The House Sitter - 1. Chapter 1: The House Sitter

I happened to see an online add from someone who needed a house sitter in the local area, and it was just for one week. It sounded like an easy job and I could use the money, so I called the phone number listed.

“Hello.”

“Hi, my name is Cade Bennett and I’m calling about your online ad for a house sitter. Would you please tell me the address of the house, on what dates you need someone, and how much it pays?”

“Certainly, but first I’ll require a little more information about you. Since the ad mentioned the general area where I live, I’ll need to know where you live and if you have a car.”

“I’m a junior at State College and I don’t have a car, but if your house is on or near a bus line, then I can always take a bus to get there.”

“That sounds acceptable and the house is definitely not far from a bus line. It’s located at 88 Central Avenue, and the ad stated that I’ll need a house sitter for a week, which will be from October 26^th until November 2^nd. I’m going away on a business trip, and since the house is so close to downtown, I’m worried it might become a target for a break-in or a place for teenagers to throw a party. For that reason, I’ll need you to stay at the house every night that week, but you’ll still be able to attend your classes during the day, so I hope this will fit into your schedule.”

He also told me what he was willing to pay, and it was more than I expected, so I quickly accepted.

“Yes, that will work out fine and I’m definitely interested.”

“I may also need you to drive me to the airport on the first day, which is a Sunday, so do you have a valid driver’s license and is it from this state?”

“Yes, I have a valid local driver’s license and I’ve had it for five years.”

“Excellent. Then if you’ll tell me which dorm you live in, I’ll drop by and pick you up one night next week so I can show you around the house. Which night would be best for you?”

“Wednesday would be good.”

“That will work for me as well, so what if I pick you up at 6:30. Will that work for you?”

“Yes, that will be fine.”

It meant I had nearly a week before he was going to pick me up and I could hardly wait to see what the house looked like. He sounded as if he had some money, since he’s going away for a week on a business trip, so I expected the house would be nice. Central Avenue has a lot of older homes from the late 1800s to the 1930s and they’re generally the former homes where the wealthier families from this area had once lived.

When he picked me up on Wednesday, he was driving a metallic blue BMW 540i, so obviously I was correct and he does have some money. When I opened the door to get in the passenger’s seat, he asked if I was Cade, and when I told him I was, he said I could call him Bart. He appeared to be in his mid to late 30s and had jet black hair, a neatly trimmed full beard, and was attired in an expensive looking suit. He was also quite handsome.

“Are you married?” I asked.

“Divorced, it just didn’t work out,” he said as he started driving.

When we arrived at the house, it appeared to be a well maintained, rather large, two story brick Federalist house. I don’t know why, but I was relieved that it wasn’t either a spooky looking Victorian or Queen Anne house, because those are the types of houses that are usually depicted in horror films.

“This looks like a pretty big house for a single guy.”

“I know, but I inherited it. My great-grandfather purchased it from the estate of a judge during the roaring1920’s, and the judge had built it here because it was within walking distance of the Court House. It’s been passed down to the first born in each generation of my family ever since.”

We then got out of the car and I followed Bart into the foyer of the house, which was as well maintained on the interior as it appeared on the exterior. There was also an elegant staircase located directly across from the main entrance that led up to the second floor.

“It looks like a really nice place and I can’t wait to see the rest of it.”

He showed me around the downstairs first, and when he took me into the den I spotted some unusual objects on the mantle of the fireplace.

“What are these” I asked.

“I’ll tell you what they are and there’s quite a story behind each one. That wooden object is an old fashion billy club, or nightstick, that a policeman might have used back in the early 1900s.”

Personally, I thought it looked like a shorter and thicker version of a baseball bat that was made out of a dark colored wood.

“Why did they call it a billy club,” I asked, since my curiosity got the best of me.

“It started in London. The British had a slang term for a policeman and called him a Bobby, the more familiar name for Robert Peel, the man who organized the first police service in London. It wasn’t long after that when the Bobbies started referring to criminals as Billy, and the billy club was used to control the criminals.”

“I would never have guessed that.”

