Halloween Haunts 2013: My Personal Haunted House by John F.D. Taff
To me, nothing says “Halloween” like a haunted house. And I grew up in one.
No, this isn’t a joke or some tongue-in-cheek, cutesy little Halloween story to make you titter nervously and wave off what I’m about to tell you. Simply put, I grew up in a haunted house.
Let me back up a little. I actually did most of my “growing up” in a different house, a nice little suburban tract home. But we moved out to the country when I was 15 years old. Our family had outgrown that house and needed something new. And my father, a police officer for the City of St. Louis, needed a little more distance from the big city. So we moved in 1979, out to pastoral farmland, cows, a Dairy Queen…and not much else.
What attracted my parents to this newly built subdivision was that the developer touted the fact that they’d cleared only enough land on each parcel of property to build the house. They hadn’t, as had been pretty much the post-WWII way of things, simply flattened everything with bulldozers, built the houses and planted a few twigs.
So, we moved into a brand-new home effectively surrounded by woods. Excellent. In our former house, our neighborhood had been surrounded by dense, endless woods. So this was cool. What wasn’t cool, we were to find just a few months later, was that by not clearing the land, the developers didn’t have to move the…wait for it…tombstones that dotted the top of the hill where the neighborhood was built.
Yep, no lie. In some people’s backyard copses of woods were corpses. In a little exploration of our surroundings, my brother and I found quite a few yards that had tombstones and footstones, their limestone writing nearly illegible, but most dating from the 1880s. Again, I am not making this shit up. This is not Poltergeist. This actually happened. And my parents still live in this house.
So, my brother and I find the tombstones and excitedly tell our parents, who tell us we are crazy. Such is the life of a teenager. But then, even though we never found any graves in our yard, strange things began to happen.
I’ll relate a few of them, but first let me set you straight about one thing. I write horror and I love to read horror. I love paranormal stuff. But I am not a particularly credulous person. I come from Missouri, and embody that state’s “Show Me” motto. I like to have an open mind about stuff, for a lot of reasons. And I like to think that there’s some strange shit out there, because it makes life interesting. I have loved to read and write about ghosts, but I’d always had my doubts. I don’t anymore.
It started with the usual noises…doors, footsteps, movement in the middle of the night. My dad, the cop, worked odd hours, mostly nights, and never seemed to be around. I had my own room, and I was a night owl, still am. I heard plenty of these things, but they didn’t register at first.
We’d wake up in the morning to all the doors being wide open, even the garage door. Must have been my brother sleepwalking, but nah, I checked a few times. Then, late at night, we started to hear a strange thumping noise from downstairs. I was reading in my room the first time I heard this, and went out into the hallway to see what it was. Creeping to the stairwell, I heard the sounds more clearly. Clump-clump. Clump-clump.
It was the kitchen cabinets opening and closing, no doubt. They make a unique sound. Nonplussed, I started down the stairs. As soon as my foot made contact with the first step, the sounds ceased. I went down to the kitchen, expecting to see a cat or something. Nothing. No one. I opened a cabinet, let it close. Clump-clump. Definitely the sound.
I went upstairs, and as soon as I made the hallway, the sound started again. It would do this every night for the next three or four months. Everyone in the house heard it…except, of course, for my dad. But he’d get his later.
So, more stuff. A phone in my room that rang despite me having removed the ringer wire. (This was back in the day when good old Ma Bell charged by the number of phones, which they could deduce from the impedance on the line from the ringer.) A tape player that turned on in a closed roll-top desk, playing whatever had been recorded at ultrafast speed and ultraloud volume. Voices. More footsteps. A drink moved from the end table, turned upside down onto a coaster and placed on the floor with all the liquid still in it when my mom left the room for a second.
There was lots more stuff, but the really active phase ended with a bang, and was witnessed only by my disbelieving, jaded father. Christmas Eve. I think it was 1980 or 81. My girlfriend and I had gone out to Midnight Mass, and I didn’t return until after one in the morning. My grandmother (mom’s mom) was staying with us, sleeping in my sister’s room. I came in turned the lights off, went to bed.
