One moment we had plenty of light, but within the half hour it was as dark outside as if it were night. The wind was blowing so fiercely and the branches waving so violently, I thought some of those big trees were going to go. Then rain came down so hard and so heavy that for a while, it was pelting the house like buckshot.
We didn’t know whether a tornado was going by or just a bad storm. We would have been drenched if we had tried to make a run for the trucks. So Troy and I sat down inside to wait for it to pass over. The next thing we knew, there was the sound of voices. Strong vibrations shook the whole house. You might have thought that it was from the storm, but when Troy and I looked at each other, I knew he didn’t think the racket was wind or rain. Neither did I. It was like an angry undertone of voices, and above it I heard a shriller sound, more like a woman screaming than a man shouting.
“Troy, I’m going to find out what’s in that basement,” I said. I started down the stairs with my flashlight aimed ahead of me. The noise grew louder. Right behind me came Troy, with a hammer in his hand. Whatever was down there, he was ready for it. At that moment the voices suddenly became quieter, and we began to hear the sound of hurrying footsteps from below.
When we reached the basement, it was brighter than I had expected. In fact, I dropped the flashlight to my side, for we didn’t need the light. What could be illuminating the basement so I don’t know. Strange figures moved in the room. Have you ever seen cloud forms that resemble people? We all have, but not like these.
I wondered if Troy saw them, too. “What do you see, Troy?” I whispered, and I don’t know why I whispered except that all around me, everything was now dead silence. The forms were shifting expressively, and at the same time, they were becoming more distinct. They were taking on the substance and shape of men and women!
“I see some people over at the end of the basement, and the way they move, they’re scared, Al,” he replied. I saw them, too, but I wanted to hear what he thought. He said, “They’re all huddled up together, and I think some are crying.”
There was a rattling noise and the sound of something dragging along the floor.
“Chains! Hear them?” asked Troy. Now the smoky figures seemed to mill about, pushing and shoving as if in a panic. Then came a loud crash that actually hurt our ears. It was real; you couldn’t doubt that. It struck me as being like the noise of iron bars falling to the ground. On and on it went, the metallic ring traveling through the house, one clanking echo after another.
Troy and I took those basement stairs two at a time and slammed the door behind us. It didn’t matter what kind of storm was going on, we were ready to leave. We gathered up our tools and were outside before you could say Jackie Robinson! And you know, the storm had stopped, and the sun was setting in a clear sky.
“That last crash was enough to wake the dead wasn’t it, Troy?” I asked.
He took me by the arm, and those big eyes of his wore the strangest look I’d ever seen in them as he said, “Al, what do you mean, wake the dead? Those were the dead.”
Well, that really gave me the creeps. Every Sunday, regular as clockwork, my wife and I are at St. Paul’s Methodist, and the Bible verse that came to my mind suddenly was “If a man die, shall he live again?”
I asked Troy, “Were they dead or alive?”
“Man, I don’t know. We can’t go where they are, ’cause that’s a notch up the ladder. But they sure can get back here.” And with that he drove off in his old battered blue pickup. Now, Troy was just a helper. He didn’t have a bunch of degrees and such, but I always envied him for what he did have: a special way of talking to the Lord and getting answers.
That was on a Friday, and I wouldn’t need Troy there at the house again until I was finished with some of my own work. That would probably be a couple of weeks, so Monday I was back alone. I spent the entire morning listening to every sound, just waiting for something to happen. But all that week Woodburn was just as peaceful and quiet as you please, and I was beginning to think that the storm had given me a super case of the jitters.
The second week it seemed to me the house was extra quiet. Sometimes in these places a hundred or more years old, you get used to creaks and the sound of the wind exploring the crevices. After a week or two, it’s as if the house is talking under its breath. Maybe it’s talking to itself or to the folks who once lived there, but not to you. So you don’t pay it any mind.
On Thursday night I had to go out and have myself a little fun, and I stayed up way too late. I was on the job at Woodburn by seven-thirty the next morning, and by midafternoon I was dragging. There was one more task that I needed to do in the house that day, but it would take close attention to do it just right. Since I had priced the work at Woodburn by the job, if I wanted to take a thirty- or forty-minute nap, it was nobody’s business but mine. I folded up a jacket for a pillow, pulled my coat up over me, and was soon fast asleep.
At three-thirty I was awakened by a tremendous crash, a noise that rolled and
