Materialized Threesome

There must be millions of unexplained pictures. The “dark knight satellite” stands out in my mind. It looks a lot like Batman, but Batman never flew in outer space, or orbited the earth. Then there’s the very old and spooky picture of a female image on a staircase in a large, old home. I’ve seen the picture many times, and normally there’s some kind of story about the image, but it’s all supposition. The most interesting ones to me are of “skinwalkers”, which are supposedly humans transfixing themselves on dogs or cats, so the face looks human.

In all my time working as an occupancy home inspector, and with hundreds of thousands of pictures taken, I never captured one ghost, satellite or skinwalker: I had to ensure that all my pictures captured house numbers, fronts of houses and street signs, or I wouldn’t get paid. I had to hold my camera steady and ensure that there was enough light. I had to make sure there was no rain, wind or snow. Everything had to be nice and tight and visible to the people working for the mortgage companies. Nothing could be extraneous. Humans could not be included, or I’d have to return and re-take the picture with no one there, which might waste liters of precious fuel and produce more wear and tear on my vehicle. But there was at least one time during my tenure that it was absolutely unavoidable.

I was in Oaks, PA, motoring through my list of dwellings. My Garmin was taking me through the list in the most efficient manner possible. I needed enough daylight as well, but it was late in the autumn and the sun was fading fast.

I drove to my final assignment of the day, and it was the one that produced the most anxiety in me out of all of my homes for which I was responsible. The owner seemed normal, and she drove an SUV and always seemed to be working. But it was the location of the house which made me most anxious, and it provided a limited means of escape, should she suddenly decide to emerge from her lair. I had once tried looking her up on social media, and I learned that she had some anger management issues. I had been afraid of some homeowners before, but I never came across anyone who made me so worried before.

It wasn’t unusual for the owners to be home during the day. Somehow this woman’s job must have ended, because I started showing up for the once-a-month inspection, and her SUV would be in the driveway. But I kept getting my required shots of the front of the house, the house number and then of the street in front of the house.

Getting house numbers was sometimes very nerve wracking, because I had to get out of my car. I could zoom in on the number from inside my vehicle, but quite often I had to retake the picture, because at a distance any slight movement would blur the number, making it totally useless for submission.

Prior to my unexplained picture at the Oaks property, I had only ever gotten one other picture with a human in it. The property in question was in Chester Springs, and the house was set back from the road. The property was covered with saplings, trees, wild juniper and overgrown shrubs, and I thought at first that nobody lived there. I parked my Sonic, hopped out and marched right up to the door with the number “99” prominently displayed on it. I got that shot, and then I shot the street. I then heard a voice in the direction of number 99, and a woman appeared in the doorway. “He’s taking pictures”, she said to someone inside. I figured the cat was out of the bag, so I just snapped a couple of shots with her in them, and then got back in my car. I reviewed my pictures, and there was the one with the woman standing behind the storm door inside the house, looking straight at me.

The Oaks property was not so easy. The yard was immaculately kept, and it commanded a clear view of the street. On the day of my unexplained picture, I got my usual shot of the property from nearly 40 meters away with no trouble, but then I had to get the house number. I drove closer and turned left in front of the house.

I shot my shot of the door, and I got my picture.

Then, all of a sudden, I saw a blur issue from the front door, and I heard a door slam. It was the owner, and she was racing towards me in my Sonic!

I gunned the engine to escape her. She raced along with me to the very edge of her property on foot. Then she reached the end of the property line and stopped. I drove down to the end of her street, turned left, and fled for the safety of Rt 422 east, back to my own home.

I was red, my heart was racing and my mouth prickly with dryness. I felt like I’d barely escaped. I had no idea about anger issues, but this lady really fit the bill. Then a funny thing happened, as I thought of a movie from a long time ago. I recalled a scene from “Disorganized Crime”, when Fred Gwynne tells Lou Diamond Phillips, “You go chase him if you want to! I’m too old to outrun a car!” Then I let out a relieved laugh. I had never been chased on foot while driving a car before, and I wondered what would happen the next time I went back to do the same assignment.

I finally arrived home. I ran up the steps to my office and downloaded all my day’s pictures into my netbook, and I then started uploading them into the proper assignments. I then came across my Oaks property. The first picture from far away was fine, but I told myself to just get closer the next time. Ther street picture was also good.

The house number picture had hit its mark. The number was clearly visible above the door.

The rest of the picture was interesting, almost ghostly, but I knew it had to be real. It was almost humorous.

In the time it took me to turn left in front of the house, and then to pause in order to take my house number picture, three beings had materialized in front of the door. In the middle was a brownish-white pit bull. To the dog’s left was a man with a beer can in his left hand. And finally, to the left of the dog was a woman, ostensibly the homeowner. She was in mid-step, and she seemed like she was ready to charge down the steps, straight at my tiny little 2012 Chevy Sonic. There was a little snarl on her face, her eyes were red, and her short dark brown hair seemed swept back, as if she was willing the air in front of her to get out of her way. The picture was like the Norman Rockwell painting of a returning soldier with a young lad racing down the steps to meet the soldier.

I no longer have the picture, but at the time I let it sit on my computer for a while. The house number I submitted was simply the number with everything else cropped out. But to this day I have no idea how three beings got on that doorstep so fast!