Echoes From the Past - 1. Chapter 1 - Echoes From the Past

My husband and I started looking for a home this past summer and found several places we liked. Unfortunately, they were all out of our price range unless we were willing to wait until we’d saved up more money. Since we wanted to get our own place as soon as possible, we kept looking until we found a home we liked and could afford.

The house we came across was an older home that was solidly built and had good bones, so to speak, and it was located in a semi-rural area just outside of the city limits. It was a Dutch Colonial Revival structure with a gambrel roof, a full basement, and was situated on five-acres of land, but it needed a considerable amount of work. All we had to do was to decide if we wanted to take up the challenge.

This might be a good time for me to tell you a little bit about us. I first met Brendan Kiley in kindergarten and we quickly became best friends. Since we only lived a couple of blocks from each other, our mothers were more than willing to set up play dates for us to get together. In fact, by the time we were in second grade they also let us arrange sleepovers on Friday nights, and we remained close as we entered high school.

It was around that time when some of our friends began to question us about why we never dated girls. We tried to avoid those questions at first, but eventually we found it impossible, so we announced that we were both gay and lovers. We were pleasantly surprised when our friends accepted this revelation and were fully supportive of us as a couple.

“We figured that out a long time ago,” one of our friend’s responded, “but we’re glad you finally admitted it.”

“Yeah, our parents have probably figured it out as well,” Brendan responded.

Brendan and I did really well academically throughout high school, especially in our science and math classes. I guess you could say we were real geeks when it came to those subjects and it’s what led us to major in a scientific field when we furthered our education. We applied to the same colleges so we could be together as we pursued our goals, and Brendan chose to study electrical engineering, while I opted to become a mechanical engineer. It was during our senior year in college when Brendan popped the big question.

“Trevor MacGregor,” he began as he bent down on one knee, “I think we’ve both known this would happen eventually, so I’ll make it official. Will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

“But we’re still in college!” I blurted out, even though I wanted to scream ‘yes’. “We can’t afford to do it now.”

“I know, and we can wait until after we graduate and get jobs before we actually tie the knot, but I want you to verbally commit that you’ll marry me. Then, once our lives have settled down and we’re finally ready to go through with it, we’ll announce our intent to our friends and families.”

“Ok, I’ll marry you then, but what last name will we use, or do you plan on just having us keep the same names?”

“No, I really like the idea that we’ll share the same last name. I guess we could hyphenate our surnames, but I think that would be quite cumbersome and a daunting task to write it every time we have to fill out a form or sign something. Let’s just choose one or the other to use instead.”

“Ok, so shall we go with the Irish Kiley or the Scottish MacGregor for our surname? Which one do you think we should use?”

“Since I asked you to marry me, I’ll let you decide which name we’ll use.”

“No, I can’t do that. We should both decide.”

“Ok, so are we going to talk it over then?”

“Nah, there must be a simpler way to settle this. What if we play rock, paper, scissors or just flip a coin?”

“Ok, let’s flip a coin then. Do you want heads or tails?”

“For what?”

“If it comes up whatever you choose, then we’ll use your last name.”

“Oh, then I pick heads.”

“Here’s a quarter and I’m going to let you flip it.”

I did, and it came up tails.

“I’m not sure how my parents are going to feel about this, but it looks like were going to be Brendan and Trevor Kiley.”

After we graduated, we both landed jobs fairly quickly, and although we’d be working for different corporations, we’d be in the greater Denver area together. That’s all that really mattered. Before we moved, though, we got married in our hometown surrounded by family and friends.

When we got to Denver, we only rented an inexpensive apartment at first, since we both had large amounts of college debt to pay off. Our parents had helped out as much as they could financially while we were in college, but neither Brendan’s parents nor mine were doing very well at the time. They’d been negatively impacted by the Great Recession and it had taken a huge toll on their finances. That’s why Brendan and I decided to pay off as much of our college loans first, while also saving up a little money so we could buy a house.

Now that we’d found a place, we listened intently as the realtor told us about the house. It had been built before the start of World War I and had been passed down through various members of the same family over the ensuing years. We weren’t given any of the details about the former owners, except that the last one had died nearly two years ago and the house was put on the market the following March.

