“Yes, this is it”, exclaimed Laura when she opened her mail! It’s the final approval from the Historical Society. “Everything’s gonna be alright”, she said! I must call Ben and the boys and tell them we can start on the house. But Laura’s grandmother, who was visiting her, cautioned Laura never to say “Everything’s gonna be alright”, because in today’s crazy world, something else always comes along!
Recently, in October, the Evans family, Laura, Ben with their two young sons Ian, eight and Jordan, fourteen, purchased the former Meguiar estate and plan to make major updates and renovations. The Meguires had owned the house for generations and while the outside and the gardens had been kept-up nicely, the interior of the house had seen little change since the 30’s and 40’s.
The Meguiars had owned “Meguiar’s Clothing Store” for as long as anyone could remember. The store was sold over ten years ago and the last of the Meguiars had left the house about a year ago. That was Marion or “Old lady Meguiar” as most of the neighborhood refer to her.
After about six months of renovations, including five new bathrooms, two modern kitchens, updated living area, paint, wallpaper, etc. the work crews were finally gone. The Evans’s were anxious to move in.
When moving day finally came in early March 1965, they were happy to find that their new neighbors were very friendly and welcoming. There were other young kids for the boys to play with, Laura fit in well with the other neighborhood ladies and Ben made new friends as well. A couple old buddies named Paul and John were more than happy to welcome Ben into their informal brotherhood. Like any good brethren should, they made sure that was enough cold beverage for the move.
Over the next few months, the Evans fit very comfortably into the neighborhood. There were cookouts, parties and such. As time went on, the Evans would learn of the many unusual incidents that had gone on at the house in the year it sat empty, and before that as well.
One evening several neighbors spoke about what they had witnessed. First, Hanna told about the night she had walked home late and saw a light on in the house. It seemingly lit up the entire place! She swore that all the blinds and window curtains were gone. She saw the pictures on the wall, furniture with lamps on tables and said she could even see the main staircase. She made her husband walk down the street to see it for himself. But when they returned, all of the windows had curtains and blinds and they were closed. In addition, there wasn’t a light on anywhere!
Another neighbor recalled that when the house sat empty, the front door would sometimes appear wide open. The realtor would come and lock it back up again, but never commented about it. The police said there was no sign of forced entry and that nothing had been taken.
Several other neighbors spoke of strange noises coming from the house, and seeing strange lights, even after Old Lady, excuse me, Marion Meguiar had passed away. They all talked about seeing shadows in the attic window from time to time. Almost all of them claimed to have heard weird music from the attic late at night! That’s when John Foster added that on a few different occasions, he heard the music and thought he could see the shadows of people dancing through the attic windows. Things got quiet for a moment, when John spoke up again and said it was probably only those manikins that Marion kept up there in her sewing room. At that point, though, Laura recalled that Marion’s sewing room was actually off the main hall near the downstairs kitchen, but felt it better not to say anything.
The neighbors went on with the stories, all with those strange manikins on their minds. Finally Laura spoke up and said: “Everything’s gonna be alright”! We moved in over eleven and a half months ago and the house has been totally redone. And,It’s been a long time since anyone has seen or heard anything! Everyone agreed and said it was nice to have that all behind them! But, would all that discussion awaken something in that old house? Something that may only have been asleep for a while!
Later that night, Laura believed she heard music. She awoke Ben who said it was probably only Jordan. Laura asked him to go upstairs to check. When Ben reached the upstairs hall, the music was not coming from Jordan’s room, but instead sounded like it was coming from the attic. As Ben approached the door to the attic stairway, the music stopped! He nervously tried to open the door, but it was locked! He remembered the keys were hanging on a hook in the downstairs kitchen. He breathed a sigh of relief since he didn’t really want to go into that attic at 3am, anyway!
The following morning, Laura went upstairs to wake the boys. When she came back down, she told Ben that he had apparently forgotten to close the attic door. She asked if he would please close it and lock it this time! That was the point at which Ben decided to hire a handyman service to clean out the attic and dispose of everything!
In the next few weeks while they waited to be scheduled by the service, all types of weird things started to happen. Doors were opened or closed when they shouldn’t have been. Lights were either on or off when nobody had entered the room, and toilets would occasionally flush themselves! Often, things would appear in places where they hadn’t been left. One day while the family was away, the neighbors saw smoke coming from the chimney and wondered why the Evans would have a fireplace going on such a warm day, especially when no one appeared to be home!
