The Ghost of Duplexes Past
Part I
I WAS LIVING IN A SMALL DUPLEX with my then boyfriend Howard* on Haynes Street in San Marcos, Texas. We had just gotten off the road (we were rennies) and were settling into our non-nomadic life. It didn’t take long for me to notice something was off in our new home. To quote Bill and Ted “strange things [were] afoot at the Circle K.”
WHEN I WAS HOME ALONE it felt like I was being watched. It was an overwhelming sense of paranoia unlike anything I had ever experienced. The sensation was so pronounced that I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if I turned around and found myself nose to nose with someone. It was the heebie-jeebies to the millionth degree.
I IGNORED MY INTUITION, chastising myself for being silly and having an overactive imagination. Howard reinforced this by telling me I was crazy. He never felt the way I did in the house so obviously I was cuckoo. But no matter how much I tried to ignore it the feeling persisted…and intensified.
OBSCENELY EARLY ONE MORNING while I was getting ready for work the weirdness got weirder. As I stood in the bathroom fixing my hair, the door ajar, I saw a pair of men’s legs clad in khaki pants walk past. There was no torso – only legs. I promptly flipped the f**k out. It’s not every day you see torsoless legs wandering about the house.
I TOLD NO ONE OF MY EXPERIENCE (save Howard, who assured me I was batshit crazy). Shortly after I witnessed the ghostly legs our friend Bob* came for a visit. Bob, due to our work schedules, was left to his own devices during the day. One evening several days into his stay Bob informed us we’d had a visitor while we were away.
“Oh. Who stopped by?”
“No one.”
BOB PROCEEDED TO TELL US of a pair of legs, men’s legs, free of a torso and wearing khaki pants that had walked through the living room that afternoon while he was watching a movie.
“Son of a bitch! I told you I wasn’t crazy!”
I FELT VINDICATED (and more than a little relieved that I wasn’t completely bonkers). But this news, while reassuring, raised more questions than it answered. Who was this man? Why was here? Would he stop leering at me and creeping me out if I asked nicely? And what was with the khaki pants?
IT WOULD TAKE 4 MORE MONTHS before these questions would begin to be answered (except the leering…I immediately asked him to stop and he politely obliged) and how they came to light, how it all unfolded was surprising to say the least…
TO BE CONTINUED…
Kisses & Chaos,
Alli Woods Frederick
images :: stories from the great beyond © alli woods frederick :: no title III – juha helttunen :: guest(s) – yves lecoq ::
*not their real names