Unfortunately, it appeared there’d been few renovations done to the place since it was first constructed, which meant there was a great deal to do in order to fix it up. The kitchen appeared as if it might have been modernized during the 1950s or 60s, and the one-car detached garage was probably added about the same time, but those were the only major changes we observed.

The wiring and plumbing were most likely original, so we’d have to take care of those items first. We didn’t want to risk the chance of a short in the wiring starting a fire and knew we couldn’t leave the lead pipes in place that had been used to supply the water. The heating system was also quite old with cast iron hot water radiators in every room, but we could live with that for now. We’d eventually replace the entire heating system with a new furnace and baseboard hot water heat, but that could wait until we’re in better shape financially.

“So, you think we should make an offer on this place?” Brendan asked to get my confirmation.

“Yes, it will be awesome when we get it fixed up and we’ll be able to do the work ourselves.”

“You’re right about that. My dad’s an electrician and he taught me a great deal about his trade while I was growing up, so I can handle the electrical work. We also know how to do nearly everything else from working construction jobs each summer while we were in high school and college, so we can fix this place up in no time.”

“Yeah, so let’s make an offer.” I concurred.

Since the house needed so much work, we low-balled our initial offer. We felt it would be rejected, because the land alone was probably worth more than what we proposed, but to our surprise the offer was accepted.

“Why do you think they accepted our first offer?” I asked. “Do you think there’s something seriously wrong with this place?”

“Nah, apparently those in charge of the estate realize the amount of work that will be required to fix it up and decided to take the first offer they received. I imagine they were worried there might not be any other offers, since it’s been on the market for over a year already, and this really works in our favor. It will leave us with a little extra money to use on the renovations.”

We closed on the house at the end of May and immediately set about getting started. We had enough money for the supplies, and since we’d be doing all of the work, we wouldn’t have to pay for labor. Our primary goal was to finish the work as quickly as possible so we could move in.”

The first floor of the house is comprised of a living room with a working fireplace and doors that lead out to an enclosed sun porch. There’s also a dining room, kitchen, half bath, and a small room at the back of the house that may have been used as a bedroom, but we’ll use it as a den or an office. On the second floor there are four bedrooms and an old-fashion bathroom with a cast iron, clawfoot tub, but no shower, so we’ll have to renovate that room as well.

We planned on working nights and weekends until the work was done, and we started with the wiring and plumbing. We had to check out the local codes and get the proper permits first, and then we changed out the old fuse box and put in a new circuit breaker. After that had been taken care of, we decided where we wanted the electrical outlets to be located, since currently there were so few in the house. Once we knew where we wanted them, we had to cut into the plaster and lath walls that had been used in the construction.

It was a long and dirty process, and while we were pulling out the old wiring in the basement, something fell out of a small gap in the stone wall where we were working. When we picked it up, we discovered it was a small leather pouch, pulled closed with a drawstring.

“What do you think is inside?” Brendan asked, since it was obvious that it contained something.

“Maybe there are old coins inside, since it weighs too much to be paper money.”

However, when I opened it, we discovered it contained only marbles. One of the youngsters that had lived in the house must have kept it there for some reason, and it was still here many years later.

Once the electrical work had been completed, we began working on the plumbing. We changed the supply lines in kitchen first, but we decided to wait until later before we actually remodeled the rest of the area. We then replaced the pipes leading to the half bath and upstairs bathroom next, and while we were working upstairs, we had a discussion about which bedroom we were going to use.

“I think we should take the bedroom with the door leading out to the balcony above the sun porch,” Brendan suggested.

“I agree, but I’d prefer if it had a master bathroom too. That way if we adopt children later or have guests, they’ll be able to use the other bathroom and won’t bother us.”

“That’s a good idea, so what if we do this. We can knock down the wall separating the bedroom we want to use and the one connected to it to give us more space. By tearing down the wall in between we’ll not only make our bedroom larger, but we’ll be able to add the master bath and a walk-in closet.”

“I like that idea, and we can put the piping for the master bath in place now, while we’re still working on the other bathroom.”

“That’s a great plan.”

While we were knocking down the wall separating those two rooms, we had to remove the closets as well. In the process, we discovered that there had been a patch in the wall of the closet in the other bedroom, and behind it were hidden several matchbox cars.

“That’s definitely an unusual garage for someone to park his cars in, even if they are just toys,” I observed.

