Chapter 24
It was clear and dark and the stars were out in force as I walked with great trepidation with Dave back to the hotel. I didn’t want to die, knew I didn’t have to, at least not at that point in time, but yet was walking voluntarily toward, if not certain death, permanent insanity. It occurred to me that maybe I should trust my own instincts, make my own judgments and stand up for myself.
The old man was still up at the front desk when we returned. He wished us a good night, told us again the place was haunted, and suggested that we be careful and that we pray to protect ourselves.
I wasted no time in locking my door, jumping into bed, pulling the covers over my head and trying to curl up into a little ball. I also tried not to breathe, figuring that if I did breathe, the ghosts would hear me, but gave that up after the first try. From then on I tried to breathe as quietly as possible. I also tried to not swallow, figuring swallowing would also make noise and give me away to the ghosts. I lay there perfectly still and breathing as quietly as possible, when there was a knock at my door.
Good god! The ghosts were at my door already! I remained silent and still. Maybe, I thought, if no one answered, the ghosts would move on to the next room. Then there was another knock—three soft raps—on the door and an “ouuhhhhh” coming from outside. God! I thought, if I answer the door they’ll chop my head off. If I don’t, they’ll get angry and walk through the door and walls and chop me up while I’m here in bed. This is a losing proposition.
Then there were another three soft raps and another “ouuhhhhh,” followed by “Come ouuuuut so we can kill you.”
The Ghosts Wanted to Kill Me
If ever someone was about to explode, it was me. My heart was pounding and I was sweating. But I remained silent and still, and in a few minutes—it seemed like a lifetime—I heard footsteps moving away from my door. After another few minutes I slowly and silently pulled off the covers, got out of bed and tiptoed towards the door. Hearing nothing, I slumped in exhaustive relief into a sitting position against the wall next to the door. And then the doorknob jangled, the knocks came again and the voice said, “We’ll kill yoooou no matter what. Open uuuup.” Then there was laughter, and I knew then that Dave had been playing a joke on me that I didn’t appreciate.
“Open up,” he whispered from behind the door. “Open the damn door!”
I opened the door and yelled at him for the bad joke.
“Relax,” he whispered, waving a flashlight that pierced the dark of my room. “Have some fun, some sense of adventure. We’re going to get to the bottom of this. Now my hunch is this: If there have been ghost-like noises, it’s probably been the old man down there making them. Not only does he seem a little weird, but he needs some publicity for this place, and if he can conjure up a ghost, people will eventually come and pay big money for the thrill and for the adventure. But mostly, I think he’s just a sick, perverted guy who gets his jollies by scaring people. And if there are ghosts, don’t worry, they can’t physically hurt you. All they can do is try to scare you. It’s up to you to keep your wits. Now get a flashlight and let’s go ghost hunting.”
The two flashlights guided us through the dark, narrow hallways. No one else was staying in the hotel, so we checked all the rooms on our floor. They were all open and all neatly made up as if waiting for guests. Like our rooms, they all had paintings of a cow on the wall above the beds.
Next we checked the rooms on the second floor, and then those on the first floor. They were empty. Then, acting on Dave’s suspicion that the old man was the one making ghost noises, we checked in on him. He was behind the desk, asleep in a padded rocking chair. We walked down another set of stairs to the basement. By this time I was sick with nervousness and fear. When Dave tried to open the basement door, I grabbed his arm.
“This is where they were killed; where they were hacked to pieces,” I whispered. “We can’t go in there.”
“That’s exactly why we’re going to go in there,” he whispered back. “If there are ghosts anywhere in this house, they’re going to be at the scene of the murder. Let’s go.”
The door was open and we inched our way forward trying not to bang into anything or make noise. But clumsy me bumped into an old wooden box in the middle of the floor. We pointed the lights at it. Inside was an old, wooden-handled hatchet!
“The murder weapon!” Dave quietly exclaimed. “This is spooky.”
Inside the box and underneath the hatchet was a brown paper bag. It was stuffed full and tied with old, yellow twine.
