The Matron

CW: Supernatural horror

Ramsey, New Jersey September 1983

The source of the knocks on my bedroom wall could not be explained. Most nights I hear three knocks on the wall shared with our guest room, where our grandmother stayed in the last years of her life.

 Since my grandmother’s death, there has been a slow debilitation and breakdown of most of the major appliances in our house. The house now suffers from sudden cold spells and the occasional odor of rotten eggs and sulfur. My father would scoff at any suggestion of the paranormal. He was always working, or cut off from us. My mother would not get out of bed.

I divulged in using a OUIJA board this summer trying to contact whoever was knocking on my wall. I thought it was the spirit of my grandmother letting us know she was watching over us. She controlled my parents and forbade us children from doing anything outside the house. My mother made us feel guilty for any fun and would stifle independence.

I could not sleep. At 3:00 a.m, I heard three knocks, then footsteps above my bedroom in the attic. Next, like a symphony of horror came the most frightening part of all. I heard footsteps creep up the stairs to the second floor. They always stop at step twelve, three from the top- then silence. I often wondered if I would scream the first time it went to step thirteen.

As the entity made its ascension up the stairs, the growling and screeching from our two cats hit a crescendo and normally would last up to twenty minutes. I never could believe those two cats could make such noises. Rocky and Lucky could not have made those sounds. They were coming from something else. I also believe that it can take any form or sound it wishes to frighten or trick you. When you call out to your dead relative or spouse, you may hear back a familiar voice or see a familiar face for comfort until you turn your back. If you are afraid of skeletons, then you will see a floating skeleton. I still affirm my earliest memory at age four or five, I woke up and saw a skeleton on my wall next to my bed that faded over a minute or so.

Tonight I am disturbed by an oppressive cloud over my house. I fell asleep dreaming my ancestors were rowing boats one by one down a river towards the falls.

The next afternoon, I walked into Stateline Diner and saw Anja, my friend from Berlin waving from the last booth on the left. A couple rushed their screaming child out past me. A few tables pushed together hosted some football players, the Ramsey Rams. Normal life. I felt ashamed I am here to discuss occult matters. I sat down and checked for gum. It looked ok.

“Anja it seems things are worsening. My parents must be deaf. How could they sleep so soundly while I hear all these bumps, knocks, scratches, and growls during the night?”

“Because it is attached to you, and because you thought it was wise to use a OUIJA board alone. Could have asked me. At least draw a protected circle. No, you just sat there sipping a diet soda inviting all the malevolent entities over for coffee. Now they won’t leave,” Anja said.

Anja was sipping her espresso as cars whizzed by the diner on Route 17 going towards the city.

“I have faith. I go to church and believe in God,” I said.

"Exactly, you are a chosen one Michael.

"I feel abandoned."

"The Church would say you are experiencing the dark night of the soul. The knocks, do they come in threes?”

“Always.”

“That is not good Michael,” Anja said.

“I have guilt," I said.

“Michael, have you ever lost any personal belongings in the house," Anja asked.

“Yes. I lost my Fairleigh Dickinson ID. My junior year I found it of all places in a credenza next to obituaries."

“Your ID is an extension of you," Anja said.

"I dreamed an evil eye was outside my window."

-"Was no dream," Anja said.

My mother’s negativity and obsession with death created a thick cloud of black smudge over our house. Either that, or the house was already haunted and we were called to it, as the man who gave us the keys did so from his running car on the street, not from inside or anywhere near it.

“Michael your mother’s feelings transcended into guilt on the family, and your grandmother’s death has ignited this oppression. There is now something more sinister there."

"We can't buy a Christmas tree again," I added.

“You have channeled something into that house. It needed a weakness. I feel it attached to you on the back of your neck.”

I felt chills. I instinctively felt the back of my neck as if I would feel a tentacle or bony finger.

“I’m possessed?" I asked.

“No. You seem to be in an oppressive state. If you are not careful, it could progress to possession. It is not like the movies, but more subtle. Its goal isn’t to scare others and act like a monster," Anja warned.

“What is its' goal?”

“It wants to weaken you and take your soul. When it no longer needs your physical body, then it is satisfied," Anja said.

“And then I am free?”

-“Then it will kill you."

The New Jersey Transit horn sounded on cue. A waitress was laughing with a coworker. Dishes clanked in bus tubs.

           “Michael, did it ever ask to come in?”

           “Yes, and I said it was safe,” I said.

           “Michael it wasn’t asking to come in the room or the house, it wanted to come into you. You are the haunting. The odors you mention could mean a malevolent entity."

She handed me a card. Marketta, Allendale 201-357-9835.

