THEN

A looming old house. Darkness, driving snow, wind.

Cliche, Rachel thought, there should be thunder, and rolled her eyes.

She watched her Dad throw, much to her disapproval, Jasper into the back of the station wagon, before slamming the tailgate, hard.

She was aware of her mother, in the passenger seat, beseeching her to ’get in the car’, that annoying whiny tone cutting through the sound of the wind in the trees, while Tommy no doubt snivelled in back. Jasper let out an excited bark, muffled through the toughned glass, expecting an adventure.

’Honey,’ her Dad urged, ’c’mon we have to get out of this place. NOW!’.

Rachel was angry. Less than two months, seven weeks to be precise. This was supposed to have been a new start. A place for the family to heal after at had been so badly shattered the year before, a chance for her dad to pursue his dreams of property investing. Now, it was all over, and for what?

Despite Dad’s urging she was tardy getting into the backseat, using the precious few moments to take one last look at what they’d had. At what they’d lost.

Through the darkness the house stood over the family car, as if watchful. White, freshly-painted timbers now dark in the cloudy night. Windows glinting in the car’s headlights. Rain overflowing from gutters stuffed with rotting fall leaves. Just a house she said to herself. Just a silly, stupid old house, but at least it was ours.

EXERPT FROM ARTICLE IN NATIONAL INFORMER (W/C 10/16/00)

Who you Gonna Call? by Marsha Gimson

Millhaven (NY pop 5120) is like so many small American towns. Nestled, almost hidden, just a day’s drive from New York City, it feels like another world, from an age long before this new century.

Here you will find a pretty Main Street, strictly mom & pop stores, no chains for the good people of Millhaven.

At the town’s main intersection stands, one one side, a small but pretty wood-built church. In contrast, directly opposite and in the shadow of it’s steeple, is a concrete monstrosity - Ed’s Garage ’Value Servicing & Lube’. Two buildings worshipping the twin gods of America.

At the other end of Main Street you’ll find BB’s Diner which, like so many of its brethren, seats the people of this fine town upon pleather benches, serving bottomless coffee and food piled high on formica tables.

Residential properties, some in less than perfect condition, are clustered along a number of arterial roads and it is one of these homes that has caught the attention of this reporter.

It is here, at 1123 Jefferson Street, that a young family - the Flemings - found themselves early in the summer of this year. Sean and Millicent (Milly) Fleming moved into their newly-purchased home with their two children, Rachel (13) and Thomas (10) and the family dog, Jasper. There intention, to fix up the old place and flip it for a healthy sum.

Just seven weeks later though the family fled 1123 Jefferson Street in fear, they say, for their lives. The cause of their abandonment? Nothing so common-or-garden as subsidence or infestation, well not of the insect-kind.

The Jeffersons claim to have been the victims (they prefer to say ’survivors’) of a haunting so terrifying, so extreme, that it’s likely to go down in the history of the unexplained.

Will the Flemings be remembered in the same breath as George and Kathy Lutz or the Perrons? Only time will tell.

What I can say is that Sean and Milly’s accounts and the thoughts of the residents of this small town, are likely to cause sleepless nights for many of you. Read on if you dare...