“I know it’s not that dangerous but here lately it seems that if something bad COULD happen, it does happen to us.”
We didn’t put Sam back in his own bed after that. We kept him with us, in the middle. We were still grieving, of course, and just felt better having him nearby. I slept with either his arms around me or his bony knees poking me in my back. It felt safer having him nearby and I slept more soundly knowing he wasn’t down the hall, alone.
One night, though, he woke me up.
“Mommy?” he asked. “Who’s that bad man over there? I don’t like him standing over there by the window.”
It took me a moment to gain my bearings but when I opened my eyes I could see that he was pointing to the corner of the room, next to the doors that led out to the balcony. I couldn’t see anything there, not even a shadow. It was very dark.
“What man, baby?” I asked him, peering into the room.
“That man,” he insisted. “That bad guy. He’s looking at me.”
I looked at Sam. His eyes were wide open and he didn’t appear to be asleep. Sam wasn’t one for sleep walking or talking in his sleep. And besides, his voice was casual and conversation-like. He didn’t even sound that afraid, just curious.
“I don’t see anyone. What does he look like?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged.
“Is he tall or short? Does he have blond hair or black hair?”
“Well,” Sam said thoughtfully, “he looks a little bit like me.”
I’m not sure why, but that sent chills down my spine. What the hell was he seeing?
Leaning over Sam, I shook Pete awake. “Pete, wake up,” I hissed. “Sam is sure he sees someone in the room.”
“Wha–“ Pete mumbled sleepily.
“I can’t see anyone but Sam says he’s there,” I said.
“He’s still there,” Sam agreed.
Once Pete got awake, Sam repeated to him what he’d said to me. Pete got up, turned the light on, and looked around. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary in the room. I assured Sam that it must have been either a bad dream or a shadow and that nothing could hurt him in the house. We all went back to sleep, although not easily.
The next morning, I asked Sam to show me again where the man had been. I was sure he wouldn’t remember the episode. He took me the same spot, however, and was certain he hadn’t been dreaming it.
The Ending
With everything else that had gone on, we were still looking forward to the arrival of our new daughter and she would be with us in two months, just as long as she lasted through everything that was going on in the pregnancy. In my borrowed wheelchair I was going to do a bit of nursery shopping one afternoon (I hadn’t done anything during that pregnancy, maybe partly in fear of what happened in the last one) but as we started out of the house we found we couldn’t leave.
All the doors were blocked by thousands of wasps. They’d come overnight. Never in my life had I seen so many wasps. They swarmed each entrance and exit to the house: all the doors and windows, including the balconies, were impassable. There was no way to get out. At one point, to look outside was to see blackness. Not only were they a terrifying sight, the sound of them throwing their winged bodies against the glass panes was unsettling. In my office it was particularly loud and I had to turn the music on to drown them out. It sounded like they were trying to tear down the doors and windows.
Some had even found their way inside to Sam’s room and were crawling on his bed. We spent an afternoon just running through the house, killing wasps as they dive-bombed us and Sam cowered on the couch, pointing them out to us like a lieutenant.
We called George and asked him to come over, but his little cans of wasp spray were of little use. Besides, he couldn’t find any nests. He and Pete just ended up spraying at them aimlessly, which did little good. We were stuck.
For almost a week we stayed inside the house, only able to venture out after dark when they went to sleep.
And then, one day, they were gone. Just as quickly as they showed up, they disappeared.
Pete and I finally ordered the nursery furniture for the bedroom, we couldn’t use James’, and I started shopping online for bedding. We talked about what color we would paint her room.
I hadn’t packed up any of James’ clothes or toys yet. I knew I had to, but it was hard. Some days I couldn’t even bring myself to go in there. We kept the door closed most of the time. Little by little, though, I was getting used to the idea of putting his things away and trying to store them. We talked about moving his nursery decorations into our office so that we could still leave them out as a way for James to continue to have a “room” in our house. I liked that idea.
And then, just one month before my due date, and a day after being released from the hospital for the umpteenth time, we received a phone call: The owner of the house was returning; we had to move out.
Moving was a bittersweet time for us. On the one hand, I felt deep inside me that there was something terribly wrong within the house. A primal urge wanted us GONE. Yet…I felt connected to it.
For me, my James was still within those walls somewhere. He wasn’t in a Heaven or buried in the ground. He was more than just in my heart. He was still there. The thought of leaving him terrified me. Nobody could tell me I carried him within my heart. Occasionally, I still heard his little cries within those rooms. Sometimes, when I couldn’t sleep, I slept in a sleeping bag in his nursery. I hadn’t even completely packed up his room yet. Now, I was forced to do it with speed. I locked myself in there, night after night, boxing up clothing and crying over little hats and blankets and outfits–some he’d never been able to use. He still had a clothes hamper full of dirty clothes. I hadn’t been able to wash them. They were still covered in spit up and milk. I couldn’t wash them now. Instead, I placed them in Ziploc bags and buried them in a trunk, along with the other clothes he’d worn in his brief life.
