Poltergeist

Carl arrived at 762 Harper Street just before midnight. A scream pierced the silence of the sleepy street, muffled by the door before he even lifted his hand to knock. Normally, Carl would not have shown up so late for a job, but the situation was unique. And urgent.

Much of the work Carl had done in America was very mundane and businesslike, even if it involved him speaking to ghosts and negotiating peace between them and those who lived in their vicinity. The dead often wanted things very similar to what the living wanted. Peace and quiet were generally the most sought-after goals for both parties.

Based on what Mr. Abbott had described, the ghost in his house was not the kind that wanted to be left in peace. Abbott had described a vindictive, violent, and unpredictable spirit that had targeted the man and his family.

Having only come to the United States from Scotland a couple of years earlier, the Abbotts had no immediate family in the area that could help them. Mr. and Mrs. Abbott had spent most of the money they had saved in their journey across the ocean in setting up a new home and starting their family. The idea of abandoning the house and moving somewhere else was not feasible.

“We’ve tried to live with it,” Abbott told Carl. “We’ve tried to ignore it, we’ve tried to make peace, we’ve tried to communicate. None of it works, and it keeps getting worse.”

In their correspondence, Abbott explained that the presence in their house first made itself known nearly a year earlier. It was quite a bit longer than Carl had expected, especially given the way Abbott described the severity of some of its habits.

“It set fire to our kitchen,” Abbott explained, “and when my daughter Elsbeth discovered it, she said she saw a man. A horrible, burned man, dripping with melting flesh. He called out for her. Called her by name.”

Abbott had two daughters. The older girl, Elsbeth, was eleven. The younger one, Elaine, was nine. The malevolent spirit had shown a keen interest in both, more so than it had in Abbott or his wife. The children were what it focused on.

Abbott’s letter detailed the girls being dragged into their closets by unseen hands, held underwater in the bathtub, and mysterious bruising on their bodies. He had tried to report it to the police, and they had blamed him for it, investigating whether he’d been violent to the girls or his wife.

He claimed the incidents were getting worse. The spirit was becoming more violent, and he feared what would happen if he left things too long.

“A father is supposed to protect his family,” Abbott said. “And I can only stand by and watch as this invisible fiend terrorizes the people I love most. I would gladly suffer this beast’s wrath, only I can neither see nor touch this poltergeist that haunts us. Please, Mr. Hesselschwerdt, you are my last and only hope to save the lives of my girls.”

Carl came as soon as he could, taking the train to Abbott’s home in Philadelphia. He arrived much later than expected and though he normally would not have come to a client’s house so late, he felt the situation merited his immediate attention.

The scream that came through the door was shrill and ragged. It sounded like it came from someone who had already screamed their throat raw and was still forcing sound to come out.

Carl turned the knob and pushed the door in, entering the house as he knocked to alert those inside of his presence.

“Hello?” he called out. “Mr. Abbott?”

He found himself in a small vestibule, with a coat rack and a bench on which shoes were laid out. To his left, the house opened up into a living space in which a man and a woman in their bedclothes were already on their feet, their expressions shocked and confused.

Aside from two sofas and two chairs, a sort of makeshift bed had also been set up in the center of the room. Several blankets and pillows were laid out, and two children sat up staring wide-eyed at Carl as he entered.

“Nolan!”