Forever Haunted

A couple of years later my cousin, Gary from California had come to live with us. His parents couldn't handle him, and so they thought my dad could. The time that Gary spent at our home, I can only remember only once that the house had come to life. And for a kid from California once was enough.

     It all started the night that my parents decided to go out, and be alone without he kids tagging along. What I remember, that we were all in the front room, and the lights were out in the front room. And only the kitchen light was on. We were watching Wagon Train.

     It was a popular TV series. In the late 50's early 60's. And we were all enthralled with what was happening on the TV. So no one noticed the house starting to come to life. No one noticed the little girls giggling in the kitchen. When that didn't get our attention, the plates started to softly rattle. And as  no one paid attention to that. The noise started to get louder and louder, until it sounded as if the stack of plates were about to fall off the shelf that they were stacked on.

     With that, the noise awakened Gary. To what was going on in the kitchen. It was as if he thought that his pants were on fire. Because he leaped out of the chair, that he was so comfortable in. And leaped at least two feet in the air, screaming. "What the hell was that?" There before my eyes, my tough cousin transformed from this tough smart mouthed kid, into my knight in shinning armor. All the while the dishes, along with the pots and pans, banging so loud I thought the neighbors would hear it. Gary gathered us all up and pulled us into the kitchen, and told us to get under the kitchen table. He then ran over to the knife drawer, and took out the butcher knives, and put them inside of his belt. Getting himself ready for the fight of his life. What he was going to fight, I don't know. But he turned to face us. And yelled in the air:" come and get me!" At that point, I don't know who was laughing the hardest, us under the table or the sound of the little ghost girl. But there he stood ready to defent us, from what ever unseen forces. As it had started it stopped. Gary went back to California. Grandma died a couple of years later, and the day we moved from the house. The baby cried, the little girl laughed. And oh, yes the insurance men and their woman started to talk once again.

     We had onl heard the cry of the baby a few times, and it wasn't as if we could do anything to comfort it. I never saw Gary again. I always wondered what he thought about that night. I have often thought about the sounds of the old Morgan house. After all it was one hundered years old in the fifties. A lot of people lived and died in that house. A couple of years ago, I went to see the old place. Its still standing, and I even went up and knocked on the door. An elderly woman answered the door, it wasn't the same. I couldn't  hear the baby's cry, or the little girl laughing.It was like the ghosts had finally moved on.