By Ellen Kunasek (Short scary stories: Crushed)
I don’t believe in ghosts – even now, even after what happened. What I do wonder about though, is this… can a living person haunt a place? Can you be so tied to a place that even though you physically leave it, some of your energy remains bound to it? I think maybe it can happen, especially if some great happiness, or some great wrong, came to you there.
Maybe it would be better if I started at the beginning, and just tried to tell what happened as I perceived it. Then you can make up your own mind what I saw.
I was 15 the year my folks bought the Zimmerman place. It wasn’t a huge farm, only 240 acres, but my dad thought he could make a go of raising sugar beets on it, if he put in an irrigation system, and he got it at a good price. Of course, we knew why the price was so low – it was because of the old burned-out farmhouse that still stood on the property. There’s no denying, it was creepy - not so much because of the burned-out rooms, but because of the feeling you got when you got near it – a feeling that settled down on your shoulders like an invisible weight. It felt like sadness, and hopelessness, and most of all, hate. Sometimes it was so strong I wondered why it wasn’t visible, like a dark fog around the place.
My folks said they couldn’t feel it, but I could, and I know others could, too. I think that’s what kept the place from selling for so long. Of course, the shell of the house should have been demolished, soon after the fire that destroyed the interior, but the Zimmermans never did it, and until we came along, no one else wanted to buy the place, so it still stood.
It was funny how the Zimmerman kids kept coming back to the old place – every few months, one of them would drive the 7 miles from town, and come and just walk around the old house and yard. Even after we bought the place, we’d see them. They just couldn’t accept us owning it… because they all grew up there, they thought of it as theirs, regardless of the fact that my folks had moved their own double-wide trailer onto the place, and lived about 100 feet from the old house and outbuildings. They never even asked permission, or acknowledged us in any way. We got used to them – they never did any harm, just came and stood outside the house, or walked around, to the barn and the old machine shed. They’d stay about half an hour, and then leave. At first, I thought they came back because they missed the place, but now I think they came back just to remind themselves that they were free of it.
We hadn’t been living there long, when one night I overheard my folks talking – my mom was saying how people in town had told her of the way those Zimmerman kids were abused. Of course, it happened back in the late 40s and early 50s, when what happened in your house, and your family, stayed in your house and family. People sort of knew that George and Irene Zimmerman’s kids had a pretty rough time, but it was no one’s business, was it? People in those days kept their thoughts to themselves, and minded their own business – especially where George Zimmerman was concerned. He was known to be a vicious drunk, and to care little for the laws against beating your wife and kids, or molesting your daughter. Most of his neighbors avoided him when they could, and when they couldn’t, they stepped lightly so as not to anger him, because who knew, he just might come and set fire to your house or something. People thought it was poetic justice when Zimmerman’s own house burned down, even though questions were asked, but never answered, about how the fire started. The family was gone when it happened, and if the kids had theories about possible explanations – like, for example, if one of them had happened to see their dad lay a lit cigarette on the edge of the dresser in the bedroom – well, you couldn’t say for SURE that it started the fire, could you. The fire marshal couldn’t say for sure, either, and after a few weeks, no one speculated about it any more. The Zimmermans moved to town, and put the farm up for sale. Whatever the kids thought, they kept quiet – their dad’s fists saw to that.
Like I said, we got used to seeing the Zimmerman kids, (adults, now,) come out from town to stand and stare at the old burned-up house – we left them alone and they left us alone. Irene Zimmerman, their mom, died of ovarian cancer when we had lived on the place about 2 years, and I don’t know if that fact had anything to do with the little kids I saw, but I think it might.
I first saw the little girl late one November afternoon, just about the time it was getting dark. It surprised me to see her, because there were no cars parked off the road, like there would be when the Zimmermans were out here on one of their trips down memory lane. I figured she must be with them, though, and they had just parked somewhere out of sight. I mean, how else would a little kid get way out here in the country, on her own? There was a light skiff of snow on the ground – not enough to cause any driving troubles, but definitely enough to show tracks if it was driven or walked in. As I looked out my bedroom window at her, she turned away from the old house and headed towards the barn. I decided that even though we normally didn’t interfere with whoever showed up and wanted to hang around the old house for a while, this time I should say something, because that old barn was dangerous. It had been on the verge of collapsing for years, and every time we got a strong wind, we waited to hear it go down. I grabbed my jacket and headed outside, hoping I could catch her before she went inside the barn, because I didn’t like the idea of going in there myself. As I crossed the yard, though, I didn’t see her anywhere, and when I looked down at the ground, I noticed that there were no footprints in the snow – none, anywhere, except mine.
