This is inspired by an actual Haunted Sofa. And a haunted dresser. Seriously, check out those awesome YouTube clips from local news about haunted items!
Yes, we bought a haunted house. Okay, to be more specific we bought the house because it was haunted.
Or at least it was supposed to be.
Neither Dave nor I are psychic. We’ve each had a number of unexplained events over the course of our lives, but neither would consider ourselves “sensitive.” We like to go looking for spooky trouble because, well… I don’t know. Some people climb mountains, some people decoupage, some people look for the image of Jesus on fried foods. We happen to run head-long into anything that’s “haunted.”
Take the house for example. We were in the market already and we genuinely liked the house and the neighborhood. There were like three houses we were looking at that were pretty equally awesome. We chose 31 Palm Street because the real estate agent took pains to say it was haunted. Like, “They’re selling for a discount, will pay closing costs, and insist on a short escrow, no backsies” haunted. (They didn’t really say “no backsies,” but believe me, that was strongly implied.
We moved into our 1600 square foot split level (with creepy basement) mid-century ready to have the crap scared out of us. And… nothing. Not so much as a spooky termite infestation.
Some people would say we dodged a bullet. We decided to try harder! So we filled the house with purportedly haunted things. There was the haunted China hutch (which we deliberately filled with dollar store plates just to piss it off) we bought off Craigslist. When we went to pick it up the previous owners wouldn’t even meet us – they left it on the street and told us to leave the money under the doormat.
We filled a room in the basement with creepy “haunted” dolls we bought on eBay. There’s the clowns – so many clowns! There’s a haunted Teddy Ruxpin that instead of telling a story will only repeat “red rum! Red rum! Red rum!” (that’s Dave’s favorite). A haunted Chuckie doll seemed a little too on-brand, but we’re nothing if not completists. We don’t actually go into that room except to put new haunted dolls because haunted or not, it’s frickin’ creepy. Though, Dave will show off the Teddy Ruxpin from time to time and I can’t blame him.
The haunted bed was supposed to inexplicably bounce, jostle, jump, and “torment” us. But we threw a Casper mattress (you knew it would be Casper, right?) and honestly have never slept better.
Dave parks his haunted April Green 1966 Ford Galaxie 500 in the garage of our haunted house. He bought off a widow who claimed it asphyxiated her husband and was sure it would bring us doom. She made us sign a statement that we wouldn’t sue her. Honestly, the biggest crime the car committed was being April Green – it’s hideous, but Dave won’t let us repaint it because he says it would totally destroy the haunting. I counter that it would anger any ghosts who feel the car is theirs. It’s a frequent disagreement of ours. Oh, and Dave found the hole in the header that likely contributed to Ethyl Peterson’s husband’s demise more than the puke green demon car itself. Incidentally, Dave named the car “June” after the June Carter Cash “Appalachian Pride” 8-track left in the car.
It was into this menagerie of slumbering spirits that we brought in the haunted sofa.
It didn’t go with anything, but we don’t actually try to match styles, so in that regard it kind of did go with everything. Off-white cushions with odd circle patterns decorated the dark wood-framed structure. It had six legs. Objectively, it was aesthetically atrocious. But three people had already returned the sofa to the furniture consignment store, and the local news was about to run a story on it (they were filming when Dave happened by) and he was afraid of a bidding war – seriously, we’re not the only ones who want haunted things! I got home from my job as an X-ray technician and somehow Dave and his friend Sal had gotten it home and inside the house.
“What the hell is that?” I asked. “It’s hideous.”
“It’s our new sofa! It’s haunted. Three people have already returned it,” Dave pitched.
“I love it!” I said dropping my bag and leaping bodily onto the couch. I struck a coquettish pose – or as much of a coquettish pose as I could manage after 8 hours and in scrubs, “Do you want to take me right here on this haunted couch?” and I blew him an exaggerated kiss. Then I sniffed. “You know, I think it’s haunted by old person farts.”
“You say ‘old person farts,’ the haunted optimist says ‘sulfur and brimstone.’”
“Hmm,” I frowned. “Not sure I’m buying it. Let’s hit it with Febreeze.”
That night we were awakened by a huge crash downstairs.
“Burglar or ghost?” I whispered to Dave.
“You get the gun, I’ll get the holy water.”
We tiptoed downstairs making sure Dave wasn’t in my line of fire and I wasn’t in his splash zone. Family room seemed quiet, though I swear the sofa seemed a bit… okay, “glowing” is too strong. How about too bright for such low lighting? I nodded at the closed swinging door to the kitchen. We stood next to it and Dave silently counted “One…. Two…. Three!” then swung the door wide, staying high with his flask of water uncapped and ready to throw while I crouched with the gun pointed at any potential mortal assailants – we’d practiced this. Yeah, we’re weird – you hadn’t figured that out yet?
