As I was sitting in front of my computer, staring at a blank page and thinking about Lilac Lane, I got a phone call from my cousin, Ted. "I'm going to Haliburton," he said. "Give me directions to the trailer." I was a bit flabbergasted, as he had no idea I was writing about Lilac Lane and we haven't been near the old place in over 30 years. He had experienced childhood trauma there, which I will write about in a later post.The following Saturday night, just as I was wondering if Ted had actually made the trek to Haliburton, he phoned, as though he had been reading my thoughts. "I'm at Ground Zero," he said. "I'll be back later, when it gets dark." Eep, I thought. We've dubbed it The Scariest Place on Earth for a reason. He knew that facing his childhood demons could mean facing some real demons. No jokes. When he called me back after dark, he said there was something not right about the place. That is exactly what I would call it, too. Not right.
To make matters creepier, the whole time I was talking to him, my solar-powered garden light started blinking on and off. It's never done that before. After we hung up, it returned to normal. Now, I have a lot of strange things in my current house, particularly the backyard and it makes me wonder if it was good things telling me to be careful or bad things telling me to watch out. It's the former, I think. (I hope.) We had a lot of static and crackling on the phone line, which obviously could be caused by normal cell phone fuckery, but that feeling was undeniable. Even 150 kms away through an iPhone.
My phone has been on the fritz ever since my conversation with Ted from Lilac Lane. Sure, it could be coincidence. But, I don't think so. I really don't. Particularly given our history of ghosts and phones.
Anyway, that was about a month ago. It's taken me so very long to get back into telling this story, not for lack of desire, but because it really scares me. To read the details may not be all that alarming to an outsider. It's not like a James Wan film, with jump-scares and creepy things looking in the window. (Though, the latter did happen.) It was a constant, on-edge, nerve-fraying fear that we lived with at Lilac Lane. Sometimes it would be relatively quiet and one could almost believe that we were imagining things. Then it would be there again, like a horrifying clown ripping your arm off and telling you that you'll float too.
My grandmother stayed with us for the first week of our new life at Lilac Lane. One day, while JR and I were at school, she and my mother were unpacking and hanging up pictures. We had a bar mirror, Beefeater Gin, which they were trying to put up in the hallway. The thing would not hang. It wasn't that the wire was breaking, or the nail was coming out of the wall, it was that the damned thing would not stay up, no matter what they did. It would just slide down the wall. Frustrated and a little freaked out, they finally got it to stay put, when my grandmother yelled "Don't look in it!" It crashed to the floor, unbroken, once again.
That is when Grandmama took my mum outside and told her that there was something wrong with our new place. She didn't want to alarm her, but she also wanted us to be safe. She told her the same thing that she told me on our first night there: Don't pay it any attention. That is what it wants.
The Beefeater mirror was finally hung in a different spot and stayed up without further incident. It probably comes as no surprise that no one ever looked in it again, if they could help it.
Another day, while my mum was unpacking some kitchen stuff, she saw a man looking in the window at her. He was big and dressed in denim overalls. He turned, walked a few steps and then disappeared. The window in question looked out onto a deck and there was nowhere he could have gone. She told me later that she didn't feel anything particularly threatening about him, just curiosity. However, a ghost is a ghost is a ghost, regardless of its intentions, and he was one of many.
There were beings that weren't merely curious; they were downright fucking evil. I don't like to throw around the word "demonic" because it is so overused. But this was real life, not an episode of Ghost Adventures. We didn't fart around with night-vision cameras and EMF readers (which make me roll my eyes HARD). We didn't need to. They found us. We didn't ask for it. We didn't call it out. It was real evil. It didn't scratch or growl. It used our fear. That is what these parasitic fuckers do. It's what powers them - fear and unhappiness and hatred and every oogy emotion humans have.
Our two dogs, Strider and Jackson could sense them. Every night around the same time, the dogs would face the empty lot next to ours and howl. It was a strange, unearthly sound that I have never heard dogs make before or since. It made every hair on your body stand on end. These were Labs, not exactly famous for their howling barks. (They woo-woo.) Every hackle was raised and their ears pinned back. They no longer resembled our dogs. It was almost as if they were facing off with something every night. It went on for about 10 minutes and then they returned to being the floofy, clumsy assholes we knew and loved. I shudder to think what may have been allowed to enter if it hadn't been for Strider and Jackson.
After school let out and summer began in earnest, the activity ramped up. I started waking up in the middle of the night, absolutely terrified. I just KNEW there was something in the room with me and it enjoyed my fear. In my mind's eye, I saw it crouched beside my bed. Looking back, it seems to me that I acted instinctively, with my grandmother's words in my head - don't pay it any attention.
So, I didn't. I put my comforter over my head, and went into the living room to watch TV. Thank the Goddess for CKVR 24 Hour Classic Television.
With my comforter still over my head, I watched amazing stuff like The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits and Our Miss Brooks, The African Queen and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. I didn't look right or left. I ignored that thing that was growing increasingly angry with my refusal to give it what it wanted. It didn't exactly stand there screaming "LOOK AT ME!" in the physical world, but it was in my head. It hated me for my disobedience. So many nights I was terrified it would figure out how to turn off the electricity (it did, eventually - but never on my TV terror nights). Maybe I had a guardian that wouldn't let it. Looking back, I think that is exactly what it was - something very big and very protective was stopping that thing from getting to me. And boy howdy, did that piss it off.
As soon it was 5:00 am or when I heard the birds start singing outside, I knew I was safe. It's been 35 years and I STILL feel afraid when I wake up in the night (which happens frequently) unless it is after 5:00 am. Still can't fall asleep without the TV or music playing. I cannot stand total darkness and quiet.
I was 13 years old that summer and that was when I developed triskaidekaphobia - fear of the number thirteen. I don't just mean a weird religious avoidance of it, I mean, a deep down, bone-chilling fear. It made no sense. We were not religious and at that point in my life, I was unaware of the superstitions surrounding the number. I remember watching videodiscs (it was 1982!) and my eyes being dragged to the counter when it hit 13 minutes and feeling a thrill of fear. (This pleased the thing.) The fear lasted until we moved to Toronto in 1984. Now, 13 is my favourite number. In fact, the house where I currently live is number 13 - a rarity. Keeps the religious peddlers from my door.
(FUN FACT: Stephen King suffers from triskaidekaphobia. When going up and down stairs, he skips the 13th riser. The story 1408... add up those numbers.)
Our neighbours told us a story of a farmer who used to live on the property, who went mad, killed his family with an axe and then hanged himself in the barn. The barn then burned mysteriously to the ground. The remains of the barn are still there, to this day. I have no idea if this story is true. A Google search turned up nothing. I have some theories, which I will share with you once I have done some more digging.
Stay tuned for Chapter Eight: What Ted Saw and The Lady of the Woods
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