Part 2

It says something about me that people described my dream home as “eerie.” A country home perched on the top of a hill overlooking a grassy valley, surrounded by deep dark woods, and built in the 20s with solid red brick - the place was architecturally impressive, but it certainly was a place where you would set a horror movie. 

It was a perfect setting for how my life would unfold shortly after moving in. 

I tried to combat the creepiness of the house as much as I could. Item number one on that list was to seal off an odd little room with nothing but a sink in it in the basement. 

I hired a local contractor - Russ - to seal the room. He went through two pucks of those smokeless tobacco nicotine minty patch replacement things and did a job I’d rate a 5.5 out of 10. 

I figured Russ had fucked something up when I heard a noise moving around in that little room in the middle of the night. I went down to investigate and stopped at the wall he sealed. 

The sound of something dragging across the hard floor scratched out into the night. It seemed to be moving methodically around the walls. It snapped me out of a deep sleep and got my heart racing as I laid in bed. 

I didn’t go down to investigate. I assumed it was a rat. I bought rat traps the next day and placed one through a hole Russ had sloppily left in the wall. 

I heard the trap snap in the middle of the night. Then I heard a scream. 

A woman’s scream.

I didn’t even investigate. I got in my car, drove to town, slept in it. 

I caught up with Russ first thing. I brought him back to the house under the guise of having him fix the hole he left in the wall, but really just not wanting to be alone when I checked the sealed-off room. 

I watched Russ go in and come back with the same dumb look he always had on his face. 

“The trap snapped but there’s no rat. Looks like it took the bait though,” Russ explained. 

I was thinking about how I hadn’t even bothered to put food on that trap when Russ’ face finally changed.

“I found something in that room I didn’t want to tell you about at first, but I should now,” Russ went on. 

-

“I found this in the cracks of the wall,” Russ explained as he pulled out a black and white photograph from his pocket. 

The photo was of a woman. Nude. Extremely tall and slender build. Tall and narrow face. Long arms and fingers. Her feet bent backwards at a grotesque angle. 

She was in an awkward kind of leaned back pose, like she was trying to do something sexy out of an old Playboy shoot from around when the photo seemed to be from at first glance - 1950s, maybe 60s. 

“I think this room was a dark room for photography. Explains the no windows. The sink,” Russ said. “Do you want the photo?” 

“I don’t think anyone wants that photo,” I answered back. 

Russ took the photo closer to his face and gave it another examination. 

“I’m guessing someone must have at some point,” Russ theorized. 

I walked out to Russ’ truck with him and he kept talking - explaining it was well known around the time that a psychologist from a long closed down mental hospital lived in the house. He figured I knew that. I didn’t.

“Supposedly the place, and the guy creeped people out,” Russ gave me his parting words. “I’ll throw away the photo.”

I stayed in the house. I did my best to remind myself I was a 35-year-old man and ghosts were not real. The sounds in the basement were a coincidence.

-

I heard the crawling and scraping noise down in the basement again that night. 

It was just a rat. Just a rat. I thought to myself as I descended down into the basement. 

I looked through the crack Russ’ shoddy work had left and caught just a glimpse of a tall, thin, nude woman with long black hair draped over her face. She was walking around the perimeter of the room in a numb circle. 

It was the woman from the photo. 

I got out of the house, but I wasn’t ready to completely give up on my dream home just yet. 

I went to the only person I knew in the area. Russ met me, seeming guilty and like he knew I was going to reach out. The first thing he said to me gave me the chills. 

“There’s another photo I found I didn’t show you.”