That baffled me, I don’t mind telling you. I wasn’t afraid or anything, just puzzled. Finally I convinced myself that I had imagined the whole thing – I mean, it was almost dark, and it was probably just a shadow I saw. A few days later, though, I saw her again, and this time there were 3 little boys with her. I know it was her, because she had the same clothes on – kind of old-fashioned clothes, the kind you see in pictures and movies about the 1940s. There they were, the four of them, all standing in the yard of the old house, looking up at a second floor window. I was determined to catch her this time, but between the time I saw them from my bedroom window and the time I went out the front door, they disappeared. Just…. gone. And once again, there were no cars parked anywhere nearby, and no adults around. I guess by now I really should have been afraid, but for some reason, I wasn’t – I got the strong feeling that whoever, or whatever, the little kids were, they were not to be feared. They seemed to be totally focused on something I couldn’t see.
One by one, the short winter days passed, and soon November was gone and Christmas was only a couple of weeks away. I saw the kids twice more during that time, still just standing and quietly staring at the shell of the old house. They never stayed visible for more than a couple of minutes, and I began to wonder if they were really not there when I didn’t see them, or were they there all the time, and just not visible to anyone else, and sometimes not even to me? I would have loved to ask someone, but didn’t know who I could describe this to, without sounding like a crazy person.
One day, two days before Christmas, I came home from town and found a strange car parked alongside the road leading to our driveway. It was bitterly cold, so I didn’t waste time looking around outside for intruders – I figured it was just one or more of the Zimmermans, come to remember Christmas past, or something. I went inside, got out of my coat and boots, and took my packages to my room… they were Christmas gifts for my parents, and I wanted to get them wrapped and under the tree right away, before they got home.
In my struggles with wrapping paper and ribbon, I forgot about the car outside, until I heard voices out there. Well, only one voice, actually, but it was loud enough to be heard from inside our house. Thinking maybe the Zimmermans had showed up drunk and got into a family squabble or something, I went to look outside, and saw old George Zimmerman, over near the old house. He was waving his arms around and yelling, and it almost seemed like there was fear in his voice. I went outside, and around the back of our house, which was the side that faced the old farmhouse. Once I got out there, I could see that the kids were there, all 4 of them, and they were pushing and pulling old George towards the old house. Their faces were blank and silent, but there was no mistaking the amount of force they were using, because old George sounding more and more terrified, and slip-sliding closer and closer to the black hole that was the caved-in kitchen and basement of the old house. Before I could even get my mind around what I was seeing, the kids pushed him over the edge. He screamed as he went over, but then there was silence. The kids all looked at each other, and although there was no sound, I swear that something, some kind of communication, passed among them. Just as I was thinking that – that somehow or other, they had spoken to each other – I heard a dusty rumbling, and as I watched in dumfounded silence, the walls of the old farmhouse caved into the basement. If old George had been alive down there after his fall, he certainly wasn’t now – he was crushed beneath two stories of brick and stucco wall. When the dust cleared, the kids were nowhere to be seen, and to be honest, I was glad they weren’t. I didn’t want to see them again, and now, for some reason, I didn’t want them to see ME, either. I went inside and called the county sheriff and told him there had been an accident.
My dad demolished the remains of the old house after that – after they got old George out, of course. I went away to college soon after that, and I was glad to go, because I don’t think I could ever have lived out there again. Like I said, I don’t really believe in ghosts, but I know I saw something. I believe it was the Zimmerman kids, haunting the place where they endured so much misery, and where they finally took their revenge. Haunting it, even though none of them were dead. Maybe the hellish lives they led as children killed some part of each one of them, and they came back to mourn for that loss, until they finally made the old devil pay for what he had done to them and their mom. I never stuck around to see if they came back, but I like to believe they didn’t – I like to think that those tragic little kids in the old-fashioned clothes are gone for good, and the adults they grew into are happier now, and more at peace.