“It may be, but it obviously protected those valued objects for their owner, who obviously forgot about them when he grew older.”

We also decided to check out the attic to see if we could add some insulation up there, but we soon discovered it wasn’t open rafters as we’d expected. There was a full floor instead, but it meant we’d have additional storage space. While we were checking it out, we found an old-fashion decorative tin hidden in one of the corners and I opened it, since I wondered what was inside.

What I discovered was a large cache of letters. A few of them were in plain white envelopes that merely had the name Mary Beth written on them. There were other envelopes that had obviously been delivered by the post office, because they had a stamp in the upper right-hand corner, along with Mary Beth’s last name and this address. They also had return addresses from Carl Simek, who was obviously in the army and stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and Fort Polk, Louisiana. There were other letters in thinner envelopes with red, white, and blue borders that were marked ‘air mail’ and ‘par avion’. They must have been sent from overseas, and once again they were addressed to Mary Beth Barlow at this address.

My curiosity got the better of me, because I wanted to see if the letters were historically significant or might be valuable, so I read them. It turned out they were merely love letters from Carl and he apparently began writing to Mary Beth while they were still in high school. He must have delivered those letters to her by hand, since they didn’t have a postmark or street address on them.

While reading the letters, I learned that Mary Beth and Carl were high school sweethearts and had graduated in 1965. Carl apparently was drafted into the army more than a year later, and that’s why many of the letters had return addresses from army bases while he was in basic training and AIT (advanced individual training). It was also during this time that Carl proposed to Mary Beth, and I assume she must have said ‘yes’, because she later referred to him as her fiancé. The air mail letters had been sent from Viet Nam, so he must have been stationed over there at one point.

At the bottom of the tin was a folded page from the local newspaper, and even though I’d originally assumed it had been placed there to protect the contents of the tin, I opened it up and began reading. I wanted to see if there was anything of importance that was printed on it, and while perusing an article about the 1968 Tet Offensive, I read that Carl Simek had been killed during the battle. I assumed this was the final addition Mary Beth had made to this collection of mementos that recounted their love and the marriage that would never be.

“This is so sad, but I don’t understand why these letters have been left behind,” I commented. “From the care she took to preserve them, I would think she’d have wanted to keep them forever.”

“Maybe Mary Beth was unable to deal with the loss of her fiancé and placed the tin up here where it wouldn’t remind her about what had happened to him. She probably forgot about it as the years went by.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s probably what happened.”

By the end of August, we’d finished remodeling the upstairs bathroom and the kitchen, and we finished adding the master bath and walk-in-closet to the master bedroom. We both had to use our two-weeks of vacation in order to do this, but it was worth it. We moved into the house at the beginning of September.

We loved our new home, but before long we began to notice a variety of other unsettling occurrences. It started when we thought we heard children giggling in the house, although we knew that was impossible. We didn’t have any children and there weren’t any houses nearby, so the sound couldn’t have come from outside either. Shortly after that, we started finding the toys that we’d discovered earlier, but this time they were scattered about in different locations throughout the house.

“I thought you threw these out,” Brendan said when we found the matchbox cars in the upstairs hallway.

“No, I just stored them in the closet in the office because I wanted to see if they might be worth something first.”

“Then how did they get up here?”

“I have no idea.”

“And why are you keeping these?” Brendan asked a couple of days later after nearly falling when he stepped on the marbles that were scattered about on the office floor.

“I thought if we ever had kids they might enjoy playing with them, and I’d placed those in the closet as well.”

Shortly after those things happened, we thought we heard a woman crying in one of the extra bedrooms and later we heard whispering.

We couldn’t tell if the voices doing the whispering were females or children, but they definitely weren’t males. They were too soft, delicate, and high pitched to be masculine.

We also began seeing the shadow of a man lurking about in different rooms of the house. At first, we thought someone had broken in the house, but we never found anyone else and there were no signs of forced entry. There had to be another reason for us seeing this, but we were reluctant to consider the only possibility that was left.

“Do you think this is the reason they were so quick to accept our first offer, because they knew the house was haunted?” I asked.

“It’s possible, but why didn’t we notice these things while we were working on the house? Why are we just noticing them now?”

“I’m not sure, but I suppose it’s possible that the renovations stirred things up, as well as our finding the toys and the tin with the letters in it. They could all have something to do with what’s going on.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s possible, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to live in a haunted house.”

