Ripped Away (561 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 1.8 on 5 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by youarsoghey (View user info) at 2004-11-16 17:09:40 EST
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"Why hello, dear! You must be the detective man. I see you found my place well."
I remember exactly what she looked like when I first saw her. She was an old woman with a raspy voice who seemed to be about 75 years old. Her white hair and dark, sunken features, so typical of an old lady, belied her stunning green eyes that seemed so youthful and full of life.
When I got the phone call the previous day about the happenings at her worn-down house, I figured it was going to be another wasted Thursday night searching around an old bat's home just to find that the sources of all the "ghoulish noises" and "misplaced of items" were a lonely raccoon and Alzheimer's disease.
I can't complain, though, because that's my job. I put an ad out every week in the local newspaper that looks like this:
"Do you hear banging, crashing, or tapping late at night? Do drafts blow through your house when no windows are open? Do you put something down only to find out later that it is no longer there? If you have answered yes to any of these questions, your house may be haunted! For more information, call the Supernatural Detective at 779-5780."
I know it's a bit cheesy, but in order to understand why it has to be that way, you have to understand the nature of my business and the majority of my clientele.
I hunt ghosts. You may not believe in them, but trust me, they exist. They're not always harmful, but they always cause a significant ruckus. They exist, but they are very rare and only come about in circumstances that I have yet to comprehend.
When someone calls me, they explain their problem to me and I tell them whether it is worth my time or not. Naturally, at $25 per hour, I never turn down an opportunity to search out someone's house, but the marketing ploy to make their case seem more important than the rest really helps me collect cash without too many complaints. The calls I get are normally from old people with odd superstitions or weirdoes with an intense belief in the supernatural. I need their money to survive, so I put out an ad that attracts them to me, even if I don't find any ghosts.
This old lady, who went by the name of Mabel, told me over the phone that she had been hearing strange noises late at night and that she often woke up to find all of her belongings in different places than they were the night before.
"Please, come in," said Mabel with a smile. "It's getting dark out there and I don't want you catching a cold!"
She took my coat and we went into the kitchen where we sat at a wooden table that seemed to be about sixty years old and creaked under the weight of the piles of dishes stacked on top of it.
"Would you like some tea, dear?" Mabel asked.
"No, thank you," I replied. "Would you like to tell me some more details about your problem, Ma'am?"
"Oh, don't call me that, dear," Mabel said. "It makes me feel like an old woman!"
"Excuse me, Mabel," I corrected myself. "So you've heard some banging?"
"Yes, yes," started Mabel. "But, well...oh dear. It's not so much banging as it is a soft tapping that doesn't seem to be following any sort of steady rhythm at all. I just said it was banging because I didn't think you would come if you heard me talking about just a little tapping!"
"Not at all," I said. "You see, Mabel, that soft tapping is what some of us Supernatural Detectives like to call a 'residual activity'. Often spirits who stick around after they die possess some of the most prominent habits they possessed during their lifetimes. Tapping ones fingers is such a common habit that it can almost always be heard in a truly haunted house."
When I explain this detail of a haunted house, I always leave out that 99% of the time a tapping noise is caused by water dripping in a radiator or a pipe. What can I say? People are paranoid.
"Oh no!" gasped Mabel. "Well, I also misplace items often."
I cocked my head and said, "Er - You forget where you put things?"
"Oh, not at all, dear," said Mabel. "My looks and physical abilities may have gone the way of the dodo, but my memory is as solid as a rock!" She looked around as if checking to see if others were listening in. She winked and said, "It's what used to get my Edgar in trouble all the time!"
I forced a smile and asked her to elaborate about the misplaced items.
"Well," she started. "I'm not just talking about little things like hairbrushes or silverware, although they shift around too. But some mornings I wake up and find that the furniture in the living room has all switched around! It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense, if you ask me."
"Yes," I said truthfully. "It doesn't make too much sense." Unless she had Alzheimer's, I thought. "Is there anything else?"
She furrowed her brow in thought for a few seconds and then said, "That's about all that I can think of that's been strange around this old house that my Edgar built. He sure did love this place, my sweet Edgar." She looked off through the door into the living room for a few moments and then snapped back to the conversation with a shake of her head. "Anyway, since you'll be staying the night, I'll let you put your things in the guest room."
I grabbed my bag as we got up from the kitchen table and walked out into the living room. I quickly looked at the way the furniture was arranged for reference the following morning in case I had to verify that Mabel just had a poor memory. Mabel led me up the stairs on the far side of the living room and then down the small corridor to the guest room. She opened the door for me and switched on the light.