I felt cheated, disillusioned. So much had been taken from us within those walls. We’d lost so much. Not only had we lost our son, we’d lost our innocence. Never again would we be able to believe that things always worked out for the best, that things always happened for a reason, or that everything eventually works out in the end. We were shattered. We’d lost our child, friends, and sometimes it felt like our minds. And now the house was just spitting us out as though finished with us. It didn’t need us anymore. It had taken everything it possibly could.
Many people might think we would be glad to get away, glad to go someplace where we’d have better luck and could start anew. We weren’t yet thinking of our time there in this manner, however. It was our home. It had become my cocoon. I was as wrapped up in it as though I was a spider caught in a sticky, messy web high up in a tree. I’d spent almost a year and a half of illness there.
Most of our friends were gone. It was difficult for me to remember what it was like to get out, socialize, and enjoy time away from the house. It had been so long since I had done that. I hated being shut up in it, but I was almost dependent upon it as well. Leaving that mountaintop was frightening. I almost felt as though I no longer knew the world; I felt as though I had been living within a vortex.
So what happened when we moved? It’s at this point in the story when things could go one of two ways: They could either get better or not change.
In many ways, they got better.
The rest of the pregnancy, for instance, was fine. We found another house and while the complications continued, they didn’t worsen. Lily (not her real name) was born on time and healthy. On the other hand, within the first two weeks of her life she suffered terrible seizures and had to be hospitalized. Her newborn screening came back with a problem: she tested for a rare genetic disorder that no other child in the state had; if not treated properly it would cause mental retardation and eventually death. At the age of three, though, you’d never know it and she’s healthy as a horse.
Yet, once we moved out of the house, Sam�
�s sleep apnea improved.
Nobody else close to us has died.
We did discover, however, that many of the headaches and other issues I had there in the house were the result of a medical problem and I ended up needing brain surgery a year later.
That came out of the blue.
Even moving presented its own set of unique problems. When I arrived at the business to pick up our U-Haul we’d ordered for the next several days, I discovered it had been given away. Our movers never showed up and we frantically had to rush about and locate people who would move our belongings for us. We ended up finding total strangers who lived nearby to do it.
Oh, and while a friend was helping us pack to move? She found several scorpions, just kind of hanging out in our bathrooms and kitchen. They were in our clothes hampers, in our pots and pans, and scurrying through our cabinets.
Now
So now, with time and distance between us, do I feel like there was something paranormal going on within the house? Maybe. I’m now able to look back on our time there with a critical eye and wonder. Perhaps we experienced a string of bad luck in those two years. It happens to everyone, right? And the noises, bumps in the night, and things we thought we saw? Maybe they were nothing.
Other times, I’m not so sure.
I watch the paranormal shows on television and our story doesn’t compare. And yet, I think about the light bouncing in our room and darting into Sam’s and I wonder.
I still think of the beauty of the house and wish I could live in a large, open place like that again. On the other hand, I’ve been unable to drive past the road leading to it for almost three years now because the very thought of doing so makes me sick to my stomach.
Our story isn’t anything like the Hollywood films would have you believe and sometimes I talk myself out of it. I begin thinking that it really was just a string of coincidences…but then I remember the singing in the night, the banging around during the day, the random deaths…
Sometimes, I think there might have been an energy force there, and whatever that was there acted like a catalyst. If there was something even a little bit wrong, it could take that and twist it and compound it to make it greater. It fed off things.
It created a perfect storm.
Long after we moved we discovered the former residents lost a baby in the house as well. It happened in the very room James died in. On James’ birthday.
I have no answers. The cars were going to quit eventually, wasps come out in the spring, pregnancies can be bad, nobody knows why some infants mysteriously die in their sleep, dogs can die of Parvo and other diseases, the wind can open doors, fog can get inside homes…
But I keep my eyes open, I watch my children closely, and I pay attention. Because sometimes, especially late at night, I still feel as though that other shoe might just drop again.
Afterword
When The Maple House was first released, I did it under my pen name for several reasons. I still live in the same town where the story took place and I didn’t want to bring too much attention to the house, for both personal and legal reasons.
The biggest reason, however, was because the story IS so deeply personal. I knew that reviewers would pick the story apart, some claiming it wasn’t “scary enough” and others even questioning its validity. Since it pertains to the death of my son I didn’t know if I could handle the criticisms or even the negative emails I sometimes get. A popular true haunting show on cable even contacted us and expressed interest in filming an episode based on the occurrences. In the end, however, we weren’t sure we wanted to see our lives acted out on the screen for entertainment purposes.
