Monster House

Ever since you were a kid, you had dreamed of owning your own house. You relished the image of your adult self striding confidently up a set of painted wooden stairs to a beautiful home. Your dream home was warm and welcoming. You would have a garden that wasn’t the biggest on the block – a testament to the area your new home was in – but was respectable. Your home had a nice backyard with a pair of oak trees that were the perfect space for you to string up your hammock and spend an afternoon with a book. Your bedroom would reflect the energy of your garden, and by extension yourself, not the cleanest but respectable. You never were too picky about the kitchen though, and who really cares about a kitchen anyway? Or so you thought. It turns out everybody cares about the kitchen. When the real estate agents would show you around, they’d always spend an infuriating amount of time talking about the kitchen. Stainless steel this and convection that, blah blah blah. You hate cooking anyway. Alright, maybe you don’t hate it, but it’s just so much work and then you have to clean up after yourself. Who could want that?

In your childhood fantasies, dinner was pizza every night and waffles in the morning. Your only needs were a fridge to keep the leftovers cold, a freezer to keep the waffles frozen, and a microwave to warm them up. All that other junk you could do without. You’d buy paper plates like the ones mom always had at home. They were the best. No cleanup time! What could be easier! Mom preferred the paper plates for the exact same reason. Whenever she would come home with her boyfriend of the week, you guys would always sit and eat delivery pizza from paper plates before she would tell you to go down the street to the park so they could talk in private for a while. Sometimes you’d come home a bit early and catch them wrestling, so back to the park you went.

Those days are long gone, just like Mom. You don’t miss the sound of breaking glass, the smell of day-old cigarette smoke, or the loud arguments with her boyfriends. However, she had her moments as all moms do and, all things considered, you miss her more days than you don’t. You were touring a house just outside of Chicago when you got the phone call that she had passed away. Lung cancer, they had said. You couldn’t believe Mom had never told you she was sick. However, on second thought, she probably didn’t realize anything was wrong until it was too late and then it still probably took her too long to get to the doctor. That day had been bittersweet. On the one hand, you had conflicted feelings about Mom, but on the other hand, it was the day you had signed the papers to buy your first home.

It’s the home you’re standing in now, and while it isn’t exactly that dream house you had in your mind all those years ago, it certainly isn’t bad. What’s that old saying? It’s a long road to Carnegie Hall. Wait… is that it? Ehh, whatever. You know what you’re trying to say. This house was at the end of a long Cul-de-Sac in Schaumburg, Illinois. It didn’t have the painted wooden stairs or the beautiful garden you wanted, but those are both things you can do yourself. Besides the price on this house was a steal! The realtor must not have known what he had, because it was priced a couple thousand dollars under the other houses he had shown you.

The next couple of days had been a whirlwind. In the midst of unpacking and moving in, you put a couple of phone calls into the police station and the county coroner’s office back home to see about getting a funeral arranged for Mom. She had apparently made arrangements to have herself cremated as soon as she had died. You never even got a proper goodbye. Thanks Mom.

You were also getting settled into your new job. Coming straight off a PhD program in drug development at NYU, you were starting at a big pharmaceutical company in Chicago proper. It wasn’t exactly what you wanted to do for the rest of your life, but it was a good start and the paycheck was more than you could have hoped for. The big downside was they had you working the graveyard shift, 10pm to 6am. Definitely not ideal. Everyone’s gotta pay their dues in order to move up, though. You remember staring at the offer for employment and seeing your graveyard shift hours typed just above your yearly salary. Your shoulders had gone for a ride as you shrugged to yourself. Plus, Chicago could be a nice change of pace from New York. Or, maybe you were just rationalizing.

For the first few months everything was going great. The house was beautiful and everything you hoped it would be, plus it was quiet at the end of the Cul-de-Sac which was great since you were sleeping from 7am to 2pm every day. Living a nocturnal lifestyle was weird at first but you settled in eventually and after a while it felt normal. The neighbors seemed nice enough, not that you ever really talked to them. If you didn’t know any better, it kind of seemed like they were avoiding you or at least the house. Maybe the old tenants had left a bad taste in their mouths. Nothing to lose sleep over, you’d patch up those relationships eventually.

