Guest House

Honestly, I’m not completely sure why I’m writing this. These memories are something I’ve been repressing, or trying to repress, for a majority of my life. I’ve been told it can be therapeutic to put a traumatic event into writing, but I guess I’ll be the judge of that once all of this is done. I’m sure most, if not all, of what I’m about to say is supposed to be classified but, in light of recent events, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal anymore. I don’t see how posting any of this online could possibly make this situation worse.

I’m not going to post everything up here, there’s far too much to the story for that to be possible, but I’ll let you know how it all started. That’s what has been on my mind, anyway. Maybe if things had gone a little differently back then, I wouldn’t be in such a mess now.

To preface this a little, you need to know that I grew up in Sutherland, Nebraska. Even those of you familiar with Nebraska will probably still never have heard of there. It’s a town of just under 1,400 people a little south of North Platte. Not a lot happens here, so when something does, the whole town goes crazy over it for an unholy amount of time. After a quick google search, you’ll be able to find that the thing we’re probably most well known for is the Kellie murders. In 1975, a family of 6 was murdered in their home by a local. It was one of the most well-covered stories in Sutherland’s history. The killer was almost released a few years ago, so the story is all over the internet again. It’s an absolute favorite of the press. I guess the fact that those murders were so popular is why I’m so surprised that the others weren’t as famous, or even famous at all. Few people, outside of Sutherland residents, have even heard of them.

Now, I can’t give specific details because I haven’t read any articles about them, but I can tell you the stories I grew up hearing. I think it happened sometime when I was very young, I have a vague memory of my father telling me to come inside immediately and making me stay with the rest of my family in the living room until the morning came, but I don’t know for sure if this was why. Several decades after the Kellie murders, there was another double homicide in Sutherland. About a mile down the road from where I grew up, actually. The family who owned the property lived in the main home about hundred yards off the road. There was a second, guest house on the property that they rented out to an older couple nestled right by a small grove of trees about halfway between the main home and the road. The murderer apparently broke into this guest house and, for some unknown reason, brutally murdered the elderly couple and fled the scene without stealing a thing. I believe the murderer was caught several days later, but, like I said, I don’t know for sure. The police came and took the bodies and cleaned up all of the blood, but the family who owned the house hasn’t rented it out since. It’s hard enough to find renters in Sutherland as it is, much less for a murder house.

Going into middle school, I had heard this story many times so it was no news to me. I actually knew the girl whose parents owned the property (when your class size is 17, you pretty much know everybody). So, when I was invited to the girl’s 13th birthday party, the murder house was one of the last things on my mind.

Her family was one of the rich families in Sutherland. As a kid, I knew this because they were the only family in town that had their own pool. I don’t mean one of those collapsible, above-ground bacteria pits, I mean a built-in, wonderful oasis in her very own backyard. It even had a waterfall for Pete’s sake. When I got there for the party, I swam until my body was so full of chlorine saturated water that I just HAD to soak it up with some cake. Up until this point, my life had been sufficiently normal. Dare I say it, boring? If only I had just gotten a second slice of marble face cake instead of leaving that house, things might have gone on that way and my life would be so much simpler. However, kids get themselves into stupid situations and I was no exception. While I was getting cake, my gluten-intolerant friend, Shelbi, was getting some carrots at the refreshment table. Like everyone else my age, I had known Shelbi since we were little kids. We got along pretty well and it’s safe to say that, even then, she was one of my best friends.

As we were eating our snacks together, we got to talking about the guest house on the property and I dared her to go inside. She responded with something along the lines of “only if you go with me.” Now, I had no desire to enter a potentially ghost infested home, but I couldn’t let her know that, so I decided to call her bluff. We changed out of our swimsuits inside, grabbed our shoes, and left out the front door of the house to head towards the guest home.

When we got near, it was pretty easy to see that no one had lived there in quite some time. The paint was peeling on the outside of the house and the hedges had grown out of control. When we got to the back door, Shelbi weakly said “you first.” I bravely marched up to the patio and put my hand on the doorknob knowing full well it would be locked and I would still get to look like a bravest 12 year old out there. To my surprise, the handle twisted with ease and the door swung open with a loud, stereotypical creak. Despite the fact that I was basically shitting my pants at this point, I decided to try to keep up the brave act and said “you coming?” in snotty voice before stepping over the threshold.