“Let’s do some research on the previous owners and maybe we’ll be able to figure out what’s going on. There has to be more to this story than just that Mary Beth lost her fiancé during the Viet Nam War.”

“Yes, we should find out who else might be here if we hope to get rid of them.”

We started out by doing a title search to find out who had actually owned the property. Once we knew their names, we did a more in-depth search about each of the families to see what we were up against and which spirits might possibly still be residing in the house.

Our first discovery was that the house had been built for Ernest Barlow, a bank vice-president, and it was completed in 1915. It had been specifically designed to accommodate his wife and three sons because Ernest wanted to move his family outside of the city limits. He felt the country air would be better for their health and his children would have a safer environment in which they could play, once they were away from the crowded city streets. James was the oldest son and Brian was born a couple of years later. Daniel was the baby of the family and his birth had been an unexpected surprise, since he was born five years after Brian, although he was just as loved.

Ernest determined they would be able to make the move since he owned a Ford Model T touring car that would allow him to travel back and forth to work without the trip taking forever. He would also drop his children off at school on the way in and pick them up again after he got off work so he would have greater control over what they were doing. It also meant his children wouldn’t have to ride on the horse-drawn wagon that picked up the other children living outside the city limits, because they went to a smaller, substandard rural school.

At first, Ernest had to make the trips to and from the city over dirt roads and streets, but a couple years later the state laid down a cement road from Denver to Littleton. Since his home was between those two locations, Ernest was able to take advantage of the paved surface and used it for his travels.

The family was very happy in their new home, but their joy was short lived. In 1918, Brian was exposed to the measles while wrestling with one of his friends at school. No one knew the other boy had the measles at the time, because his rash didn’t appear until the day after the two boys had wrestled. There was no vaccine for the measles at the time, and it wouldn’t be created for a few more decades, so when one person in the household came down with the disease, the rest of the family would soon follow. Fortunately, Ernest and Naomi both had the measles when they were younger, so they were immune, but the other two boys soon came down with the disease as well.

Although Daniel came through the episode basically unscathed, his older brothers weren’t as lucky. They both developed complications from the disease and Brian, who’d just turned 11 after contracting the measles, died from encephalitis, or a swelling of the brain. James, who was 13 at the time, developed respiratory complications after developing pneumonia and passed away several days later.

“Damn, I can’t imagine what it must have been like for their parents to lose two of their three sons, especially at nearly the same time,” I commiserated. “And it must have been just as bad for Daniel to lose both of his brothers.”

“Yes, that must have been awful.”

In fact, it was a horrific time for the family and Daniel never got over losing his siblings. It was also part of the reason why he was so strict and overprotective with his own children later in life, which gets us to our next discovery. Daniel married Betty Oldfield in July 1941, and after Pearly Harbor was bombed later the same year, he enlisted in the army in January 1942. Even though he loved his wife, he felt his parents and in-laws could protect her while he went off to defend the nation.

The family wasn’t informed where he was sent or if he was involved in the fighting, but later they learned he was stationed somewhere in the European Theater. He didn’t return home immediately after the war ended in 1945 and didn’t get discharged until 1946. When he returned home, he and Betty chose to live with his father because it would give Daniel time to readjust to civilian life and get back on his feet financially before they started looking for their own place.

Regrettably, Daniel’s mother had passed away from breast cancer in 1944 while he was serving overseas, so he never had an opportunity to say goodbye or attend her funeral. She was only 61-years-old when she died and he didn’t find out about her death until he returned home a couple of years later. This weighed heavily on him, because he’d been very close to his mother, but his spirit improved slightly when his daughter, Mary Beth, was born in April 1947.

Tragedy struck again when his father died in December 1949 from a massive heart attack. He was 68 when he passed, although Daniel still took his loss very hard as well. Even after learning that he had inherited the house, his mood didn’t improve, but he did get a boost when his son, Mark, arrived in August 1950. In fact, the birth of his son caused him to set aside his grief over losing his parents so he could focus all of his attention on his own family.

“I can understand why Daniel was upset about not being around when his mother died,” Brendan stated.

“Yes, and now he’s lost both of his parents. His mother might have died younger than most of her peers, but I believe his father lived to the normal life expectancy for that time.”

