“Thank you, Gary. As you can see I am standing in front of the
Connelly farm where hundreds of volunteers are gathered for a second
day of search and rescue of the two Connelly children.” Julie
Stanton, news reporter, held her microphone with one hand while
trying to brush her windblown blonde hair from her face with the
other. “They disappeared yesterday morning after telling their
mother they were going to play soccer in the back yard. Parents, Mr
and Mrs John Connelly, called police after the children missed lunch
and couldn’t be found. Now, there has been a report of a sighting of
a black van in the area shortly before their disappearance.” The TV
reporter looked over her shoulder. “It looks like the search is
getting under way, Gary, and I will keep you posted during the
course of the search. This is Julie Stanton, WXIX, channel 6 news”
* *
*
“Come on, Catty, don’t cry, they will find us.” Ten-year-old Sean
hugged and patted his younger sister in an attempt to quiet her
sobs.
“How do you know?” her small voice whimpered. She looked up at the
opening of the old abandoned well to see a hint of sunrise coming
down, throwing a small golden beacon on two carrot topped children.
“I just know.” He wanted to cry himself, but knew he had to be
strong for his sister. His hand throbbed, broken when they fell into
the well. Catty was lucky, no broken bones, but she looked so pale
and she couldn’t stop her teeth from chattering.
They had spent a long, cold, and scary night in the dark water-soaked well.
Catty stiffened. “What’s that?”
Sean listened, hoping that Catty heard someone coming to get them
out. The noise didn’t come from the top but rather from underneath
their feet. The side of the well rumbled while the ground vibrated.
One side of the wall gave way and water rushed in. Catty screamed
and felt her brother throw her onto the small ledge of stones that
jutted out from the side; the ledge they took turns on during the
night to stay out of the two feet of water on the bottom.
* *
*
Two
young women were scrutinizing the menus outside a quaint New York
sidewalk Bistro. One had flaming red hair, the other short-cropped black hair.
The dark haired woman folded and laid down her menu. “Well,
Katherine, how do you like your new job so far?”
Katherine smiled at her friend and roommate.
“I love it! Who would have thought that we would end up in New York
working for the same law firm?”
Katherine had met Brenda Seagal in college. Both were going for law
degrees, but Katherine dropped out. An alcoholic mother demanded so
much of her time she couldn’t keep up with her studies. She opted
for a Paralegal certificate instead.
One night Brenda called her and told her about an opening for a
paralegal in the law firm she was working at. Katherine jumped at
the chance. Only with Brenda's help and encouragement did she break
the dysfunctional tie that bound mother and daughter. Christina
Connelly begged and pleaded for her only daughter to stay.
Katherine, armed with determination, went to New York and now she
sat across from her friend at a real New York sidewalk bistro.
The waiter took their order and they involved themselves in office
gossip.
“What about Bob Crusher? Isn’t he just tooooo sexy?” Brenda was
always talking about whom she could get into the sack with.
A small tinkling version of “Days of Wine and Roses” emanated from
Katherine’s purse.
Brenda looked up from the salad she was attacking. “You really need
to get with the times, Katherine.”
Katherine pulled her cell phone from her purse and looked at the ID
in puzzlement. The light was on but the screen was blank.
“Hello?”
The pause was ominous.
“Catty, why did you leave me? It’s cold and dark and I’m scared.”
Katherine gasped. An icy wave shot through her body.
It couldn’t be! Sean was dead! He had disappeared through the
opening in the well when the water had rushed in. His body was never
found.
“Come on, Catty, Come back for me.” The voice of a ten-year-old boy
brought all the horror of that chilling day back. NO! This has to
be a prank.
“Who is this?” She tried to sound stern, but her voice shivered.
Click. Buzz. Connection terminated.
Katherine stared at the blank screen.
“Katherine. Katherine!” Her friends’ voice broke Katherine’s daze.
Concern filled Brenda’s’ face. “What the hell was that? You are
three shades from pale.”
Katherine closed her cell phone and placed it on the table gingerly.
“Oh, it’s a prank call, that’s all it is, a prank.”
