If he heard the ominous creaking of the big pine trees or saw the way the water at the center of the lake began to swirl madly like a whirlpool, Sam gave no sign of it. He just waltzed through the fancy front door and settled himself down by the fireplace in the large kitchen to cook up a wonderful meal.
Darkness came swiftly to the grand house by the lake, and with it came a sinister hissing sound in the forest around the lake. Sifty-sifty, the wind whistled in the treetops. Saaaannnn, the little waves lapping the shore agreed. Sifty-sifty, the crickets chirped restlessly. Saaaannnn, the old owl hooted mournfully.
Sam shivered a little next to the little fire as he fed it a log, suddenly aware of the isolation of this particular house. There were no other homes on the lake, and this one was set so far back from the road that he couldn’t hear the hoofbeats of passing riders or the rattle of carriages traveling by. It was just him alone in a huge, drafty house in a menacing, dark forest beside the deep, threatening lake. He shook himself to stop his anxious thoughts and threw another log on the fire. Outside, the wind picked up and the tree branches lashed together. A huge gust of wind shook the house and howled down the chimney, making the fire flicker wildly. Sam threw on another log and nursed the blaze until the fire regained its former strength.
The wind settled down a bit, and Sam could once again hear the tiny sounds of night through the open window. The frogs were croaking softly to themselves in the reeds by the water. Siftysifty, the little ones croaked. Saaannn, belched the biggest of the bullfrogs. The sound of the waves grew louder, as if something—or someone—were stirring up the lake. As the bacon began to sizzle and crisp in the frying pan, Sam heard a huge thud-thud-thud sound coming from the forest on the opposite end of the lake. The sound rattled the furniture in the kitchen and made him jump and his arms break out with goose bumps. He hopped up and ran frantically around the house, making sure all the windows and doors were locked—all save for the back window in the kitchen, which he kept open a crack as a possible escape route, should Sifty-Sifty-San come to get him.
Then he settled down by the fire to watch his red beans cooking in a little pot while the bacon sizzled and spat in the pan. He put the bacon on his plate and tossed the potatoes in the bacon grease to fry, all the time listening for another thumping noise from the forest. He heard nothing but the soft hiss of the wind in the treetops.
SIFTY-SIFTY-SAN
And then there came a soft cry from the far side of the lake. It was a faint mewling cry, like that of a small kitten, but it raised the hairs on the back of Sam’s neck. The frying pan shook in his grip, and he hastily put it back on the fire, wondering if he should close and lock the window. But if he did, his final escape route would be cut off!
“Don’t be silly, Sam,” he said aloud, trying to remember the prayers and spells his grandmamma had taught him for conjuring a ghost. But he couldn’t remember a one, not even when he pulled a Bible out of his pack and tried to pray.
The mewling cry came again, louder. It didn’t sound like a kitten this time, but like some sort of large cat stalking its victim. Sam shuddered at the thought, forgetting to stir his potatoes or check the boiling pot of red beans.
A gust of air blew through the small opening of the window, bringing with it a strange musty smell, like the dust in a graveyard. And out on the lake, Sam heard a soft voice chanting: “I am Sifty-Sifty-San. I’m here on the lake, but where is the man?”
Sam froze in place like a rabbit confronted by a coyote. What was that? The wind picked up again, pummeling the house like a huge fist and howling down the large chimney until the fire flickered wildly and the frying pan toppled over.
“I am Sifty-Sifty-San,” a sinister voice hissed from the shore of the lake. “I’m here on the shore, but where is the man?”
The broth from the beans bubbled over and the fire hissed and sparked as the water hit the burning logs. Sam dropped his Bible in his fright and scrambled frantically for his bag. He had some goofer dust somewhere inside. And a few other supplies his grandmamma had given him to banish ghosts. But he couldn’t seem to find any of them. His hands were shaking too much to grip anything, and the dusty, decaying smell coming through the window seemed to dull his thoughts and numb his body.
The broth overflowed again, putting out a section of the fire, making the kitchen seem darker and more menacing.
“I am Sifty-Sifty-San,” a terrible, howling voice called from the front of the house. “I’m here on the porch, but where is the man?”
Abandoning food, Bible, bag, and sanity, Sam wrestled desperately with the suddenly stubborn back window, trying to open it wide enough to climb through. He heard the fancy front doors slam open with a bang that made the whole house shudder, and down the passageway came the thud-thud-thudding of footsteps. Then the kitchen door slammed inward, and a huge shadow with burning yellow eyes appeared in the frame.
“I am Sifty-Sifty-San,” a horrible, blood-chilling voice bellowed, a dusty-decaying smell cutting right through the smell of burning potatoes and bubbling beans. “I’m here in the house with the trespassing man!”
“No you ain’t, on account of I’m gone,” shouted Sam, springing through the recalcitrant window, glass, wood frame, and all. He moved so fast that he barely got cut by the breaking glass, and he hightailed it back to town faster than a jackrabbit.
And that was the last time anybody went near the old house on the lake. If it hasn’t fallen to pieces by now, then Sifty-Sifty-San may be there still.