“Call this woman. Pray to St. Michael,” Anja said.

We parted after a good meal.

All was quiet that night and I slept soundly. The next day I was getting ready for a night shift at work around three o’clock in the afternoon. My mother was in bed. I had more perk in my step. It was at that time I saw my first ghost.

The house was enshrouded in mourning without the sound of music or TVs. I was looking forward to going to work as a bartender at the popular tavern to hear music and modern life. Grief had settled over the house like dust. Every room seemed darker than it should have been. I was standing by my bedroom window looking across the front lawn. I saw the mega boulder on the edge watching over our house like a sentinel. “Cabbage Night 74” still spray painted on its side in black. I then saw a woman walking along the edge of the property. She moved slowly and with purpose.

She was walking as though she knew exactly where she was going. I expected her to stop, maybe cross the street. Instead, she continued towards the house.

As she moved closer, I noticed her clothing. It wasn’t modern. The dress was dark and severe. A bonnet covered her hair. A thin veil covered her face. She looked no older than twenty-five, yet there was something ancient about her expression. My stomach tightened. The woman never looked at me. She never looked at the house. She simply continued walking.

She walked straight towards it. I gripped the windowsill.

I waited for her to stop.

The distance closed rapidly.

Twenty feet.

Ten.

Five.

"Lady, stop!" I yelled.

She walked directly through the front wall.

I stumbled backward. For a moment I couldn’t breathe.

A crash erupted downstairs. Then another. The sounds moved through the first floor as though something was passing from room to room.

Living room.

Foyer.

Family room.

-Then silence. I was too terrified to move. Several minutes passed before I finally forced myself downstairs. Nothing had changed. -No broken furniture. -No open doors. -No sign that anything had happened.

Yet I knew what I had seen. Our house was becoming a beacon for spirits.

After my grandmother’s death this summer, it was inevitable next that my grandmother’s pine hope chest came here. It lay center in the living room. We had a Baldwin organ against the wall, and now we have end tables with mints, and tissue boxes. It was one night getting up for a drink of water, the glow from the foyer light illuminated the room in a dim shadow. It hit me cold. Our living room was now a funeral parlor.

After work, I was too afraid to go to bed. I fell asleep in front of the TV.

It was only 1:00 a.m. when I gasped for air and awoke on the couch. It was going to be still longer for the sun. I put the news on feeling like this cable installed was the best thing for this house. Now, I can have TV anytime of the day or night. The new 24-hour news channel was still discussing the Korean Airliner tragedy that happened on the first of the month. The Soviets mistook the intentions and identification of the airliner and destroyed it with a ground to air missile.

Every day we are reminded of the ICBMs ready to hail down instant death and destruction on New York, Boston, Philadelphia, -most U.S. cities. I recently began to check under my bed every night when I came home. This precaution later bloomed into checking a closet or two. A few days after that, I was looking for any crevice including behind the shower curtains. There is nothing more disturbing than pulling a shower curtain back late at night. I had to find the “Boogey Man” or “the Monster”. The Soviet Union had once again become a “Boogey Man” creating fear of the unknown and our own mortality in the face of assured mutual destruction.

My cousin had told me that he began checking the bed and closets when he came home from Vietnam, his Boogey Man.

I heard the sound of carnival music coming from the dining room. I peeked in to the dimly lit room. It was clear what I was hearing, but it was not clear what I was seeing.

My mother was sitting in a chair pushed up to a mantel, not the table, and listening to a tape recorder playing a strange melody and a voice repeating, “Belial is coming for supper... Belial is coming for supper... Good night, sleep tight, it's time, don’t cry, Belial is coming for supper, it's time." Who was Belial? I did not want to know, and the music was not from this century or even the one before. The melody was a cross between London Bridge and some generic circus tune, yet grittier, more haunting. Some believe the nursery rhyme London Bridge stems from the old Viking Nordic rhymes published in 1240 about the Viking invasion of the British Isles in the 11th century. Either way it is rumored children were thrown overboard in some sacrifice.

The matrons in our lineage want us to sacrifice living. Dating is shame. Anja hints something more. It was here tonight. That is not my mother. I told myself do not address it.

I saw my mother’s face had changed from what I was used to. It was older and more drawn back exposing bonier cheekbones and a larger forehead. Maybe it was the lighting from the TV. She was also rocking slightly as she stared out onto the street. I ran upstairs and down the hall past the hallway mirror careful not to look at it.

           The next morning, I called Anja and mentioned the encounter with my mother.

“Michael get out of that house! Belial is a demon of wickedness and corruption. Its dominion is guilt," Anja warned.

