At exactly 1:20 am every night, a woman screams outside my house. It’s this awful, blood curdling scream that I genuinely thought only existed in movies. Over the time I’ve lived here it’s actually triggered asthma attacks when it jerks me out of a deep sleep.
I moved here because I thought it would be quiet, peaceful, completely different from the drug induced, fast paced, blur of a life I’d lived in the city. After a stint of three weeks in a coma after taking something laced with something else coated in another thing, I decided I needed to stop. I quit my job at the trendy salon downtown and got hired at the local soccer mom hangout. It was slow paced, every haircut and color was the same, and I loved it because for the first time in 5 years I could actually remember everything that happened every day.
The house that the bank had bought and I was allowed to keep my shit in was small and comfortable. The outside was a pale, dusty pink with a white border and the small yard was overgrown with weeds. The inside amazed me because I honestly didn’t realize that you could buy that many different shades of light green paint. All in all it reminded me of a grandmothers wet dream, and it was perfect.
First nights in new houses are always the hardest, so when I woke up at 1:20 am with the echo of a scream in my ears I didn’t really think much of it. I honestly thought I’d been having a nightmare and when I woke up I just didn’t remember it. The next night, however, I was fully conscious and sorting through books when it happened.
I grabbed my baseball bat and shot out the door, racing to the street. It sounded like it was right outside, like a woman had just been brutally murdered on my shitty lawn. Where the fuck was she?? My yard, the street, the neighbors yards, all were empty. I expected to see someone bleeding out in my yard, yet all I saw were dandelions.
Spending a few minutes skulking around my own home to try and figure out what was going on, I ultimately gave up and chalked it up to neighborhood idiots. Maybe this was some sort of weird high schooler thing where instead of cow tipping they went ding-dong-screaming. My neighbors didn’t seem affected, all the lights were out. I decided to go back inside, locking my doors and pulling the drapes tight. I didn’t really sleep well that night, the scream lingering in my ears.
The next morning I begrudgingly went outside to try and take care of the disaster area that was my front yard. I had these big dreams of converting it into a garden oasis, and the only way that was going to happen was by me actually going out there and doing it, which sucked.
“You must be my new neighbor!” an older voice called from my left.
I looked up and saw a woman who was probably in her late 50’s smiling at me and waving. I smiled and walked over, putting my hair up in a ponytail as I went. I didn’t plan on socializing today, but might as well I guess.
“Hi, I’m Mia,” I said, once I was close enough that I wouldn’t be shouting at her.
“Nice to meet you, Mia. My names Eden.” She stuck her hand out and I shook it, nodding slightly.
“So, I gotta ask,” I smiled sheepishly, “Did you hear that screaming last night?”
Eden nodded, the picture of nonchalance, “Of course I did dear, the whole street has at some point or another.”
“What do you mean?” confusion riddled my voice at her choice of words.
Eden shrugged, motioning to my front lawn, “It happens every night dear, for as long as anyone can remember. From what I understand it was happening even before this land was developed. Some people think it has something to do with an underground animal, though nothing like that has ever been found. I think it has something to do with the earth’s magnetic field myself.”
I stared at her for a few seconds, trying to wrap my head around what she was saying, “This seriously happens every night? Why do people still live here?”
“Oh, well because aside from that it’s a very nice and quiet neighborhood. Why throw away the whole batch when only one egg is spoiled, you know? You’ll get used to it after a while, just give it a few days and soon you won’t even hear it at night.”
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A few days turned into a few months, and I barely slept anymore. I was so beyond obsessed with The Screaming Woman, as Eden had called her once after I was lamenting my exhausted woes to her one day, that I would stay awake every night to get a small glance of her. I figured out one night that if you stand just right while looking out the window, you could see a soft shimmer when she screamed.
I must have used every combination of words possible to try and dig up more about her. The only thing I could ever find was that the house was built in 1972 and before that it was just an empty plot.
I did stumble onto a rudimentary ghost website that honest-to-god looked like a child in the 90’s had made (complete with a ghost mouse icon) one night that gave me pause. There was an article written in 2004 detailing a ghost hunt that took place in my house. With the limited technology they had they were able to catch a few snippets of a phrase at 1:19 am.
Over the course of three nights we ran EVP’s, asking the spirit different questions each time. We never got a direct intelligent response. However, on the second night we were able to catch a male voice talking.
There was a link to play audio, so I pressed it after turning my speakers up, bracing myself. There was static at first, then . . .
“You . . . Never . . . Left.”
