It started with the apple truck. The driver had lost control, his gargantuan vehicle swerving with an almost sentient vigor, apples flying out and rolling wildly around the road, until the truck threw itself into a nearby house. The chief of police, a stout, mustached man who avoided doing work at all costs, declared no signs of foul play, but we knew better. Our little town of Greenbrook was no stranger to the paranormal and unexplainable, and it was taken for granted that some kind of spirit had gotten into the truck – after all, why else would it have launched itself at the former residence of a serial killer? Maybe it was the ghost of Petunia Gillis, or Abigail Knox, or one of his other victims stolen away in the dead of night. Or maybe it was just another one of
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But it did seem to become ever more frequent afterwards. We had to cancel Halloween last year; the year before, the poor homeowners of Greenbrook opened their doors to a mix of young trick-or-treaters and faceless, costumeless children. It had been speculated that the ghosts were those of little ones who had passed during the smallpox epidemic three hundred years prior, though no one could be certain. Of course, the gossip du jour amongst the townspeople was about what may have caused this spike in paranormal activity. I seemed to be the only one who noticed that the strangeness began less than a month after the Barnes family moved in. The Barnes household was made up of three people and two cats. Ellis, the patriarch, was a burly man with a chestnut beard and wrinkles set deep into his forehead, with a penchant for leatherwork and pottery. His wife, Maria, a tall and imposing woman whose auburn bob framed a stone-cold face, had been a business magnate, but gave up her job to become a homemaker when they moved. No A-list horror movie could compete with the fear she struck into one’s heart just by making eye contact with
But it did seem to become ever more frequent afterwards. We had to cancel Halloween last year; the year before, the poor homeowners of Greenbrook opened their doors to a mix of young trick-or-treaters and faceless, costumeless children. It had been speculated that the ghosts were those of little ones who had passed during the smallpox epidemic three hundred years prior, though no one could be certain. Of course, the gossip du jour amongst the townspeople was about what may have caused this spike in paranormal activity. I seemed to be the only one who noticed that the strangeness began less than a month after the Barnes family moved in. The Barnes household was made up of three people and two cats. Ellis, the patriarch, was a burly man with a chestnut beard and wrinkles set deep into his forehead, with a penchant for leatherwork and pottery. His wife, Maria, a tall and imposing woman whose auburn bob framed a stone-cold face, had been a business magnate, but gave up her job to become a homemaker when they moved. No A-list horror movie could compete with the fear she struck into one’s heart just by making eye contact with