The Ghosts of My Past Part Three

Salem's Lot was terrifying. The image of a boy floating outside of a second story window in the middle of the night haunted me. We had two windows in the bedroom I shared with my sister. My bed was closest to the door and the closet. A window overlooking the backyard was to the right of the head of my bed. My sister's window was at the left-side foot of her bed and overlooked the side of the house.

A pine tree was nestled into a nook of the house near the side window. The branches receded toward the top of the tree and unless there was a strong wind, they never touched the house. They couldn't. They weren't long enough. But on occasion, on windless nights, the branches scraped against the screen. In the winter, they tapped the storm windows.

"Did you hear it that time?" she'd whisper to me.

I was older, more reasonable and not apt to rush to conclusions.

"Go to sleep. It's just the wind."

We both would lie in that room, hoping to feel a breeze enter, maybe a strong wind to confirm trees don't move on their own. Some nights one or both of us were brave enough to run to the window. Nothing would be out of place. Nothing stirred.

My window didn't make noise. There was nothing out of the ordinary as far as tapping or scratching or rapping. The sounds, if there had been any, were long gone from my window.

The only thing that remained were the marks in the wood. On the window ledge. The outside window ledge. They were almost like fingernail marks; three of them were deeper than the fourth, cut deep into the wood. It looked as though someone had tried to hang onto the ledge.

My sister discovered them first. She saw them through the screen. We slid the latches inward, then lifted the screen to get a closer look.

They were thinner and deeper than they looked from inside the screen. Tiny splinters of fresh wood meant they were recent. There were other scratches too, but those had faded and looked older. The fresh ones no longer looked like marks from fingernails. They looked like claw marks. (to be continued...)