The voice dropped out at random intervals, but it was definitely male, and definitely trying to convey something by the deep, raspy quality. The article continued.
This phenomenon only happened the one night and we believe it was able to manifest because a crew member had been working on their car and had the hood open to reveal the battery. When she tried to start her car the next day it wouldn’t turn: the whole car was dead.
It went on to describe what they thought this new male voice was getting at with the phrase. I noticed as they were progressing with their theories that they believed it was complete. It wasn’t though . . .
I hit play again and listened a couple times in a row.
“You . . . Never . . . Left.”
“You . . . Never . . . Left.”
I leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, like when you see an actor and you’re trying to remember what movie you saw them in recently. There was no way that sentence was complete.
There was a contact number at the top of the article, belonging to someone by the name of “Spectral Sam”. Okay then.
“Hello?” A male answered on the third ring. His voice was thin and scraggly, almost like Shaggy from Scooby Doo.
“Hi, is this . . . uh . . . ‘Spectral Sam’?” I asked, my voice betraying the fact that I would have rather chewed on tin foil than say that stupid name.
He sighed heavily, groaning a bit, “Please, just call me Sam. I cannot express to you the amount of regret I feel every time someone calls me that.”
I blinked a couple times, not sure how to respond to that.
“Anyways, you’re obviously calling about that stupid website Blue refuses to take down.” It sounded like he was shuffling around, maybe getting comfortable?
“Yeah, actually. It’s about one of the articles you wrote.” I scanned over the article again, trying to formulate how I wanted to phrase this. The guy obviously wasn’t into this kind of stuff anymore from the way he was acting. How do you tell a man who’s given up that he was wrong?
“Look, you seem nice, miss, but if this is about the article I wrote where I claim Bigfoot is an alien with a penchant for hopping time dimensions I’m going to have to ha . . .”
“No, it’s about The Screaming Woman.” I interjected quickly, preventing him from doing the deed.
There was a couple seconds of just dead silence. I thought he had actually hung up and I was about to do the same when his soft voice drifted through the speaker.
“What about her?” the shift in his tone was stark and jarring. He went from sounding like an exhausted single father after downing his last 5-hour energy because his 3 year old got his 5th wind at midnight, to a man who was staring the devil in the face.
“Well, uh, I live in that house now, and I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on, you know?”
“How long have you lived there for?” He asked quickly, more shifting in the background.
“About 3 months now, why?” I was starting to get a bad feeling, maybe I shouldn’t have called. This guy obviously knew what house The Screaming Woman appeared in front of, and I’d just told him I lived there.
The phone on his end dropped and there was a flurry of shuffling, “I’ve put you on speaker. I kept all my notes, everything Blue wouldn’t let me publish after the first article flopped, saying it wasn’t worth our time anymore. The fucker forced me to publish an article on alien Bigfoot but not actual, tangible proof that apparitions exist.”
“What did you find?” I asked, standing up and starting to pace. The range of emotions this man had already gone through in a three minute conversation was causing my anxiety to spike. What on earth did he find that prompted this much of a frantic reaction?
“Okay, you need to leave that house, either for good or temporarily, before August 6th.” He sounded out of breath.
I looked over at my calendar. Today was July 22nd.
“Did you hear me?” his voice was closer to the phone now, “you cannot be there on August 6th.”
“I heard you, that’s in less than a month. Why can’t I be here then? What happens?” I asked, running my free hand through my hair.
“We’d heard rumors of activity coming to a head on that day, right? So I begged Blue to go back with me on that day. It was 2 years after the first investigation, and I knew that there was more to that stupid phrase than what we heard originally. My plan was to take a couple of fully charged car batteries and place them in different locations around the property, three in the front yard and three around the inside of the house.
Blue wanted nothing to do with it, said there was no money in that plan and it would be stupid to pursue. I needed to know though, it had haunted me since that first night I heard her scream. The raw pain and fear that swirled in her voice, the betrayal that coated the echoes of her scream. I dreamt about it every night and thought about it every day. I NEEDED to understand what she was trying to tell anyone that would listen.
So, I went by myself. All I had that night was my phone, a flashlight, six car batteries, and a written approval from the bank that owned it that I wasn’t trespassing.”
I didn’t dare interrupt him. Somewhere in his monologuing I’d stopped pacing and stared out the window, at the spot where I’d seen shimmering.
“Now, I understand that I have no way of proving what I’m about to tell you. I was so focused on finally seeing her that I didn’t record anything. I wasn’t running audio, I wasn’t filming. I didn’t even get a damn photo. You have to believe me though, and if you really live in that house I think you will.” His voice was calm, but I could hear the underlying hysteria threatening to break through.