The kitchen was quiet, but every cabinet had been thrown open and every drawer slid out. The crash was the silverware draw that doesn’t have a stop, so the drawer slid all the way out and crashed onto the floor. We stared silently at the open cabinets and drawers for long moments.
“Theeeeyyyy’re heeeEEEEeeeere,” I said in my best little-girl-from-Poltergeist voice.
And they were! At long last they were! Well, in hindsight I’ll say it was here. And it was magnificent. The kitchen cabinet/drawer thing was a favorite, but it also stacked chairs in odd ways. The sinks started turning themselves on by themselves in the bathrooms – fortunately, only when we were there to witness them. I’m going to have to give Dave his “sulfur and brimstone” because that lit-match smell would show up in different rooms inexplicably. The TV would turn itself on… or off. Doors slamming in the middle of the night.
I’ll be honest, as annoying as that may sound, we were pretty stoked. It’s amazing how well earplugs work at shutting out the undead at night!
But there came a tipping point.
It was a Saturday three of four weeks after we brought the haunted sofa into our haunted abode. Dave was in the office when he came running because I let out a blood curdling scream. “What happened?!” he came running into the family room. I should note he asked after he scanned the walls for blood dripping and didn’t see anything disembodied – this is why I love him. I pointed to the floor.
“A book?”
I gave him that look. Oh, I gave him that look so hard he stepped back before he took a closer look. “Oh my God,” he said in appropriate understanding of the gravity of the situation. “Your autographed copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”
“It flew off the shelf in front of me,” I said furiously. “And it bent the cover.”
“I see that,” Dave said and picked up the book like you would child that had been in an accident.
“The couch must go.”
Dave took a deep breath. “That’s kind of drastic, Jemma…”
“It bent the cover,” I spoke in a slow terrifying tone.
“Sofa’s gotta go!” Dave agreed. “Umm…”
“What?” I asked tersely.
“Sal (and Sal’s truck) are out of town until Wednesday.”
I ran my hand through my hair, but I think Dave feared for his life because he flinched. “You know what? I’ll back June out of the garage and we’ll put the sofa in there for now!”
“Good call.” Car moved, we hefted the ridiculously heavy sofa outside and into the garage.
We regretted it almost immediately.
A crash in the living room. I came running from the kitchen and Dave from the office.
“What was that?” I asked.
Dave pointed. “Haunted hutch.” Indeed, one door of the haunted hutch swung loosely on its hinge and I could see one of the dollar store plates missing… it had smashed against the opposite wall.
“Well,” I said hopefully, “Maybe it’s got that out of its system?”
Smash as another plate ejected itself at frightening speed and slammed against the wall.
“Or not…”
That night the ear plugs weren’t effective because nothing slammed downstairs. Instead just as we were falling asleep the bed started bouncing and bumping and rocking until we were completely and irreversibly awake. If we dared start to drift off the bed would again start its bucking-bronco impersonation. I’m going to write a sternly worded letter to those Casper people – with a name like that it should allow us to sleep with ghosts!!
We were downstairs the next day and we heard voices coming from down in the basement. It sounded like children chanting a playground song – which, if you don’t have children, is creepy as hell!
“Crap,” I said, “It’s got to be dolls.”
“Son of a bitch,” Dave said pinching the bridge of his nose. “You’re right. And I have to go down there.”
“Teddy?”
“Teddy.”
Dave returned clearly shaken. Face ashen, he clutched Teddy Ruxpin tight to his chest and panted shallowly.
“You okay Dave?”
“No… no… no…”
“No, you’re not alright?” I asked concerned.
“No… no more dolls,” he stammered.
“No problem!” I said heartily. “How’s Teddy?”
“Terrible.” To demonstrate he pressed the button that would “normally” make Teddy’s eyes glow unnaturally red and he would start chanting “Red rum!” Instead, Teddy’s eyes rolled to all-white as he started flatly saying, “Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…”
“The Gettysburg Address?”
“The goddamn Gettysburg Address.”
We moved the sofa back into the house and the haunted items quieted. Mind you, the sofa kept messing with us. But as soon as it was back in the house I stood in front of the bookshelf and said, “Look, sofa, this is off limits” I spread my arms blocking the bookshelf. “You can have your run of the place – and we know you will – but you leave my books alone.” As if in response our wedding picture fell off the wall and shattered loudly.
“What was that?” Dave asked from the office.
“Wedding photo,” I called back.
“Oh, okay,” he said.
“Glad we understand each other, Sofa.”