“Call Marketta and whatever you do, never address Belial!"

I called Marketta. She asked to see me at her new age shop in Allendale the next day. After hearing my story, she told me to bring a white sheet, a loaf of sliced bread, water, a mixing bowl, and a wooden mixing spoon. She was going to show me my attachment.

I arrived and met the dark haired Marketta in her shop.

She asked me to sit on the carpet. Soon she took my white sheet and wrapped me in it snug and said the words as she laid out The Magician, a tarot card.

“As above, so below, " she said.

She invoked protection.

“Circle of light, circle of grace,

guard this time and guard this place.

Earth below and sky above,

shield me now with strength and love,

By flame and water, stone and air,

let no harm enter here.

With peaceful heart and steady will,

this scared space is protected still.

So may it be.”

She crossed The Magician with The High Priestess, and below Temperance.

“Take out your bowl and place one slice of bread in the bowl,” she instructed.

I am going to see a demon, I thought.

“Now pour about two cups of water from your container in the bowl, and then mix in the bread -mash it, stir it into the water," she said.

 I began to mix the spoon into the bread and water mixture and had no idea why I was doing this.

“Michael you are blocking with bad energy. I need you to free your thoughts and take a deep breath, exhale. Throw in another slice," Marketta ordered.

I did as she told. I mixed it all together with more vigor and she started to get angry.

“Free your thoughts, no it's not good.”

Suddenly the water turned pink as a swirl of red appeared. "There- harder!" Marketta ordered.

I gave one more gauge into the bread

“Look!” She commanded firmly.

Deep blood red liquid flowed from the inside of the bread and turned the water into blood red.

“That Michael, is your attachment."

The flow stopped. I was frightened. I had no life force to pick myself up.

  Twenty-four years of everything imparted to me by science came crashing down in a small mixing bowl from Bradlees. If there is an above, and not just a sky, but a more spiritual plane of a heaven or a spirit world dimension, then so be it below, an Earth, a soil, grounding and perhaps what is conflicting with the heavens and that is a Hell, a dominion, a cursed plane, bad soil, and a realm of existence that is too frightening for a mere mortal to comprehend. A chosen one will see things others cannot. The Church has known about this for centuries. John Milton scribed an epic poem of this battle, and Dante filled nine volumes on the different rings of Hell in his poem Inferno. In his Inferno, acts of betrayal out of deception were punished greater than violence committed out of passion. I betrayed my ancestors. I am going to Hell. If it is in this bowl, it is in my house. It is in me.

Like a fool, I went back home. I saw something black hovering over my house. It was a large bird. I went right to my room and called on Belial to leave this home. I soon fell asleep.

At 3:00 a.m. the knocks began and the cats began their screeching and growling. I knew what was coming next, the footsteps up the stairs. I heard the first step, then the second. It is going up to step twelve and then will stop. Soon it was ten, eleven, and then twelve.

-Thirteen! My nerves burned.

-Fourteen. My tongue was numb.

-FIFTEEN.

-It's upstairs in the hall. It's near my door.

Suddenly my door slowly opened, and standing before me was a tall, hooded figure with a drawn grey face. I blacked out. When I awoke, my mother was screaming my name shaking me to wake up. I was yelling -“Ghosts!”

"You're having a nightmare!" my mother yelled.

"There was a ghost at my door!"

"You're awake now, it's over. Get some rest for tomorrow is a big day. Belial is coming for dinner. I think you've already met," she said as she departed.

Three knocks abruptly banged on the wall. I got up and grabbed my clothes on the chair and hurried on my sneakers to get out of the house before it was too late. I ran to the door to get in my car for a drive. It wouldn’t open. I ran to the garage door. It would not open. Finally I broke open the deck sliding doors and saw that there was nothing outside but miles of fields with swaying trees in the distant. I turned around and now my kitchen was gone. I was in a field.

There standing ten feet in front of me, was that tall, hooded figure.

"Wake up! -Anja! ...Wake up! -Anja help! Mom? Dad? -Where Am I?"

It’s not your mother. Anja said don’t open doors, you will not be able to close them.

I ran back to where my house should be. I saw my mother and grandmother standing next to a well watching me. Then I saw the house again and I ran for the door. I opened it and went in but it was not my house, at least not as I remembered it. It was more antique, gloomy, and from another century. I am going to be guarded by the matron here in this timeless void. It can not be Hell, for I'm still wearing my cross. There must be a door to go back. This is my dark night of the soul.

I heard a familiar voice call my name from what would be my upstairs bedroom. "Michael, come up here- it is safe."

"Anja!" A ray of light shone down the stairs.

-I'm going home.