“We should leave now,” I insisted. “This just isn’t right.”
“No. We stay. Untie and open up that bag.”
My hands trembled uncontrollably as I undid the bag. Even Dave was trembling. I could tell that because the light from the flashlight he shown on the box bag zigzagged all over. I put my hand in the bag and pulled out a stack of old, yellowed, brittle newspapers. They were dated ninety-two years earlier and one of them, called the Gazette, had this headline: “CRAZED, DRUNKEN GATES HATCHETS FAMILY TO DEATH! COW KILLER MURDERS WIFE AND FOUR CHILDREN!”
The stories detailed the murders and the sorry plight of Maria and the five children. They contained graphic descriptions of the crime scene, including the fact that all of the victims had been beheaded. And the stories comported to what we had been told about the hotel and Gates in the bar. The papers had stories about the sad suicide of the daughter who survived the murders, and contained editorials demanding Gates’ immediate execution. Other papers had stories about Gates’ trial, conviction and eventual hanging.
“Well, we know that story wasn’t bullshit,” Dave said.
“True,” I said. “But why is this stuff down here? I can see somebody saving it, but why here?”
“Maybe it’s not somebody, maybe it’s the work of the ghosts.”
That thought scared the hell out of me, but not as much as the low, faint groaning noises we heard drifting through the hotel. We both made for the door as fast as our fear would take us. We checked the front desk and found that the old man was still snoring in his rocker. The rooms on the second floor revealed no ghosts, neither did those on the third floor. While we were on the third floor, however, the groaning became louder and the sound of stomping and shuffling feet carried through from the ceiling above.
We made our way slowly up the stairway to the attic. Old burlap sacks that had clearly been ripped and clawed open were strewn on the floor outside the attic’s main door. Corn kernels, oats and barley were also strewn on the floor. We said nothing, but trembled in the darkness and put our ears to the door. The moaning was clear and distinct, and there were multiple sets of footsteps.
“Well, we go in. Let’s go,” I said with a reckless bravado that masked my overwhelming fear and approaching insanity. But this time it was Dave who was wavering.
“Maybe it’s best if we just leave this alone,” he said. “We’re messing with the supernatural, and to be honest, that’s wrong and dangerous. Troubled spirits don’t need us to further add to their misery. Let’s go.”
But we couldn’t go. The main door to the attic door started opening. We shut off our lights, and with a perverse instinct driving us, slowly pushed the door open the rest of the way. All was dark except for wisps of light floating and dancing and darting around the room. Some were tiny flashes, but others were larger, like tosses of stardust or miniature comet tails. We crept forward, saying nothing, and eventually crouched behind an old door that had been stored on its side.
The light show continued and grew more intense. The flashes of light danced everywhere, making it seem like the room was filled with hundreds of humming birds with lights on their bodies. The low moans started up again and so did the footsteps. The light activity grew even more frenzied, intense and compact, as if individual pieces were coming together to form the whole. It seemed that images were forming before our eyes. And they were! First I made out what appeared to be a skinny leg, and then another. Then I saw a body, and then Dave shouted that he saw a tail! Yes a tail! The vision formed before us: a herd of Guernsey cows!
They pawed at the floor, kicked around the empty burlap sacks with their hoofs, stretched their hairy necks forward, pointed their chins upward and mooed. They were cow ghosts! The poor things were hungry. We stood up from behind the door and introduced ourselves, but it was obvious that they couldn’t comprehend, although when I called out, “Here Bossy. Come Bossy,” a sad-eyed beauty ambled forward and stared at me with her giant, round, brown eyes. It was the same cow in the paintings above the beds! They wanted us to pet them, and we tried, but you just can’t pet a ghost.
We instructed the cows to stay there, picked up several of the empty sacks and raced out of the hotel to the railroad station where we picked weeds and other greens and grasses for the brown and white spotted beasts. We returned to the attic, dumped the grasses on the floor and watched as the cows ate eagerly and gratefully.
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