As was mentioned earlier, Daniel was a strict and demanding father. After being an NCO, a non-commissioned officer, in the army, he was used to giving orders and being obeyed. As a father, he wanted to know what his children were doing at all times and demanded that he approve of their friends before they started hanging around with them, even at school. This didn’t seem to be a problem while his children were younger, but as Mary Beth neared her teens she began to rebel against her father’s strict rules. The problem never reached a head, though, because another incident overshadowed their disagreement.

In the fall of 1960, Mark suddenly took ill. It started with a fever, headache, nausea, tiredness, and a loss of appetite, but his parents didn’t feel it was anything serious and didn’t panic. They merely treated his symptoms with aspirin, lots of fluids, cold compresses, and plenty of bed rest, but then other symptoms began to appear. He was becoming anxious and confused, suffered from muscle spasms, and eventually began having convulsions. When that happened, his parents finally called a doctor.

The problem wouldn’t have been this serious if Mark had confided in someone about what had happened to him earlier, but he was afraid his father would be upset and punish him. What happened was this: a couple of months earlier Mark was out feeding bread and nuts to the squirrels in their backyard when a cat unexpectedly leapt out of the bushes and pounced on one of the squirrels.

Mark tried to scare the cat off so it wouldn’t hurt the squirrel, but in the process of trying to push it away, the cat sank its teeth into Mark’s finger. The bite hurt like hell and upset him, so he attempted to hit the cat in order to drive it away. This was another mistake, because the cat chomped down on the side of his hand and now both areas were bleeding. Upset, he tried to kick the cat next, another error in judgment, because the cat scratched his leg. Frustrated and in pain, he gave up and went into the house.

Mark headed to the bathroom and merely washed off the injuries before covering the bite marks with Band-Aids. He also kept his right hand in his pocket most of the time so no one would notice the Band-Aids and ask about them. He also started wearing tube socks to cover the scratches on his leg, but his actions merely hid the problem and allowed the situation to worsen.

Now that the doctor was examining him, he spotted the bite marks on his hand and the scratches on his leg. After asking Mark how he got them, the doctor began to suspect that Mark had rabies!

The doctor had Mark taken to the hospital and started the only treatment that was available for rabies at the time. He used a very long needle to give Mark a shot directly into his stomach, which was extremely painful, and it was only the first of twenty-one shots that Mark would receive over the next twenty days.

Mark didn’t receive all twenty-one shots, however, because he passed away on the fifteenth day. His death was preventable if he’d received the treatments shortly after he was first bitten and scratched, if only he’d told someone about what had happened. This wasn’t any consolation to his family, however, since another tragedy had befallen the Barlow family.

“Damn, this family has as much bad luck as the Kennedys,” Brendan proclaimed.

“And another child is dead. They certainly have more than their share of heartaches.”

After Mark was laid to rest, Daniel attempted to keep even stricter control over Mary Beth, so he wouldn’t lose her as well. In fact, that’s why Carl Simek gave the letters to her at school, and then she would hide them in her school books until she got home and was able to place them in the metal tin for safe keeping. I knew this from reading the letters.

The family’s run of bad luck wasn’t over yet, because Mary Beth’s parents were killed in a car crash in 1974.

“It’s another case where the cause of death was other than natural,” I observed. “Her father was only 62 and her mother was just 61 when it happened, and Mary Beth was only 27 and now completely alone.”

After the funerals, Mary Beth was informed that she had inherited the house, and we were told by people who knew her that she left it exactly as it had been when she lived there with her parents. She never changed a thing and eventually died in the bedroom she had used her entire life in December 2019, at the age of 72.

“Hey, at least she lived longer than her parents and grandparents,” Brendan offered.

“And totally alone in the house for the last 45 years of her life.”

“We’ve talked to people who knew her, so I’m sure she had friends.”

“Yes, but that’s not the same as having a spouse or a family.”

“I know, but I think now we understand what we’re dealing with. The kids we heard giggling were probably James and Brian, and possibly Mark is with them as well. I suspect they are also the ones we heard whispering.”

“And the woman we heard crying might be either of the mothers wailing over their prematurely deceased sons or Mary Beth still lamenting over the death of her fiancé. The only question left is which of the adult males is responsible for the shadow we’ve seen?”

“Yes, it’s definitely a man, so it would have to be Ernest or Daniel.”

