The Violin Maker's Ghost
In my second year of college, out in Anderson Indiana, I rented the second floor of an old Victorian-styled house. I use the term Victorian loosely, because all that remained of its former finery was the basic shape. All the gingerbread and trim treatments were long gone, and it was showing its age here and there. But I liked it because of the cool turret that rose above to a third story.
The entrance to the turret was a steep set of stairs hidden behind what looked like a narrow closet door. The risers were easily 11 inches high, and would never pass code in this day and age. The climb up these steep steps rewarded you with an almost 360 degree view of the neighborhood. The small, hexagon-shaped room has a built-in shelf most of the way around the interior, just below the windows.
The shelf was pierced by oddly shaped holes here and there, and they looked to have a purpose rather than random vandalism. A conversation with the landlord revealed that this used to be a workshop. The former owner, about 80 years earlier, had lived and worked in this house. He said he guessed the holes held tools and such. I wish he had told me the rest of the story right then and there. It might have saved me a few gray hairs.
I sublet the place to two other friends. Two of us took the big main bedroom under the turret and divided it with furniture to afford some privacy. The third fellow took the small back bedroom. Life seemed as peaceful as three college guys can make it for the first several months. We had all taken to using the turret as a privacy retreat, often going up there to study or to have some private time with a girlfriend.
By the time the fall semester was rolling around, Mickey, the guy in the back bedroom, was spending almost all of his time up there. One day, he decided to take his boombox up there with him. That is a natural enough idea, but for some reason, none of us had done it before. We all kind of considered it a peaceful retreat and a chance for some quiet, so it never occurred to us to take tunes up there.
Apparently, someone else preferred to keep the place peaceful too.
The night after Mikey took his country music tunes up to the turret, Dave and I were awakened at 3am by a strange sound. Dave shared the main bedroom with me, and we both agreed that the sound seemed to come from above our heads... namely the turret. We disagreed on what we heard, though. Dave thought it sounded like a cat was trapped up there, and I though it sounded like a tree branch scraping glass... almost as annoying as fingernails on slate. Whatever it was, we agreed that it was loud to have awakened both of us.
We both laid there, straining to hear it again. Dave fretted that if it was a cat, it might make a mess up there. I argued that I found it highly unlikely that a cat would have been able to climb our three story turret and sneak inside, and stuck to the tree branch theory. After 20 minutes of fruitless listening, we both drifted back to sleep and promptly forgot about it in the rush of the morning's classes.
However, the next night, we were again awakened at 3am. This time we both got up to investigate. Mikey was still snoring away, so he missed out on our expedition. Dave an I opened the door and climbed to the top of the turret with flashlights in hand. We looked around, but saw no evidence of critters or branches. At the time, I didn't notice, but I recollect it seemed uncommonly cold up there.
We both reluctantly went back to bed and vowed to check the turret more thoroughly in the daylight. Even so, we found no evidence of what was costing us so much sleep. We had trouble drifting off to sleep, anticipating being wakened yet again. In fact, I woke up about ten minutes before 3am, and heard what sounded like subtle movements over my head. I woke Dave to see if he heard them too. They stopped by the time he was awake, but he eyes opened wide when we again heard the strange drawn-out note. This time, we thoroughly checked the rest of the apartment, including outside, and found nothing.
Suitably mystified, and beginning to get pissed off, we returned to the livingroom and tried to figure out what was waking us up so regularly. We suspected Mikey might be pulling some sort of prank, so we put some pots and pans in front of his door as a trap and went back to bed.
No strange noises bothered us the rest of that night. We were, however, awakened in the morning by the rattle of pots and pans and Mikey's befuddled curses.
That fourth night, Dave and I half expected to be awake at 3am again, but we were given a reprieve. We slept through the night, and shot knowing looks at our roommate all afternoon. The Mikey theory was looking good, despite his repeated denials. Sulking, Mikey retreated to the turret with his boombox, and faint strains of Hank Williams and Dolly Parton drifted down.
It was a Friday, and Dave's girlfriend Bobbi came over to spend the weekend. I had gone out and it wasn't till 2am that I was able to slip into bed, hearing their snores over the makeshift barrier. It seemed I was barely asleep when I heard the sound again. Bobbi awoke with a start, and Dave was awake in an instant too. I looked at the clock... sure enough, it was 3am.
We explained to Bobbi what we had been hearing and were just saying that it only seems to happen once... when we heard it again. This time there was no doubt. The sound was coming from right over our heads. What's more, we were able to identify it as the sound of a bow being pulled across a violin string. Not musically, just a single, off-key note. Hearing that made our hair stand on end. Just then, we heard a thump, scrape, thump... as if someone was moving around in the small room over our heads.
I immediately went to see if Mikey was in his room, and I had to pass the turret door to do so. I moved quickly past it, and even so, I noticed that the floor seemed colder there. Mikey was in bed, and after waking him and convincing him we were not playing a prank, he agreed to get up and come listen.