Katherine’s unconvincing, hesitant tone told Brenda otherwise.
“Well, you should report it to your cell provider.” Brenda decided
to leave it alone.
*
* *
Katherine opened the door to her apartment glad to be home from a
long, distracting day. Her mind whirled constantly with the mysterious phone call earlier. She turned on the TV, pushed the
button on the answering machine out of habit, and went to the
refrigerator. She pulled the door open and peered inside. Her
choices were few; a sandwich or a piece of cake.
“Sorry, hon.” Brenda’s’ voice blared from the answering machine. She
sounded excited. “I have to work late. Bob needs some legwork for a
case, if you know what I mean.” She giggled. “Don’t wait up.”
Katherine was glad. She really didn’t feel like going to the theater
tonight. She would have a piece of cake, a glass of milk and
vegetate in front of the TV.
The answering machine moved to the next message while Katherine cut
a large piece of cake.
“Hey, Baby, got the tickets. Call me.”
A strong mans voice relayed his message curtly and hung up.
Katherine smiled to herself a little. She wondered if Brad, Brenda’s
current boyfriend, knew about her wandering ways.
The answering machine announced no more messages as Katherine
plopped on the couch with a sigh and started flipping through the
channels.
The phone rang.
Damn, she thought, always happens.
Remembering the other phone call, she rose and looked at the ID
caller screen. Her mothers’ number. She stood and let it ring two
mores times, contemplating whether to answer or not.
She sighed and picked up the receiver.
“Hello, Mama.”
There was silence and her heart jumped.
“Katherine?” Relief washed over her, it was her mother.
“Yes, Mama.”
You would think a mother would recognize her own daughters’ voice.
Another pause. Katherine waited patiently. Her mother would do that
frequently.
“I saw Sean.” Her mothers voice was so matter-of-fact and calm that
Katherine wasn’t sure she heard right.
“What?”
“I saw Sean today. Right in front of me. And he spoke to me.”
Katherine placed her hand over her heart in an attempt to keep it
from exploding out of her chest.
“Mama.” Katherine had become the parent and was prepared to reason
with her mother.
Her mothers voice became more excited and higher-pitched.
“I saw him. Just like he was fifteen years ago and he said that he’s
scared and cold and that we need to help him. Katherine, you need to
come home, you need to come home and help Sean.” Her mothers voice
verged on hysteria.
“I can’t come home. Mama. I’ve only had this job for two weeks.”
“You have to, you have to. We have to help Sean!”
All the old resentment came flooding back to Katherine, the accusing
glances from her mothers’ blood-shot alcoholic eyes and the
innuendos. Why was Katherine saved and not Sean?
“You’ve been drinking.” What a stupid statement. Her mother was
always drinking. And Katherine always gave in.
“All right, all right, mama,” Her mother was sobbing uncontrollably
now, “mama… mama… stop crying, I’ll come. I’ll catch a flight in the
morning.” She sighed as she placed the phone into the cradle. An
overwhelming feeling of doom engulfed her. Why is this happening?
Does insanity run in the family? She couldn’t very well accuse
her mother of imagining Sean when she herself had received a phone
call from her dead brother.
*
* *
A
heavy dread filled her stomach like a ball of lead as she looked at
the once pretty white and red one-story farmhouse skirted with a wrap-around porch. The paint peeled from the weather-beaten gray
boards in long slivers. Patches of crabgrass dotted the mostly dirt
yard.
She vividly remembered the night her father had gone out for milk two
years after the “rescue” and never returned. Katherine wondered in
despair why her father never took her with him. That’s when her
mother turned to the bottle for comfort. And a lifelong vigil for
Sean began.
She hefted her overnight bag to her shoulder after the taxi drove
away and walked hesitantly up the creaking porch steps.
The house seemed unusually quiet. She opened the screen door and
knocked soundly on the secondary door. No answer, no sounds of
rustling, nothing. She walked to one of the windows on the porch and
peered in. Somewhat comforted by the sight of her mother lying on
the couch with an empty vodka bottle on the floor, she searched for
the key in her purse.