“After everything I’ve seen so far, I’m pretty sure I’m going to believe you.” I sighed, pinching a the hem of my shirt. I definitely wasn’t ready for whatever bomb he was going to drop, but I needed this. I could understand the desperation he was going through, the obsession to know more. It’s what drove me to having this exact conversation.
“Okay, okay.” He took a deep breath and started. I can, without a doubt, pinpoint this moment as the start of an avalanche I was destined to never recover from. This is the moment that I look back on and wish I’d done differently. I could come to terms with everything that happened after those two words if I’d remained ignorant: if I’d hung up right then and there. I cannot rest my demons because I listened. I was warned. But when everything came to a head, I forgot. I had the knowledge in my hands and I essentially threw it away.
“The night started the same as it did 2 years ago. Before 1:00 am, nothing happened, not even a plant was rustled. Once that clock hit though, instantly there was a swirl of activity. It was kind of . . . beautiful, in a way. I know that sounds crazy, but when you devote your whole life to finding something, and suddenly at exactly 1:00 am you see the locked door open and close by itself, the sound of keys landing on the table follows, and the bathroom door opens, it’s beautiful. I was in awe.
For about, I would say 16 minutes after that it was pretty quiet. There was movement throughout the house as the apparition moved within her space, but nothing out of the ordinary, for a ghost that is.
At 1:18 am things changed. The first thing that happened was a male voice, the one you heard on the first recording, started shouting from outside the house. Honestly it was so crisp and clear that I thought there was an alive guy calling me a bitch and demanding I come outside.
I ran to the window and I saw this shimmering shape. As it was yelling it took more of a definite form, though direct features never came into focus. Maybe if I placed all of the car batteries outside they would have been able to appear better . . . I digress though. It was enough just seeing the vague shapes.
A few seconds after the shouting started thundering footsteps came from the back of the house to the front. That door flew open, and when she stepped outside she took shape. Long hair whipped around her in a breeze that only existed for them. She paused just outside the door frame and the two sized each other up. When she moved forward I slipped out behind her, needing to see the whole scene unfold. I knew I couldn’t save her, couldn’t warn her what was about to happen. She was already dead, and so was he I think. Watching felt like the next best thing, like I could possibly help her rest if others knew her story.
She never spoke a word. That’s something I think about every goddamn day. Why didn’t she say something? Yell, maybe? Say the attackers name? I can speculate about it for hours and hours and I would never come close to understanding why or how things might have ended differently.”
Sam sighed heavily, sounding like he was holding back sobs.
“I knew things would end quickly once the guy said his line. I knew it wasn’t a complete phrase, just like you probably do. Blue swore up and down that it was, he was just pausing for dramatic effect. Dramatic effect my ass. There was nothing poetic in the way he murdered her. He shook his head after she didn’t speak.
‘Remember me, Babydoll?’ he asked her, voice low. He didn’t even wait for a reply before he said, ‘You should have never fucking left.’
He raised a gun that glinted in the moonlight. Two quick shots rang out and that’s when she screamed. The sheer amount of dark red blood that manifested stole my breath. I watched in stunned horror as it spurted in thick waves from her convulsing body. I think one of the bullets hit an important artery.
I started to feel the pain too, in my chest and my stomach. I collapsed onto the ground, the last thing my narrowing vision seeing was the woman go still and the man walk away, disappearing after crossing the battery threshold.
Three days later I woke up in the hospital. The doctors said I’d suffered from a heart attack brought on by stress. He said I was lucky that a neighbor had been awake and looked out her window. If I hadn’t gotten medical attention as quick as I did, I would have died on that lawn.”
He stopped speaking for a moment, letting the imagery he had just described settle into my head.
“I haven’t been back since,” He continued after a heavy sigh, “I don’t want to go back. She still haunts me: not literally, of course. But her memory, the memory I have of her. Years of exhaustive research and I’ve never found a name.
Blue was pissed that I’d done an investigation without him. After he refused to even read the article I’d written about that night I left the group. I think they actually still hunt, last I knew he was chasing a fortune that he’ll never find. Just like I’ll never find out who The Screaming Woman is.”
I genuinely did not know what to say after he was done. Did I believe him? Did I want to? Regardless of whether or not I wanted to believe him I had to. I’d seen some of her with my own eyes: I hear her fucking screams every night.
“So, what do I do?” I finally asked.