“And this metal object is a set of brass knuckles that a police officer or a criminal might have used. They would have placed the fingers of one hand through the holes and the raised metal features would have served as artificial knuckles. They would have come in handy if you wanted to gain an advantage in a fistfight.”

“Yes, I can see how those things might have helped if you got into a fight.”

“And this set of brass knuckles was used by a bartender who worked in one of my family’s businesses to keep the rowdy customers under control.”

“I can see how that might have worked on one, or maybe even two of the customers that got rowdy, but what would the bartender do if it was more people that started getting out of control?”

“He also had a sawed-off double-barrel shot gun and a pistol behind the bar to use if that happened, or if the customer was armed, and I have those items locked up in the cabinet in the corner.”

“Ok, so what’s this thing?”

“That’s a vintage flask for liquor that a person would use if he wanted to take the liquor with him. It would fit easily into a back pocket or a jacket pocket so it wouldn’t be noticeable.”

“And why do you have all of these things and why are they in here?”

“That’s the lengthy part of the story,” Bart replied.

“Like I said, I’ve got the time if you do.”

“Ok, it might be a good idea if you knew about this and the story begins with my great-great-grandfather. He was a lawyer who happened to handle the legal affairs for a couple of ‘Robber Barons’ during the Gilded Age, which was the period between 1870 and 1900. He learned a lot from the men he worked for and you might say that besides being a lawyer, he became a land speculator before there was such a thing.”

“Why? What did he do?”

“He would use his savings or take out loans to buy up properties that he calculated would end up paying for itself. Other times he might have received information that a particular property was about to become considerably more valuable in the very near future.”

“And where would he get that information.”

“He had many contacts, especially criminals that would give him the information in exchange for legal services. For example, one of the criminals gave him information that he acquired while on a job that led my great-great-grandfather to buy hundreds of acres of seemingly worthless land. He purchased it because the criminal told him he’d seen plans that the railroad was interested in running a line through that area, and my great-great-grandfather was able to get the land very cheaply. Later, when the railroad wanted to buy the land from him, he knew he had the upper hand in the deal, since it was the most desirable route. After lengthy negotiations, and even a few threats on his life, he ended up selling the property for nearly fifty times what he’d paid for it.”

“Yeah, they probably would have gotten it cheaper if they killed him and dealt with his widow.”

“Being a lawyer, my great-great-grandfather made sure that couldn’t happen. He’d filed an irrevocable will that designated the land to be preserved as a nature habitat if he died, and once he explained that to the railroad owners, they finally made a deal with him.”

“Wow, that’s great, and it was sneaky too!”

“Yes, he didn’t always operate above board, and he had other ways of making money as well. When people died he would buy items from their estate for less than they were worth and then later he’d sell them to someone else for more.”

“Wouldn’t other people want to do that too?”

“Yes, but he had ways of learning about these things before anyone else did. Sometimes it would be through his job as an attorney or because of his many contacts, and not all of them were upstanding citizens.”

“So what does he have to do with these items?”

“I was just getting to that. During the Panic of 1907, the stock market fell rapidly and many businesses went into bankruptcy. During that time, my great-great-grandfather bought a lot of properties, and a couple of them were on Main Street. They were properties that had gone bankrupt, and after he purchased them, he gave them to his two grown children, who were both over 21 at the time. That’s how my great-grandfather ended up with a building that had once housed a textile company that went bankrupt, and he immediately gutted the building of all the machinery. Since those items had all seen better days, he sold some of the machinery to other people operating textile businesses, or those he couldn’t sell that way, he sold for scrap. He wasn’t interested in running a textile business, but he felt he could use the money to turn the building into something else.”

“Then what did he do with the building?”

“He talked to his wife about this and she said she would like to use part of the building to open a restaurant. She suggested they could also make a nice apartment above the restaurant where they would live. My great-grandfather liked the idea and said he could put a store on the other side of the building and then he’d make smaller apartments above the store that he would rent out to others. That would give them an additional income from the rent and they could use the money to start a family.”

“Wouldn’t it cost money to do those things?”