She entered the house, threw her bag on the floor and began helping
her mother from the couch.
“Come on, Mama, let’s get you to bed." Katherine pulled on her
mother's arms. Her mother moaned as her head rolled to one side.
“Sean…” Her mother hoarsely slurred, still semi-conscious.
Tightening her lips, Katherine struggled to get her mother up. “It’s
all right, Mama, It’s me, Katherine, I’m going to put you to bed
now.” This same scenario had played hundreds of times in Katherine’s
young life.
Katherine removed her mother's clothes and covered her up with a
quilt. She walked back to the living room and looked at the
disarray. She surveyed the dingy curtains, the once bright floral
couch that had faded to an unrecognizable red stained lump of dirty,
dusty piece of furniture and the cobwebs that splayed every corner
of the ceiling. Much darker than she remembered. Liquor bottles,
glasses, various packages of half eaten food was strewn everywhere.
The dark wooden stairs that climbed to a quaint attic room with
small dormer windows looked neglected and dusty. He had claimed the
room as his secret place and never allowed anyone to enter.
Katherine doubted anyone had been up there since Sean's death. Three
bedrooms, a guest room or as it was called in the old days, a parlour,
two baths, a living room and a country kitchen occupied the main
floor. Tying back her hair and rolling up her sleeves, she commenced
to clean.
*
* *
She stood in front of the closed door of the last room to clean. She
could hear her mother's deep, elongated snores from the room next
door.
She didn’t want to go into Sean’s room. The horrific memories would
creep and coil around her brain like a snake. She beat the snake
back and reached for the door. It’s just another room, she told
herself. She had her hand almost to the knob when a piercing
chirping noise split the air causing her to jump. The noise rang
through the stillness again. Relieved when she realized it was the
phone, she ran to answer.
“Hello?”
A pause. Her heart skipped a beat.
“Catty, you shouldn’t have left me.” Sean’s child-like voice echoed
through the earpiece, but different somehow, lower, raspier,
almost…evil. “Why did you do that to me? I never hurt you…yet.”
Her heart racing in stark fear, she slammed the phone down into its
cradle.
“Who was that?”
Katherine whirled fast to see her mother leaning against the door
jam of her room. Katherine stared at her, unconsciously taking in
the disheveled, torn pink housecoat, and frizzed, messy red hair.
“Uh, nobody, wrong number.” Katherine was sweating. She took her
kerchief from her head and wiped her face and neck.
“Why do you keep it so hot in here, Mama?”
Her mother moved from her leaning post and walked across the room
past Katherine, her flip-flops making a slapping noise against her
feet.
“It’s not hot, it’s the humidity. Don’t you have humidity in New
York?” Her sarcastic tone wasn’t lost on Katherine.
Her mother hadn’t even noticed how clean everything was. She just
doggedly made her way to the kitchen and busied herself searching
for a bottle of vodka and a glass. Katherine followed, staring
disapprovingly at her mother as she poured a glass full of vodka.
“You really should eat something. I’ll make dinner, and we can
talk.”
She grunted, and with bottle and glass in each hand, said almost
laughingly.
“Good luck with that.” She schlepped back to the living room.
Katherine sighed and opened the refrigerator. Nothing but liquor,
beer, mixers for the liquor, a few take out containers with
half-eaten food and a jar of pickles. The pantry held two cans of
tomatoes, a box of noodles and a canister of Christmas cookies. She
didn’t even want to look in that, this was August, and they were
probably green by now.
Her mother sat in the living room, smoked, drank and watched TV.
“Where’s your car key, Mama? I’ll go to the grocery store and get a
few things for dinner.”
Her mother said nothing as she continued to stare at the TV screen.
“Mama?”
“I saw him on TV.” She was still staring at the screen.
“Who?” Katherine tried to stay nonchalant, but knew the answer.
“Sean. He was right there on TV.”
Katherine sat beside her mother. Maybe, just maybe, this is a
figment of both our imaginations. But she couldn’t shake a
feeling of dread and doom.
“Were you watching some family videos?”