The fact is, the story is true and while it might not be as scary as many stories you see on the various television programs and “based on true events” movies, it was scary to us. Most hauntings revolve around the mundane, the everyday life occurrences. They’re small and grow progressively more active, almost before you’re aware of them. I am still not sure if what we experienced in The Maple House was an actual haunting, but I can say that my family feels much better now that we are out of there.
I was recently on a podcast and the interviewer asked me if I knew I was a “sensitive.” I reckon I must be a little. I can’t communicate with spirits or beckon them, but there have been several times in my life in which they seem to have found me. Did the house in Mount Sterling start that, or was it even earlier? I don’t know.
I have not been visited by the spirit of my son since he died. Two years after his death, however, on the anniversary, his funeral lilies bloomed in the middle of the night. It was the first time they had blossomed since the funeral.
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About the author:
Rebecca Patrick-Howard is the author of several books including the paranormal mystery series, Taryn’s Camera. She lives in eastern Kentucky with her husband and two children.
Rebecca’s Books:
To see a complete list of Rebecca’s books, and for ordering information (including signed paperbacks) visit her website at:
www.rebeccaphoward.net
Taryn’s Camera Series
Windwood Farm (Book 1)
Griffith Tavern (Book 2)
Dark Hollow Road (Book 3)
Shaker Town (Book 4)
Jekyll Island (Book 5)
Black Raven Inn (Coming February 2016)
Taryn’s Pictures: Photos from Taryn’s Camera
Kentucky Witches
A Broom with a View (coming December ‘15)
Broommates (Coming March ’16)
A Broom of One’s Own (Coming June ’16)
True Hauntings
Haunted Estill County
More Tales from Haunted Estill County
Haunted Estill County: The Children’s Edition
Haunted Madison County
A Summer of Fear
The Maple House
Four Months of Terror
Two Weeks: A True Haunting
Other Books
Coping with Grief: The Anti-Guide to Infant Loss
Three Minus Zero
Finding Henry: A Journey Into Eastern Europe
Estill County in Photos
Haunted: Ghost Children Stories From Beyond
Two Weeks: A Family’s True Haunting Excerpt
She needed to get out of the tub, she needed to grab her towel, but that would mean turning her head and looking at the door. The thought of what might be there stunned her in fear, the most vivid sensation she’d ever felt. “Daddy,” she whimpered, praying he’d be able to hear her thoughts and come to her. She thought of calling out downstairs, bringing up one of her siblings, but her throat was tight. She didn’t think she could holler if she tried.
With slow, easy movements she lifted herself from the tub and grabbed the towel on the back of the toilet. The softness felt good on her skin, its weight a shield against whatever was out there. Feeling stronger now she slowly turned to face the door, her eyes clenched shut and her teeth grinding against each other.
With determined resolution she gathered all the courage she’d ever had, thinking about the super heroes in movies she loved, and opened her eyes to what was waiting for her.
The figure that stood before her was just a few feet away. If they’d both stretched out their hands they could’ve touched one another. The long hair, dark dress that brushed the floor and delicate hands could only belong to a woman. Where her face should’ve been, however, there was nothing but a pale void.
“Ahhhhkkkkk!!!!” Laura screamed, her voice returning in a ferocious roar. “Dad-EE!”
The figure gave out a solitary hiss, like a balloon running out of air, and disappeared.
Laura was still standing wet in the middle of the bathroom floor when Jimmy and Jenny found her. Shaking and crying, they led her to her bedroom where Jenny petted on
her and helped her dress. Jimmy marched up and down the hallway, checking closets, looking under beds, and making sure all the windows were locked.
There was no question about whether or not they believed Laura. They both knew now, for sure, that their new house was haunted.
Windwood Farm excerpt
Book 1 in Taryn’s Camera
After several hours of what she thought was pretty good work on her part, she stepped back and admired her own work, gave herself a pat on the back, and took a break. “Well done, old girl,” she said aloud and then literally gave herself a pat on the back because, after all, she believed if you didn’t do it, then nobody else would.
The sun had come out by then and the ground was starting to dry, but it was still very muddy so she headed to the car and sat on the hood while she ate her lunch—leftover Subway from the night before.
Reagan had taken the boards off the windows like she had asked, and now that the sun had risen in the sky it caught the upstairs window and the glare made it appear to wink at her. In fact, it seemed to look right at her. Shielding her eyes, she turned away. “Damn it,” she muttered, as she looked at the ground and took another bite. The glare was so bright, however; she couldn’t ignore it.
She had grown used to the uneasy feeling she’d developed on the first day and thought she might be making friends with the house. It didn’t feel as unwelcoming to her as it did in the beginning and she was almost certain it had even preened a little today while she was painting it, as though it knew it was posing for something that would make it immortal.
Three True Tales of Terror: A True Hauntings' Collection Page 19