“Yes, that’s true, but he talked his father into financing his plan to get it started, and then he would pay him back later, once they started to make money. Once his father agreed, he had walls built on both floors of the building that sectioned off a third of each floor. His wife used the first floor of the smaller side for her restaurant and the second floor was fixed up to become an apartment for them. On the second floor of the other side of the building he added more walls to make additional, but smaller apartments to rent to others. Then on the lower level he opened what today might be called a department store in which he sold everything from clothing to household goods and furniture.”

“Did they make lots of money?”

“Yes, they did. The restaurant was a huge success and the owners and managers of the various businesses on Main Street would go there every day for lunch. They would often bring their wives and families there at night or on the weekends to eat again. The heavy traffic going in and out of the restaurant also caused the same people to check out his store and he began selling a lot of products there as well.”

“That’s great, but what does it have to do with these things.”

“I’m getting to that. Since he was doing so well, he was able to purchase this house from the estate of the judge, who died in 1920. He and his wife then moved from the apartment above restaurant and into this house, where they lived until they died. However, in 1920 the 18^th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified by the states, and it ushered in the era of prohibition.”

“What did that do?”

“It was the time when businesses where prohibited from selling or producing alcohol or alcoholic products to the public that could be used for consumption. My great-grandfather realized this presented him with another business opportunity and he turned their old apartment above the restaurant into a speakeasy, and he became a bootlegger as well.”

“I know a bootlegger was a person who illegally made whiskey, but what’s a speakeasy?”

“A bootlegger was a little more than that. It was anyone who illegally made, imported, or sold any type of alcoholic products during that time. My great-grandfather didn’t make any alcoholic products, but he was able to make contacts with those who did and he’d purchase those things for use in his speakeasy. Not only that, but since he imported a few items from Canada that he sold in his store, he was also able to smuggle more liquor to sell by hiding the bottles under the false bottoms of the shipping crates.”

“Then a speakeasy must have been a bar?”

“Basically, and he had the walls of the rooms in their old apartment removed and he turned the entire place into a speakeasy. People would eat at the restaurant first and then go up to the speakeasy using the back stairway. If they decided not to eat at his wife’s restaurant first, they could merely use the rear door to the building and then go up the back stairway.”

“Ah, so they didn’t go through the front door of the building to get there.”

“No because the speakeasy was illegal. My great-grandfather had a rather long bar built against the wall separating the two sides of the building, and he hired a small trio to play jazz music that his patrons could dance to. There were also small tables where they could sit and chat with each other as they drank, and since selling alcohol was illegal, only people he knew were invited to go there. They were given a password to use when they arrived, and there was a small door at eyelevel in the larger door that could be opened so they could give the password to the person on the other side. Absolutely no one was allowed to enter the speakeasy if they didn’t have the password, and people would ‘speak easy’, or whisper, to avoid being overheard by others.”

“Wasn’t he afraid he’d get caught?”

“No, because prohibition was a Federal law that many people didn’t agree with, since they enjoyed having a drink every now and then. The mayor, the police chief, and their wives were frequent visitors to the speakeasy, along with many other members of city government and the police force. Seeing the locals weren’t going to enforce the law, my great-grandfather didn’t have to worry about getting caught, unless it was by a federal law enforcement agency.”

“So, where do these objects come in?”

“Ah, yes. The police chief gave the billy club and brass knuckles to the bartender at the speakeasy in case he had to deal with a rowdy customer or two. That’s because people often lose self-control and become violent when drinking alcohol, and he also had the shotgun and pistol if things really started getting out of hand. The flask was left behind by someone who’d either dropped it or decided he no longer needed it, so he kept that as well.”

“So, he brought those things here when the speakeasy closed.”

“No, he brought them here later. My great-grandfather ran the speakeasy until prohibition ended in 1933, and then he converted the speakeasy into an upscale bar. It remained open until he closed it when the US entered World War II, because the young men were off fighting and rationing had started for everyone else. It’s also when he brought those items here as a keepsake.”

“Did the bartender ever have to use them?”

“Yes, on multiple occasions, and he even left some dried blood on each one to show it had been used.”

“I see, but isn’t that kind of gruesome?”

“Yes, but those were very rough and rugged times.”