“No. I was watching Jerry Springer. Sean just appeared. Told me I
shouldn’t have left him. That we should have found him.” Christina
turned to her daughter, tears welling in her eyes, bottom lip
trembling. “We looked, we looked for weeks, we tried so hard to find
him, so hard.” She placed her face in her hands and sobbed.
Katherine placed her arm around her mother and hugged.
“I think we both need some help, Mama.”
The phone rang. Both women jumped.
Christina pulled a dingy handkerchief from the pocket of her
housecoat and dabbed at her eyes. Her mother stuffed the handkerchief
back into her pocket and reached for the phone as Katherine held her
breath.
“Hello?”
“Oh, hi, Lydia.”
Katherine released her breath.
“No, not today, I don’t feel too well.”
“Thank you, Lydia, some other time, ok?”
Christina hung up and mother and daughter sat in silence for a long
time.
*
* *
After searching in every nook and cranny the car keys were finally
found.
Katherine’s cell rang twice on the way to the grocery store but she
ignored it. Driving through Dawson’s one main street with three red
lights brought back memories of cruising on Saturday nights looking
for any kind of action.
Dawson was a small farming community in the sloping hills of
Georgia. Population was 4,567 at last count. Dawson was the type of
town where the population count went down every year. She pulled
into the parking lot of Herndon’s grocery, the only grocer in town.
If you wanted a bigger variety, the drive to a larger town was only
twenty-five miles. But Katherine didn’t want to take the chance with
her mother's old 78 Oldsmobile.
“Kathy! Kathy Connelly!” A voice yelled from behind her as she
walked into the store. She turned to face a large dark-haired
flushed-faced young man. He grinned from ear to ear. He looked very
familiar, but she couldn’t remember his name. She smiled back at him
hoping he would give a clue to his identity.
“Hi.” He extended his hand.
She took it hesitantly, furiously wracking her brain for his
identity.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
She continued to smile.
“Second year lit at Georgia State. Bill Dawson.”
Yes, the great-great-great-grandson of the founding father of
Dawson, she reveled in her sudden insight.
“Of course I remember you, Bill. Nice to see you. But what are you
doing in Dawson? I thought you moved north to go to Penn State.”
“Well, I finally decided what I wanted to do with my life. I am a
veterinarian. Plenty of farm animals around here.” He laughed, as he
followed her into the store.
They both grabbed shopping carts and Katherine looked at him with a
subtle quick questioning.
“Buying groceries for my Aunt. Something I do every week. She’s
ninety-three and feisty as hell.” He laughed.
Katherine smiled, a very pleasant young man, she thought. But she
couldn’t remember much of him. He had gone to the same high school
and college she had, but he was two years older than her and she only
knew him by sight.
As they both rolled through the aisles, chatting and laughing,
Katherine felt a lightness in her heart that had been absent for
years.
“So, how long you here for?” Bill asked while Katherine was paying
for her food. He had gone through the line and was waiting for her
at the end of the checkout, cradling two bags of groceries in his
arms.
“Oh, um, I'm leaving to go back to New York tomorrow evening. This
was really only a short visit.”
She paid the clerk and proceeded to push the cart full of bagged
groceries through the doors to her car. Bill Dawson followed
eagerly, like a puppy expecting a treat.
She opened her trunk to the battered old car and started packing the
groceries in.
“Look, I know you have plans tonight, but would you join me for
breakfast in the morning? We could meet at Rosie’s, catch up on some
old times.”
Katherine looked up into his eager flushed face. Yes, a very
pleasant man, and thought, why not? It was only an hour out of her
day, an hour that promised to be enjoyable.
“All right, Bill, it’s a date.”
“Great, about 9 o’clock?”
“See you there.”
He walked away thoroughly satisfied, whistling some non-descript
tune.
Katherine smiled, closed the trunk and drove home.
*
* *
Dinner was uneventful. Her mother held a glass of whiskey, straight
up, in one hand and a cigarette in the other, taking a bite of food here and there.