“You need to leave, get out. Sell the house, default on your loan, anything. Just get the hell out.” His voice was resolute, firmly believing this was the only way.
“I can’t afford too! I spent my last cent buying this place and this new life! I cannot just up and leave because a fucking ghost might give me a heart attack. I’ll put safety measures into place, and I won’t put fucking car batteries in the yard so it won’t even happen as strong as what happened with you!” I knew that I was hysterical at this point, but I didn’t give a flying fuck. I had just gotten this normal life, I deserved to sit in my yard at twilight and listen to the crickets, I deserved to sleep through the night. I didn’t have another opportunity to start over. This was my happily ever after and now “Spectral Sam” and The Screaming Woman were trying to rip that out of my shaking hands.
“Did you not hear me earlier? I almost died. The aftershocks from August 6th put me in a three day coma. There’s no ‘safety measures’ when it comes to the supernatural. You either face it head on or you get the hell out of dodge. I would suggest the latter for you, unless you have more paranormal experience than I do, which I have thirty years under my belt and you don’t even sound like your thirty.”
I mean, he was right. Before The Screaming Woman I didn’t even believe in the supernatural. Now I was facing down the barrel of a loaded ghost gun and I didn’t even know who was behind the trigger.
“Listen, kid, I know this is a lot, considering, but if you don’t do anything else in your life, you need to do this one thing. Stay away from that house on August 6th.” He sounded resigned. I wonder if he knew that I wasn’t going to listen. His voice said as much.
“Thank you for everything, Sam.” I tried to force my tone to have a cheery edge to it. Pretty sure it just sounded like a grimace.
“Sure thing. Let me know if you need anything else.”
I hung up after that, collapsing on my couch.
Well, fuck.
—————-------------
As you can probably guess, I didn’t heed Sam’s warning. In fact, on August 4th I was fired from my job. I understood the decision deep down, I’d been calling off more than I’d been coming in, and when I was in I wasn’t really there. It didn’t stop the anger though, and it didn’t stop me from breaking my careful sobriety. I was stressed and upset and felt so goddamn helpless and the only solace I could find was at the bottom of a bottle.
Most of that night and the next day were a blur. By the time I got home at 1:00 am on August 6th I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep forever.
My keys hit the coffee table as I walked in and I made a beeline for the bathroom, needing to relieve my bladder something fierce. I barely registered that something seemed off: it was like a small buzzing at the back of my mind that I could easily swat away.
I took my time getting ready for bed, the alcohol coursing through my veins was making fine motor skills near impossible and I didn’t need to stab my eye with my toothbrush again. As I was climbing into bed the yelling outside my house started.
There’s this theory people believe that i never really took seriously before. It’s the theory that everything is happening at the same time: the Big Bang happened in the past, yeah, but it’s also happening now, and it’s happening in the future. All your break ups are happening at the same time, all your smiles, all your tears, all your victories are happening at the exact same time.
I never believed it because it was so hard to comprehend. Time was linear: things happened in steps and bounds and tiptoes. It was sequential, there was no way time was this jumbled mess of moments slipping through your fingers, and then you die.
“Hey! Bitch! Get the fuck out here!” His voice shot through my head, partially dispelling the fog in my brain, “I know you’re in there, you fucking bitch! Come out now!”
I staggered out of bed and raced to the front, throwing the door open. The man standing in my lawn was tall, with dark hair pulled back into a bun and black jeans paired with a black t-shirt. My hair caught a breeze and slapped me in the face, causing the trees to groan and shake in the night.
He looked so familiar, why did he look familiar? I walked closer, squinting, trying to make out his features a little better. Who the fuck was this man, and why was he in my yard insulting me?
“Remember me, Babydoll?” He purred, flashing a wide, glinting grin at me.
Babydoll. Babydoll.
The party that sent me into a three week coma.
He was the one who gave me that drug. I promised I’d pay him back. That stupid little pill cost a lot of money, more than I had at the time. In my drug haze I bought one for all of my ‘friends’. I must have owed this man thousands of dollars.
“You should have never fucking left.”
I never believed that theory before. Now though, I realize it’s all a big fucked up circle and everything I ever believed in was a lie.
I’m the screaming girl outside my house. I’m the one who was murdered. And I’m the one who’s going to keep dying, over and over and over again until something breaks the loop. I’ll be forced to watch myself move into my house, watch myself live and experience those moments I thought were marching straight down a line forever, with no end in sight.
Maybe there is a way out of this. Maybe someone new will come along, maybe they’ll die and I can be free. Maybe it’ll be you, unsuspecting and carefree, just like I was.
