Visitations & Ghosts

Halloween

By Sue Ann Montgomery

Originally signed Sue Ann Ward Osterhout, October 2003

Another Halloween was gone. The children had been transported in their costumes to every relative, every family friend, and all of our neighbors who were known to provide treats, and now we were back. The house was quiet inside, with the children sleeping under their cozy quilts while the ice storm raged outside. I sat in Tom’s comfy chair and gazed at the fire in the fireplace, listening to the crackling of the logs as they harmonized with the wind and the ice clinking against the window panes in my old farmhouse. Tom had taken a job four hours away in order to hang onto the farm and couldn’t make it through the bitter storm to come home for Halloween. All was quiet up the creaky stairs and the children were sleeping while clutching their treat bags, which I would soon remove and place on top of the fridge for doling out later. I was frazzled. My car had grunted and strained over the icy roads but I was determined to celebrate for my kids, if for nothing else.

Tom was my sweetheart. We had met in the fourth grade and had never considered the possibility that we would not spend the rest of our lives together. When his grandmother left him the family farm in her will, we stepped up to carry on, but times were tough. With three small children, my getting a job was out of the question. There wasn’t much I could do that would make enough money to cover child care, and besides, Tom and I wanted the children to be cared for by at least one parent at all times. He was such a good father! And when it was clear that farming wasn’t the answer, he took the job that was offered in Kansas City and came home on the weekends. His voice was so troubled when he called early in the afternoon, just as the storm was showing its ugly face. “Anna, this will be the first Halloween that I’ll miss with the kids.” No matter—all was well, I thought, gazing into the flickering flames.

As I sat there musing, I heard a tapping at the window and, turning my head, I was taken aback by a figure looking in at me. Was I dreaming? I pulled myself out of the comfort of the chair and walked to the window. It must have been the reflection of the fire, I thought, as I felt my heart begin to beat in my chest. But no—a man looked back at me. My God, a traveler must have been stalled on the highway! My first thought was to throw open the front door and take him in. But just as I looked into his eyes, he grinned a grin that stopped my heart, and then he flashed the knife. I was frozen by his gaze and just as I caught my breath, a thought flashed through my mind—check the back door! He must have heard my thought, for he ducked and ran toward the back of the house. As I rounded the corner of the kitchen, I heard the glass break and saw his hairy arm reach through and grab the knob.

Turning, I knocked over a glass and heard it shatter as I raced through the hall and up the stairs. My mind was working ahead of me: go into your room—he will come after you and not the children. As I threw myself through the doorway into the room, I heard him curse as he slid across the broken glass in the kitchen and screech like a wounded animal as he came crashing up the stairs. I pulled the dresser in front of the old door and, as I grappled with the window, I heard his high-pitched gleeful laugh as he smashed through the bedroom door. It was black as pitch outside. The ice bore down on my head as I pushed myself out onto the roof, and hanging onto anything that stuck out, I slid and crashed over the roof until I reached the chimney and hung on. My heart pulsed hard in my temples and my lungs burned with the harsh coldness of the night. The wind and sleet suddenly ceased and the moon came out from behind the clouds for a moment. In the moonlight, I saw him climb onto the roof, wildly swinging the knife in one hand as he tried to steady himself with the other. I watched in horror as he found me with his eyes. He was a giant with mangy black matted hair. His face carried a wildness within it as though he was hungry and looking for a kill. The air carried the heaviness of his breath and the stillness emptied the earth of all but us. What would happen to my children once he had finished with me? Where was God?

Just then I heard the sirens and, within seconds that seemed like hours, the sheriff’s car appeared through the storm followed by an ambulance. Two small objects in the darkness with flashing lights—coming to save me! But then a strange thing happened. They stopped out on the road and seemed to wait. For what? “Help!” I screamed through the storm. “Help me!” My throat ached from the scream. I turned toward the giant just as Tom climbed over the edge of the roof. He was there! My cry stuck in my throat. Tom, my hero—of course, how could I have doubted? My heart cried with joy. He gave me a look and then turned with perfect grace toward the beast. I couldn’t see because of the darkness except for the reflection of the emergency lights. “Help him!” I screeched towards the lights. And then it was over. The giant gave an awful groan and was thrust backwards over the edge of the roof. But where was Tom? He must have fallen! My heart stopped. Oh my God—no! I eased myself over the rough icy roof and through the window. Throwing myself down the stairs, I heard a pounding at the front door.

The sheriff stood there coated with ice, his breath coming out in frosty puffs.

“Anna, may I come in?”

“Where have you been?” I cried. “Tom fell off the roof—there was a man—he tried to kill me,” I babbled.

He guided me to the couch. “Tom is dead, Anna. I am so sorry. He must have been on his way home when he crashed on the road. Somebody saw the truck. He must have been there for at least an hour. What are you talking about?”

From the author

My Uncle Carl was a short, heavyset, mentally challenged man with large lips and a mysterious gleam in his eye, who lived with my grandmother Ritt (short for Rittenoure). It was said that he had been a beautiful four-year-old boy who had lived with his older brother and two older sisters in a dugout out on the western prairies of Kansas when he was struck with “infantile paralysis,” which was later called polio. There were no medicines or treatments for this rare disease back then. For weeks he sustained a horribly high fever and neighbors rallied to help Gram keep him alive. After the fever broke, the little boy was left with a crippled leg and a mind that worked, but ever so slowly.

When he turned six, a baby girl was born (my mother) who was given the responsibility for his well-being and protection. It was an awesome task. She was a painfully thin, feisty tomboy who took on the meanness of the other children as she bravely put Carl on the bus for his cross-town journey to the school for the disabled and then raced home after school in order to meet him as he got off the bus. Their father was ill in a hospital far away and, after their farm had been auctioned off, Gram had brought the children into Wichita and got a job mending clothes at a cleaners. Mom’s older siblings had then had to drop out of school and get jobs. There were many nights when Mom and Carl waited on the steps of their home in the darkness for the others to return, a memory that to this day brings tears to Mom’s eyes. She is still afraid of the dark and won’t venture out alone after sundown. Who knows what lurked in the dark back then and what befell those two vulnerable children? Perhaps we will never know.

Uncle Carl, as I knew him, was an adult who delivered prescription drugs on his bicycle for the drugstore on the corner, not far from Gram’s house. He was grumpy and walked with a limp. Marjane, my older cousin, and I—and later my little sister Barbara—were afraid of him, and when we saw him coming we would run and hide. On Gram’s back porch was a huge old broken-down armoire that was absolutely filled to overflowing with Carl’s collection of comic books. (Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, was my favorite, or Fire Hair, a red-headed Indian she-ro.) There were comic books of all kinds—classics—including horror comics! These were Uncle Carl’s only entertainment except for the cowboy movies on the old movie screen down the block. I spent countless afternoons lying on the porch swing, or under the trumpet vine in the backyard, or in the middle of Gram’s feather bed reading, reading, reading those comics. I was the bookworm in the family. And while I was sometimes punished at home for spending so much time reading, I could read to my heart’s content at my beloved Gram’s.

I remember the picture in one of those comics of the hairy monster on the roof, eyes gleaming, coming for the terrorized woman who was clinging to the chimney—as clear as if I were seeing it this moment for the very first time. I have filled in around that image, but here it is: a story about the power of love. Hope you like it!

Happy Halloween

Love you

Mom