Many people think that hauntings only take place in the month of October, or in a heavily wooded area like on the Blair Witch Project, or in some southern state like Georgia, or in an old dormitory where a Nazi-like woman once ruled, or with an Ouija board in a fourth floor bathroom somewhere.
This is a total crap theory.
It wasn’t a cold, rainy October night with dogs howling at the moon and cats crossing your path. It was a hot July day. Talia, Elise, and I couldn’t stand the heat. Our house didn’t have air-conditioning, so we took to sleeping in our underwear with our windows open. Bad idea, your right. Some perverted murderer might spy on us during the night, slide open the window, and slit our throats. This didn’t worry us though, because all of our bedrooms are on the second floor. If someone wanted to spy on us sleeping half-naked, they would have to get a ladder. And obviously, the sound of the ladder banging against the outside wall would wake us up, and we’d have time to put clothes on before the culprit would have time to climb to the top rung, at which point we would smash his face in with the baseball bats we keep as a safety precaution under our beds.
During the day time, when we weren’t sleeping in our underwear, we would lie in our one foot deep kiddie pool that was located in the back yard. It was a $9.99 special from Wal-Mart. Talia liked to swim 49 laps every morning after she woke up, and Elise was part of a synchronized swimming team that liked to practice in the privacy of our pool. Being vertically disadvantaged, I wore a life preserver so that I wouldn’t drown in the deep depths of the pool. Yes, we enjoyed many fun activities in our luxurious watering hole.
All of that changed the day we found blood in the pool instead of water.
I’m just kidding, that never happened. This isn’t a Stephen King novel. What happened instead was that Elise was in my bedroom one afternoon, and she was looking down into our backyard and noticed something peculiar.
“Is that a potato in the pool?”
I jumped to the window and peered down into the water. Sure enough, something large, brown, and potato-looking was at the bottom of the pool. We went downstairs and outside to check out the situation.
Instead of a potato, we found two large rocks in our pool. This is quite strange considering several facts. 1) There only ever was one large rock in our backyard. 2) Rocks cannot jump up one foot and land in a pool. 3) There weren’t any rocks in the pool yesterday. Yes, indeed, the rocks were at the very bottom of the pool. This made sense considering one fact: rocks cannot swim.
Puzzled, I grabbed the rocks out of the pool. Where had they come from? Who (or what) had put them there? Certainly, it was a mystery. My first guess was that the nasty neighbor kids had filled the pool with stones. They were always playing in our yard (if you could call it that) and yelling at early hours on the weekends.
This is what happened after: Talia got home later that night and our friend Michelle came over. The incident of the potato-like-rocks was recounted, cookie dough was eaten, and beverages were consumed. In short, it was a grand time of visiting.
That night involved several shots of Grey Goose, not necessarily taken by more than one person. But I’ll tell you that no Midori or Malibu Rum was involved. Absolutely not. There wasn’t any Jack or vodka either. Being sober is something that agents, (okay, ex-agents) have to be at all times. You’re always on duty. And okay, maybe you’re wondering about those Smirnoff bottles you saw under the little maple tree in the front by the sidewalk, but I can assure you those were not ours. Those were the neighbors’ (they are heavy alcoholics). We are not alcoholics; we are wine connoisseurs. You know, the type that go to parties at the vineyards and eat various cheeses. But I digress.
So we were all sitting in the living room, trying to solve the mystery of the rocks in our pool, when somebody (I cannot remember who—this is not because I was inebriated.) came up with the idea that we should paint the rocks with messages such as “Put this in the pool again and die” or “These rocks are deadly poisonous.”
Then Talia said, “Death threats don’t work with children. It’s because they cannot yet grasp the concept.”
To which I responded, “Maybe we should write ‘If you touch this again Santa Claus won’t come to your house this year.’”
Eventually, we got out the paint, did a little artwork, and set it up outside next to the pool. Pleased with ourselves, we went to bed.
We awoke the next morning, baked in our beds. I felt like an overcooked casserole. The temperature was pushing 92 degrees, and it was only ten o’clock. Immediately, the three of us put on our bathing suits. Talia was getting ready to swim her 49 laps, Elise was preparing for synchronized swimming practice, and I was fitting my life jacket so as not to drown. We opened the back door, stepped out onto the cement patio, and scalded our feet. Then we went over to the pool and shrieked.
Inside the pool, 26 black pebbles were lined along the edges of the pool. An eerie inner circle of 16 menacing stones were near the middle of the pool. Also there, beneath the gently lapping water, directly in the center of the pool, was a pile of 6 jagged rocks.
It was like something out of The Ring. I felt a chill come over my body.
I glanced at the rocks we had painted last night. I read the one that said “Put rocks in our pool again and die,” and then looked into the pool again. It was then that I saw what my eyes didn’t catch the first time. There, on the largest rock, a message was crudely carved.
I read it aloud to my horrified roommates. “You cannot kill what is already dead.”
We never swam again.
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