“I ran into Bill Dawson today.” Katherine started the conversation
with a safe subject. “We’re going to meet at Rosie’s in the morning
for breakfast. Would you like to join us?”
Christina leaned back, took a puff of cigarette, then a gulp of
whiskey. She was still in her ragged, faded housecoat.
“Bill Dawson. Yes, I remember him. Used to walk you to school when
you were little, after…” Her mother's voice trailed off into
silence. They both knew what she was going to say. Katherine had
forgotten about the shy, dark-haired boy walking her to school a
year after Sean's death.
The silence pressed on for several moments, each in their own
thoughts.
Her mother rose, and carrying her security drink and cigarette in
hand, started toward the living room. “Let’s watch some TV.”
They sat in front of the TV for a couple of hours. Her mother poured
one drink after another and chain-smoked, then finally succumbed by
falling asleep. After putting her mother to bed, Katherine found
herself once again standing in front of her brothers’ room.
She felt compelled to go in, but hesitated with an unexplainable
dread slithering through her body. Taking a deep breath, she turned
the knob and threw open the door, to be greeted only by darkness.
She fumbled for the light switch and turned it on. She stood on the
threshold and gazed around in astonishment. The room was exactly as
it had been fifteen years ago, except clean, very clean. Baseball
banners hung on every inch of the wall. Several baseball caps were
lined up neatly on the dresser and various toys and action figures
stood stoically on a shelving unit in one corner.
Katherine walked in, rubbing her arms from the chill. The rest of
the house was hot, but this room seemed chilly, or maybe it was just
a shock reaction, Katherine thought. Her eyes fell on the picture of
her brother on his nightstand. A very cute redheaded freckled-face
boy stared at her with that crooked smile Katherine remembered the
most about him. Candles and fake rose-garland surrounded the
picture. Her mother had turned this room into a shrine!
“Catty.” An almost inaudible whisper caused Katherine to whirl
around toward the door. Her stomach wrenched.
“Catty!” Louder, from the window. She turned.
“Catty, Catty, Catty!” Louder, louder, louder, emanating from
different parts of the room. Katherine felt like a whirling
ballerina on top of a music box.
“Catty, Catty, Catty, Catty, Catty, Catty, Catty,”
Katherine became terrified. The voice became exceedingly louder and
deeper, infusing her body, until she placed her hands over her ears
in an attempt to quiet the voice.
She ran from the room but the voice followed. It seemed to be right
over her head.
The voice stopped so abruptly and the dead silence that followed
made Katherine doubt her sanity.
Slowly, ordinary night sounds drifted through the air. The clock
ticked steadily, a muffled dog bark from far away, and the whirring
of the air conditioner brought Katherine back to reality.
Katherine shook her head and started toward the kitchen. She would
make herself a cup of tea. That should calm her down. She ran water
into a teakettle, put it on the stove and turned the knob to ignite
the gas flame. While she was looking in the cabinets for the box of
tea she had bought at the store today, an almost imperceptible
scratch on the window over the sink caught her attention.
Jerking her head toward the sound, she walked gingerly to the window
and gazed out. The wind was picking up. Maybe something blew across
the window. Without warning, Sean’s gray menacing face appeared in
the window. Katherine gasped, dropped the box of tea, and stumbled
back almost falling over a kitchen chair. And then it was gone.
Clutching her chest as if to keep her heart from tearing through,
she heard another sound. A thud, as if something heavy had been
dropped on the porch. Her heart was pounding so loud she thought it
would wake her mother.
Wanting to run and hide under the covers she was overcome by a
stronger emotion; curiosity. Another emotion started coursing
through her, anger. If she found out one of the kids in this area
was playing a trick on her, there would be hell to pay. Expecting to
see a bunch of kids running away across the yard laughing and
giggling, she walked to the door and flung it open. The cold blast
of wind that struck her face was surprising. Catching her breath,
she peered across the yard. Seeing nothing she stepped out onto the
porch. A full moon and the light from the kitchen window illuminated
the porch quite well. There was nothing on the porch to indicate
something had fallen.
Hugging herself against the chill she stepped out a little further.