"Be sure to wake me if you discover anything unusual, dear," said Mabel without looking me in the eye. "I may be old, but I've still got a bit of fight in me. Good night." She turned around and went one door down to her bedroom where she went inside and shut the door behind her. I stepped inside the guest room and looked around.
It was a dark, wooden room with black and white pictures all over the walls of various vacations and portraits of Mabel's family. I looked at one picture with a caption below it that read, "Edgar and Mabel's Wedding Day." I saw a much younger and more attractive Mabel staring back at me with a handsome man, probably Edgar, at her side.
I took a book out of my bag and then placed the bag on the chair beside the nightstand. I sat down on the bed, kicked up my feet, and read for a while. As I read, time flew by and when I checked my watch, I saw that it was already past midnight. I put the book back in my bag and stretched in preparation of a long night of just waiting around for nothing.
As I walked out of the room, I noticed an odd picture on the wall that didn't fit in with the rest of the pictures in that room because it was just a landscape and not of people. I dropped my gaze down to read the caption beneath the picture.
"Edgar on Pop's Farm."
That couldn't be right, I thought. There was no Edgar in that photograph. It was just a picture of a sprawling wheat farm. I concluded that the caption must have been for another picture and they just switched them without noticing. I exited the room, walked quietly down the stairs, and entered the living room.
This was another small, dark room with a few couches, a chair, a coffee table, and a fireplace with a large portrait of a smiling Edgar and Mabel above it. Although it was bright enough to see around, the only light that shone in was that of the moon and various ambient light sources like street lights or neighbors' porch lights.
I stood in the center of the room and closed my eyes. Doing this always allowed me to hear more clearly.
Nothing.
I listened for a few more minutes and still heard nothing. I sat down on one of the couches and sighed. Then I heard it.
Tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap. Tap. Then it stopped.
My heart raced because I knew that noise was not a radiator since I had heard so many on similar nights at other houses. It was the sound of something tapping on wood. I sat at attention expecting to hear more, but nothing came for a few minutes. Then suddenly I heard it again.
Tap-tap-tap. Tap. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. Then it stopped again.
I stood up, because by then had I made out from where the sound was coming. I walked directly to the kitchen and turned on the light. Nobody was there. The dishes still lay scattered across the table in the center of the room and the chairs remained in the same place they had been when Mabel and I left the room earlier in the night. I began to turn around to walk back into the living room.
"STOP THAT TAPPING!" cried an angry male voice.
That came from the living room, I thought.
I stood fastened to the kitchen floor as a shiver ran through me. My profession doesn't leave me much of a chance to be scared, but I had never before encountered anything like this. Unless this was an intruder, I knew that a ghost had just screamed from the living room with a clarity that I never thought was possible. In other situations, I had heard cries from ghosts or exaggerated breaths that were muffled and barely audible, but that roar made my bones shiver.
After I regained a bit of my courage by reminding myself that ghosts cannot hurt me, since they are simply specters without physical form, I carefully walked into the living room. My eyes had adjusted to the kitchen light, so I could barely see. I walked to the center of the room and let my eyes adjust. When they had done so, I looked around and thought that nothing had changed. Then I stole a glance at the portrait of Edgar and Mabel and noticed that something indeed had changed.
Edgar was gone. His smiling figure was replaced by an empty spot at Mabel's side. I looked at Mabel and saw that she was no longer smiling. Her arms were slack and her head drooped a little. I blinked my eyes and I thought I saw something.
Did she move?
I blinked a few more times and stared at the picture. Then suddenly the painted version of Mabel's mouth fell slightly open as if her jaw muscles could no longer hold up her mandible. She raised her head slightly and looked directly at me. Her eyes grew wide and the portrait moved no more. Then I heard it again.
Tap-tap. Tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap.
I spun around to face the sound of the tapping coming from the kitchen and that's when I saw him.
Standing at the foot of the stairs was a hideously disfigured human form.
It's Edgar, I thought.
His head hung on his shoulders as if begging his neck to let it go. His arms stood stiffly at his side as he just waited there. His face was heavily scabbed which led me to believe that he had died in some sort of fire.
I blinked my eyes.
His body snapped to attention and his scabbed-over face looked directly at me. My eyes grew wide with horror and my mouth fell open.
I blinked my eyes again.