You should pray it’s not you. Because if it is, and you don’t die fast enough, I swear on my grave that I will kill you.
I moved here because I thought it would be quiet, peaceful, completely different from the drug induced, fast paced, blur of a life I’d lived in the city. After a stint of three weeks in a coma after taking something laced with something else coated in another thing, I decided I needed to stop. I quit my job at the trendy salon downtown and got hired at the local soccer mom hangout. It was slow paced, every haircut and color was the same, and I loved it because for the first time in 5 years I could actually remember everything that happened every day.
The house that the bank had bought and I was allowed to keep my shit in was small and comfortable. The outside was a pale, dusty pink with a white border and the small yard was overgrown with weeds. The inside amazed me because I honestly didn’t realize that you could buy that many different shades of light green paint. All in all it reminded me of a grandmothers wet dream, and it was perfect.
First nights in new houses are always the hardest, so when I woke up at 1:20 am with the echo of a scream in my ears I didn’t really think much of it. I honestly thought I’d been having a nightmare and when I woke up I just didn’t remember it. The next night, however, I was fully conscious and sorting through books when it happened.
I grabbed my baseball bat and shot out the door, racing to the street. It sounded like it was right outside, like a woman had just been brutally murdered on my shitty lawn. Where the fuck was she?? My yard, the street, the neighbors yards, all were empty. I expected to see someone bleeding out in my yard, yet all I saw were dandelions.
Spending a few minutes skulking around my own home to try and figure out what was going on, I ultimately gave up and chalked it up to neighborhood idiots. Maybe this was some sort of weird high schooler thing where instead of cow tipping they went ding-dong-screaming. My neighbors didn’t seem affected, all the lights were out. I decided to go back inside, locking my doors and pulling the drapes tight. I didn’t really sleep well that night, the scream lingering in my ears.
The next morning I begrudgingly went outside to try and take care of the disaster area that was my front yard. I had these big dreams of converting it into a garden oasis, and the only way that was going to happen was by me actually going out there and doing it, which sucked.
“You must be my new neighbor!” an older voice called from my left.
I looked up and saw a woman who was probably in her late 50’s smiling at me and waving. I smiled and walked over, putting my hair up in a ponytail as I went. I didn’t plan on socializing today, but might as well I guess.
“Hi, I’m Mia,” I said, once I was close enough that I wouldn’t be shouting at her.
“Nice to meet you, Mia. My names Eden.” She stuck her hand out and I shook it, nodding slightly.
“So, I gotta ask,” I smiled sheepishly, “Did you hear that screaming last night?”
Eden nodded, the picture of nonchalance, “Of course I did dear, the whole street has at some point or another.”
“What do you mean?” confusion riddled my voice at her choice of words.
Eden shrugged, motioning to my front lawn, “It happens every night dear, for as long as anyone can remember. From what I understand it was happening even before this land was developed. Some people think it has something to do with an underground animal, though nothing like that has ever been found. I think it has something to do with the earth’s magnetic field myself.”
I stared at her for a few seconds, trying to wrap my head around what she was saying, “This seriously happens every night? Why do people still live here?”
“Oh, well because aside from that it’s a very nice and quiet neighborhood. Why throw away the whole batch when only one egg is spoiled, you know? You’ll get used to it after a while, just give it a few days and soon you won’t even hear it at night.”
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A few days turned into a few months, and I barely slept anymore. I was so beyond obsessed with The Screaming Woman, as Eden had called her once after I was lamenting my exhausted woes to her one day, that I would stay awake every night to get a small glance of her. I figured out one night that if you stand just right while looking out the window, you could see a soft shimmer when she screamed.
I must have used every combination of words possible to try and dig up more about her. The only thing I could ever find was that the house was built in 1972 and before that it was just an empty plot.
I did stumble onto a rudimentary ghost website that honest-to-god looked like a child in the 90’s had made (complete with a ghost mouse icon) one night that gave me pause. There was an article written in 2004 detailing a ghost hunt that took place in my house. With the limited technology they had they were able to catch a few snippets of a phrase at 1:19 am.
Over the course of three nights we ran EVP’s, asking the spirit different questions each time. We never got a direct intelligent response. However, on the second night we were able to catch a male voice talking.
There was a link to play audio, so I pressed it after turning my speakers up, bracing myself. There was static at first, then . . .
“You . . . Never . . . Left.”
The voice dropped out at random intervals, but it was definitely male, and definitely trying to convey something by the deep, raspy quality. The article continued.
