Inspired By The Word of The Day Challenge: CHAPLAIN

Back in the 60’s ( when I was growing up ) families used to take trips by car ( usually by station wagon ) to wherever it was they wanted to go.

I remember that sometimes my Grandfather  would come over for dinner on Saturday- because Saturday dinners were less formal and we could eat quickly- or sometimes my Uncles and their families would come instead and after desert we’d clear the dinning room table and my Dad  ( or one of  my 4  Uncles, sometimes it was a neighborhood friend of  my parents )would spread out maps and open up something called a Thomas guide and with the concentration that you would normally see on a Doctor’s face during life saving surgery or maybe a mad scientist bent over a slab in a movie they would plot our trips by car.

Back then, you couldn’t google or whip out your little phone and point and click and get all your information- you had to sit down ( or stand up )  over a map and talk about where you wanted to go, and hopefully someone had taken the trip before you- and you shared stories and tips about the routes.

They would talk about the roads and the shortcuts and then they would make notes on the map and then came my favorite part- sometimes they spent a lot of time talking about the towns they had visited- to be honest all I let words sail right over my head like   diners and lookouts and shortcuts but  ears were tuned to click on the minute I heard the words, ” ghost town “.

My Uncle Lionel, My Grandfather Percy  had come over for dinner that Saturday and after we were done eating they waited ( of course ) for my Mom and my Aunt Tabby to clear the table and then they got to work on our trip.

We were going to Lake Wilmoth, where my Great Grandfather William owned a cabin right on the lake. We hadn’t been there for awhile because the roads were being worked on. Plus my Dad had been out of work for a  year.

” Well, best way to Wilmoth  is always this way”- my Grandfather tapped the map.

” But the fastest way is if you go through Chaplain Falls. ” my Uncle said.

My Dad looked over at my Grandfather. My Uncle Lionel  grimmiced like he had just bit into something that tasted bad and said. ” Never mind.”

My radar picked up a little blip- just a small one but it was loud blip. Super loud.

” That town is out in the middle of nowhere, it’s abandoned and if anything happened- well you know, you could walk it to the next town but with the kids and Maria-” my Grandfather said weakly.

The truth was (as My Grandfather full well knew), my Mom was pretty fit and she could have run circles around almost anyone she raced against but a face saver is a face saver and in this case Mom and me and my brother were it.

” Did they ever fix the problem they had out there?” my Uncle Lionel asked.

My Dad shook his head. ” I’ve heard it’s still there.  It’ looks like it did the first time anyone saw it. ”

” Saw what?” I whispered.

My Uncle Lionel answered me ” the sign ”

” You jackass Lionel. ” My Dad was going to launch into one of those speeches that older brothers used against their younger brothers telling his little brother what an empty headed moron he was blah, blah blah  when my Grandfather told them to both shut the Hell up and there was an edge to his voice  that I had never heard before.

But that edge  and those few words  indeed shut them the Hell up.

I’m not sure why my Dad decided to drive through Chaplain Falls, it may have been because his Dad told him not to, it may have been because he didn’t want his younger brother to think he had scared him into driving the route he wanted him to drive – and having to admitt  your little brother scared you stings no matter how old your are.

So on Friday Morning – it was the last weekend of May, we packed up our car with our clothes and food and our maps and we headed out to the Olympics.

It was raining and it didn’t stop until we hit the outskirts of Chaplain Falls almost 3 hours later.

There wasn’t a rode sign to tell you that you were entering the town of Chaplain Falls- there wasn’t a fence or a bridge to seperate the town from the rest of the world. . There weren’t even Falls- Chaplain was as dry as a bone.

We drove up a long dusty road that twisted and turned up a hill and when we got tot he top Chaplain Falls was at the top,

Before we saw the town, we saw that there wasn’t a blade fo grass, there wasn’t a tree  – there was a line of sorts-one one side there was green grass, there were wild flowers, there were evergreen trees.

And just a step away every thing was dry, dead.

Lifeless.

