I trudge up the long gravel driveway, rocks crunching softly under my feet. Silhouetted against the clear night sky sits the old farmhouse. A million stars light the cloudless night. Such a far cry from the city, where you’re lucky to see a single star against the light pollution and neon signs. I pause and listen.
I haven’t slept in three, no, four days. Ninety-six hours. At night, I close my eyes and see her. She tells me things, shows me things, but in the daylight I can’t remember anymore. My eyes are so dry they feel like they will crack open and bleed with every blink. The edges of reality feel blurred. I know I need to come back here, but why? I can’t remember. To help her. Save her? No. She’s already gone. To avenge her, bring her killers to justice?
The night is alive with the sounds of nocturnal creatures going about their business in the woods behind me and to my right. Leaves whisper and tree branches groan, making the forest seem like one gigantic living creature. To my left, the overgrown fields rustle in the gentle summer breeze. An old, rusted tractor stands like a fallen sentry in the field, a long dead metallic monster lurking in the darkness.
I look toward the farmhouse. The windows are black, the house cold, dark and uninviting. The silence is chilling. A stark contrast to the living forest behind me. Goosebumps prickle up on my arms and legs as the hair stands up on neck. I shouldn’t have come back to this godforsaken place. I never should’ve come here in the first place.
Last Saturday night I came here on a dare and stayed the night. Everyone knows about the haunted farmhouse. My two roommates bet me a hundred bucks each, I wouldn’t last an hour in the house. Easy money.
I first heard the stories when I was in the fourth grade. No one can agree on what happened or who the ghost is or what it wants. There are many versions of the tale.
During the witch hunts of the mid-1600s, accusations of witchcraft were aimed at a pair of sisters living on the farm after their parents died under mysterious circumstances. An angry mob from the nearby town came and threw them into the lake that sits on the property. One sister floated, the other sat on the bottom, smiling at her persecutors. They drug her up from the bottom of the lake, built a bonfire and burned her at the stake. She laughed as the inferno engulfed her.
Another version goes that a brother and sister murdered their family on the farm. After their crime, the brother drowned his sister in the pond and then burned himself alive. The entire family is now said to haunt the place.
Just a bunch of childish ghost stories. Then l I saw her. My memory from that night is a blur. An incomprehensible whisper. But her face. Her face is seared into my mind. I can’t forget it or get it out of my head. Beautiful and terrifying at the same time.
Sometimes memories and thoughts flutter through my mind, but I don’t recognize them. I grab at them, and they disappear, like grasping a handful of ether. I’m left with the whispers of a memory. Pain, shame and guilt. Despair. I shake my head to shake them away, but they refuse to be dislodged.
I stand frozen with indecision. My brain wills my legs to move forward, but my feet seem to have their own plan, standing firmly in place. My knees tremble slightly. I watch the cold dark house, it watches me back. A shooting star streaks across the sky, pulling my gaze upward. “Wish upon a star,” I mumble softly under my breath. I wish I wasn’t here, I think with a grim smile.
I set down the heavy gas can I carried through the woods, my sore and tired arm grateful to be relieved of its burden, and pull a flask from my pocket. Slowly unscrewing the lid, I stare back at the house again and take a good long drink of cheap whiskey. I don’t remember why I brought a can full of gasoline.
A warmth radiates up from my belly. Anger replaces fear. My knees stop shaking and the fire in my belly radiates false courage through my limbs. “It wasn’t my fault!” I yell at the empty house. Silence from within the cold, black windows fuels my anger.
I throw the flask against the porch and snatch up the gas can in a violent tug. I trudge with an angry confidence toward the house. My teeth grind, my mouth clenched so tightly my jaw aches. I march so hard the gas sloshes from the can down my pants and soaks my shoe. I let out a primal yell of uncontrolled rage at this soggy footed gas soaked inconvenience.
I violently empty the gas can onto the porch and the old wood siding on the front of the house, splashing more onto my clothes. I’ve decided. This goddamn place has haunted me for too long. I walk back down the stairs, take a cigarette from my pack and light it. I take a few long drags from it until the ember is burning an angry red that matches how I feel.
Looking up at the window, I see her face staring back at me. Her big chocolate brown eyes lock onto mine, pleading, begging. Her hair is dripping wet, a piece of seaweed tangled into her long brown curls. As she watches me, her plump Cupid’s bow lips turn down into a frown. The smell of pond water blows across the summer breeze, assaulting my nostrils. My heart fills with dread, shame for what I’ve done.