This phenomenon only happened the one night and we believe it was able to manifest because a crew member had been working on their car and had the hood open to reveal the battery. When she tried to start her car the next day it wouldn’t turn: the whole car was dead.
It went on to describe what they thought this new male voice was getting at with the phrase. I noticed as they were progressing with their theories that they believed it was complete. It wasn’t though . . .
I hit play again and listened a couple times in a row.
“You . . . Never . . . Left.”
“You . . . Never . . . Left.”
I leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, like when you see an actor and you’re trying to remember what movie you saw them in recently. There was no way that sentence was complete.
There was a contact number at the top of the article, belonging to someone by the name of “Spectral Sam”. Okay then.
“Hello?” A male answered on the third ring. His voice was thin and scraggly, almost like Shaggy from Scooby Doo.
“Hi, is this . . . uh . . . ‘Spectral Sam’?” I asked, my voice betraying the fact that I would have rather chewed on tin foil than say that stupid name.
He sighed heavily, groaning a bit, “Please, just call me Sam. I cannot express to you the amount of regret I feel every time someone calls me that.”
I blinked a couple times, not sure how to respond to that.
“Anyways, you’re obviously calling about that stupid website Blue refuses to take down.” It sounded like he was shuffling around, maybe getting comfortable?
“Yeah, actually. It’s about one of the articles you wrote.” I scanned over the article again, trying to formulate how I wanted to phrase this. The guy obviously wasn’t into this kind of stuff anymore from the way he was acting. How do you tell a man who’s given up that he was wrong?
“Look, you seem nice, miss, but if this is about the article I wrote where I claim Bigfoot is an alien with a penchant for hopping time dimensions I’m going to have to ha . . .”
“No, it’s about The Screaming Woman.” I interjected quickly, preventing him from doing the deed.
There was a couple seconds of just dead silence. I thought he had actually hung up and I was about to do the same when his soft voice drifted through the speaker.
“What about her?” the shift in his tone was stark and jarring. He went from sounding like an exhausted single father after downing his last 5-hour energy because his 3 year old got his 5th wind at midnight, to a man who was staring the devil in the face.
“Well, uh, I live in that house now, and I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on, you know?”
“How long have you lived there for?” He asked quickly, more shifting in the background.
“About 3 months now, why?” I was starting to get a bad feeling, maybe I shouldn’t have called. This guy obviously knew what house The Screaming Woman appeared in front of, and I’d just told him I lived there.
The phone on his end dropped and there was a flurry of shuffling, “I’ve put you on speaker. I kept all my notes, everything Blue wouldn’t let me publish after the first article flopped, saying it wasn’t worth our time anymore. The fucker forced me to publish an article on alien Bigfoot but not actual, tangible proof that apparitions exist.”
“What did you find?” I asked, standing up and starting to pace. The range of emotions this man had already gone through in a three minute conversation was causing my anxiety to spike. What on earth did he find that prompted this much of a frantic reaction?
“Okay, you need to leave that house, either for good or temporarily, before August 6th.” He sounded out of breath.
I looked over at my calendar. Today was July 22nd.
“Did you hear me?” his voice was closer to the phone now, “you cannot be there on August 6th.”
“I heard you, that’s in less than a month. Why can’t I be here then? What happens?” I asked, running my free hand through my hair.
“We’d heard rumors of activity coming to a head on that day, right? So I begged Blue to go back with me on that day. It was 2 years after the first investigation, and I knew that there was more to that stupid phrase than what we heard originally. My plan was to take a couple of fully charged car batteries and place them in different locations around the property, three in the front yard and three around the inside of the house.
Blue wanted nothing to do with it, said there was no money in that plan and it would be stupid to pursue. I needed to know though, it had haunted me since that first night I heard her scream. The raw pain and fear that swirled in her voice, the betrayal that coated the echoes of her scream. I dreamt about it every night and thought about it every day. I NEEDED to understand what she was trying to tell anyone that would listen.
So, I went by myself. All I had that night was my phone, a flashlight, six car batteries, and a written approval from the bank that owned it that I wasn’t trespassing.”
I didn’t dare interrupt him. Somewhere in his monologuing I’d stopped pacing and stared out the window, at the spot where I’d seen shimmering.
“Now, I understand that I have no way of proving what I’m about to tell you. I was so focused on finally seeing her that I didn’t record anything. I wasn’t running audio, I wasn’t filming. I didn’t even get a damn photo. You have to believe me though, and if you really live in that house I think you will.” His voice was calm, but I could hear the underlying hysteria threatening to break through.