“Or it could be Carl returning to his beloved Mary Beth.”

“Yes, you might be right about that.”

Now that we had an idea about who our invisible guests were, we agreed not to do anything about them, since they didn’t seem to be a threat. In fact, it’s possible the boys didn’t even know what happened to them and were just being typical kids. I suspect the marbles most likely belonged to either Brian or James, maybe both, but the cars would have had to belong to Mark, since Matchbox didn’t produce those items until the 1950s.

Brendan and I cohabitated with the spirits for a few weeks and nothing serious happened. Oh, we still found the toys in different parts of the house and chairs would get pulled out from the dining room table after we’d pushed them in. Lights would also go on and off and cupboard doors were opening on their own, but no dishes were being broken and no items were being destroyed.

We would also see various objects unexplainably levitating for several seconds and on occasion we’d set something down and it wouldn’t be where we left it a few minutes later. We’d eventually be able to find those items again, so it was merely a nuisance. We wrote all of these occurrences off as the boys simply trying to have a little fun and being a bit mischievous at our expense, and although it could be irritating, we were willing to put up with those minor inconveniences.

We continued to hear the woman crying late at night as well, but we quickly learned how to mentally block out her pitiful wails so it didn’t keep us up. On occasion, we would even feel someone getting into bed with us, but whoever it was would either stay off to one side or lay at the foot of the bed and never attempted to come between us. We assumed it was one or more of the boys doing these things, possibly as their way of feeling close to us and seeking a little attention, or as an attempt to connect with us as a family.

We didn’t think it was the crying woman doing this, because she never seemed to leave the bedroom where we heard her crying. However, occasionally we would hear footsteps of someone moving about in the attic, and the footsteps were lighter, like those of a child or a female, rather than the heavier footsteps of a male. This made us believe it was most likely Mary Beth looking for the tin of her cherished letters that we’d found and then left where they’d been discovered. Putting these activities together, we felt Mary Beth was most likely the crying woman.

The biggest problem we had was worrying that the boys might be in the bedroom with us when we were making love, which made Brendan and me more than a little self-conscious. We didn’t want the boys watching while we were doing this, so we began announcing that we needed some privacy and they should stay out of the bedroom if the door was closed. We weren’t sure if this was working or not, but at least it made us feel a little better about the situation.

Unfortunately, there were other activities that began happening as we entered October, and although these incidents appeared harmless at first, they weren’t nearly as innocuous or innocent as before. At first, we merely started having dreams in which we were able to see what the boys, Mary Beth, and the other adults looked like.

Brendan and I assumed that somehow the spirits were invading our thoughts and sharing their lives with us, including what they looked like. We assumed they were doing this to make us feel more comfortable about their presence in the house, although the visions may have just been figments of our imagination. The images we may have been seeing might not have been how any of them actually appeared, although it made us feel as if we actually knew them.

After we’d gained this familiarity with them, it was very difficult for us to deal with the deaths of each of the boys, because it seemed as if we were there with them as they were dying. We also witnessed Mary Beth having multiple disagreements with her father, but then our dreams became darker and turned into nightmares.

The nightmares didn’t have anything to do with the families that had once lived here, though, and appeared to be solely for the purpose of scaring us into leaving. We started having visions where we would die in a house fire and others where we were attacked and killed by wild animals, such as mountain lions and black bears, while we were out walking around the property. We had other horrible nightmares where we were either trapped outside in the winter or lost power during a blizzard, but in either incident Brendan and I would end up freezing to death. No matter the theme of these nightly terrors, the results were the same – we always ended up dead.

Those weren’t the only disturbing things that were happening, though. One day a spoon fell into the open drain in the sink, and just as Brendan was about to reach down the opening to get it the garbage disposal came to life on its own. It totally mangled the spoon, but it would have done much worse to Brendan’s hand if it had happened a split-second later.

Another time, I was cutting vegetables on the counter while preparing dinner and I’d set the knife down so I could get the meat out of the refrigerator. I’d just bent over to retrieve the package from the drawer at the bottom of the fridge when the knife I’d been using flew over my head and slammed into a bottle of juice setting on the top shelf. It penetrated the plastic bottle and made a mess as the juice gushed out all over me, the fridge, and the floor, but it would’ve been a much bigger mess if I hadn’t been bent over at the time.

