Ghosts in a Hurry to Fade

I tiptoed through the dusty living room toward the piano and the wooden floor creaked with each step. I was trying to be quiet, but I needn’t have bothered; I was the only living person in the house. But still, I found myself holding my breath.

I reached the piano and looked around; a phone book from 1987 lay at my feet. I hesitated, then hit the middle C key. The piano was badly out of tune and the dull, flat note seemed jarring, like it might wake something up that was better left asleep. I got the creepy feeling that I was being watched and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Better get out of here.

Our area of North Carolina is growing at an astonishing rate. And as the moving trucks appear, the landscape is changing. Farmhouses, barns and pastures are giving way to the developer’s bulldozers, and pastoral scenes of fences and ponds are being replaced by featureless boxy townhomes.

What mystifies me are the houses that are left behind when people sell and move. I have a fascination with these abandoned places and almost always have to stop and explore. Most are littered with personal stuff: yearbooks, diplomas, trophies, clothes. Faded pictures from the 1970s, 60s, even earlier add to the mystery. I wonder what happened to the people that lived here. Who were they, and why did they leave all their stuff behind? What were their lives like?

Some places give off a chill vibe; I get a sense of peace, of happy times, families and Christmases and yellow harvest moons. I look at the books on dusty shelves; paperback novels, school books, hardcover non-fiction, almost all from the 2000s and earlier. Most of the kitchens have mason jars, utensils, appliances. Almost every living room has a piano and fireplace, and the bedrooms have clothes and other personal items.

Other places give off little or no discernible vibe; they’ve got the same junk as the chill houses, yet I get the sense that these houses are slumbering, they don’t know or care about me poking around. The occupants are long gone, the place is going to be bulldozed in a few months and the 1974 yearbook from Burlington High will shortly be under three feet of trash in the county landfill.

But some places give me the willies right off the bat. Most of these houses have dormer windows and as I stand next to the car…the switched-off engine going tink tink tink…and I look across the waist-high weeds surrounding the front porch, a little warning bell goes off: be careful here. Not that anything nefarious happened, no ancient crime-scene tape clinging to a window, no faces in the dormers, but I still feel an unease. These places usually get a flyby visit; pop into a room or two, quick look around…creepy index high, a swift retreat to the car.

Not long ago, I was out running an errand with my oldest daughter. Like me, she has an appreciation for back roads and seeing what’s over the next hill. We took the long way home, through a remote area of the county we seldom visit. We passed an old place and I backed up to take a look. Some places look like they’re abandoned, but the owners are simply unable or unwilling to do any maintenance and don’t mind living with broken windows or two junk cars in the front yard. I’ve sometimes had to beat a hasty retreat when the front door opens and someone emerges.

I was pretty sure this place was abandoned. From the road, it was a pretty house, Victorian, with a wide porch and metal roof. I backed the car in…essential for the quick getaway…and we stepped out. Immediately, I felt alarm bells going off. I looked at my daughter and she, too, looked uneasy.

The first thing we noticed were the dollheads. They were tied with string and hanging from the branches of trees in the front yard. Not just one, there must have been two dozen. OK, who does that? We exchanged glances, OK, a little further.

We continued down the weedy dirt driveway and came to the side porch. Everything seemed unnaturally quiet; even the insects had stopped buzzing. The door was ajar, but I wanted to look around back first. We circled around the chimney and came to the back yard. A dilapidated garage stood off to one side and four or five chairs circled what looked like a fire pit. In the pit were the charred remains of a large animal. We backed away and my daughter pointed. Under some bushes were several more animal skulls.

We turned and saw that the back of the house was covered with graffiti. Most of the windows were broken, and empty beer cans and liquor bottles were strewn everywhere. A skull with antlers was over the back door that drunkenly hung from one hinge.

By now my creepy meter is clanging like a fire alarm; there’s no friggin way I’m even gonna set foot on the porch, no less go inside. As we passed the chimney and the half-opened door again, I had the certain feeling that we were being watched and if we broke into a panicky run, whatever was watching us was not going to stay hidden. We both crossed ourselves, got into the car with a forced calmness bordering on hysteria, and I put the key in the ignition.

We looked back as we were pulling out and the side door we had just passed was now closed. We looked at each other, speechless. My daughter’s face was pale as we flew down the empty road.

Later at home, I looked on the county tax web site to see if I could learn more about the history of the house; sometimes I can find out what year a house was built, the acreage, the owners. This place was built in the 1920s and the last sale date was 1984. After that, no names, no sales, no activity.

Curiously, my interest in exploring abandoned houses has waned a bit since then. Friends with more sense have warned me there could be armed squatters in there, let alone levitating chairs….something I had not considered.

I still prefer the empty farmhouses to the boxy townhomes…but at a distance 😉