8
The Black Car
ANGELINA COUNTY
Julius was a mean old miser-man who lived on the outskirts of town and made everyone who came near him miserable with his grumbling and moaning and groaning. So it came as quite a shock to folks in town when he up and married a young lady more than thirty years his junior. She was smart and pretty and full of life, and no one could figure out what she saw in old Julius. But she sure-enough liked him when they first married, and old Julius was proud of his new wife.
In fact, Julius was so smitten with his young bride that when she asked him to buy her a car, he went right out and got her one the next day. But instead of buying her a red car like she asked, Julius got her a big old black car instead, ’cause he was afraid she might use a flashy red car to pick up young men.
And that was where it started. Julius was afraid, deep down, that his pretty young wife could never really love an old man like him. He grew increasingly jealous as time went by whenever he saw her talking to another man—be it at church or the store or the gas pump. He started giving her a real hard time, accusing her of not loving him anymore, and telling her that someday he’d make her sorry for flirting. Got so Mrs. Julius was afraid to speak to a man or even go out of her house for fear of what her mean old husband would say to her when she got home. And she was afraid to leave him ’cause she had no kinfolk to turn to and no training or experience to help her get a job. So she stayed with Julius, even though he made her miserable.
Before too long, Julius turned the corner from pretty old to real old. As he drew near the end of his days, he got meaner than ever to his young wife. He began locking the car in the garage so she could no longer drive it, and he started threatening to haunt her if she ever up and married again after his death. To prove his point, Julius would sometimes climb into the black car around midnight and drive it into the street, keeping his head down and his hands on the lower part of the steering wheel so no one could see him from outside. Then he’d park in front of the house and honk the horn from his invisible position under the dashboard, until Mrs. Julius would come to the front window and stare at the black car with fear in her eyes. Then old Julius would sneak back inside and come up beside his young wife to ask her why she was out of bed at midnight. Mrs. Julius would point a shaking finger at the black car and tell him it was driving and honking its horn all by itself.
“That’s right,” old Julius told his wife. “I asked an evil spirit to haunt that car. If’n you
ever start fooling around with young men after I pass, that car will honk and honk its horn all day and all night to let folks know what you’ve been up to.”
Mrs. Julius was terrified by the “evil spirit” and refused to go near the car after seeing it drive by itself. She would walk into town to shop for groceries and have one of her girlfriends pick her up to go to church. And mean old Julius would laugh whenever he saw her walk around the far side of the house so she didn’t have to go near the garage.
THE BLACK CAR
Well, the day came when Julius dropped dead suddenly with a heart attack, and Mrs. Julius was free of his tyranny at last. Free, that is, until the day of the funeral, when the young and handsome funeral director offered to drive the black car with Mrs. Julius riding in the front seat to the cemetery. As soon as the young man set foot in the car, the horn began to blow over and over again and wouldn’t stop. Folks in the funeral procession were mighty disturbed over the ruckus, considering it disrespectful. But it kept on blowing all by itself, even when the funeral director took his hands off the steering wheel and held them over his head. The horn didn’t stop blowing until the young man left the car and walked nearly fifty feet away from Mrs. Julius.
All through the funeral service and the prayers at the grave site, whenever a man passed too close to either Mrs. Julius or the black car, the horn started beeping again until the man walked away. By the time the last prayer was said, every man who attended the funeral had their back pressed against the far fence, and only women stood at the open grave to comfort Mrs. Julius.
As soon as she could, the widowed Mrs. Julius had the black car put into a local garage for storage, afraid to drive it because of the evil spirit put there by her husband. The man who owned the garage complained to her over and over because the car started blowing its horn whenever a man approached it.
The widow tried to sell the car, but anytime a man came to look at it, the horn would blare out as soon as he set foot inside. Finally, the widow got smart and asked around town until she found a nice old lady who needed a car. The widow sold the black car to her, and the horn didn’t blow once when the old lady got into the car and drove it away.
The widow heaved a mighty sigh of relief when the car was gone and then went inside to phone the handsome new neighbor who had moved in down the road to ask him over for dinner. Guess the evil spirit left the car when it changed hands, because the black car never honked its horn again, not even the day Mrs. Julius got married to her neighbor. So everything turned out right for Mrs. Julius in the end.
9
Ghost Light
MARFA
The blizzard sprang up out of nowhere, so fast that he could not outrun it, even had he dared try on the twisted, narrow mountain track that led toward his home. Snow drove into his face and hair and eyes, blinding him. He gasped for breath, cursing the tall peaks that had prevented him from seeing the rising storm clouds until they were on top of him.
I’m a fool, he berated himself. He knew that he should have turned for home earlier, right when the air had grown moist and the temperature had dropped so quickly. But he had lingered too long about his tasks, and the storm had caught him miles from home.
He was sweating with the effort of moving against the howling wind, and yet he was shivering from the extreme cold. He could barely see a yard in front of him, but he kept moving. To stop in such a storm meant death, unless he found some sort of shelter. But there was no shelter nearby. As his discomfort grew, the world began to narrow until all he saw was the snow under his feet and whipping past his face, creating enough reflection so that it was not truly dark.
