The Skeletons of Stratton Street

NOTE: Although the gore is not descriptive, the idea of the act itself may gross people out. This was fun. Enjoy!

On the corner of Stratton and Water Street, a brick house sits snug between a duplex and the sidewalk’s edge. A narrow strip of patchy grass lines a small area next to the stoop that butts up against a lattice-covered crawlspace. The worn shutters and weathered front door stretch tall when gazing up the front steps from the street. Some bricks throughout are faded in color and chipped at the corners, a sign that this house has withstood the test of time and weather. The shiny windows have mirrored many onlookers as foot traffic is high in this small tourist town.

Visitors flood the summer streets from all over the globe to lay eyes on the historical sites scattered across vast battlefields and downtown souvenir shops. A single cannonball remains lodged in the second story wall above an ice cream parlor. Hundreds of people point to it every day while licking their cones and cups in the midday heat. Reenactors sweat through felt grays, blues, and hoops covering every inch of sidewalk waiting to bear false stories and legends to whoever will listen. But the most popular attraction of them all are the ghost tours hosted hourly on those warm summer nights; the tourists seek chills of any sort to cool off from the wavy heat rising from busy sidewalks after the sun goes down. Whether drawn to the haunted walkabouts through the nooks and crannies of the alleyways, or a deeper dive into paranormal investigations with conspiracy theorists and speculators, this town has it all and plenty from which to choose.

Little do the innocent passersby know something more sinister lurks in the shadows.

Resting in the center of the Stratton Street home’s modest front porch is a glass table and three wrought iron chairs. Every day, a woman sits in the adjacent wooden rocker paging through a magazine or paper, her oversized sun hat stretching beyond her shoulders, and her large sunglasses swallowing her face as they rest on the tip of her pointy nose. Sitting for hours, she thumbs through whatever prop she has brought to her front porch excursion. She peeks over the top as people stop and read the faded plaque clumsily plastered to the side of her home stating: Historical House; Built in 1862. It is not true, of course, but the looky-loos have no idea. Here to absorb every ounce of history they can, they read the plaque then step back to admire the home and relish in its modern glory. They whisper to each other about the architecture and updates the house must have endured, but beneath the façade they know the guts must be true to its historical time, a witness to the battle all its own. But all of this masquerade is part of her plan; her way of scoping them out, sizing them up, secretly scheming unbeknownst to anyone. People-watching is an acquired skill. Looking casually beyond a newspaper under the guise of sunglasses while surveying the never-ending stream of tourists takes practice and patience, especially when the desire is to go unnoticed. In this regard, she is a pro.

The first skeleton appeared mid-summer. Propped up in the center chair, the pristine remains sat leaning forward, the stark white ulnas rested on the table’s edge, its deep eye sockets staring straight ahead. Placed in front was an empty porcelain teacup on a decorative saucer showcasing a pitiful tea party for one. A typical Halloween decoration in the middle of summer had people chuckling as they walked by, especially when an oversized t-shirt appeared on its rib cage bearing the tourist town across the chest. The townspeople assumed the quirky homeowners were adding some fun to the late night haunts since the house was en route to most of those otherworldly tours.

By the end of summer, the lonesome bones had a companion. A second skeleton slightly smaller in stature appeared in the seat next to the first. With it came another teacup placed on a delicate floral saucer. This skull sported a long blond wig in addition to a t-shirt, a clear counterpart to the first ghastly ghoul. She rested back in the chair, one arm extended toward the teacup just out of reach, a maddening state to leave something in – reaching for something so close yet so far. The pair sat together unmoving, never revealing if they were stuck in a state of misery together or enjoying this skeletal meet-cute. An odd sight, but still harmless in most eyes as spooky season was on the horizon. The streets became less crowded as schools went back in session. The couple remained the same, never moving, never changing, and always withstanding the elements as the long summer days grew colder, dewy, and short. 

As fall foliage presented its yellows, reds, and browns, the tourism began to ramp up again. Like the French Quarter or Salem, it was one of those destinations that drew a crowd in October for those seeking a supernatural experience during peak peeper season. What better place to do that than the land where thousands of soldiers died in a historic battle; their souls haunting the fields forever. Many locals relied on the business of travelers, so they endorsed and encouraged the neighboring homes and businesses of downtown to participate anyway they could. It wasn’t out of the ordinary to see creepy decor sprinkled throughout front porches and lawns remain in place well into the Christmas season. As long as it got boots in the door and money in the drawer, the community played its part and decorated to the max.

The front porch tea party became a cherished fixture of the Stratton Street house as the clothing and wigs changed with the seasons and additional elements were added to the vestibule. As the days turned colder, plastic cauldrons and carved pumpkins began to appear on the ledges and walls, costumes and spider webs were added to the bones for some seasonal flare. At night, a smoky fog seeped out of the wooden basement windows and hovered low to the ground, bubbling just above the grass like a pot of boiling water. The pangs of glass were black so no one could see in but a green haze glowed ever so slightly around the edges. It was all in good fun, the locals thought. That is… until the new additions showed up.  