Now that he had showed me all of the downstairs, he led me upstairs so I could see the bedrooms. He took me to his bedroom first, which was extremely large and had its own bathroom, and then he showed me a slightly smaller bedroom that was located next to it.

“You may use this bedroom while you’re staying here. You’ll find it quite comfortable and you may use the bathroom that is located off the hallway. It’s been updated and has a modern Jacuzzi bathtub and a separate shower stall, so you may use either one or both, during your stay here.”

“Thank you, that’s very generous of you.”

“This has taken longer than I anticipated, and I haven’t eaten yet. Have you?”

“No, I was planning on doing that when I got back.”

“Then why don’t you join me and we’ll go to a restaurant and grab something to eat. It’s my treat.”

“Thank you, I’d enjoy that.”

While we were eating, he advised me about the time he’d pick me up on Sunday and then we’d go directly to the airport so he could catch his flight. He also informed me that I could use his car while I was staying there, and then he advised me to go to the campus security office to get a temporary parking sticker. He said I should speak directly with the Director of Campus Security and use his name, since they are friends, and the Director would set me up so I could park in the lot closest to where my classes were being held.

He also told me he’d buy plenty of candy and leave it for me to give out to the trick-or-treaters, because there would probably be a lot of them. He said that since his house was so close to Main Street and that was where the annual Halloween parade was held, many of the children stopped by on their way back home after it ended. I told him that was fine and I looked forward to seeing the children in their costumes.

We had a very nice meal together and then he dropped me off at my dorm after we finished eating. As I got out of the car, I thanked him for dinner again before he headed home.

The time between then and Sunday went by quickly and Bart showed up at the exact time that he told me he’d pick me up the last time we were together. I placed the duffle bag I’d packed the night before in the back seat, along with my backpack, and I then I got in the front passenger seat next to Bart. He drove directly to the airport, and when we arrived he got out and grabbed his suitcase, but then he paused briefly so he could tell me what time I was to return the following Sunday to pick him up. I agreed I’d be here in plenty of time, and then he headed into the terminal to catch his flight.

I drove directly to his house and used the key Bart had given me to unlock the door, and then I took my things inside and got settled in. Bart had not only given me the key so I could get in, but I could also use it to lock up whenever I left for any reason. There was nearly everything I could want in the house, including Wi-Fi and cable TV, and the bed was very comfortable as well. In fact, I slept like a baby that first night and felt that I would enjoy my stay here.

The next morning I got up earlier than usual so I could drive over to the campus security building to arrange for a parking sticker. When I went inside, I asked to speak with the Director, and after a short wait I was led in to see him.

“May I help you with something?” he asked.

“Yes, Bart Haskell told me to see you about getting a parking sticker for his car. I’m house sitting for him this week and he’s letting me use his car to get back and forth. He said you’d help me get a parking sticker for the lot closest to where I have my classes.”

“Bart’s a good friend of mine and I’m happy to help him out with this situation. In which building do you have most of your classes?” I told him. “Ok, then I’ll have the officer in the reception area fix you up with the parking sticker you’ll need.”

I thanked him and he walked out with me and spoke to the officer, telling him exactly what I needed. Once he gave the parking sticker to me, I thanked him and went out to place it on the window where he told me it should go. Then, I drove over to that lot, parked the car and locked it before I headed to my first class.

I stayed on campus throughout the day and ate both lunch and dinner at the dining hall, and then I drove back to the house. Bart told me to always park the car in the garage instead of leaving it on the street, and that way no problems would be caused by a reckless driver or vandals.

I worked on the things I needed to do for school first, and then I went to see what was on TV. I didn’t usually watch TV and didn’t have any favorite shows, so I merely checked the cable guide to see what looked interesting. If I’d been back at the dorm, I probably would have gone to spend time with some of my friends, but this would be ok too, since it was only for a week.

Every now and then I’d hear a strange noise in the house, but I just chalked it up to the fact that all older houses make their own unique sounds. My dad had once told me it was due to the house settling or because the older fixtures and pipes often made noises, so I thought nothing more about it, since nothing else occurred. Oh, I thought I’d seen some things every now and then, but I didn’t think too much about it. Since there were so many rooms and I only turned the lights on in the room I was in at the time, I thought the lights I was using were merely creating shadows in the other rooms. Therefore, it was nothing to worry about.

