Are you there

As we drive the kids are wondering if we are ever going to get anywhere and I’m wondering if they really care because they are stuck in electronic land anyway.  

As we drove the all I could do is imagine how I hope that the kids will enjoy where were moving to, but I know that all I know the wife are going to hear is complaints.  

I went from the freeway to the off ramp and my daughter sat up like she was in shock. 

“Are we finally there?” Macy asked 

“No.” I replied, “This is only the off ramp to get to our destination” 

“Oh man,” the kids complained 

“Don’t worry we will be there by tonight.” I giggled and winked at my wife 

That didn’t make the kids happy at all, but oh well the sun is shining, the wind is blowing wonderfully and there’s not a care in the world. We aren’t stuck in a traffic jam and it’s not so hot we can’t stand it. 

From the off ramp we got back onto another freeway and all you heard from the backseat was more complaints. My wife and I giggled until we had tears in our eyes. 

We did finally hit the road to our new house at sunset so I wasn’t too far off and the kid knew we were there because they didn’t have any reception on their devices. 

“Oh my gosh, dad, where are we the twilight zone?” Macy asked 

“Ditto!” David responded 

“Um no kids this is our new house where we will be living and you will be going to school up the road from here once we get you registered this year.” I replied 

“Yes, isn’t this beautiful!” Rachel, my wife, responded 

“Um yeah, if you’re the Addams family.” said David 

“Come on,” I replied “Give it a chance you never know what you might find.” 

“Yea or who.” Macy said 

The kids finally got done complaining and slowly started helping bring in the bags and boxes from the car and the u-haul we had attached to the car. Once everything was brought in and put in the living room the kids said they wanted to go find the room for each of them. We said okay and they took off like a rocket. 

Macy hollered from upstairs announcing that the room to the left was hers. It was this dark blue color with swirls of a slightly lighter blue in it. The colors caught her attention as soon as she opened the door. She felt like she was taken into another dimension, another time altogether. It seemed impossible really. She saw a little girl in the corner brushing a dolls hair while humming, but as she got closer, she seemed to disappear.  

David hollered that was fine because his was the one on the right. It was a darker red with lighter red swirls in it that caught his attention he sat on his bed and just stared into the swirls. He swore the swirls were turning and turning, but that couldn’t be right? The next thing he knew he looked around and his room was younger looking with this young boy dancing at the edge of the door singing some weird song he thought he had heard, but wasn’t sure. “Come with me to see the bumblebees and we will be forever free you and me tra la la he he he.” It’s so silly, but it stayed with him. He tried to tell the boy to come to him, but he wouldn’t so he tried to walk to him and he ran away and disappeared. 

All at once both Macy and David ran out of their rooms hollering. Their parents came running up the stairs telling them to calm down and each talk one at a time. They looked at each other, but both started talking again.  

“Okay!” said Peter, the dad, “Macy you speak then David your turn.” 

Macy explained what happened in her room and David looked in astonishment and had said that, that was almost the exact same thing but a little different and explained his situation. Their parents looked at each other then walked into each of their rooms, looked around, and came out explaining the only thing in their stories that they saw was the colors. The kids ran back in their rooms, came back out, and couldn’t believe that nothing was in there. What’s going on? What had happened? Are they seeing things? 

“Okay so what happened what did we see?” Macy asked 

“I’m not sure we will have to check into the history of the house, but I don’t know why you all would be seeing children in your rooms and now they’re not there.” Dad said “Now you all head back down stairs and we will head into town to get some supper before we all call it a night what’s everyone say?” 

“Boo!!!” everyone complained 

“We been in the car all day honey let’s just order something and call it a day, okay?” Rachel asked 

“Yea, dad!” Both the kids replied at once 

“Okay, okay let me see what I can do and we will stay in.” dad replied 

We had our supper, headed to bed, and wondered what would happen in each of our rooms. What if our parents have something happen then maybe they would believe us, but we wouldn’t want them to because they might not react like us and react worse? 

Overnight it seemed pretty quiet with nothing going on until Macy went to the bathroom and then went to get her a drink. As she went down the stairs and turned the corner there were these what looked like people but weren’t they were see through. Ghosts!! Our house has ghosts!! These ghosts were cooking and having supper in their kitchen. 

Macy stood at the corner of the hallway watching this other family do what they wanted in their home. They would cook and the mother would clean up the dishes when everyone was done while the husband would go watch t.v. and the kids would run up and down the stairs playing around until the mother said to stop which was good because I could feel them going back and forth. So, then they sat on the living room floor and played with their toys. I’m so glad they didn’t see me when they were going up and down the stairs because I can imagine everyone hearing me scream if they ran into me and said something or I did. I kept standing there watching in amazement that we moved into a haunted house. Isn’t that what they call it? I realized that they might end up getting tired and want to go to bed and wonder what would happen then? Would they sleep with us? I didn’t know what to do, do I go wake everyone up quietly so they can see what I see? Do I make a noise so I scare them and maybe they go away and then we will be able to sleep safely? I’ve never had to worry about this.  

All of a sudden, there was a noise upstairs that startled everyone. The ghosts swished everywhere hiding so they’re not seen. I ran up to see what was going on. All the lights in each room flipped on.  

“What’s going on?” I asked 

“I don’t know?” Mom and dad answered  

“Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry. I knocked over my lamp when I went to turn in the bed and scared myself because I touched it.” David replied while laughing at his own response 

“Wow David you scared the crap out of everyone.” Macy said  

“That’s right.” Dad said as he yawned now everyone back to bed before the sun comes up on us. 