Placed in the final empty chair, barely filling the seat, a small figure appeared. Its jaw was unhinged and one arm cast to the sky with phalanges spread into an openhanded wave. The other arm was missing from its socket; the exposed nub was brittle and jagged, not smooth like the plastic ghouls purchased at the local Spirit store. Sporting an oversized Superman cape, it looked similar to the other bony figures dressed for Halloween however, this one was of a tiny nature. The shrunken framework matched that of a child. And sitting at attention on the porch floor were the perfectly assembled bones of a dog carrying the child’s missing arm in its mouth, phalanges hanging down, the smallest one was missing. This startling addition sent a chill through the surrounding streets, a joke gone too far. Visitors began to walk hastily past; the charm of the eerie scene had worn off. Smiles fell from faces as they examined the group closer in the macabre scene. It all suddenly felt too real.

That notion became solidified when the missing dog posters were plastered all over town shortly after the porch welcomed its final guests. Stapled to telephone poles and taped in shop windows, one man’s best friend was suddenly suspected to be the dog bones on the Stratton Street porch. Any signs posted near the house were removed by an unseen culprit under the cover of darkness. Soon after, unease heightened as regional reporters informed viewers of a missing child last seen on vacation in the famed tourist town. If one looked hard enough, more reports could be found of other missing persons from across the country who visited during the summer vacation season. Hushed tones and grumbled whispers hung in the air as suspicion magnified over the next week.

When the police first knocked on the front door following several tips and complaints, no one answered. The dark curtains blocked sunlight and prying eyes as the officers peered around the edges searching for a cause to enter. Nosy neighbors looked through peepholes and stood on verandas hoping to catch a glimpse of the maleficent miscreant within, but it was too late. Officials examined the morbid tea party careful not to disturb anything in case it became a crime scene. The pits in their stomachs sunk deeper as this dark concept came into focus. As the neighborhood was surveyed through official interviews, it was discovered that no one knew the woman in the large brim hat. No one ever saw her come and go or shared good mornings or dinners with her. No one even knew her name. The only consistent piece of information was that she sat in a rocker every day and slipped inside sometime after dusk.

Finally, police secured a search warrant and busted down the door. Inside the house was an appalling discovery. It was empty of the unknown woman, she had fled, but she left behind the horror of her work. In her basement, staged in the center of the room stood an oversized cauldron full of thick green liquid that reeked of death. Pinned to a clothing line strewn across the room were three suits of skin: a man, a woman, and a child. On the floor at their feet was a pressed pile of dog fur; its hide dried and shaped for a rug.

It took them months to piece together a story of what had happened because they didn’t know what they were looking at. The contents of the green liquid was questionable and the chunks floating in it were reduced to slimy slabs in which they guessed were leftover human remains. Enough circumstantial evidence clearly pegged it as the method in which she removed the skin from her victims, but what happened to the rest of them will never be known. Perhaps they were boiled away becoming one with the green goo. Maybe the mystery liquid was the remnants of many innocent lives lost under the guise of local tourism. Who knew how many people succumbed to this human stew or how long she had collected her victims? If they went back, months – years even - and sorted through missing person’s reports, how many would be visitors of this seemingly innocent weekend getaway spot?

Speculation aside, they had a job to do. DNA matched the skin to bones of the most recent missing travelers and the fact was, the woman who did it was on the loose. As a last ditch effort, the police issued an APB for the murderous woman, but with no description, name, or any real information about her, it was hopeless. She was gone without a trace…perhaps disappearing into the night sky on the back of a broomstick.

As months went by, the holidays changed, the posters peeled and faded, and the trail went cold. The house of horrors sat empty with police tape across the front door. Only curious teenagers sneaked in on a dare from time to time to see if they could brave a night in the would-be witch’s basement. As time passed, the town began to prepare for the next season of tourism and tried to put the past behind them as the streets began to flood with new people from new places again. When summer reached its peak, it was as if the murders never happened however, the locals always kept a watchful eye. But years passed, people came and went, locals moved or died, and life moved on.

Many moons later, on a late August morning, as the pink rays of the summer sun cut through the morning clouds, a familiar setting began to illuminate on the front porch of new house. Slightly further down Stratton Street, and just over the railroad tracks, was a brick duplex with a large porch and table set for three. The house’s familiar black curtains hung in each window, its crawlspace wrapped in lattice, and narrow basement windows painted black. Fresh glue seeped from the brass edges of a plaque tacked just below the house number bearing false witness to the events of centuries ago.

Perched in the first chair sat a lone skeleton, bony hand extended, reaching across the tabletop preparing a tea party for three.