Between bursts of searing, painful cold, he felt numb. His booted feet grew harder and harder to lift, and the blizzard was driving snow right underneath his broad-brimmed hat. For a moment he thought of his family, waiting for him to come home. They would be watching for him through the storm. Watching in vain?
He shook himself suddenly against such a negative thought and strained his eyes against the sleet and snow pummeling his face, his shoulders, his torso. There must be shelter somewhere! Or he could walk out the storm, if he didn’t give in to the numbing cold and the despair it brought with it. Surely he was only a few miles from home. Bracing himself, he continued to grope his way forward along the homeward trail.
As he rounded an outcropping of rock, he saw a bright light spring up a few paces in front of him. His heart pounded in sudden hope. Someone else was here! And surely they must have found shelter, for how else would such a bright light survive against the buffeting winds between the peaks? Hope gave him strength, and he stumbled forward, shouting: “Help! Help!”
He was almost on top of the light when he realized that there was no one there. Just a round ball of light hovering unmoving above the ground as if the roaring wind and snow had no effect on it. He stopped, skin prickling with a different kind of fear from that which he had experienced when the storm swept down over the peaks. It was a ghost light!
He had seen the ghost lights his whole life. They glowed like a campfire or a bright lamp, staying on or near the mountains for the most part. The lights appeared in different places in the mountains, sometimes dividing and moving left or right, and sometimes brightening until they glowed like a miniature sun. No one could trace their source—no campfires had been lit in the light’s vicinity, no houses were there. And there was no swampland to create a mirage. Perhaps a cowboy carrying a lantern? If so, he would be a very gifted chap to appear in so many places all at once, night after night.
GHOST LIGHT
As he stared at the ghost light through the swirling snow, it was joined by several smaller lights. He stood shivering, his body swaying as the wind buffeted him, but he wouldn’t take another step. Something about the ghost lights prevented him from moving forward.
Then softly, words started forming in his mind. It sounded like just another thought in his mind—even to the tone and intonation of the words—but he knew he wasn’t the one thinking it. His whole body tensed as the light spoke: “You are off course,” it said.
“Off course?” he whispered through chattering teeth. “Where am I?”
“You are three miles south of Chinati Peak,” the smaller ghost lights whispered in his mind. The smaller lights did not sound like his own private thoughts, but like the murmur of many soft voices inside his head; like the summer breezes might sound if they were given tongues.
How could he have strayed so far? His heart sank as he realized he had been stumbling along blindly for a long time in the swirling snow. He had no sense of direction now that he was so far off the path. There were dangers everywhere! How could he keep walking? But how could he stay still? He would freeze to death if he remained in one place for too long. He shivered as the snow pummeled his cold body and the wind whooshed under his hat.
As if it sensed his thoughts, the large ghost light spoke again inside his mind.
“There is a precipice here,” the big light said. “If you continue in the wrong direction, you will fall. You must follow us, or you will die.”
“I will follow,” he gasped, snow driving into his open mouth as he spoke. He swallowed the cold flakes and watched the lights move away in what felt like the wrong direction. He followed as best he could, stumbling blindly, tripping sometimes over unseen rocks covered with snow.
His vision narrowed again until all he could see was the snow-covered ground, the swirling snow around him, and the large light ahead. Weariness tugged at him, and he felt sleepy. It was so hard to keep walking.
It took him a moment to realize that the snow was getting thinner and that the buffeting wind had ceased. He looked away from the large ghost light and saw the smaller lights bobbing around him in the mouth of a cavern. He had been so exhausted he hadn’t even realized until now that they had reached shelter.
But the big light was moving farther back into the cave, away from the biting wind and the bitter cold. He followed the ghost light, too tired to h
urry, even though he had reached this safe place. The air grew warmer, and the big light paused and lowered itself to the ground. He fell down beside it, spent from his frightening trek through the blizzard. Around him, the smaller lights bobbed up and down a few times and then drifted back out of the cave. But the large light remained with him.
“Rest, sleep now. It is warm enough for you to safely sleep,” the light said into his mind. He nodded wearily and laid his aching head on his arm.
“Who are you? Why did you help me?” he thought sleepily, as darkness descended on his tired mind.
“We are spirits from elsewhere and long ago,” the light whispered soothingly. “We watch over this place and its people.”
And then he was asleep.
When he woke, the storm was over and the light pouring into the cave was sunlight. The ghost light was gone. He rose slowly, stretching out his cramped muscles after a night spent on the hard cavern floor, and shook out his wet clothes as best he could. Then he went outside to get his bearings.
Sure enough, in broad daylight, it was easy to tell that he was about three miles south of Chinati Peak. Thankful to be alive, he made his way back toward the trail that led to his ranch, his boots swishing through the deep, fresh snow, his nose tingling with the cold. Suddenly he paused, recognizing the outcropping of rock he’d passed the night before, just prior to seeing the ghost lights. Following it around, the way he had done before, he found himself standing beside a sheer cliff that plummeted several hundred feet straight down. Right on the edge of the cliff was where he had been stopped by the first ghost light.
Spooky Texas Page 4