That’s the way things went until Halloween. After eating dinner at the dining hall, I hurried over to the parking lot to get the car and then drove to the house. I wanted to be there before any Halloweeners showed up for their treats.

After I put the car in the garage, I went inside and placed the candy on a stand near the front door so it would be readily available. Then, I worked on my school assignments as I waited for the kids to ring the doorbell. The first time the doorbell rang, I opened it and handed out candy to the children that were there, but after I closed the door and turned around, I saw a man standing behind me. He was quite old, but he looked very dignified, and he was dressed in old fashioned clothes. He was definitely too old to be a trick-or-treater.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” he demanded. “I’m Arthur C. Haskell Esquire and this house belongs to my son.”

Adding esquire to his name told me he was a lawyer, and due to his attire and haughty attitude, I assumed he was Bart’s great-great-grandfather.

“I’ve been hired to deal with the trick-or-treaters tonight, since Mr. Haskell left town on a business trip.”

“That’s odd. He didn’t tell me he was going anywhere,” he replied, but then I heard another voice coming from the other side of the room.

“You crooked shyster. You swindled my family out of a fortune,” the man yelled as he ran across the foyer.

He wasn’t dressed nearly as well as Mr. Arthur C. Haskell Esq. and he was carrying a knife. I froze when I saw the man attack Mr. Haskell and begin to stab him, although I was able to turn my head to see if there had been anyone behind the man. I was hoping that possibly there was someone who could stop him, but no one was there, and when I glanced back at where the attack had been taking place, both men were gone. They’d merely vanished into thin air.

‘Had I just interacted with a ghost and had he just been murdered?’ I mused, because I couldn’t come up with any other explanation for what had just happened. However, it might explain at least some of the shadows I thought I’d seen earlier.

After I got over that encounter, I went back to answering the door, and Bart had been correct. A great many Trick-or-Treaters showed up that night and I was glad he’d left enough candy for me to hand out.

I got a big kick out of some of the costumes the kids were wearing and there was quite an assortment. There were the typical witches, Super Heroes, and Harry Potter and fairy tale characters, as well as various animals from lions to an assortment of dinosaurs. The older children even had some homemade costumes and a group of four girls came as different colored M&Ms, in red, blue, green, and yellow. Another came as a very interesting, yet frightening, scarecrow, and there were multiple characters from the Walking Dead universe, as well as an assortment of zombies.

“What was the horrible looking creature I just saw standing in the doorway?” a woman’s voice asked from behind me, causing me to turn around quickly. When I did, I saw a rather plump, elderly woman dressed in pre-World War II era clothing.

“Uh, that was just one of the Halloweeners out trick-or-treating,” I answered.

“Some children have very vivid imaginations,” she observed, and then she continued. “And who are you? I’m Mrs. Daniel Haskell, the lady of the house, and I don’t recall ever seeing you around here before.”

“You’re husband hired me to deal with the trick-or-treaters so you or he wouldn’t be bothered by them.”

“Yes, he’s always been thoughtful like that,” she said, “so I’ll go out and continue working on dinner.” She then turned around and walked toward the kitchen, rather than into the den.

‘It seems as if this house has more than a few ghosts,’ I thought after dealing with those three specters.

I continued dealing with the trick-or-treaters, but I forgot to ask if any of them had won prizes for their costumes at the Halloween parade. I still found each of them interesting, no matter if they had or hadn’t won a prize.

However, in between the trick-or-treaters I would hear other sounds, such as people chatting, laughing, or even arguing, but I didn’t want to believe there were even more spirits in the house. Therefore, I assumed they were merely people out walking along the street or possibly even the parents accompanying the trick-or-treaters who’d come to the door. I refused to give any more thought that it might be other spirits and merely continued to hand out candy.

The ringing of the doorbell started to die down around 9:00, but I left the lights on and took care of the stragglers until 10:00, since it was a Friday night. As I started to turn off the lights and went to put the extra candy away, a man with a bleeding forehead emerged from the den and he was carrying the billy club. When he looked up and saw me, he became enraged and rushed at me like a charging bull.