Sometime after that, my father (who could sleep through a nuclear attack) was awakened by a noise. He got up, thinking my grandmother had fallen in the night on her way to the bathroom. Nope. Grandma asleep, as was everyone else. But he looks down the hallway to the stairwell, and there are lights on. Now, he’s cursing me for not turning them off.
He goes downstairs. Here’s the set up in the living room. Couch. End table on either side. Brass lamp, the kind you touch to turn on, on each end table. Behind the couch on the wall was a very large framed print of Custer’s Last Stand, done by some artist whose name escapes me for Anheuser-Busch around the turn of the century. Pretty popular print. I think my dad got it at an antique store.
OK, so dad comes down. Lamps are turned over on the floor and on. Hmmm… Cats. Cats got blamed for a lot of stuff during this period. He rights the lamps, turns them off, goes upstairs.
About half an hour later, another sound, this one louder, awakens only my dad. He gets up, goes into the hallway, sees the lights on downstairs again. Now, he’s pissed. Downstairs again, the lamps are on the floor and on. Again. He searches around for the offending feline. No cats. So, he rights the lamps again, turns them off again, goes upstairs again.
This time, he’s in bed for about 5 minutes when a loud noise shakes the house, yet awakens only him. This time he races right downstairs. Lamps on the floor and turned on, yes, but this time the framed print behind the couch has fallen from the wall. The frame remains hanging there, but the glass, the print and the backing have fallen. The glass has shattered. Frustrated, he returns to bed.
The next morning, we clean up. Glass everywhere. Did I mention it fell onto carpeting? Hmmm. Here’s the kicker. Old framed prints, of which this was one, were generally backed with a piece of cardboard that was held in place with staples into the frame. This was a particularly large piece, probably close to 30″ x 48″, and there were about 50 staples holding the print and backing in.
We found a lot of glass that morning, but no staples. None. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Not in the carpet, not still in the frame. Gone. This stymied my dad for years, but being a cop, he now dismisses the entire thing as bullshit.
Oh well…that was it for a while. But other strange things continue to happen at the house. If you see me somewhere, at a con or a signing, ask me about the red-eyed dog my 3-year-old daughter saw in my old bedroom when she spent the night at my parent’s house. Yes. Red-eyed. Black dog.
Anyway, that’s my haunted house story. And it’s always great to haul it out around Halloween and make the grandkids afraid to stay at grandma and grandpa’s house.
Heh.
TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: John is offering one free print copy and one free digital copy of The Bell Witch
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JOHN F.D. TAFF has more than 70 stories in publication in markets such as Cemetery Dance, Deathrealm, One Buck Horror and Big Pulp. He’s also been published in anthologies such as Hot Blood: Fear the Fever, Hot Blood: Seeds of Fear, Shock Rock II, Best New Vampire Tales, Best New Werewolf Tales and Horror for Good. Recent sales have been to Dark Visions Vol. 1, Ominous Realities, Postscripts to Darkness, Shades of Blue & Gray, Edge of Sundown, and Beware the Dark. Taff’s first collection of short stories, Little Deaths, has been well reviewed, made it to the HWA’s Stoker Reading List and managed to crack the Top 100 Paid Kindle at Amazon. Two stories from Little Deaths were chosen as honorable mentions by Ellen Datlow in her Best Horror of the Year, Vol. 5. His latest novel, The Bell Witch, is out now, and a thriller, Kill/Off, will be out this fall, both from Books of the Dead Press. Follow him online at johnfdtaff.com and on Twitter @johnfdtaff.
The Bell Witch
The Bell Witch by John F.D. Taff is an historical horror novel/ghost story based on what is perhaps the most well-documented poltergeist case to occur in the United States. It tells the story of the Bells, an early 19th-century Tennessee farm family who begin to notice strange occurrences—odd noises, bangings, gurglings. Eventually, an entity reveals itself to the family, calling itself, simply, the Witch, and makes it clear from the outset that it was sent to kill the patriarch of the family, John Bell, for a reason it never makes quite clear.
