Susan the Ghost

“ If you live in the northeast, you will be experiencing a derecho… a quick-moving destructive wind storm similar to a tornado or hurricane that moves in a straight line,” explained Matt from the Weather Channel.  “Derechos can be accompanied with heavy rains. If you are wondering about the word's origins, derecho is Spanish for straight ahead.”

I became increasingly afraid as the wind began to whirl and whistle through the trees surrounding the house. “ Move the car to the road,” my mother frantically shouted. It's the derecho!”  Quick get to the bathroom. As we huddled together, howling winds and snapping of branches caused us to panic, for we were in a single-story brick house. Then the lights went out. Thankfully, we had our flashlights. With nerves on edge, we suddenly realized the stillness inside and outside the house. The sudden eerieness was as terrifying as the howling winds and snapping branches. Moments later, we heard an intense pounding on the front door. What or who could that be?

 Christopher, my husband, my Mother, and I drove to Clover, VA, from Washington, DC, one hot summer day. Clover was my mother’s birthplace, and as a child, I visited Clover to spend summers with my grandparents. As a teenager, my cousins and I would joke that Clover was not the end of the world, but you could see it from there.  Thirteen miles from the nearest McDonalds or shopping mall, it was like being in the middle of nowhere.  Clover is located in a rural area of Halifax County, VA, and my mother built a small house to care for her aging parents across from the house where she grew up. We would travel down 95 to check on the house ever so often. The nearest neighbors were one mile in either direction. Up the road from the house was a 42-acre field that once was my grandparents' farm; now, it is desolate, unused, begging to have life again. 

But living in a shack near our house and adjacent to the 42-acre field was Susan, a strange woman who owned a black dog. She always wore tall boots and a pitch helmet. With a no-trespassing sign attached to a chain across the entrance to the path leading to her home, we couldn’t figure out why she chose to live in such a remote area alone. At night, the stars and the moon are the only light to guide you. Susan's behavior was always unsettling. Whenever we came to check on our house, she would ignore us as she walked up the road with her dog to get the mail. Snarling at us was her mode of communication. Whenever we left and headed back to DC, we taped no trespassing signs outside the windows, for we had noticed little things were always missing or the location of items had changed upon our return. A beautiful hostra that adorned the front porch step was now under the white oak, and a rake we had kept in the back of the house had disappeared. We put signs against the front and back doors, but they disappeared too.  Susan was the one responsible…she had to be.

After that, the sheriff suggested that we put the signs on the windows inside the house. Once, when we had considered selling the house, the real estate agent we had met with became afraid of Susan. Why? Every time Gloria, the agent, came by the house, Susan told her she was wasting her time because no one would want to buy a home with snakes or that we could not be trusted. Her crazy accusations were created because we and other neighbors refused to pay for the paving of a road that led to her house. Irrational thinking, for Susan said that two land owners, one being us, should have the road leading to her shack paved. She felt that since her shack was sandwiched between the two plots of land, it was the land owners’ responsibility. WRONG! Susan got a bum deal when she purchased the piece of land. I let her know that she should have discussed the pavement of that road with the real estate agent who sold her the property.  Not our problem. Ever since, she has held a grudge.

Rumor has it that Susan preferred to talk to the animals rather than people. Dogs, deer, cows, whatever.  One night, when Susan and her dog were walking up the road, a black bear charged from a wooded area, killing her and her dog. The following day, the mail carrier spotted boots near the thicket behind a group of mailboxes. After calling the sheriff, Susan’s body, along with her dog, was identified. I suppose she tried to talk to that black bear without much success. Susan was no more. Very sad.

The pounding on the door was getting louder and unbearable. As we emerged from the bathroom, Christoper yelled, “ Who’s there? " The pounding stopped, but no one answered. With the lights still out, with only our flashlights, slowly moving around the house felt creepy. Just as Mother sat in her comfy rocker, the pounding started again, only this time at the back door. In a loud voice, Mother yelled, “ Who is pounding on my door? Stop!” With a flashlight, Christoper opened the backdoor cautiously, surveying that area. What he saw startled him—bootprints from the back door to the front of the house. A heavy rain the night before left the ground saturated, so the prints were clear. BOOT PRINTS!

Out of breath, Christopher told us what he saw. “You won’t believe what I saw… boot prints from the back door to the front.”

“Where could they have come from? Who could have made them?” Mother asked. Christopher and I exchanged uneasy glances. We both thought the same thing. I know we did. Our attention went to the fireplace, where a rustling sounded. The sound was getting more intense and threatening—a ‘ hideous snarling’ sound like a raccoon would make. Nervous, we were transfixed, staring at the fireplace, which was beginning to shake. Without warning, the chimney cap slammed on the hearth. The noise had stopped as we looked in disbelief at the chimney cap. We could see a light on the road through the living room window. I slowly lifted the window shade, which revealed the car headlights shining onto the gravel road. How could this be? Mother, Christopher, and I sat motionless in the living room, bracing ourselves for the next inexplicable event. But was it inexplicable? Who was going to be the first to say it…we all softly said the name Susan. I quickly pulled down the shade.

With all the evening events, we lost track of time, not wanting to leave each other’s side and taking quick naps while being on guard for what was to come next. Then, a glimmer of light appeared in the small front door window with a pale hint of blue. A new day was dawning. We had survived. The car was outside in the middle of the road where we left it, but the lights were off now. A sigh of relief was felt when Christoper got in the car, and it started without hesitation. Moving the car to the front of the door, we packed up as fast as possible. Getting away from the house was our primary focus. I locked the door as the three of us stood on the porch.  Out of nowhere, a large crow perched itself on the porch railing. We followed it as it flew high, landing on a high branch in the white oak tree.  In the tree next to that blackbird was a No Trespassing sign wedged between two branches. For sure, we knew that the boot footprints, the hideous sound coming from the chimney, the chimney cap falling onto the hearth, and the No Trespassing sign in the tree was Susan. In life and now in death, Susan was again unsettling our nerves. Susan, the ghost, had been here.