In the meantime, Dave dressed and was preparing to go upstairs to investigate. Bobbi was terrified at the idea, and pleaded for him not to. Bobbi always claimed to be "sensitive" and she said whatever this was scared her silly. There may be some truth to that claim, for she was never comfortable up in the turret, even before this began.
Even though no further sounds had been heard, Bobbi's tears and Dave's grim face seemed to at least partially convince Mikey. I insisted that we not sit here wondering and Mikey agreed to go with me to check it out, still half believing it was a prank. We armed ourselves with baseball bats in case it was an intruder with bad intentions.
When we got to the door, we found it cold to the touch. We froze as we heard two more of those chilling violin notes in quick succession, then the sound of movement, hearing it plainly on the other side of the door. Mikey's face paled and his eyes grew big and round as he looked at me.
We steeled our nerves, but between you and me, if Bobbi had not been there, I and my roommates might just have well placed a chair under the door and spent the night elsewhere. But it is amazing what the presence of a female can do for a male backbone. In any case, Dave also armed himself, and sent Bobbi to the bedroom with the telephone in case we needed the police. On the count of three, Dave was to open the door and Mikey and I were going to rush up the stairs brandishing our bats.
But before we could follow this plan of attack, we found ourselves hearing the footsteps coming to the top of the stairs. We stepped back to give ourselves room to swing if the intruder should pop out of the door, but instead we heard a series of sounds I shall never forget.
The was the sound of a stumble, a short cry of a man, then an awful racket that could only be the sound of a body tumbling down the stairs. We all jumped back as the door jumped on its hinges, exactly as if a body had been flung up against it.
Suddenly forgetting the planned mayhem of baseball bats, we all rushed to open the door to see if we could provide aid. Bobbi made it back to the room in time to see us open it... and find nothing. Just a draft of cool air pouring across our bare feet.
I don't mind telling you that we all were so rattled, that we didn't immediately investigate the turret. In fact, we shut the door, made coffee, and stayed up the rest of the night talking about it and watching TV to calm our nerves.
We ended up napping most of the day Saturday, and everyone had 3am on their mind. Even Mikey, who was usually something of a loner, seemed to enjoy our company that evening. Inevitably, the conversation returned to the events of last evening, and what should we do if it happens again. By now everyone was using the term Ghost to describe what we had encountered.
Exhausted from the lack of sleep, we all managed to drift off around 10pm. This time, Mikey woke us all at 2:45, saying he heard movement again. We all strained to listen, and sure enough, it was as if someone were moving about in the turret. We could plainly hear the sounds of someone picking thing up, putting them down again, dragging a stool or chair, and even walking about.
Mikey wanted to go up and interrupt the ghostly visitor. At that suggestion, Bobbi became almost hysterical. She claimed that she felt it was what the visitor wanted, and she was just as convinced that the sound of a falling body would be Mikey's if he were to venture up those stairs. She predicted he would be startled, stumble, and fall just as we had witnessed the day before. This creepy idea was enough to give Mikey second thoughts.
In the meantime, the by now familiar succession of events proceeded. We had heard it enough times to recognize that the ghost must be replaying some series of events. It still made the hairs on the backs of our necks raise, and goosebumps populated our flesh. We moved to the door, drawn by a morbid fascination. Just as before, there was a stumble, a cry, and the awful sound of a body tumbling down the steps.
But at the last second, operating on some impulse, Mikey stepped forward and yanked the door open, just before the body would have impacted. The door flew open, knocking Mikey to the ground in front of the stairs. Bobbi screamed and we all yelled something. A blast of cold, foul smelling air flooded the room. Mikey gave a short convulsion, and laid still.
We rushed over to him. He scared us badly because his eyes were open but he didn't seem to see us. After a few terrifying moments, he blinked and stirred, then sat up. We helped him to the couch.
Mikey still doesn't remember opening that door. He does remember laying there in terror, because for those few moments, he felt like he couldn't move.
After that night, the ghost never reappeared, but Mikey was not quite the same. He refused to talk about what happened, and managed to convince himself that a gust of wind blew the door open and hit him in the head and knocked him out. He doesn't try to explain the rest and just changes the subject. But his eyes look different. He moved out about three weeks later and we lost touch with him. Last I had heard, he had joined a religious group on campus.
In the meantime, all the noise we made reacting to the ghost got us in trouble with the landlord, because of complaints from the first floor. He was ready to toss us out, until I reluctantly told him our story. He got a funny look and simply said "Don't let it happen again." The next day, we found a padlock on the door to the turret.
Not content to forget the events, we did some research. We found that the former owner had indeed been a violin maker, and his workshop had been in the turret. We also found that he lived alone at the time, and had a reputation as something of a recluse. Which is why they didn't find his poor broken body laying against the door at the bottom of the stairs for several weeks. It seems he had stumbled and fallen down the stairs, breaking his neck in the process.
It was the sensational talk of the town in its day, because the coroner's report indicated that the fall did not kill him. It paralyzed him, and he lay there for days before releasing his ghost to the turret.