"The Old Cartwright Home "    Part 3

Leonard ran his fingers through his hair and exhaled a breath before asking, “What ever happened to Ella Cartwright?”
    “That is the biggest mystery of all. She moved out of the house for awhile and lived with her parents, during which her sanity seemed to decline. All of a sudden one day I saw her walking down the road and ran out to see if she was alright. She had a dull expression on her face and lacked any vitality as if all her inner happiness had been sucked out. She said she was good and then turned around and headed back home. Three days later, as it was so many times before, the police were on my front doorstep asking if I had seen Ella Cartwright. What happened was Pastor Wilson had stopped by and couldn't find her, so given the history he called the police immediately. After that, the house sat empty until Ella's parents died, then the bank took possession of it and the rest of the land in the area. That house was rented to a number of tenants, all of whom, from my best guess, seemed to stay for no longer than a month and then suddenly leave. Mr. James, I'm sorry but that is the sad tragic story behind the Ella Cartwright home. Do you have anymore questions?”
        “No Ma'am. That's plenty. Surprisingly enough, it doesn’t bother me very much. The home I come from was drenched in sadness and tragedy.”
    “Well, Mr. James, I wish you best of luck and hope you have a good afternoon”
Ruby slowly stood up from the old swing and went to open the front door, when she turned to Leonard, “Mr. James, do be careful.”.
        “Thank you Ma'am”, said Leonard, while he waved and got inside his pickup truck. He paused a moment before cranking the truck and thought about how much he missed his wife.
Several weeks had passed and Leonard was really enjoying the solitude of the place and the peaceful countryside. It was 8 o'clock and Leonard was just finishing up with dinner. He got up to put his scraps in the scrap bucket by the door, when he looked outside to see how dark it was. “Still a little bit of daylight”, he thought to himself. He glanced over at the barn and was startled to see a shadowy figure just outside of the barbwire fence. The shape moved behind the barn and was gone long enough to allow Leonard to grab his shotgun. It reappeared from behind the barn on the other side. It looked like the silhouette of a person slowly walking along side of the fence.
Leonard opened the back door and yelled, “Hey you, this is private property! Get out here or I'm calling the police.” The figure continued it's pace, just outside of the barbed fence swaying to and fro in a haunting manner. Leonard quickly slammed the back door and continued watching from the kitchen window above the sink. Several times, the ghostly apparition circled around the barn, and the backyard,  then made its way around the front of the house. The figure made it's way around the barn and then didn't appear on the other side as before. It was gone, Leonard said, “Thank God” and his pounding heart slowed back to a normal rhythm. For most of the night he was in and out of sleep trying to stay awake on the living room couch, with his gun by his side.

Copyright 2018 M.G. Wylder