My Dad inched his way along the one road that cut through Chaplain Falls and as we crawled along the street I asked him why was everyone so afraid of this place?

” Well. The obvious reason is the tragedy-” my Dad said

I guess here I should say that back then mass murders were hard for anyone to wrap their minds around, but I knew even then that something bad happened in Chaplain and that every single person- 85 people lived there at the time-were all found dead on the one road that ran through town.

” Because of the sign, when you drive through town you see  a sign and nobody understands what it means or what it’s for. They just know it shouldn’t be here.”

I looked around and my Dad didn’t exactly stop the car, he let it sort of roll by a building that I think used to be a store and in one window to the left of the empty door frame was a sign nailed to the frame, it read,

‘HELP WANTED-INQUIRE WITHIN’

The sign looked brand new, it wasn’t dusty and it’s bright orange letters sparked in the sunlight.

” Help with what?” I asked my Dad.

My Dad didn’t answer. He just drove slowly through the town- now I think it was to not draw attention to ourselves- and when we got to the other side of the town and saw the first splashes of green again, he put his foot down and we left Chaplain Falls  behind us.

I still drive out to Lake Wilmoth, I don’t have a family. It’s just me and my dog on those drives- and sometimes,  because I am more curious then afraid- I drive through Chaplain Falls and I  let my car crawl down the one road through town and I check to see if that Help Wanted sign is still there on the door frame at the store and if it still glows and sparkles as if someone just hung it up a few minutes before- and it’s there

asking for help.

Inspired by  prompt OLWG#417- If you hold a match to a candle, it will burn

Her name was Belmeta or Almeta or something like that- Donna told me she wasn’t sure. Honestly she said,  she had ever been sure of her classmate’s name.

” She was this scuzzy looking kid that was in my class in the 5th grade. She had a desk in the back of the room- and she was always last in line when we went to the library or gym or recess.  I think she used to steal food from where we kept our lunches in the coat room. Even the teacher want to have anything to do with her. Like I said, she was scuzzy.”

” That’s pretty damn sad, ” I said ” poor kid “.

Donna’s lip curled and she looked at me she looked right into my eyes and said again with venom oozing from her lips like a poisonous snake trying to rid itself of excess poison ” she was scuzzy. She  smelled like rotten eggs- that’s what she smelled like rotten eggs rotting away in an over flowing litter box and her teeth were bad.”

Donna Helmstead was our State’s only woman on death row and I was her guard and on her last day of her life she copped to a murder she said she she committed when she was 11 years old.

I didn’t believe her talk about the classmate- she denied killing her son and daughter. She denied killing her own brother. But before they put the needle in her arm, she told me about a murder that nobody had ever heard of- I grew up in this town, just like Donna and I never heard of a kid that went missing and was found murdered.

That was the murder she says was hers and hers alone and she wanted to confess to it. I figured it was her way of saying she was guilty, but not really guilty.

Donna told me she did the deed on a school field trip.

At the  end of the school year each grade took a field trip – the older kids got to go to places like Maclure Park.

They’d ride their bikes ( or they took the school bus- like Donna did because she didn’t have a bike ) to the Pier 12 and catch the ferry to Hatley Island and then they’d ride their bikes to Maclure Park and spend the day on the beach with a Park Ranger exploring the tidal pools and ticking off the animals and plants in their log books that they had decorated in art class.

The murder, the one that I really doubt took place, happened on the bridge over the train tracks that led down to the beach.

Donna said she thought she was the first to have gotten up the steps and was  going to be first to cross the bridge to the beach when she saw  Belmeta or Almeta (whatever her name was ) just ahead of her leaning against the railing.

Almeta had been looking down and Donna said she was surprised- first of all because Almeta – or Belmeta, Donna said she thought her last name was Grimsted- was not at the back of the line slithering around the edges of the class the way she always did.

Donna said she wondered what her classmate was looking at and she joined her at the railing and then she looked down.

Below was nothing but rocks- dark, barnacle covered black  jagged rocks.