John Foster stopped over to visit with Ben one day, and mentioned that the attic light had been on for the last few nights. That concerned Ben and he said they should go up to the attic and check it out. Jordan, naturally asked to go along. Ben told John he was finally hiring someone to clean out the attic. Then he told John about Ian’s cat named Mellow. He said it had somehow got out and ran away about a week ago. But, Jordan said that Mellow never went outside and was afraid to go anywhere near the door!
When they entered the attic, they were surprised to find that the light switch was turned off! They started to look around to see what all was there. There were a lot of boxes of old clothing and a bunch of old manikins, mostly incomplete; just heads, arms, legs etc. There were old portraits with eyes that could probably penetrate body armor. There were several pieces of old broken furniture that needed to be discarded. There was one nice old antique desk, in great shape that only needed a little cleaning and maybe some varnish. Ben said he was keeping it! Jordan found some old magazines, a couple of broken old toys and some playing cards. The playing cards were on an old table along with an old butane lighter. Some of the cards were partially burnt on the corners. Ben said the Meguiars must have burnt the cards they didn’t like! Then John said it’s probably how they marked them! They both agreed they wouldn’t have wanted to play poker with those people!
Jordan spotted a beat up old radio/record player in the corner and wondered if he could try to get it to work. Ben told him that under the circumstances, his mom probably wouldn’t go for that! They all wholeheartedly agreed!
Ben mentioned that he was extremely anxious to get rid of all the stuff, but had just been delayed again by the Handymen service. John said, why wait! I’m sure we can get Paul to help us and he can probably find us a truck from one of his hunting buddies. We might even be able to do it Saturday, John suggested. I’ll help, said Jordan! Ben said: “That would sure be great”!
That Saturday morning, everyone showed up ready to work! One of Paul’s friends dropped off a trailer for them to use and would come back later that day to haul it to the City Dump. There was no shortage of weird things to discover! One of the very strangest things, however, was that the tips of the fingers on all the child mannequins were slightly burnt, the same as the playing cards were. Paul said jokingly, it’s probably how the adult manikins punish their children for touching the playing cards! Then they began clearing out everything, except for that old antique desk.
In one of the boxes, Paul found an extremely creepy old doll. Its head was cracked, one eye was missing and half its hair was gone. He said that he was going to keep it for his Halloween display later that year. John told him he had never seen anything quite that scary, ever! With all the help, the trailer filled up fast!
As they got close to finishing, Paul looked at his Halloween treasures and thought about what to do. He remembered that the antique desk was empty, so he put a couple of small manikin feet and those hands with the burnt fingers in the two smallest drawers. He then opened the long middle draw and placed that scary haunted looking doll in and closed it tight. Nobody will know, he thought, and Ben won’t mind! I’ll come back and get them in just a few months! He pushed in the chair and turned out the light!
No one noticed that Jordan had taken that old butane lighter. His friends Jerry and Peter were picking him up later and everyone would go to the dump to help out. Paul’s friend with the truck came later that afternoon and they all headed for the City Dump!
The following morning was sunny and bright! As everyone was waking up, Ian came running in to see his mom and dad to tell them that his cat Mellow was back! Did he just come to the door, asked Laura? No, said Ian, he was already there inside the back porch waiting for me!
Later, while the kids played with Mellow on the back porch, Ben went to the front porch to get the newspaper. “Laura, look at this” said Ben, there was a fire at the City Dump last night! It says it was confined to one small area containing some old furniture, boxes and old manikins. They say pressure from the boxes and other items could have ignited some type of flammable liquid or an old butane lighter. “I guess that will happen”, said Ben! Then Laura declared: “I’m sorry about the fire, but I’m not sorry about those manikins”. Ben agreed!
All of a sudden, they heard a really loud noise up in the attic! Laura looked at Ben, and he headed cautiously up to the attic to see what it was”. At first glance everything appeared to be okay, except that the long drawer from that old desk was lying in the center of the floor; at least 4 to 5 feet away from the desk. The other two drawers were open, but had not come all the way out. All of the drawers were empty! He recalled that the drawers had been empty when he saw them the day before so he breathed a sigh of relief. He still felt confident that they had solved the problem when they took all that old junk to the City dump! It did bother him just a bit, though, that the drawer could be so far from the desk if it had just fallen out? Oh well, thought Ben, at least all the creepy mannequins are gone!
“It was just a drawer that fell from the desk, Laura”! “Perhaps we’ll turn that old attic into a playroom for the boys,” he said. Laura agreed and said: “Finally, everything’s gonna be alright”! Then suddenly they heard, “Mommy, Mommy”!!! She said: “What is it, Ian”? “Mellow is missing again”! □