Looking around the inside of the home, the only thing that really seemed to be wrong with it was an excess of dust. Other than that, it looked just like a normal home. I was in a hallway of sorts that went all the way to the front door. In the dim, dusty light that filtered in through the window, I could see a kitchen to my left. There was a table with chairs, placemats, and a centerpiece of fake flowers. There was a toaster on the counter, towels by the sink, and a drying rack filled with dishes. When I turned to my right from my place just inside the doorway, I could see what looked to be an office of some sort. There was a desk, some filing cabinets, bookshelves, even a briefcase sitting by the wooden desk chair. I turned to tell Shelbi what I saw and was startled to see she had come up into the doorway just behind me. I stepped further into the home and she followed me, grabbing my arm at first out of fear, but then releasing it so she could move around freely out of curiosity. Now, I was absolutely still terrified, but when you’re that age and you’re trying to impress the first girl you’ve ever had a crush on, you’re willing to do most anything. And, to be fair, that house could have been a lot scarier. I’m sure the way you’re thinking about it is something fresh out of a horror movie, but you have to remember, it was broad daylight at the time. It’s not like we were trying to navigate using the irregular flash from a camera or the flickering light of a single match. It was relatively bright in there.

While Shelbi walked over to the dining room, I stepped into what looked like a living room. The strange thing was that all of the couches had been pushed over to the wall by the fireplace and TV, leaving an entire blank wall on one side. What was strange about that wall was that, though most of the walls of the house were yellowed with age, this wall had a large, irregular portion of it that was still mostly white. Assuming it had been some kind of decoration, I got closer to see if I could figure out what had been hung on that wall to make that strange shape. Upon closer examination, I saw what looked like brush marks in the white patch. At first, I thought something had been painted over. Then, with a gasp, I realized the truth. This is where they had scrubbed the blood off of the walls. The murders had happened right here.

Mildly freaked out, I walked over to Shelbi in the dining room to see her crouched over something in the corner. I looked over her shoulder and recognized it to be some kind of bird. Hearing me approach, she glanced toward me and said “must have been some kind of animal that got it. The weird thing is that it took all the feathers.” As I examined more closely, I saw she was correct. Underneath the crusted blood, there were, indeed, no feathers left. I shrugged it off and began to walk around the room, wondering what kind of animal might done that to the bird. Looking around the floor of this room, there were four or five more birds just like the one Shelbi had found. Whatever it was, it had been busy.

The longer we stayed, the braver we became. At first we just explored the main floor which had the kitchen, the office, a bathroom, the living room, and the fancier dining room where we had found the birds, but them we moved upstairs to the bedrooms. There were three total bedrooms and a bathroom. The two smaller ones seemed to be guest rooms and mostly vacant, but the master bedroom was the real find. It, like the rest of the house, was as if someone still lived there. There were clothes in the closet and jewelry on top of the dresser. There were slippers on the floor near the bed just like in my parents’ room at my house. Now, I didn’t question why any of this was still here as a child, but I found out later from talking to my friends that the couple who was killed there had only one son who lived in California. For whatever reason, he never came to collect their things and, since the owners didn’t intend to rent the house out anymore, nothing was cleaned out of the home. It was, for the most part, exactly as it had been when the couple lived there.

When we had seen everything to see on that floor, we moved on the attic. The attic was accessed by a narrow staircase that, very steeply, led to wooden door at the top. Shelbi shyly pushed me in front of her towards the stairs and, not wanting to disappoint her, I began the ascent. Maybe it was just because the sunlight didn’t reach this staircase as well, but for some reason I had a growing feeling of dread as I climbed those stairs. Shelbi must have sensed it from the way my pace slowed because she said “we can just go, if you want.” From the tone of her voice, I could tell that leaving is exactly what she wanted to do, but all that did was inspire me to try to impress her more. I reached out to the door at the top of the stairs and twisted the handle. It wouldn’t budge. My courage returned to me. I tried even harder to twist is while pushing on the door to no avail. I took a step back and steadied myself to kick it, when Shelbi very quietly said “can we please just go?” I looked back down the stairs and saw the fear in her eyes and I knew this was no test. She just wanted to get out of this house and, the sense of dread returning, I was not about to argue with her. I walked back down and, as I passed where she stood at the foot of the stairs, I froze. I looked straight at her and she at me and I knew we both heard it. It was a soft, constant scraping sound that resembled a deadbolt being turned. It only lasted for a few seconds, but it seemed like an eternity that we were frozen in place, our eyes locked. A gentle creaking came from the top of the attic stairs followed by the most terrifying thing I had ever heard in my entire 12 years of life. A weak voice, almost like it was out of practice, speaking for the first time in days, simply called down “hello?”

