Sounds great,” Jay said.

Jason and Samantha returned with the drinks and everyone sat in comfortable silence for a moment.

Annie started, “I just wanted to say sorry that it’s taken us this long to visit.”

“Yeah,” Jay agreed. “Most people haven’t stayed in this place long,” Annie elbowed him in the ribs.

“We’ve heard that,” Jason said. He looked at his wife and said, “We can’t figure out why! This place was priced well below market value and the listing had been forever when we stumbled across it.”

“It’s a really mystery,” Samantha agreed. “Do you guys anything about this place?”

Jay looked at Annie, worried about getting any more elbows in the ribs. But she nodded instead. “Well,” he said, “we were wondering about the turnover so we looked into the history of this place a little.”

“Yeah,” Annie said. “We’ve only been here a little more than five years, and already this place went through four owners.”

“That’s crazy!” Samantha said.

“What did you find?” Jason asked.

“Well,” Jay started. “It turns out this was the site where the original English settlers executed Native Americans in particularly brutal ways.”

Jason and Samantha flinched.

“Later, the building that occupied this site was owned by a butcher who is widely regarded as the first mass murderer in colonial America.”

“Wow,” Jason said. “That explains the reputation…”

“Oh, we’re just getting started,” Annie cut him off.

“Yeah, after the townsfolk stormed the butcher’s house and burned the place to the ground, they set his head on a pike as a warning.”

“I always wondered where people got pikes, you know?” Samantha started.

“It was a stop on the underground railroad,” Jay started.

“Oh, that’s hopeful!” Samantha said.

“Until a group of slave catchers caught wind of the place and burned the place to the ground with a at least a dozen people inside.”

“Oh.”

“Then the new building served as the amputation house during the Civil War.”

“That’s interesting, because it was under priced and didn’t cost us an arm or a leg,” Jason said with a big smile. “Nothing? Really?”

“The trees out front were used for lynchings…. Numerous times,” Jay said solemnly.

“Well, I’m glad we’re going to take those down. We’re thinking of replacing those with Xeriscaping,” Samantha said. “Way less watering.”

“Oh, totally,” Annie agreed.

“That’s it, right? Nothing else dark about this place, right?”

“That was it… until the sixteen-year-old boy of a family of nine butchered his whole family with a pickaxe about fifteen years ago,” Jay said.

“Oh my God,” Jason said. “They had a family of nine in this place? I mean, did they stack them like cord wood? I mean, I guess they probably did after the whole pickaxe thing…”

Everyone started at Jason open-mouthed.

“What? Too much? Sorry, sorry… The truth is, Samantha and I just don’t believe in ghosts or hauntings.”

Jay and Annie watched as a figure with long greasy hair obscuring his face stepped into the room behind the couch Samantha and Jason were sitting on. Vibrant red blood streaked his filthy clothes as he hoisted a bloody pickaxe over his shoulder and started in towards them.

“Right,” Samantha agreed. “Where others saw superstition and bad luck with this place, we just see opportunity!”

The boy staggered forward and raised the pickaxe overhead…

“I mean, do you guys believe in such things?”

Jay and Annie stared in paralyzed terror as the boy started to bring the pickaxe down in a killing stroke into Jason’s head. Suddenly a buzzer went off in the kitchen and Jason turned around to look at the kitchen – and right through the boy with the pickaxe.

“Is that the roast?” he said, starting to get up.

“I can get it,” Samantha said setting her wine glass on the coffee table.

“Nonsense, Sam. You sit. I’ve got this.” He stood and walked around the couch past the boy with the pickaxe. The boy hoisted the pickaxe and started after Jason into the kitchen. “You guys settle in. This roast Samantha made? It’s to die for!” he disappeared into the kitchen followed by the bloody boy with the pickaxe.

Samantha watched him go into the kitchen. “That man,” she laughed. “He just slays me!”

Annie downed the glass of wine in one swallow while Jay emptied his beer likewise.