The Witch’s antics, while not exactly endearing it to the Bells, make the spirit somewhat of a novelty. Word of its existence spreads, first through the Bell’s slaves, then through the rest of the community. It tells jokes, makes predictions, offers unwanted advice and even sings. It shows an intimate knowledge of The Bible and of history and politics.
It harasses those who annoy it most, saving its ire for John Bell and his teenage daughter, Betsy. These two people become the focus of the apparition’s attacks, both verbal and physical. Ultimately, the Witch fulfills its promise of killing John Bell, while also forcing Betsy and her mother, Lucy, into considering their own roles in what created the spirit.
The Bell Witch is, at once, a historical novel, a ghost story, a horror story and a love story all rolled into one. Available now in digital and paperback formats from Amazon:
Here’s what critics are saying about John F.D. Taff’s The Bell Witch:
“John F. D. Taff, the lauded author of Little Deaths, takes a 200-year-old tale from the American Deep South and creates a tale rich with history and lore that puts its contemporaries firmly in the shade. A compelling ghost story like no other, which will haunt you long after the last page.”
~ John Milton, Horror Reviewer at AndyErupts.com
“A classic ghost story full of creepy sounds, scary nights, and top-notch dialogue. An established master of short fiction, this is proof that Taff’s prose also shines in a longer format. Fans of great ghost stories now have cause for celebration.”
~ Gabino Iglesias, HorrorTalk.com
“If you enjoy scares and surprises, skillfully wrought human drama, and dark secrets, you must read The Bell Witch.”
~ Award-Winning Author, Erik T. Johnson.
“An American Haunting meets Casper. Kept me entertained the whole time!”
~ Ann Hale, Pop-Break.com
“I enjoyed it quite a bit. The Bell Witch will haunt you long after you finish this well-crafted, all-American ghost story.”
~ Rob Errera, Author of Hangman’s Jam
Read an excerpt from The Bell Witch by John F.D. Taff:
Hopson was unprepared as he entered the house, handed his coat to Naddy. Screams reverberated down the stairwell, voices shouting, furniture thumping heavily through the ceiling.
Wasting no time, he dashed up the steps, burst into Betsy’s room and the confusion therein.
Jack and John held the twisting, writhing young girl as she kicked and screamed, threw the covers off. The entire bed shook and jumped, despite the combined weight of father, son and daughter upon it.
Lucy stood near the fireplace, her hand clamped over her mouth, a shocked expression on her face.
Hopson grabbed his bag, brought out a bottle with an elegant silver cap. Inserting himself between Bell and Betsy, he grasped her head with one hand, steadied it, brought the bottle to her lips. Her eyes, abnormally large and glassy, fell upon him, then rolled alarmingly back in her skull.
A scream pierced his ears, high-pitched, filled with anger, unnerving enough to raise gooseflesh on him. Hopson’s resolve nearly fled him at that point, because the scream hadn’t come from Betsy’s lips; it rang in the air all around him.
Betsy, still writhing frantically beneath her father and brother, opened her mouth wider than it should have been able to stretch, and from it, more harrowing than the disembodied scream, came an unearthly roar of pain. It seemed to go on for minutes, echoing in the room, fading as she paused to gather another breath.
Seizing the opportunity, Hopson shoved the bottle between her open lips, upended it. Thin, red liquid bubbled into her mouth, down her chin, stained the front of her nightgown. Her teeth snapped closed around the bottle neck, scraped the glass with a sound like fingernails on slate.
Choking and gagging, she threw John from her with a surge of strength. He sailed from the bed, landed hard near the door. As her hands found Jack’s throat, closed around it, Hopson forced another, larger swallow down her throat. Grimacing, she clenched her jaw, shattered the neck of the bottle. Shards of glass sprayed her face.
Regaining his footing, John jumped to the bed again, grabbed Betsy’s hands, tried to pull them from his father’s neck. Within seconds, Betsy’s efforts slowed. Her head fell back onto the pillow, her body went slack.
Betsy’s hands dropped, twitched a little on the bedcovers, lay still.