There were a couple of other incidents when something strange happened, such as when Brendan was cutting a board while making repairs in the house. As he was positioning the piece of wood to make the cut, the circular saw started on its own and nearly tore into his arm, which was very close to the blade at the time.

Another incident occurred when I was in the shower and the cold water suddenly shut off, nearly scalding me. I jumped out before any serious damage was done, although I was under the steaming water long enough that it caused more than a few blisters to appear on my body.

The worst incident that happened at the house was the day that Brendan and I had nearly the same experience, one right after the other. I was carrying a stack of laundry upstairs to put it away when I felt as if I was pushed. I fell backwards and tumbled down the flight of stairs, and it was lucky that I didn’t break my neck or get seriously injured. I believe the laundry helped to break my fall, since I dropped it behind me as I tried to maintain my balance, so other than some unsightly bruising, a few scrapes, and a sprained wrist, I managed to survive.

When Brendan heard the sound of me falling down the stairs, he raced out to investigate what had happened, and when he got to the top of the stairs, he said it felt as if something pushed him from behind. Fortunately, he was able to grab onto the handrail and avoided the same fate that I’d just endured. Once he regained his composure, he asked how badly I was injured, and when he discovered it wasn’t severe, he helped me up and we discussed what had happened.

“I don’t know if it was the kids who did this because they thought it was funny and didn’t realize how dangerous it was,” Brendan began, “but we have to let them know that they can’t do anything like this again.”

“I don’t think it was the kids. It has to be either Ernest or Daniel who’s doing these things,” I offered. “If it was Carl, he’d most likely only be worried about Mary Beth, and as long as we weren’t a threat to her, he probably wouldn’t care what we were doing. It has to be Ernest or Daniel, and whichever one is doing these things probably doesn’t approve of our sexual orientation. Most likely whoever is doing these things is afraid we’re setting a bad example for the boys and he just wants to get rid of us.”

“I agree, but does whoever is doing these things think he’s going to scare us off?”

“It’s possible, and since the nightmares didn’t do the trick, I imagine he was hoping the accidents would injure us seriously enough that we would decide to leave. I’m sure whoever is doing this feels that he would be better off dealing with new owners, or better yet if the house continued to remain empty.”

“Yes, I imagine you’re probably right about that, and now I’m even more convinced that the person handling the estate knew about the ghosts and that’s why he accepted our first offer.”

“Yes, you might be right about that as well. Do you think we need to get rid of the man, whoever he is?”

“Yes, let’s do some research to find out what we need to do to make that happen.”

Before that happened, however, the situation came to a head. It was Halloween when the next incident occurred, and this time it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Even though the other incidents had been bad, they most likely would have only maimed us, but this time we could have both been killed. That’s because the brakes on our car malfunctioned while we were on the way to work and Brendan was nearly unable to stop the vehicle when traffic began to slow down in front of us.

Thankfully, Brendan managed to keep his wits about him and didn’t panic as he zigzagged our car through the barely moving vehicles until he reached the edge of the highway. Once there, he took his foot off the gas, put the car in neutral, and used gravity and the parking brake to bring it to a stop. Needless to say, we were both badly shaken by that event, but eventually we calmed down enough to think about what we were going to do next.

The first thing we did was to make four quick phone calls. The first was to the ‘AAA’ (American Automobile Association) so we could ask them to pick up the car and take it to a garage to be repaired. The next two calls were to our bosses so we could explain why we were going to be late, and the final call was to get a ride to work.

Needless to say, we found it nearly impossible to put the incident out of our minds and continued to relive the incidents off and on for the rest of the day. When it was time to go home, we both arranged for a ride to the garage so we could pick up our vehicle and head home.

“You guys must have a really determined enemy,” the mechanic stated after we told him which car was ours.

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“It’s because someone cut through your brake lines and that’s why the brakes failed.”

“How do you know they’ve been cut?” Brendan followed. “Maybe they just wore out.”

“No, the brake lines are metal and they were clearly cut. It’s not an easy thing to do either, so someone would’ve had to use a hacksaw or similar tool to accomplish it.”

We quickly claimed that we had no idea who might have done this, since we didn’t want to tell him it might have been a pissed off ghost. He was right, though, we did have a really determined enemy. We were convinced that one of the ghosts at the house definitely wanted us gone, but instead of mentioning this, we merely thanked him, paid the bill, and started for home. Along the way, we discussed what had occurred that morning.

