A Story for Halloween.

When we moved East we were basically homeless for the better part of three months.  We lived out of hotels and vacation rentals (not easy with two dogs) and only had one vehicle in the meantime.  This meant that my amazing husband would drop me off at work in the morning and then spend his day looking for work and a place to land all of our stuff and ourselves.

He must have looked at hundreds of places before we found our first East Coast home in Kennebunk.  The dogs came with us everywhere we went and so it was no surprise they were in the car with him when he had a very odd experience in a town not to far from where we live now.

I’ll let him tell it:

The relator started by asking if I was “scared of ghosts?”  I said that depended on the ghost and he said he had a really cheep house to show me only $60,000 for a 3 bedroom remodeled house on 10 acres.  Not really believing or caring that the house was haunted I said let’s go take a look.

Well, let’s say I wrong before but never this wrong.

We arrived at the small but quaint house and my first impression was from the dogs- literally ripping at the doors and barking like I have never seem them do before.  It even beat the time Pele shat herself when our truck was surrounded by buffalo in Yellowstone.  This will be another story to come.

We took a look around the exterior of the house, the out buildings and such.  I noticed the realtor never walked in with me, he would sit at the door and gaze in but never passed the door’s threshold.

Now things were starting to get interesting.

I too was feeling a bit on edge and even as I write this the hair stands up on the back of my neck.

I noticed some weird tools I had never seen before (I have seen a tons of tools, humans included) and lots of old tools like no one had been in this barn for what looked like the better part of 100 years. I still don’t know or want to know what some of those tools were used for.  I then continued on to the main house.  The realtor handed me the key and said go check it out- saying  “I have to make a phone call.”

At the time I thought nothing of it but looking back he was that scared.

I can’t really describe what it feels like to walk into tangible darkness.  I could sense when I walked in this house I was not alone and not with pleasant company. I looked into the first bedroom and there were four beds packed into one room with all their clothes stacked up around the room and in the closet.

This was the first hint something was wrong here since the other two bedrooms were remodeled and ready to be moved into.  The kitchen was nice and cozy with an old style wood stove/oven.  I then went up to the second floor which was in the middle of being remodeled I had an instant sense of fear the second I touched the top stair.

I don’t scare easy and the fact I was even remotely questioning looking any further considering our housing situation speaks volumes.

I took a quick glance around and quickly went back down stairs. By this time the realtor appeared in the doorway once again not passing the threshold.

At this point I questioned him on this, he said he would explain after we left.  To complete the house inspection I went to the basement this is where I was convinced something was going on here.  I flipped the light on and walked down the stairs as I turned to take my first step to basement floor and all the light bulbs exploded they didn’t just blow they literally exploded- that was it.

I basically ran full speed back up the stairs and out the door.  The realtor hurriedly locked the door and we were both out of there.

I got back to the truck and the dogs were still going nuts like they were trying to get out and protect me.  When we got back to the real estate office I had a ton of questions but none were needed he simply said sit down I will tell you the story.

The original owners turned out to be really freaky.  The woman who lived there had a “helper.”  This man would go around the area and kill pets with a baseball bat laden with nails.  He would them bring them home for the women so they could do satanic rituals.

All of these pets were buried on the land which in itself reminds of pet cemetery.  Since they died the house has been through several hands all of those with pets lost all of them due to some weird circumstance.

I’m not kidding every animal that lived there met with some random and unfortunate end.

The current owner lost two dogs and two cats within months of each other.  All were found dead on the property.  He continued on and said that there were paranormal investigators that came in and recorded all sorts of stuff and even dug up several bones from dogs and cats.  This actually got put on TV, and months later I actually saw the episode.

He continued to say the man that was remodeling the house was living in it with his family and they had several things happen which explained why they were all in one room.  He also said they actually had just moved out and left everything clothes beds everything.  I looked at him and said why do you even bother showing this house?  He replied it’s my job but I don’t think i will ever sell it.  As far as I know it is still on the market 5 years later.

Later we both went to look at a house down the road from this one- again it had a low sticker price and ‘issues.’

The floor plan was open (something not too common over here) and even though there were many banks of windows and skylights it seemed gloomy and dark.

We asked what the deal was with this house, kind of joking but the response was no joke.

“This one is on the market because of a tragedy.”

“Oh?  How do you mean?”

“Well, the young man who lived here killed himself.  Not in the house  (he amended quickly,)  See, he was a linesman for Central Maine Power, a very good job for a man in his very early twenties.  He had just bought the house and he lived here with his fiancé.

I guess a few months after they moved in, she said he started having problems sleeping.  He would spend large parts of the night in the garage and was increasingly moody during the day.

He was just ‘not himself.’  She put this off on the stress of not sleeping.  Until one morning when he went off to work and instead of following the road into town he turned off on one of the dirt roads (one that coincidentally ran into the woods right behind the “pet cemetery” house.)

And shot himself.

His family was devastated and at a complete loss for what had happened.  This kid had everything going for him at 23 he was a home owner with a good job, close family and at the beginning of a new life with his longtime girlfriend.”

We decided it might be interesting to look at the history of this little township (as we had with most of the towns we thought about living in.) The story of this incorporation was very different from the regular colonization routine.

Most of the towns settled followed this pattern:

White man comes and chases off the natives.

Natives take back the town.

White man comes back with bigger guns, more friends and small pox blankets- takes the town back.

Norman Rockwell designs downtown.

The End.

This was even the case for boarding townships.  That little incorporation however was bought by the Europeans and never contested.   It’s as if the natives went “you seriously want to live there?! And your going to give us money?  Yes, it’s all yours.  No, no, no, thank you!  After all we still owe you for those blankets.”

Sometimes it is not so much the structure that is haunted, it is the land is sick.

We don’t go back there much and will be trick or treating somewhere else, thank you very much.

Happy Halloween!!!