I don’t believe in ghosts – even now, even after what happened. What I do wonder about though, is this… can a living person haunt a place? Can you be so tied to a place that even though you physically leave it, some of your energy remains bound to it? I think maybe it can happen, especially if some great happiness, or some great wrong, came to you there.
Maybe it would be better if I started at the beginning, and just tried to tell what happened as I perceived it. Then you can make up your own mind what I saw.
I was 15 the year my folks bought the Zimmerman place. It wasn’t a huge farm, only 240 acres, but my dad thought he could make a go of raising sugar beets on it, if he put in an irrigation system, and he got it at a good price. Of course, we knew why the price was so low – it was because of the old burned-out farmhouse that still stood on the property. There’s no denying, it was creepy - not so much because of the burned-out rooms, but because of the feeling you got when you got near it – a feeling that settled down on your shoulders like an invisible weight. It felt like sadness, and hopelessness, and most of all, hate. Sometimes it was so strong I wondered why it wasn’t visible, like a dark fog around the place.
My folks said they couldn’t feel it, but I could, and I know others could, too. I think that’s what kept the place from selling for so long. Of course, the shell of the house should have been demolished, soon after the fire that destroyed the interior, but the Zimmermans never did it, and until we came along, no one else wanted to buy the place, so it still stood.
It was funny how the Zimmerman kids kept coming back to the old place – every few months, one of them would drive the 7 miles from town, and come and just walk around the old house and yard. Even after we bought the place, we’d see them. They just couldn’t accept us owning it… because they all grew up there, they thought of it as theirs, regardless of the fact that my folks had moved their own double-wide trailer onto the place, and lived about 100 feet from the old house and outbuildings. They never even asked permission, or acknowledged us in any way. We got used to them – they never did any harm, just came and stood outside the house, or walked around, to the barn and the old machine shed. They’d stay about half an hour, and then leave. At first, I thought they came back because they missed the place, but now I think they came back just to remind themselves that they were free of it.
We hadn’t been living there long, when one night I overheard my folks talking – my mom was saying how people in town had told her of the way those Zimmerman kids were abused. Of course, it happened back in the late 40s and early 50s, when what happened in your house, and your family, stayed in your house and family. People sort of knew that George and Irene Zimmerman’s kids had a pretty rough time, but it was no one’s business, was it? People in those days kept their thoughts to themselves, and minded their own business – especially where George Zimmerman was concerned. He was known to be a vicious drunk, and to care little for the laws against beating your wife and kids, or molesting your daughter. Most of his neighbors avoided him when they could, and when they couldn’t, they stepped lightly so as not to anger him, because who knew, he just might come and set fire to your house or something. People thought it was poetic justice when Zimmerman’s own house burned down, even though questions were asked, but never answered, about how the fire started. The family was gone when it happened, and if the kids had theories about possible explanations – like, for example, if one of them had happened to see their dad lay a lit cigarette on the edge of the dresser in the bedroom – well, you couldn’t say for SURE that it started the fire, could you. The fire marshal couldn’t say for sure, either, and after a few weeks, no one speculated about it any more. The Zimmermans moved to town, and put the farm up for sale. Whatever the kids thought, they kept quiet – their dad’s fists saw to that.
Like I said, we got used to seeing the Zimmerman kids, (adults, now,) come out from town to stand and stare at the old burned-up house – we left them alone and they left us alone. Irene Zimmerman, their mom, died of ovarian cancer when we had lived on the place about 2 years, and I don’t know if that fact had anything to do with the little kids I saw, but I think it might.
I first saw the little girl late one November afternoon, just about the time it was getting dark. It surprised me to see her, because there were no cars parked off the road, like there would be when the Zimmermans were out here on one of their trips down memory lane. I figured she must be with them, though, and they had just parked somewhere out of sight. I mean, how else would a little kid get way out here in the country, on her own? There was a light skiff of snow on the ground – not enough to cause any driving troubles, but definitely enough to show tracks if it was driven or walked in. As I looked out my bedroom window at her, she turned away from the old house and headed towards the barn. I decided that even though we normally didn’t interfere with whoever showed up and wanted to hang around the old house for a while, this time I should say something, because that old barn was dangerous. It had been on the verge of collapsing for years, and every time we got a strong wind, we waited to hear it go down. I grabbed my jacket and headed outside, hoping I could catch her before she went inside the barn, because I didn’t like the idea of going in there myself. As I crossed the yard, though, I didn’t see her anywhere, and when I looked down at the ground, I noticed that there were no footprints in the snow – none, anywhere, except mine.