When month four came around, the world got flipped on its head. The United States could have handled the pandemic more appropriately. However, the compounding factors of an incompetent president, almost as incompetent state leaders, and just general naivety had left everyone ill-prepared for the virus that swept across the world. The company had been declared essential. Pharmaceuticals still needed to be developed. However, the graveyard shift had gotten the axe so the company could bring a cleaning crew through the labs each night to keep their researchers safe. You were still on the payroll, which was more than could be said for the lab-techs, but for the time being the company didn’t really know what to do with you. So you found yourself at home. Not one to waste time twiddling your thumbs, you seized the opportunity to get a start on that garden you had always imagined.

Your local home depot is only a 10-minute drive and they have everything you need. The work itself goes smoothly. The ground behind your house is not very firm, not clay-heavy, and is easy to dig up and turn over to make a garden patch. The work goes quickly and before long, you have a square patch of turned over dirt with a couple of plants and some topsoil. Not a bad start at all. You stand up from your planting and survey. You’ve made very solid progress and the garden looks very nice in that backyard. A tall fence surrounds the yard giving the impression of security and privacy. Feeling worn out from physical exertion and the strain of being awake so long you yawn and check your watch. It’s 9pm. By 9:30pm you’re fast asleep.

A loud creak wakes you from your slumber and at a second one you shoot up into a sitting position. A whistling wind passes nearby. You swing your legs out from under the covers and grab the baseball bat from under your bed. Sliding your feet into a pair of slippers, you make your way towards the door. Your fingers fumble for the light switch. Your eyes take a second to adjust. A third creak, this one longer, sends your heart into a frenzied rhythm that you can feel in your ears. You nudge the bedroom door open and slide into the hallway, baseball bat cocked up over one shoulder. You flick on a second light switch. One second passes, then two, then a third. You descend the stairs to the first floor and hit two more switches. The wind whistles again outside the house, it’s the only noise other than your own heavy breathing in this dead night. You make a round of the first floor, bat ready. Nothing. You check out the front door. Nothing. You tour the basement. Nothing. Satisfied you make your way around, turning off all the lights in the house and double checking all the doors and windows before returning to your bedroom.

Sleep evades you for the rest of the night. The adrenaline rush combined with your sleep schedule has robbed you of any chance of falling back asleep. When finally the sunlight shines through the blinds, you’ve slept maybe an hour in fits and starts. Realizing it’s hopeless, you rise and get yourself some coffee. The sky outside is a flawless blue and promises a beautiful day to come. You step out onto your back step and stop in your tracks. Your garden has been ripped up. The plants which, only twelve hours ago, were settling into their new home are now lying on their sides. Some are torn in half. You move down the stairs to inspect your now ruined garden a little closer. From what you can tell, there’s no footprints in the soil but something catches your eye. As you get closer, you see it’s a gold wedding band. You’re very certain it wasn’t there yesterday when you were digging around and you’re pretty certain you aren’t married. It strikes you as the kind of thing that doesn’t get left lying around often. You pick it up and place it just inside the back door on a key ring and resolve to figure it out later.

You turn the tv on while eating breakfast. The local station confirms the favorable weather. News of the pandemic has only grown bleaker. The number of cases in the Chicago area has skyrocketed and to minimize damage, the governor of Illinois ordered a full lockdown for the Chicago area, including Schaumburg. The national guard has been brought in to enforce the strict stay-at-home and to deliver food and medicine to people. Not ideal, but you’re certain there are people in worse situations than you so no point in complaining. After cleaning your dishes, you throw on a pair of clothes you don’t mind getting dirty and set about putting the garden back together. You aren’t sure what happened to it last night but the torn-up plants still have an intact root ball so they should be fine to replant.

You’ve been digging about 5 minutes when your shovel strikes something. Unsure if you heard right, a second shovel strike confirms you’ve hit something other than earth. A couple more well-placed shovel strikes and you see a yellow swatch of color buried in the soil you’ve just turned over. You pat the clumps of soil with your shovel and recoil in horror letting out an audible scream. A human hand sits among the dirt as a fat worm makes its way across the ring and pinky finger. A small patch of skin at the base of the ring finger is a different color than the rest of the hand. Your mind jumps instantly to the wedding band you found. You rush back into the house to retrieve the wedding band from the key ring, but it isn’t there. Is your mind playing tricks on you? You didn’t really sleep and the stress could be getting to you. But that hand outside was so real. Returning to the backyard, you make your way to the garden patch. A glimmer of hope shoots across your mind, maybe you imagined it, maybe the hand isn’t real. Your hope is realized, the garden patch looks just as you left it minus one decaying hand. It must be your overactive imagination and your lack of sleep. You let out a sigh of relief.