Jack wrenched away, gasping for breath. John waited for a moment, until he was sure she was unconscious, crawled from the bed.
“What in God’s name is going on?” croaked Jack, rubbing his neck. “She nearly killed me!”
“I…I couldn’t break her grip,” whispered John, aghast, looking at his sleeping sister.
Hopson felt for Betsy’s pulse, looked into her eyes.
“What is that stuff?” Jack gestured to the broken bottle at Hopson’s feet.
“Laudanum,” said Hopson. “I’ve never had to give anyone that much before. She’ll sleep for a while.”
Jack noticed Lucy, who still hadn’t moved, went to her. She let him wrap an arm around her. “She came out of the room and got sick this morning,” he told Hopson. “I carried her back to bed, and she slept a little. When she woke, she complained of a stomachache. Before we could do anything, she started shrieking and kicking.”
Hopson felt the covers, smelled the tips of his fingers.
“That’s what she brought up,” said John. “She’s also passing a lot of water.”
“This all came out of her? All of it? You actually saw it?”
“Yes,” he answered. “Why?”
“It has no smell about it. Just plain water. And there’s so much of it.” Hopson shook his head, went back to examining her as Jack comforted his wife. Hopson’s hands probed Betsy’s body, poking, palpating, his fingers pressing deep into her flesh. When he reached her abdomen, a groan escaped her lips.
“That’s impossible. She’s had enough laudanum to put five men to sleep.” As he pressed lower on her abdomen, her nightgown raised, he noticed a slight swelling. Hopson looked questioningly at the Bells, turned back and pressed his hands against the tumescence.
A shriek exploded from Betsy, and she kicked Hopson away. The outburst was short-lived, her cries fading to dull groans. Hopson returned to the bedside, staying away from Betsy’s legs.
“If I didn’t know better,” he said to Lucy and Jack. “I’d say she’s pregnant.”
“What?” asked Lucy in a dead voice.
Jack remained silent, color draining from his face. Lucy felt his arm twitch.
“These other happenings—the fits, the passing water, even the coma—I don’t know. It could be, I suppose, her body’s reaction to a miscarriage.”
“Pregnant?” Lucy stepped away from Bell, giving him a wretched, horrified look.
“Gardner!” John spat, slamming his fist into a bedpost. “He was just up here a week ago!”
“John,” cautioned Hopson. “This didn’t happen in a week.”
“He’s had plenty of opportunity to disgrace her before then.”
“Right now, we need to help her, not guess who’s to blame. Go and tear up some sheets into long strips. Jack, stoke the fire, get it nice and hot. We need to keep her warm. Lucy…”
“I’m staying here,” she said, brooking no argument.
Hopson didn’t. “Hurry!” he exhorted the two men. “Before she wakes up again!”
The curtains were thrown wide, and the grey sky with its grey sun spun into the room like gauze. Lucy lit candles on two tables that had been set up, one on each side of Dr. Hopson.
The doctor, who had shed his jacket, loosened his tie, rolled up his sleeves, stood between Betsy’s splayed legs at the foot of the bed. His patient, waxen and pallid in the light of dim day, moaned and shook her head from side to side. Her movements were contained; her arms and legs strapped to the bedposts.
Lucy sat at the head of the bed, stroking her daughter’s face with a wet cloth, trying to comfort her. Bell stood impassive near the fireplace, and John leaned against the wall on the other side of the room.
Spread out like a sacrifice, covered only from the waist up, Betsy seemed oblivious to them all, locked in some inner torment from which even Hopson’s drugs offered little respite.
Against his better judgment, Hopson administered another dose of laudanum. His hand quivered as he pressed the slender glass to Betsy’s lips. The drug trickled into her mouth, between her clenched teeth. At the instant of its touch, Betsy spasmed, her back arching off the bed, and screamed.
With a shocked cry, Hopson stumbled backward. “Good Lord!” Before he could do anything, the arc of her body collapsed to the bed, convulsed, her stomach contracting violently.
Her screams gave way to quick, panting moans. Liquid oozed from between her thighs.