I wondered how he’d gotten into the house in the first place, but I could read the hatred in his eyes as he charged at me. I had no idea what to do or why he appeared to be upset with me, so I momentarily froze, but as the man drew closer, I realized I had to do something so I dove to my right. Just as I did, I heard the blast of a gun, and when I looked up saw the man who’d been charging at me fall to the floor, in mid-stride. When I looked behind him, I saw another man holding a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun and both barrels had smoke coming out of them. It was like being caught in the middle of a three-ring circus.

‘Where the hell did he come from?’ I wondered, and then I glanced toward the body of the man who’d been charging me, but he was no longer there. I wondered if he’d managed to crawl away, but I didn’t see any blood on the floor, so as far as I could tell, he had merely disappeared, although the billy club was still lying next to where the body had been.

When I looked back at the guy with the shotgun, I watched as his body evaporated into the air, and the shotgun fell to the floor with a clunk. What the hell is going on here?

I was barely getting over what I’d just seen and starting to calm down when I heard a woman laugh. When I looked in that direction, I saw a rather attractive lady push a totally different man away and then she started walking away from him. He hurried after her and grabbed her by the arm, and then she wheeled around and slapped him across the face, and then she turned in the other direction and began to walk away again. I took it that the man had made a pass at her and she’d forcefully rebuffed his advances, but he wasn’t about to let it end there.

That’s when the guy chased after her again, spun her around, and punched her in the face, and after she fell to the floor, he began beating her with his fists. It looked as if he was going to beat her to death, but then another man rushed out and started hitting the first man with his fists and he was wearing the brass knuckles. It didn’t take long before the first man was beaten bloody, and when he finally fell to the floor, the woman slowly got up and staggered away, still dazed from her beating, and she entered the den. I was stunned when most of the images slowly began to disappear, except for the man still lying on the floor after being beaten by the man with the brass knuckles.

Where these events merely harmless images of events that had happened in the past? No, that wasn’t possible. The billy club and the sawed-off shotgun were still lying on the floor, and they were very real, and if the first guy had hit me with the billy club I definitely would have been harmed.

I’d just finished considering this when the woman that the guy had been beating with his fists emerged from the den holding a pistol. Her hand was shaking violently, and I wasn’t certain if it was due to the injuries she’d sustained or if she had never held or fired a gun before. During that time she must have pulled the trigger, but instead of hitting the guy who’d been beating her, the bullet struck a ceramic lamp that was setting on a table near me and caused it to shatter.

As the ceramic shards flew in every direction, I realized she hadn’t fired an imaginary bullet and I might have been killed if it had struck me instead. What was going on here? Was I having a waking nightmare, or had I gone to bed and this was all just a really bad dream? No, it couldn’t be either of those things, because I was still clinging to the bag with the extra candy in it and that was definitely very real.

When I started looking around again, I saw a man staggering out of the den, apparently inebriated, and he had the vintage flask in his hand. When he saw me, he walked over and reached out his hand with the flask in it, as if he was offering me a drink. I was stunned at first, but then I thought this would be a good way to see if I was only dreaming. I took ahold of the flask and lifted it to my mouth to take a drink, and then I started coughing and choking. It was real liquor and it felt like I’d just swallowed a double shot of Jack Daniels.

I went to hand the flask back to the man, but now he was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t have been a figment of my imagination, since I was still holding the flask he’d given me, and my mouth still had the burning sensation from drinking the liquor.

I don’t know how long I sat there, but when I looked at my phone I noticed it was after midnight and all of the figures I’d seen earlier had totally disappeared. No one was going in and out of the den, and no one was ever going to believe me it if I tried to explain what had happened tonight.

I figured things were going to stay quiet now, seeing it was no longer Halloween, so I reached into the bag and pulled out a candy bar to eat. I’d suffered through a bunch Halloween tricks and now I needed a treat.

As soon as I finished eating the candy bar, I turned off the remaining lights downstairs, and headed up the staircase to my room. I went to the bathroom first so I could brush my teeth and use the toilet, and then I went to the bedroom I was staying in and crawled into bed.