She squinted into the white-gray moonlit darkness across the yard
toward the open fields. Is that a person standing out there? Or
were her eyes just playing tricks on her? Her questions were
answered almost immediately when the figure turned and moved away
from her.
In an almost trance-like state she followed. Ignoring the rocks and
ground roughness on her bare feet she concentrated on keeping the
figure in sight. She hadn’t even noticed the kitchen door slamming
shut from the wind or the gas eye blowing out underneath the
teakettle.
Losing the figure at times, she followed doggedly, not realizing
what direction she was going. Her only thought was to find out who
the figure was and put this insanity to rest forever.
Surprised to find herself standing in front of the well she and her
brother had fallen into fifteen years ago, she stood and stared at
the cement cap that had been placed over it soon after the incident.
Only something was different. The cement cap was askew, leaning to
one side, exposing a hole about three feet wide.
She looked all around, no sign of the child. Could the child have
fallen in? Hesitantly she approached the opening and gazed down.
“Hello? Is anybody there?” She thought she heard a slight rustling
in the dark bowels of the well. She settled on her knees, placed her
hands on the topsides of the short cement wall that held the cap in
place.
“Hello?” She yelled again into the darkness.
Something slithered around her neck. She screamed and tried to back
away, but the grip of the thing tightened and pulled. Using her
hands on the walls to brace herself she tried to pull away again.
She couldn’t scream now as the thing had found its way to the front
of her throat and choked the life out of her twitching, kicking
body. More slimy, black tentacles came from below and pulled her
body silently down the well. If someone had been standing nearby
they would have heard a distant mocking laughter of a little boy
echoing from the abyss.
*
* *
“Come on, Bill, its starting.”
A small white-haired woman of about ninety years of age was flipping
through channels with a remote. Bill Dawson came in carrying two
cups of tea and sat them down on the coffee table. The old woman
couldn’t seem to find the channel she was looking for. Bill took the
remote from her.
“It's on Channel 6.”
Finding the station he placed the remote on the table and handed his
aunt her cup of tea.
They both remained silent as they suffered though several minutes of
weather and uninteresting stories of local fluff.
“Shhh. Here it is.” His aunt perked up.
“There was a gas explosion in Dawson early this morning that
completely devastated a farm house. It is believed to be one
fatality in that explosion.” A bland looking newsman related his
story with no emotion. “Rick Carlton is on the scene now with more
details, Rick.”
“Thank you, Gary.” Another bland looking newsman. They all looked
alike.
“There has been no cause established yet. Neighbors report hearing
the explosion about twelve-thirty this morning. There are reports
that the explosion could be felt as far away as Conyers. As you can
see behind me there are still fire trucks and police cars on the
scene. They did find one body that is believed to be Mrs Christina
Connelly. An autopsy will be performed to determine the exact
identity of the body. The only other relative that Mrs Connelly had
was a daughter, who was visiting. The police are still trying to
locate her daughter, Katherine Connelly. Here is a picture of
Katherine Connelly.” He held up an 8x10 photograph. “If anyone has
seen her please call the number you see on the screen.”
“Rick, Rick. Let me interrupt you for a moment.”
“Yes, Gary.”
“Is there any indication of foul play here, since the daughter was
there and is now missing”?
“The police aren’t saying much on that issue; the investigation is
ongoing and has described Katherine Connelly as a person of
interest.”
“Ok, thank you Rick.” The anchorman turned back toward the
camera. “We will continue with this story as more information
becomes available.”
Bill took the remote and turned the TV off.
His aunt shook her head. “So, so sad. You know, there was a rumor
that John Connelly didn’t leave, but that Christina killed him,
threw him down the well, and that the farm is haunted. Yep, blamed
him and Katherine for the death of her son, Sean. Never was the same
after that, never the same.”
Bill nodded. “I was to meet Katherine this morning at Rosie’s, but
she never showed up. I just thought she had changed her mind. Never
thought something could have happened to her.” He reached for the
phone to call the police, they needed to know he had seen her last
night.
“Yep, haunted.” His aunt nodded with undeniable certainty.