He had somehow snapped across the room in an actual blink-of-an-eye. I jumped and fell down on my back. The tapping had suddenly grown incredibly loud and fast. I looked up at the figure and saw his head shaking violently. His mouth was open as if he was screaming, but I couldn't hear any noise come out of it. His eyes seemed to be burning into mine with an intense fury. His rage was so ardent that it was rumbling the furniture in the living room to new spots.
The tapping was unbearable that I shut my eyes and covered my ears.
I screamed, "STOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!" but no sound came out.
Then everything went black.
I opened my eyes and I was sitting in the kitchen. As my heart raced, I looked around the room for Edgar, but I couldn't see him anywhere. I tried to get up, but I couldn't because I was extremely weak. The overhead kitchen light flickered for an instant and all of a sudden he was sitting there in front of me as if we were having tea. One of his hands was holding an empty cup that he sipped at for a few moments, and his other hand used a brush to comb his nonexistent hair.
The light flickered again. The tea cup and brush disappeared and he was grabbing me by the arms. I felt a chill run through me that I couldn't have possibly experienced even on the coldest winter night. My entire body went slack and I felt as if the life was being sucked out of my skin. The scabbed figure of Edgar looked at me intently, and as I grew colder, he seemed to lose his scabs and grow white hair. As his face began to take form, I saw that this wasn't Edgar's ghost at all.
It was Mabel's.
I was shocked. I didn't understand how it was possible that a dead woman could not only take the form she was in when she died (a scabbed and deformed figure), but also become completely normal and interact with people as if she weren't dead.
Mabel let me go before she had taken her complete form, but my weakness hardly subsided. She was back in her chair across the table and was tapping the wood.
Tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap. Tap.
"I mustn't be away from my Edgar," she said in a harsh, throaty voice that only sounded somewhat like her own. "He was ripped away from me, and it mustn't happen again."
Tap-tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap. Tap.
She reared her head back and roared, "MABEL, STOP THAT INCESSANT TAPPING!" in a deep, manly voice. Then she dropped her head back down to where it was when she spoke in the throaty voice.
"I'm sorry, Edgar," she said. "It's just a bad habit. Let me make you some tea, dear."
"Mabel," I said. Her head snapped to attention again and looked directly at me. "Where is Edgar, Mabel?"
"Edgar is here," she said. "Somewhere in this house. I will not let him be ripped away from me again. He died and I know he wouldn't have left the house because he loved this house. He's here and I will not leave him in life or in death. Come here, boy." The light flickered and she was in front of me again holding my arms. I felt myself growing weaker. Much to my horror, I suddenly realized exactly what she meant by never letting Edgar get away again. She was going to use my life to sustain a small amount of hers. She had been doing this to remain half in life and half in death instead of a specter that is half in death and half in nonexistence. How many people had she done this to? I asked myself.
I could barely speak, but I had to say something.
"Mabel," I slurred. "Mabel, I know how you feel about Edgar. All loved ones feel the same way when their husband, wife, dauther, son, mother, or father gets ripped away from them, but you must realize that people rarely ever stay behind, and if they did, you'd see them. You are the only ghost in this house, Mabel. Edgar is already in another world waiting for you to make the journey, I'm sure."
"Edgar loved this house, he would stay behind."
"No, Mabel," I struggled to say. "You loved Edgar. You stayed behind, and you did it in an unnatural way by sucking the life out of other people. You must trust me and make the journey into the other side. Let go, Mabel. Let go." In a flicker of light, Mabel let go of my arms and was back across the table. She looked into my eyes one last time and sighed. A tear rolled down her cheek and a second later she was gone.
After a few minutes, I was strong enough to stand. I walked into the living room and looked up at the portrait of Edgar and Mabel. They were both smiling again. Although I don't actually know if they ever saw each other again in the next world, I like to think that the portrait of Edgar and Mabel smiling means that they did and are together again.
It's been a while now since that night, and I still consider it my greatest professional experience. Maybe one day I will completely understand why ghosts exist and what properties they might have, but until then, I'm just a Supernatural Detective looking to pay my rent by conning suckers into paying me $25 per hour on the off chance that I may actually find something interesting.
I just wish Mabel had paid me before she decided to take her last journey.
User Reviews
Submitted by ssj4yamcha (user info) at 2005-01-19 05:24:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
mmmm.... messy at the end. But you had me the whole time.
Submitted by thaumaturge (user info) at 2005-01-18 11:54:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-01-16 20:09:14 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I love this
Submitted by Method (user info) at 2005-01-16 15:35:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
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Submitted by Spooner (user info) at 2005-01-16 15:28:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Dude, like, woah!