“After everything I’ve seen so far, I’m pretty sure I’m going to believe you.” I sighed, pinching a the hem of my shirt. I definitely wasn’t ready for whatever bomb he was going to drop, but I needed this. I could understand the desperation he was going through, the obsession to know more. It’s what drove me to having this exact conversation.
“Okay, okay.” He took a deep breath and started. I can, without a doubt, pinpoint this moment as the start of an avalanche I was destined to never recover from. This is the moment that I look back on and wish I’d done differently. I could come to terms with everything that happened after those two words if I’d remained ignorant: if I’d hung up right then and there. I cannot rest my demons because I listened. I was warned. But when everything came to a head, I forgot. I had the knowledge in my hands and I essentially threw it away.
“The night started the same as it did 2 years ago. Before 1:00 am, nothing happened, not even a plant was rustled. Once that clock hit though, instantly there was a swirl of activity. It was kind of . . . beautiful, in a way. I know that sounds crazy, but when you devote your whole life to finding something, and suddenly at exactly 1:00 am you see the locked door open and close by itself, the sound of keys landing on the table follows, and the bathroom door opens, it’s beautiful. I was in awe.
For about, I would say 16 minutes after that it was pretty quiet. There was movement throughout the house as the apparition moved within her space, but nothing out of the ordinary, for a ghost that is.
At 1:18 am things changed. The first thing that happened was a male voice, the one you heard on the first recording, started shouting from outside the house. Honestly it was so crisp and clear that I thought there was an alive guy calling me a bitch and demanding I come outside.
I ran to the window and I saw this shimmering shape. As it was yelling it took more of a definite form, though direct features never came into focus. Maybe if I placed all of the car batteries outside they would have been able to appear better . . . I digress though. It was enough just seeing the vague shapes.
A few seconds after the shouting started thundering footsteps came from the back of the house to the front. That door flew open, and when she stepped outside she took shape. Long hair whipped around her in a breeze that only existed for them. She paused just outside the door frame and the two sized each other up. When she moved forward I slipped out behind her, needing to see the whole scene unfold. I knew I couldn’t save her, couldn’t warn her what was about to happen. She was already dead, and so was he I think. Watching felt like the next best thing, like I could possibly help her rest if others knew her story.
She never spoke a word. That’s something I think about every goddamn day. Why didn’t she say something? Yell, maybe? Say the attackers name? I can speculate about it for hours and hours and I would never come close to understanding why or how things might have ended differently.”
Sam sighed heavily, sounding like he was holding back sobs.
“I knew things would end quickly once the guy said his line. I knew it wasn’t a complete phrase, just like you probably do. Blue swore up and down that it was, he was just pausing for dramatic effect. Dramatic effect my ass. There was nothing poetic in the way he murdered her. He shook his head after she didn’t speak.
‘Remember me, Babydoll?’ he asked her, voice low. He didn’t even wait for a reply before he said, ‘You should have never fucking left.’
He raised a gun that glinted in the moonlight. Two quick shots rang out and that’s when she screamed. The sheer amount of dark red blood that manifested stole my breath. I watched in stunned horror as it spurted in thick waves from her convulsing body. I think one of the bullets hit an important artery.
I started to feel the pain too, in my chest and my stomach. I collapsed onto the ground, the last thing my narrowing vision seeing was the woman go still and the man walk away, disappearing after crossing the battery threshold.
Three days later I woke up in the hospital. The doctors said I’d suffered from a heart attack brought on by stress. He said I was lucky that a neighbor had been awake and looked out her window. If I hadn’t gotten medical attention as quick as I did, I would have died on that lawn.”
He stopped speaking for a moment, letting the imagery he had just described settle into my head.
“I haven’t been back since,” He continued after a heavy sigh, “I don’t want to go back. She still haunts me: not literally, of course. But her memory, the memory I have of her. Years of exhaustive research and I’ve never found a name.
Blue was pissed that I’d done an investigation without him. After he refused to even read the article I’d written about that night I left the group. I think they actually still hunt, last I knew he was chasing a fortune that he’ll never find. Just like I’ll never find out who The Screaming Woman is.”
I genuinely did not know what to say after he was done. Did I believe him? Did I want to? Regardless of whether or not I wanted to believe him I had to. I’d seen some of her with my own eyes: I hear her fucking screams every night.
“So, what do I do?” I finally asked.
“You need to leave, get out. Sell the house, default on your loan, anything. Just get the hell out.” His voice was resolute, firmly believing this was the only way.
