"The Ghosts In The Attic" Part Two

Mrs. Spender and I had been married for only a few months when we (along with my son, Rob) moved into an absolutely wonderful house located at 2828 Barrywood Drive in Wichita Falls, Texas.
Built in the 1950's, the entire residential area had developed into a well-landscaped neighborhood with clean, tree-lined streets, large 4-bedroom homes with big backyards and the kind of quiet we had been craving after spending months in a two bedroom apartment. It was late spring, 1993 when we moved in; the oaks, maples and cottonwood trees were green and majestic and the entire street seemed a picture of the American Dream come true. We were picturing parties, backyard barbecues, a roaring fireplace at Christmas... in short, every suburban fantasy coming to life.


After settling in, arranging furniture and bookshelves and organizing the kitchen, Mrs. Spender and I had taken the master bedroom and Rob, being a typical 13 year old, chose the bedroom on the far side of the house. Our room faced the backyard, his faced the street.*
It was on our first night there, not long after everyone had gone to bed that things began happening which were somewhat hard to explain. Around 1:00 A.M. our telephone rang and Mrs. Spender answered to the sound of Rob's voice on the line (he had his own phone) begging us to come to his room. We flew down the hall in a panic to find my son absolutely terrified and when asked what was wrong he could barely speak. He stammered out an explanation that loud voices, arguing over something had awakened him. The voices seemed to come from just outside his window and there were also sounds as if people were scuffling as well as car doors opening and closing. Allow me to explain - Rob was/is a pretty fearless kid and had a temper. When he first heard the noise he got up to look outside, intending to "tell the assholes making all the racket" to move on so he could sleep. The problem was that there was no one to yell at... the street was deserted, cars were parked in their garages and the only sign of movement was a stray cat rambling around the neighbor's yard. Thinking he had just missed whoever it was, he went back to bed and the noise began again, louder this time and that's when he called our bedroom. We had heard nothing but after some of my previous experiences, I had no reason to doubt that he was telling the truth; so we comforted him and told him to grab a blanket and sleep on the big sectional couch in the family room.
Rob slept on the sofa for two nights afterward and, as things seemed fairly normal, he decided to return to his room on the third night. That's when things got really weird. Not only could he hear the voices and sounds but also on this night what we came to call "The Squirrel Races" began.
Rob was determined to stay in his room, despite the voices but as soon as the rumble began in the attic, all three of us (Mrs. Spender and I awakened by the noise) bolted for the family room to try and figure out what in the name of hell was happening.While Rob was trying to ignore the strange voices, we were sound asleep when we were awakened by...what? Imagine if you will a pair of octagonal-shaped dice being rolled across a game table. Now, imagine that those same dice are the size of softballs and that they are being rolled from one end of your attic to the other - not back and forth, mind you, but from the north end of your house to the south, over and over again. It was the third pass that sent us to the family room where we called the police and asked them to please investigate for prowlers. A squad car was dispatched, the area was searched and, as there were no signs of forced entry or property damage, they departed. We stayed awake the rest of the night, wondering what could have caused such a racket and when we called our dear landlady the next day she sweetly explained that somehow "squirrels must have gotten in". Well, of course... Squirrels! Those bushy tailed scamps romping around in the attic all night long must surely be the explanation for everything!
Rob spent days and evenings in his room but his nights on the sofa; we all did our best to cope with Squirrel Races which still awakened us from time to time but began fading into part of the routine.
The truth is, we really loved that house. It was huge and we did have numerous parties there which were always great fun and in the winter, we did have the roaring fire for Christmas.
Still, things were troubling us. The watch my son purchased for me as a birthday gift the previous February had stopped working shortly after we had moved in. I replaced the battery, of course, but the watch still wouldn't run. I took it off, put it on the desk of my home office and used my old watch from then on.
Another troubling thing was the lights which began appearing in the living room. Robbie had mentioned them and we assumed that it was simply headlights from passing cars. The boy pointed out that lights from a car couldn't be seen from the family room unless people were driving through the backyard and even then they would travel in a line across the room and NOT circle around the room. He convinced me to sleep on the other end of the sectional that night and, sure enough, he awakened me with a whispered "Dad, look!"
The lights were there, a dim yellow but easily seen with the naked eye... and not lights shining on walls but more like blobs or globes, circling the room independent of one another. I'll say that at no time did we feel threatened by these apparitions but damned if I could tell you what they were. Once they slowly faded, I decided it was time to act.
We are nothing if not a stubborn group and there was no way we were going to be driven out of the house by anyone or anything. The next day armed with a resolve to solve these mysteries, Mrs. Spender and I took a large stepladder to the garage and set out to explore the attic. I expected to see trash, squirrel nests, gawd knows what up there and prepared myself for the worst after removing the access panel; poking my head through, I found... nothing. It was an unfinished attic but the entire floor had been overlaid with plywood and the area was as spotless as if a maid service paid regular visits. Not one box, one garment and practically no dust from one end to the other. Could the squirrels have come and gone through the air vents?  No, because they were covered from the inside with heavy steel mesh. Through the turbines, somehow? No, not unless they were magical squirrels with ninja reflexes and even that would have been tricky.
Mrs. Spender came up and we searched every inch of the attic and found absolutely no evidence of any animals who might have been there. Suddenly, the Squirrel Races weren't all that funny anymore.
Not long after our attic visit, things began changing for the worse. Mrs. Spender and I came down with a severe flu virus that kept her down for eight days and me for ten. High fever, unable to eat and barely able to keep any liquids down, we had sent Rob to stay with his Grandmother while we attempted to fight it. After eight days, Mrs. Spender was well enough to help me and after ten days, I had gone through enough. I took three extra-strength Tylenol, wrapped myself in a blanket and said "I'm breaking this fever". It was long night, with so many strange dreams and the sounds were everywhere around us. I can scarcely recall much more than opening my eyes near sunrise and looking out the window to see... Death. It was a dark, shadowy figure, standing, staring and I don't know how but I knew it was there to collect me. My wife was awake, heard me moaning and asked what was wrong. I told her to keep my face away from that window, that I had to stay awake until sunrise or I'd be leaving. We stayed that way, she weeping and me quite delirious until the sun rose. She pulled me from the folds of the blanket, stuck a digital thermometer in my mouth and after a moment gasped  "Oh, My God" and...at that exact moment my fever broke. It took two more days to recover fully and to this day she still hasn't told me what my temperature was that morning.
Things seemed to go terribly wrong for us after that day. We had missed so much work that it gave our evil general manager the excuse he needed to replace us and, without jobs, we were forced to give up the Barrywood house.
Honestly? We were ready to go.
Whatever spirits possess that house are, we believe, locked in a battle of some kind and I feel as though we might have been used in some way by first one side and then the other.
I can tell you this: On the day we moved the last of our things onto the truck, I picked up the watch which had stopped working nine months before and stuck it in my pocket. Arriving at our new home, I took the watch from my pocket and, yes... it was running. I put it back on my arm and used it for nine years. It never lost a second.




* It will help to understand the sheer size of the house. The formal living room opened into an enormous family room, complete with fireplace. To the left was a pass-through bar into a large kitchen/dining area. To the right was a hallway which led to the master bedroom, a guest bedroom, an office area and another large bedroom.