“The other things were bad enough, but those things were only meant to hurt or scare us,” I began, “but this was meant to kill us.”

“Yes, so we’re going to have to get rid of Daniel.”

“How do you know it’s him?”

“It’s because I don’t think Ernest would have known how to mess with our brakes. I’m certain the braking system on his car would have been quite different, but the cars Daniel drove would have been very similar to our car.”

“You’re probably right about that, so how are we going to get him to move on?”

“When we get home, we’ll do some research online, but we won’t discuss what we’re doing while we’re there. I don’t want Daniel to overhear what we’re planning.”

“Won’t he see what we’re up to?”

“I doubt he’ll be checking on what we’re doing on our laptops, since we often use them for work when we’re at home. However, he’ll definitely be listening to whatever we were talking about.”

“Ok, I won’t say a thing then.”

That evening we independently researched the topic of how to get rid of ghosts, but we planned on discussing our findings on the way in to work the next day. However, when we finished we gave each other a knowing glance, because we’d both come up with a viable solution to our problem.

“We’ll need to find a medium that can come to the house to do this,” Brendan stated as he was driving the car to work the following morning.

“I know, and even though we only want to get rid of Daniel, I’m afraid doing this will probably get rid of all of them, not just him.”

“It might be better for the rest of them to move on as well, because then they might be able to avoid spending eternity under Daniel’s thumb.”

Before we headed home that evening, we made several calls first, until we found a medium that would be able to help us. We wanted a strong male medium to help us, because Daniel would probably only listen to a male that was more dominant and demanding than himself. We didn’t want to take the chance that this would fail, because Daniel would probably become even more aggressive once he learned what we were trying to do.

The medium showed up on the weekend, and after greeting and chatting with him briefly, he started the process by slowing going from room to room. As he went, he spoke to the spirits.

“Daniel, you are dead and have been dead for a number of years. This is no longer your home and the house now belongs to these two gentlemen and they don’t want you here. It’s time for you to move on! You’re not welcomed here and we demand that you leave.”

Unfortunately, Daniel didn’t take this news kindly and suddenly things were being thrown at us as we move around the house. Brendan and I tried to deflect them before they hit any of us, but Daniel was definitely making a mess and letting his feelings be known.

This was only the first step, though, because after he finished doing this, the medium lit a bundle of sage, blew out the flame, and merely left it smoldering. He then started going from room to room again, and this time he used a feather to waft the smoke into the corners of every room while once again demanding that Daniel leave. Daniel continued to throw even more objects at us as we moved from room to room, although his actions began to slow considerably.

Once this phase of the cleansing had been completed, the medium left the house momentarily and went outside, so I followed him. He simply picked up a twig off the ground, held it up, and spoke.

“I ask permission of this humble twig that it will allow me to use it in a ritual to cleanse this house of spirits.”

We then went back inside and the medium took out a small jug and a package of salt that he’d brought with him in a small duffle bag. After he filled the jug with water, he added salt, and then used the twig to stir it. I walked behind him as he went from room to room again, and this time he blessed each room while using the twig to sprinkle the salt water into the four corners of every room, as well as across each doorway. There was hardly any response from Daniel this time, and as soon as he finished, the medium turned to me and spoke.

“I believe that should take care of your problem, but if not please contact me and I’ll return and do it again.”

We thanked him before he left and we never had to call him back, since all of the activity ended for good. We didn’t hear the boys giggling or whispering after this, the toys stopped appearing in different parts of the house, and our belongings no longer came up missing. We didn’t have any more nightmares either, and no other dangerous activities occurred. We never heard the woman crying after this either, nor did we see the shadow of the man in different parts of the house. It appeared that they had all moved on.

I’ve often thought about the various spirits afterward and wondered if we’d done the right thing. I knew we had to get rid of Daniel, but I felt we could have coexisted with the others, so I just hope they’re all in a better place and that they’re happy.

Every time there’s a problem in the house or something unusual occurs, it makes me stop and think. Did we really get rid of all of the spirits or had one or more of them somehow avoided the cleansing? If someone had, it probably would have been Daniel, but I guess we’ll never really know for sure. That is unless something really bad happens.

THE END.