That baffled me, I don’t mind telling you. I wasn’t afraid or anything, just puzzled. Finally I convinced myself that I had imagined the whole thing – I mean, it was almost dark, and it was probably just a shadow I saw. A few days later, though, I saw her again, and this time there were 3 little boys with her. I know it was her, because she had the same clothes on – kind of old-fashioned clothes, the kind you see in pictures and movies about the 1940s. There they were, the four of them, all standing in the yard of the old house, looking up at a second floor window. I was determined to catch her this time, but between the time I saw them from my bedroom window and the time I went out the front door, they disappeared. Just…. gone. And once again, there were no cars parked anywhere nearby, and no adults around. I guess by now I really should have been afraid, but for some reason, I wasn’t – I got the strong feeling that whoever, or whatever, the little kids were, they were not to be feared. They seemed to be totally focused on something I couldn’t see.
One by one, the short winter days passed, and soon November was gone and Christmas was only a couple of weeks away. I saw the kids twice more during that time, still just standing and quietly staring at the shell of the old house. They never stayed visible for more than a couple of minutes, and I began to wonder if they were really not there when I didn’t see them, or were they there all the time, and just not visible to anyone else, and sometimes not even to me? I would have loved to ask someone, but didn’t know who I could describe this to, without sounding like a crazy person.
One day, two days before Christmas, I came home from town and found a strange car parked alongside the road leading to our driveway. It was bitterly cold, so I didn’t waste time looking around outside for intruders – I figured it was just one or more of the Zimmermans, come to remember Christmas past, or something. I went inside, got out of my coat and boots, and took my packages to my room… they were Christmas gifts for my parents, and I wanted to get them wrapped and under the tree right away, before they got home.
In my struggles with wrapping paper and ribbon, I forgot about the car outside, until I heard voices out there. Well, only one voice, actually, but it was loud enough to be heard from inside our house. Thinking maybe the Zimmermans had showed up drunk and got into a family squabble or something, I went to look outside, and saw old George Zimmerman, over near the old house. He was waving his arms around and yelling, and it almost seemed like there was fear in his voice. I went outside, and around the back of our house, which was the side that faced the old farmhouse. Once I got out there, I could see that the kids were there, all 4 of them, and they were pushing and pulling old George towards the old house. Their faces were blank and silent, but there was no mistaking the amount of force they were using, because old George sounding more and more terrified, and slip-sliding closer and closer to the black hole that was the caved-in kitchen and basement of the old house. Before I could even get my mind around what I was seeing, the kids pushed him over the edge. He screamed as he went over, but then there was silence. The kids all looked at each other, and although there was no sound, I swear that something, some kind of communication, passed among them. Just as I was thinking that – that somehow or other, they had spoken to each other – I heard a dusty rumbling, and as I watched in dumfounded silence, the walls of the old farmhouse caved into the basement. If old George had been alive down there after his fall, he certainly wasn’t now – he was crushed beneath two stories of brick and stucco wall. When the dust cleared, the kids were nowhere to be seen, and to be honest, I was glad they weren’t. I didn’t want to see them again, and now, for some reason, I didn’t want them to see ME, either. I went inside and called the county sheriff and told him there had been an accident.
My dad demolished the remains of the old house after that – after they got old George out, of course. I went away to college soon after that, and I was glad to go, because I don’t think I could ever have lived out there again. Like I said, I don’t really believe in ghosts, but I know I saw something. I believe it was the Zimmerman kids, haunting the place where they endured so much misery, and where they finally took their revenge. Haunting it, even though none of them were dead. Maybe the hellish lives they led as children killed some part of each one of them, and they came back to mourn for that loss, until they finally made the old devil pay for what he had done to them and their mom. I never stuck around to see if they came back, but I like to believe they didn’t – I like to think that those tragic little kids in the old-fashioned clothes are gone for good, and the adults they grew into are happier now, and more at peace.