” What are you looking at? ” Donna said she asked.

” The dead body.”

Donna shoved Almeta aside.  Donna said she remembered how her heart raced it was zipping around in her chest just like it did on Christmas morning and she saw their tree in the living room engulfed in packages wrapped in Christmas paper and trussed up with ribbons and bows.

” There’s no dead body you liar!” Donna yelled. ”  YOU SCUZZY LIAR!”

Almeta put her face up to Donna’s and Donna could taste  her smell- that rotten egg smell in her mouth ” Go on Donna, if you want it put one  there. Do it Donna.”

Donna and Almeta could hear their classmates pounding their way up the metal stairs. ” Now Donna. Do it- now. You know you want to do  it Donna, you want it so bad and I want to give this to you. From now on it gets easier, I promise ”

So Donna said she reached out and pushed Almeta over the railing and then she watched her fall and hit the rocks below. ” She busted open like a pinata. It was glorious.”

After Donna said that, I could have saved the state and choked the life out of her, but I’m a professional. So I didn’t. I just kept listening.

” I took one more look and then I went down to the beach and had a great day. Like I said, nobody asked about whatever her name was because they never did. But I figured when they counted noses before we left for the ferry dock, they’d know we were one kid short. The thing of it was- you know when they counted noses like I knew they would we weren’t short because when I got on the bus she was there- sitting on the bench seat in the very back of the bus. She waved at me. Nobody noticed her of course. Nobody ever noticed her-

except for me.”

Donna got the needle as planned and I even went to her funeral because nobody else was going- I mean the Funeral Director who handled her remains was there and the receptionist from the cemetery – because nobody gets buried around her with only the grave diggers to see them off to the next world.

After the rent-a-minister said a few words, we were all saying goodbye when I saw a little girl sitting on a memorial bench a few yards away from us.

She waved at me and smiled.

I waved back and I thought I heard- no I knew I heard, the bell at the school a few blocks away calling it’s students back to class.

Inspired by the  OLWG#417 prompt- the sound of the sunset

Back when I was a young woman- I worked in a funeral home.

One of my jobs was to driver the casket to the gravesite.

I would dress black or tan, I would tie my hair back, I tried to blend into the background and then I would load the casket  into the back of the hearse and drive it to the grave for services.

But here is a little detail that will always stay with me-

when I would slide the coffin into the hearse, the little runners that the coffin rolled upon  jingled and as they  jingled they sounded exactly like sleigh bells.

So if you were to ask me- and today in this prompt you did- ” What does sunset sound like “

I would have to say it sounds like sleigh bells.

Inspired by the OLWG#417-Prompt Waukegan

No matter how small, no matter how big there is always a home like the Platt House hidden behind grand new houses or trailer parks or shopping malls.

Those houses always look weather beaten, the lawns are always dead. There are curtains in the windows and in a window close to the front door or on the lawn near the sidewalk there is a no trespassing sign, or a no soliciting faded by the sun but somehow,  despite their lack of vibrancy and life, those words still carry some weight because nobody ever walks up onto the porch and knocks on the door- let alone rings the doorbell.

In my town the Platt house is exactly as it was left when the ‘ tragedy’ as we locals call it, happened in 1964. What happened there has a lot to do with those particular words- someone wrote a cookbook featuring recipes favored by notorious people and houses and featured  what the author said was Wilone Platt’s favorite recipe.  I’m not sure if the author ever actually visited Waukegan Street, but I doubt it.

Back in 1964  Waukegan Street had three houses  on it- the Platt house was on one side and the  Samson and Finch houses were across the street. The lawns were always a lush dark green when they weren’t covered with snow during the winter and  each house had an oak tree on the side yard . Each family was sizeable- the Platts had four children and I believe the Samson and Finch families each had around five or six children.

On that day, the last day anybody set foot in the Platt House Mrs Finch said she heard a radio playing from the Platt’s place- and you can take Mrs Finch’s word for that because she was nosy and busy body and you couldn’t sneeze from your own basement without her knowing about it. The funny thing was, she kept hearing the same song playing over and over again- and she heard the same three commercials before and after the song.