“This isn’t real,” I scream. “You… you’re… this isn’t real. You’re dead.” My words fade into a sob as I sink to my knees. The thin tether to reality broken, my sleep deprived mind shatters. The cigarette falls from my sobbing mouth and hits my gas-soaked shoe. I feel the heat against my leg as the flames follow the trail of gas that had spilled onto my pants and shirt. I panic. The flames spread. At the first register of pain from my dull, numbed nerves, my mind snaps into focus. These aren’t my memories, and they aren’t my thoughts. The pain and stench of burning flesh and hair are unbearable. I panic and flail around. My eye catches her watching me from the window. Her frown replaced by a smile on her beautiful face.
“It wasn’t me,” I yell. “I didn’t hurt you. I came to help you.”
“I know,” I hear her voice in my head.
“What do you want from me?” I scream.
“I want to watch you burn,” she snarls. Her laughter fills my mind. I roll on the ground in anguish, choking as the smoke fills my lungs. Then merciful blackness.
****
I open my eyes slowly and take in the surrounding room. My mind lags. Every thought heavy, groggy and slow. “Where am I?” I croak. My voice is raspy and painful. A dull pain radiates from my legs. A nurse turns to me and smiles. “Welcome back,” she says. “Let me go get the doctor.”
“Wait,” I call after her weakly, trying to raise my arm. It catches short with a clink of metal on metal. She’s already gone. “What the hell?” I mutter, looking at the handcuff cuffing me to the hospital bed. The memory comes back to me fragmented and disjointed, but enough to send a shiver down my spine.
The door opens and in walks a police officer. “Why were you trying to burn down the old Johanne’s farmhouse?” he asks.
“Ummm, what?”
“You’re being charged with attempted arson, son. I asked why. Why did you try to burn it down?” He places his hand on my shin and squeezes. Red hot pain bursts through my brain. I try to cry out, but his hand is over my mouth. His face is so close to mine I can smell he hasn’t brushed his teeth in days. He whispers, “I’ve been there since the investigation started.”
He takes a step back, hand still over my mouth, and holds a finger to his lips. There is a wildness in his eyes. One that I know too well. He removes his hand, and I open my mouth to speak. He slaps me so hard I see stars and before I even cry out from the pain, his hand wraps around my throat. “What part of shhhh didn’t you understand?” He asks through gritted teeth. “Be quiet.” I nod slowly. Tears well up in my eyes. He steps back and looks at me.
My leg throbs and pain radiates through me. Tears stream down my cheeks. The officer smiles as he pulls a flask out of his back pocket, my flask. He unscrews the cap slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. He leans in close. “Drink?” He asks. I smell gasoline and turn my head away. He laughs as he empties its contents onto me and steps back, pulling my pack of smokes and lighter from his pocket. Too late, he sees his gun in my hand. Swiped while he was leaning over me.
He lights the Zippo lighter, the flame dancing menacingly, then snaps it shut. He repeats the gesture over and over, his wild eyes never leaving mine. My hand shakes as much from fear as from fatigue. My legs throbs in memory of the pain of the flames. He lunges. I squeeze the trigger. Someone down the hall screams.
****
My mind feels fuzzy. Dampened by medication. I watch a small beetle work its way across the room. An epic journey. “Tell me everything.” The man says. Looking up, I notice him for the first time.
“Where did you come from?” I ask. I tell him about the beetle, but when I look it’s gone.
“Tell me about the night at the farmhouse,” he clarifies.
I tell the story slowly from the beginning. It feels fragmented and disconnected. I feel like two broken coffee mugs glued back together incorrectly and without all the pieces. When I finish my story, I look down at the two empty styrofoam coffee cups and ashtray full of cigarette butts I don’t remember smoking. He nods his head emphatically and smiles a big, cheap smile. “Great! Going the insanity angle. That’s what I was shooting for. Can you tell the story just like that again? No. Better yet, tell it different each time. Yes. Perfect. I have everything I need here. I just need to head to the farmhouse for some pictures.”
“Don’t go to that house!” I scream. Spittle flies from my mouth and lands on his neat blue tie.
“Nice touch,” he whispers and winks with a grin as two guards enter the room and grab me. With that, he shuts off his recorder, packs his briefcase, and is gone in a flash. I can’t remember his name. They take me back to a room with padded walls. I’m handed a cup with pills in it. I swallow them dry and close my eyes, but sleep doesn’t come for me. She does.
About Seth Bleuer
Seth Bleuer is an author, writer and veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He currently lives near Seattle by way of the Midwest. Seth likes short walks on the beach, dogs and food… but he doesn’t like dog food.
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