Shelbi ran toward the stairs first, but I was not far behind her. The stairs were steeper than either of us were used to so it took longer than either of us were comfortable with to make our way down. About five or six steps from the ground floor, Shelbi lost her footing and fell. She managed to land on her right shoulder and roll the rest of the way down, relatively unharmed. I, on the other hand, was not so lucky. My momentum was too great for me to stop before hitting the falling Shelbi and I tripped over her body, taking a few staggering steps while trying to balance myself, before running full-force into the front wall of the house with the top of my head. Immediately dazed, I collapsed before rolling over so my back was against the wall and my butt on the floor. My vision was pretty blurry at this time. I don’t think it was a concussion, but it definitely disoriented me for a minute. The first thing I saw was Shelbi getting to her knees and starting to stand up just in front of me. Despite my mental fuzziness, I remember I was still relieved that she was okay. As I began pulling myself to my feet, I glanced up to the top of the stairs. Now, my vision was not entirely back to me at this point, but I swear I saw a hand, paler than any I had ever seen, gripping the railing at the top of the stairs. The hand appeared to be straining to drag the rest of the being into view and, the last thing I saw before leaving, was a set of shoulders and an even paler face joining the hand. At least, I think it was a face. Most of it was obscured by long, black hair that appeared to have other black objects twisted into it that stuck out at various angles.

Now, I have played soccer most of my life and people who know me will tell you I hit my peak speed in early high school before I had my knee surgeries. This is not true. The fastest I have ever been in my entire life was that day when I grabbed Shelbi’s hand and pulled her out the back door of that house. I remember leaving that door wide open as Shelbi and I sprinted with all our might back into the main house and back to the party. I can’t imagine we were much fun for the rest of the day as we sat mortified in the corner of our friend’s living room. When the other party goers were waiting for their parents to come pick them up, I walked up to my friend’s mom and asked her who was living in the guest house. She got a somewhat surprised look on her face and said “no one, we’ve had that place locked up tight for a several years now.” Not wanting to get in trouble, I didn’t say anything else. When my dad finally got there, I looked out the window of the car at the guest house as we drove by and I saw that the back door was, again, shut. I turned away and told myself to forget any of it had ever happened. I had hoped to be done with that house for the rest of my life. If only.

That night, I had trouble getting to sleep. The day I had was pretty dramatic and I could not get that awful voice out of my head. I woke up several times in the night from nightmares of that single word it uttered, before falling back into uneasy sleep. The next morning is when things got really fucked up. I woke up to the smell of my mom making breakfast and I resolved that the events of the previous day were nothing more than my imagination. As I started to get up, I noticed a sealed envelope on the foot of my bed. It was strange, I hadn’t heard either of my parents enter to put it there. Not thinking too much of it, I opened it and read the note inside. It was written in neat cursive, which took me a moment to decipher, but I quickly discovered that it read:

''Thank you SO much for coming to visit me yesterday! It has been SO long since I’ve had visitors! You left so quickly that I didn’t get a chance to thank you in person, so I decided to come pay YOU a visit. However, you were too busy sleeping so this note will have to suffice. You MUST come back by again so I can give you a proper welcome! I look forward to seeing you again soon,''

R

''P.S. That girl you were with is absolutely stunning! Do you mind if I pay her a little visit as well?''

I can’t tell you how many times I crumpled that letter up and threw it away before fishing it out of the trash again. I knew I should tell someone about it, but I was afraid of what kind of trouble Shelbi and I would get into if they found out we had been sneaking around in that guest house. I finally decided to hide the letter in a small wooden chest my grandparents had given me and store it under my bed in case I needed to show someone later.

It was then that I swore I would never return to that house again.

I have broken that promise twice since I made it and I wish with all my heart I hadn’t. BUT, that is a story for another time. It’s getting pretty late here and that’s about all I have the energy to talk about for now. I can’t believe I’ve been writing all night and I still haven’t even gotten to the part about Shelbi’s surprise party yet. It does feel nice to write this out and get it all off my chest. I think I'll post more when I get a chance.

Until then

-Tyler