The rest of your day passes with little worry about ghost hands. You even manage to nap very successfully for two hours in front of a movie. When night falls, you’re tired again and hopeful you’re on the path to correcting your sleep schedule. Sleep comes easily to you, the worries of the day forgotten.

The sound of shifting floorboards downstairs brings your eyes open with a start. The baseball bat is in your hand a second later. Another noise, less easy to place, comes up the stairs and you freeze in your tracks. One night is just jitters, but two nights is a pattern. You move down the stairs and explore the house, it’s empty. You sprint to the front door and throw it open. The Cul-de-Sac is deserted. The wind comes whistling in your ears again, except this time something feels off. It takes a second for you to place it, but you realize the leaves in the trees aren’t moving. You descend the steps in front of your house, allowing the bat to drop to your side. The minute you step onto the sidewalk the whistling stops. Confused, you step back on to your walkup and you can hear it again. The memory of the hand in your garden crashes back into your mind. You make your way to the back of the house. The backyard is just as you left it. You open the backdoor and step out, the bat has returned to its cocked position on your shoulder. The plants in your garden have been ripped up again. You take a couple steps down the stairs and hear the backdoor slam shut behind you. You jump with fright and spin to get a look at the noise and lose your balance. It’s a short fall to the ground, but you come up pretty disoriented. As you’re dusting yourself off, you feel the hair stand up on the back of your neck. You spin to see a hunched figure rising from the garden and making its way towards you. You pick up the bat and give it a good swing, but it sails right through the figure hitting nothing but air. You tried fight and it didn’t work so by process of elimination, the next reaction is flight. You turn on your heels and bolt for the gate out of the backyard. You throw it open and sprint to the street, not looking back. The whistling of the wind in your ears stops.

Amidst all the chaos in your head, you start to put the puzzle pieces together. The cheap house, the neighbors that avoid you, the ghost wind, not to mention the actual ghost you saw. The house is haunted, it was the only logical explanation as illogical as it sounded. Fumbling in your pocket you pull your phone out, thankful that you grabbed it on your way out of the room. The numbers 911 punch in easily. You stand in the street shaking as the dispatcher answers the phone and listens to your story.

“So, a man was in your backyard?”

“Yes, there was a man in my backyard chasing me.” You answer, the words spilling out faster than you can think.

“Alright, help is on the way.”

The police arrive two minutes later. Your heart is still racing. They do a search of the backyard and the house and come out after 5 minutes having found nothing. You remember how your bat went right through the man without making contact. The tall police officer asks you what happened, while the short one pulls out his notepad.

“So, tell us what happened.” The officer says.

"Just say it," you silently remind yourself. You knew you'd regret it if you didn't. 28 years of age and a PhD in drug development from NYU, you can’t believe the words in your own head. Swallowing your pride, you start telling the story. The words come out shaky at first but then begin to tumble out. Your panic builds as you remember the terror of your encounter, but a look up at the officers reminds you that you’re safe now. There are people here who are going to help you, you’re safe now. You let out a sigh of relief, but it gets caught in your throat. The shorter police officer isn’t writing down any notes. Instead, he’s looking at the taller officer with a grin. Your gaze shifts to the taller officer, he’s shaking his head.

“Look, did you really call us out here to talk about ghosts?” The question stings. “If so, we have plenty of other things we can be wasting our time on.”

You plead and plead with them to stay and listen to your story. When that doesn’t work you ask if you can go with them. Anything to avoid going back in that house.

“You know the rules. Strict stay at home order, you’re not even supposed to be out here on the street. Go back inside and stop wasting our time before we have to arrest you.”

Your heart sinks as the officers climb back into their cruiser, and as they drive off you feel your panic bring on a well of tears. You turn back to look at the house you just escaped. The house you just purchased. The house you dreamed of. What are you gonna do now?