It was making her a little crazy so she decided to go over to the Platt’s and ask Mrs Platt- or more then likely one of her children – to turn their radio down.

Mrs Finch walked up to the door ( because until that day people did that all of the time ) and she tapped on the screen door and then she called out for Wilone because the front door was open.

” Wilone, sweetheart! Are you there? ”

” We’re upstairs, Marvetta ”

” Oh. Okay. Say listen Wilone- could you turn the radio down? ”

” What’s that?”

Marvetta sighed. She pushed open  the screen and walked through the living room and then down the hallways to where the stairs going up to the second floor were.

” It’s the funniest thing!” Marvetta said as she climbed the stairs, ” I thought maybe one of your kids was playing the same record over and over again, but I heard commercials too- one for  Bucky’s Burgers and  Handymart and then Foreman’s Auto Shop- so it had to be the radio. Anyway Wilone, Darling, it’s so loud! I was hoping you could get them to turn it down. I mean, it’s not that it’s really loud- it’s just playing over and over again and it’s- well it’s getting on my nerves if you must know the truth.”

Just then, just as she set foot on the landing, Sunny, the Platt’s family cat strolled by her. He looked up into Marvetta’s face and blinked. He shook his head and then he trotted down the steps.

She watched him and then she saw that he was leaving a little trail of muddy paw prints behind him.

He walked back to the last step and looked up at her. He swished his tail from side to side and then he walked out the open door.

Marvetta saw those little prints and something told her that NOW would be a good time to forget the radio playing the same 5 minutes of over and over again. She could ignore it. Something was screaming in the back of her head that she needed to make every effort to ignore it and that she need to get out of this house now.

This instant.

There were family pictures- old ones hanging on the walls in the hallways and a clock. It was an old fashioned clock with weights that looked like pine cones and a lion on it’s crown.

Marvetta  said  she saw the time on the clock- it was 7:05- but she was it was past noon when she went into the house. Maybe it had stopped, she thought. Then the  second hand whirred around and she saw the minute hand jump ahead –

and then it jumped back again and the clock read

7:05.

” Listen Wilone, I have to get back to my place. I , I have something in the oven. Could you –

Marvetta went to the door at the end of the hall – behind it was Wilone’s and her husband’s bedroom and she heard the last few seconds of ” Bits and Pieces ” and then the commercials started  again. She was about to tap on the door when she looked down to her right and leaning against the wall was a brand new ax.

There was still a price sticker on the handle.

She reached out to touch it when the bedroom door swung open and Marvetta saw that it was empty.

Nobody was in there.  Not Wilone or her husband or any of her children and then she looked down and Sunny the cat strolled by her.

She watched him walk away from her leaving a set of muddy paw prints on the carpet.

When he got to the landing he looked back at her and then he climbed down the stairs.

” Wilone-” Marvetta whispered as Sunny walked away, she whispered because the air was gone from her lungs and she couldn’t manage more then a whisper.

The radio was on the vanity on Wilone’s side of the bed and it didn’t take Marvetta more then a second to realize that it was off.

She backed out of the room and when she saw the ax was gone she ran down the stairs and out of the house.

I don’t know what happened at the Platt house, nobody does – all we knew for certain was that the entire Platt family was gone. Nobody ever saw them again.

The police found Mr Platt’s car in their garage, his briefcase was on the front seat and the driver’s door was open. They found the kid’s school lunches on the kitchen counter one of them even saw Sunny the Cat stroll by them in the living room and out the front door.

Like I said, nobody has set foot in the Platt’s house for years- and you don’t need too.

I am pretty sure the clock in the hallways is still ticking and that it still jumping from 7:06  back to 7:05. I am sure that ax is still leaning against the wall and I am sure that Sunny The Cat is still strolling out the door as Dave Clark Five sings  Bits and Pieces and Bucky’s Burgers wants to sell you lunch.