“I can’t afford too! I spent my last cent buying this place and this new life! I cannot just up and leave because a fucking ghost might give me a heart attack. I’ll put safety measures into place, and I won’t put fucking car batteries in the yard so it won’t even happen as strong as what happened with you!” I knew that I was hysterical at this point, but I didn’t give a flying fuck. I had just gotten this normal life, I deserved to sit in my yard at twilight and listen to the crickets, I deserved to sleep through the night. I didn’t have another opportunity to start over. This was my happily ever after and now “Spectral Sam” and The Screaming Woman were trying to rip that out of my shaking hands.
“Did you not hear me earlier? I almost died. The aftershocks from August 6th put me in a three day coma. There’s no ‘safety measures’ when it comes to the supernatural. You either face it head on or you get the hell out of dodge. I would suggest the latter for you, unless you have more paranormal experience than I do, which I have thirty years under my belt and you don’t even sound like your thirty.”
I mean, he was right. Before The Screaming Woman I didn’t even believe in the supernatural. Now I was facing down the barrel of a loaded ghost gun and I didn’t even know who was behind the trigger.
“Listen, kid, I know this is a lot, considering, but if you don’t do anything else in your life, you need to do this one thing. Stay away from that house on August 6th.” He sounded resigned. I wonder if he knew that I wasn’t going to listen. His voice said as much.
“Thank you for everything, Sam.” I tried to force my tone to have a cheery edge to it. Pretty sure it just sounded like a grimace.
“Sure thing. Let me know if you need anything else.”
I hung up after that, collapsing on my couch.
Well, fuck.
—————-------------
As you can probably guess, I didn’t heed Sam’s warning. In fact, on August 4th I was fired from my job. I understood the decision deep down, I’d been calling off more than I’d been coming in, and when I was in I wasn’t really there. It didn’t stop the anger though, and it didn’t stop me from breaking my careful sobriety. I was stressed and upset and felt so goddamn helpless and the only solace I could find was at the bottom of a bottle.
Most of that night and the next day were a blur. By the time I got home at 1:00 am on August 6th I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep forever.
My keys hit the coffee table as I walked in and I made a beeline for the bathroom, needing to relieve my bladder something fierce. I barely registered that something seemed off: it was like a small buzzing at the back of my mind that I could easily swat away.
I took my time getting ready for bed, the alcohol coursing through my veins was making fine motor skills near impossible and I didn’t need to stab my eye with my toothbrush again. As I was climbing into bed the yelling outside my house started.
There’s this theory people believe that i never really took seriously before. It’s the theory that everything is happening at the same time: the Big Bang happened in the past, yeah, but it’s also happening now, and it’s happening in the future. All your break ups are happening at the same time, all your smiles, all your tears, all your victories are happening at the exact same time.
I never believed it because it was so hard to comprehend. Time was linear: things happened in steps and bounds and tiptoes. It was sequential, there was no way time was this jumbled mess of moments slipping through your fingers, and then you die.
“Hey! Bitch! Get the fuck out here!” His voice shot through my head, partially dispelling the fog in my brain, “I know you’re in there, you fucking bitch! Come out now!”
I staggered out of bed and raced to the front, throwing the door open. The man standing in my lawn was tall, with dark hair pulled back into a bun and black jeans paired with a black t-shirt. My hair caught a breeze and slapped me in the face, causing the trees to groan and shake in the night.
He looked so familiar, why did he look familiar? I walked closer, squinting, trying to make out his features a little better. Who the fuck was this man, and why was he in my yard insulting me?
“Remember me, Babydoll?” He purred, flashing a wide, glinting grin at me.
Babydoll. Babydoll.
The party that sent me into a three week coma.
He was the one who gave me that drug. I promised I’d pay him back. That stupid little pill cost a lot of money, more than I had at the time. In my drug haze I bought one for all of my ‘friends’. I must have owed this man thousands of dollars.
“You should have never fucking left.”
I never believed that theory before. Now though, I realize it’s all a big fucked up circle and everything I ever believed in was a lie.
I’m the screaming girl outside my house. I’m the one who was murdered. And I’m the one who’s going to keep dying, over and over and over again until something breaks the loop. I’ll be forced to watch myself move into my house, watch myself live and experience those moments I thought were marching straight down a line forever, with no end in sight.
Maybe there is a way out of this. Maybe someone new will come along, maybe they’ll die and I can be free. Maybe it’ll be you, unsuspecting and carefree, just like I was.
You should pray it’s not you. Because if it is, and you don’t die fast enough, I swear on my grave that I will kill you.