It took a while before I fell asleep, because visions of the scenes that had played out earlier kept flashing through my mind. It was without a doubt the spookiest and scariest Halloween I’ve ever experienced, and I’m not sure how I’ll explain it to Bart. That’s what I was still thinking about as I finally drifted off to sleep.

When I went downstairs in the morning, the billy club, brass knuckles, flask, shotgun, and pistol were all still lying on the floor. And then I saw the lamp, and that was the final piece of the puzzle to let me know that at least some of the things from last night had definitely been real.

I picked up the billy club, brass knuckles, and flask and placed them back on the mantle, and then I collected the shotgun and pistol and carried them over to the cabinet in the corner. I assumed the cabinet had been locked when Bart told me these items were stored there, in fact he said they were locked inside, but apparently that wasn’t the case. When I went to open the door, it swung wide without any effort, so I placed the items inside and shut it again.

I then went out to get a broom and dustpan so I could clean up the mess from the lamp, but I wanted to save everything so I could show it to Bart. I felt it was the only way he’d believe me. After looking around for a while, I found a box I could dump those items in. As I was picking up what was left of the lamp so I could put it in the box with the rest of the items, I noticed a bullet hole in the wall behind where the lamp had been setting. Maybe that will convince Bart that I’m telling him the truth.

I spent the rest of the day on campus because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be in the house until I went back there after having dinner. I would have stayed out later, but that was one of the requirements of the job that I stayed there every night. I was still more than a little spooked from everything that had happened the previous night, and even though I didn’t expect it to occur again, there was something in my brain that told me to stay away as long as possible.

When I went to the house later, nothing was amiss and the house was very quiet. I decided to have a little more of the candy that was left over from last night while I went to see what was on TV. I found a college football game to watch and pass the time, and I was thrilled that nothing unusual happened before I went to bed.

When I woke up the following morning, I went to have breakfast at the dining hall, and then I returned to the house to do some studying. I drove to the dining hall again for lunch, and when I returned to the house I packed up all of my things so I’d be ready to return to the dorm after I picked up Bart.

I left the house in plenty of time to get to the airport before he arrived, and after I parked the car in the parking garage, I walked over to the terminal and waited for Bart to arrive. I had to do that because no one was allowed to park or wait in front of the terminal for very long or they’d be ticketed or towed away, but it wasn’t a problem for me. I waved when I saw Bart, so he would spot me, and then we chatted as we made our way to the parking garage.

“Did you have any problems?” he asked.

“Yeah, you might say that, and I’ve got a few things to tell you,” I replied, and then I went on to explain about my experiences on Halloween night.

“I’m sooo sorry you had to go through that.”

“Does this mean you knew some of that stuff might happen?”

“I’ll admit that I’ve had similar experiences, but I didn’t think anything of that nature would happen if there wasn’t anyone with blood links to my family in the house at the time. I’ve always assumed the spirits were attached to the artifacts, as well as my family, and it’s what has kept them there.”

“Yeah, and one of those artifacts was almost used to smash my skull in while another almost put a hole in me. Just out of curiosity, did you keep the cabinet locked where you stored the shotgun and pistol?”

“Yes, it’s always locked and I have the only key.”

“Well, somehow the spirits were able to unlock it and take those items out.”

“I apologize for what you experienced and I’ll double your salary to make up for what you went through.”

“Thanks, and I got to meet your great-great-grandfather and your great-grandmother, and I think I also got to see some of the stuff that went on in the speakeasy.”

“Yes, I suppose you did, so I’ll also take you out to dinner.”

“Ok,” I agreed, because that also sounded good to me.

“And I promised that I’ll have a priest come by and bless the entire house, and the objects in the den in particular.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.”

He took me to a really nice restaurant to have dinner with him before he dropped me off at my dorm.

“Thank you for house sitting for me, and I hope to see you again.”

“Yeah, ok, but let’s wait until after you get the house blessed.”

I’ve stayed friends with Bart and he contacts me whenever he is going to be out of town for a while so I can watch the house for him. Nothing else has happened during those times, but I’m hoping he doesn’t have to go out of town next Halloween, because I don’t want to be the human guinea pig to see if the blessings actually worked.

THE END.