“Mom can I talk to you really quick?” Macy interrupted 

“Can this wait until the morning, Macy?” Rachel said 

“Not really!” Macy replied “This is really important. It’s something I just found out! 

“Honey, I’m going to chat with Macy really quickly and then I’ll be in there. So go ahead to bed.” Rachel said to Peter 

“Mom this house is haunted” Macy said to Rachel 

“Why do you say that?” Rachel asked 

“I went to the bathroom and heard something down stairs, so I quietly went down to see what It was and get a drink while I was down there, well, I couldn’t because there was a whole other family doing what they wanted in the kitchen and living room. The mom was cooking, dad was reading his newspaper, and the kids were playing. Once, the mother was done cooking she called them to come in and eat then she cleaned up while the kids played and the dad sat on the couch watching tv.” Macy responded in shock 

“Are you still asleep, Macy?” Rachel asked 

“No why? Macy asked 

“A whole family doing all that down stairs?” Rachel replied 

“Yes, mom, I’m serious. Why would I make all that up in the middle of the night? Oh, and it’s not a real family it’s a ghost family. That’s why you can’t hear or see them right now.” Macy replied 

“Come on, Macy! This is too much. It’s way too late for all this! Let’s get to bed and you can tell your dad all this in the morning.” Rachel said 

“I knew if anyone would believe me it would be you. Dad isn’t going to believe me.” Macy replied 

“Well, I’m sorry would you believe me?” Rachel asked 

“I would try and think of why you would be saying this and look into it before saying you're crazy!” Macy said 

“I didn’t say you were crazy!” Rachel responded 

“You kind of did” Macy said 

“Well, I’m sorry it sounded like that now get to bed and we will talk in the morning.” Rachel replied 

We all woke up feeling drowsy like no one in the house slept at all. As we went down to the living room, we all flopped on the couch and chairs half falling asleep. 

Macy and David headed to school happy to get out of the house, but hoping school wasn’t any worse.  

Rachel had to go to her first work meeting to get a new job in town and Peter was still looking for one, but was staying at home and getting the house together while doing so. 

As Macy and David went through school kids in school found out where they were living and had to go up and ask them if they really, truly, lived there.  

“Yes, we live there why?” David asked 

“Don’t you know what happened there?” asked one of the kids in the group 

“No what?” Macy asked 

“A whole family died in that house. A murderer came through town wanting in the house, I guess the dad had what the murderer wanted and the dad wouldn’t give it so the murderer came back that night and went crazy on the whole family.” the kid responded 

Macy and David went to the side of the hallway to chat with each other privately. 

“Maybe that’s who we were seeing in our rooms?” Macy questioned 

“Yea, maybe we should tell mom and dad and then they will believe us finally.” David said 

“Sure, if you heard mom talking to me last night you wouldn’t want to say anything.” Macy replied 

“What’s that mean?” David asked 

“Nothing.” Macy replied “Come on we better get to our next class before we get in trouble we’ll talk more later.” 

As Peter was putting things away in the house, he couldn’t believe how utterly quiet the house was. He put the rest of the dishes in the cabinets where he thought they should go even though Rachel will probably move them saying they don’t like right where they are. Then on to the living room things putting up the pictures. Then onto to putting things in the hall closet. 

“Wait a minute. Why are the pictures back on the floor?” Peter asked, well, himself 

He put them back up and headed back to the boxes when he looked in the kitchen and all the dishes were sitting on the kitchen table. 

“Ok, what’s going on here?” Peter asked himself again and then put the dishes back where they belonged.  

Once going back to what he was doing he heard a noise. He was quiet for a minute listening for what the noise could be. Nothing, he heard nothing at all. Ok, back to work.  

Bump, bump, scrap, scrap, bump, scrap. 

“Ok, I know that was something." said Peter 

Peter followed the noise as quietly as he could so it wouldn’t stop and he would end up losing it again. The noise took him to the basement. He opened the door and slowly walked down the stairs. As, he reached the final step he looked around and as he turned his head from right to left, he saw what the kids were talking about plus a couple more. Ghosts, but this was a family of ghosts.  

Peter went down the stairs all the way and asked, “Hello, are you there?” 

The family that was ghosts came out of the shadows for the man to see and slowly walked his way. Peter was so astonished.  

“Hi, my name is Peter.” He said, “What is yours” 

“Mine is Paul, this is my wife Amanda, my son Zach, and my daughter Lucy. I’m sorry if we frightened any of you, but we kind of live here because we died here in a fire a long time ago. A murderer wanted the safe I had, but what he didn’t know was it was empty and so he killed us and were doomed to live here.” Paul replied 

“Wow, that is awful! I’m so sorry. Is there any way we can unbreak the curse or something to make your lives better?” Peter asked 

“Not that I know of just maybe us live peacefully together and not be afraid of each other.” Paul said 

“That sounds agreeable to me.” Peter said 

“Great, we will stay down here while you’re awake and then while you’re asleep be will be about quietly but you won’t even know it. That’s not completely true I think my daughter saw you all last night and told my wife.” Peter said 

“Um yea she did see us I was going to tell you dad but we didn’t get the chance and then we forgot and then this happened.” Zach said 

“Well, I say we introduce ourselves and see what everyone wants to do once it happens.” Peter said 

“Agreed!” Paul said 

Once everyone got home Peter said he had some people for them to meet, but the kids wanted to talk to them and Paul said that once everyone meets his friends everything will be alright. 

Paul told his friends to come out and they did. There was a slight quiet pause for a little bit and then Peter introduced everyone so they were friends instead of scary strangers. He explained what happened and then the kids understood the whole story from school and didn’t need to tell theirs. 

Now both families live under one house at night and during the day!