Water…thin, slightly brown.
At first, Hopson thought the discoloration was old blood, but when he got closer, he smelled something, something earthy and familiar.
Dirt.
The water coming out of her was muddy.
A powerful contraction, and something pushed from her, barely concealed by her nightgown, dropped to the bed sheets with a little plop. Hopson cautiously poked at it with his finger.
It was a clump of twisted, tumorous tissue no bigger than a walnut, untouched by blood or gore. Instead, it was slicked with mud. As they stared at it, Betsy drew in air with a strangled cry, let it out with a wail that literally shook the house.
The candle flames danced, were extinguished,
The fire sputtered, almost indignantly, died.
A crack appeared in one of the room’s window panes, spread like an accusing finger.
The floor shook beneath them.
In the kitchen, a rack of pots and pans hanging above the mantel fell, scattering cookware over the stone floor with a tremendous clatter. A crack opened in the flagstone, raced across the floor like lightning.
Less than three miles from the Bell house, Reverend Johnston was sitting down to a bowl of soup on this cold winter’s day. He had just returned from a simple funeral at the Boswell place, where their sick boy, despite all of Dr. Hopson’s ministrations, had died.
As he lifted his spoon, a whistling, high-pitched whine filled the room, the house shuddered around them, soup sloshed onto the table.
Johnston and his wife watched, amazed, as his Bible fell to the floor, landed on its spine. Its front and back cover fell open like leather wings, and the pages were rifled as if by a stiff breeze.
Neither felt the air move.
When Johnston looked, he noticed that the Bible had fallen open to I Kings.
At John Bell’s house, Ruth and Liz attacked the dirty laundry with a washboard and a large bar of lye soap in a great tin tub on the dining table. Wet clothes hung all around them, drying in the heat of the fireplace.
As they worked, Ruth stopped, cocked her head as if hearing a distant sound. She opened her mouth to speak when the house gave a short, sharp jolt, as if the ground beneath them were given a jerk.
“Earthquake,” said Ruth, matter of fact. “Happened worse seven, eight years ago.”
She shrugged, and they continued with the wash.
The slaves’ cabin trembled, sending children scattering like loose marbles. Some of the women, remembering the last earthquake, screamed, expecting the ceiling to come tumbling down upon them.
Adam, inside that day with an attack of arthritis, was rolled off his bed, and quickly sat up. He found himself looking in Saloma’s dark and spiteful eyes, aglow with triumph, with vindication.
Farther out, where there were no people to feel or fear, down through the dank, damp hole, down through the mud and muck, there was a room that had cupped a smooth, flat pool of water. Even before the shaking began, the pool had begun to vanish; its darkened, muddy water burbling away through some unseen crack to spill across clean linen.
The rock teeth hanging from the shelf above trembled as the water receded, cracked and fell like daggers into the thick ooze left behind.
Something stirred in that darkness, pulled itself from the mouth of the cave and cried its first cry.
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I thought you were going to say it all involves a guinea pig. Inside joke.
Great story. The mysterious missing staple ghost! I completely expected you to say at the end you were making this up, and that continually professing you weren’t making this up was part of your way to suspend disbelief.
I had better warn you, however, that I have seen these exact events happen before, (I am not making this up) and it all ends soon with you awaking one morning but staying stuck in darkness and unable to scream. Your eyelids and your lips have been stapled shut.
“Not a giveaway entry!” for The Bell Witch. I read the book, and loved it.
Thank you for sharing the memories, history, and excerpt. Great stuff!
Great tale! Love real ghost stories. Actually, any ghost stories!
Ken, it would make a good story. Now I just gotta figure out what to do with it. And Greg, there is a whole, rich history of the Witch out there. Got me snagged when I about 10.
The Bell Witch sounds fascinating. There are old country songs about the Bell Witch, but I never realized there was any real history there. Good job on digging it up and writing about!
Another haunted house story. Very cool. That must have been creepy as hell having old tombstones surrounding your neighborhood. That’s just begging to be written into a story. Thanks for sharing.