Through your Soul, Darkly (ghost stories)

The Swing

All stories herein are original works.

The Swing

By Rissa Renae

You know how it goes. A family moves into an old, scary house and then, one by one, they start seeing or hearing things. I'd like to tell you that this is how my story goes, but it's not.

We moved to this old house maybe three years ago. The place was a dump. Literally. The house at the time was uninhabitable as it was floor to ceiling junk. So we lived in the three car garage while my dad renovated the main house. We never had any weird encounters or experienced anything we would consider paranormal.

Our property was five acres, with only half an acre in a condition you could consider habitable. Most of our land was thick, overgrown woods. Not the creepy kind, either. Just woods. With lots of rabbits and deer. Hardly scary or supernatural.

In the back yard was a good sized pond, but severely neglected and overgrown. We were told never to go to the pond, likely because our parents feared we would get tangled up in something and drown. And who knew what was in that pond.

Years went by and the reno on the main house completed. Focus shifted to the yard and pond. The pond was drained and dredged. Nothing miraculous happened, and we were disappointed that no rusted cars or dead bodies we're pulled out of the muck.

Situated on the bank of the pond was an old, gnarled tree. Once we were allowed around the pond, we jumped at the chance to explore. I wanted to swim but the pond was really muddy and kinda gross, so my brother and I took to climbing the big tree. One day we found two ropes wrapped around a large branch of the tree way up high above the ground. We unwound them and used them to swing ourselves over the pond to jump in. Eventually, Dad suggested tying an old tractor tire to the ropes to build a swing. He helped us tie it up, and it was an awesome swing! Because the branch was so high up and the ropes we're so long, we could swing out over the pond and jump right in to the middle, far away from the banks. By this time, the mud didn't bother us anymore.

And here is where things finally started to happen.

One day, I was waiting for my brother to swing out and jump off of the tire swing. He landed with a splash in the pond. When he surfaced, he wiped his face and just stared as I started to swing.

"Move or I'm gonna jump right on your head!" I teased.

My brother pointed to the tree. "I thought I saw someone watching us. Just there behind the tree."

I looked back as I swung. My brother was good with the 'hey, look at that!' distractions, usually so he could steal my dessert at dinner. I wasn't falling for it this time. "I don't see anyone. Now move!"

We played the rest of the afternoon without incident and went in for dinner. After dinner, we ran outside to resume swinging only to find that the tire swung had been looped up and over the branch, the ropes wrapped as tightly as we had found them, the tire hanging from the branch.

"See. I told you I saw someone!" My brother climbed the tree to begin unwrapping the swing. It took us several minutes to unwind the ropes, lower the tire, and continue playing.

That night I got up to use the can and just happened to look out the window. The tire swing was once again wrapped up around the branch. So the next morning we told our parents. Dad's solution was to get a "big dog" to guard the property. Soon we got Bruno, our six-month old Rottweiler. He wasn't scaring off anyone! He loved long belly rubs and slobbery kisses more than he loved attempting to defend the property.

But Bruno didn't like the tire swing or the tree right from day one. When we let him out of the house, he would sit at the base of the tree and growl at the tire swing. And The tire swing would always sway back and forth just a little as if caught in a breeze. Bruno would just sit and watch it swing, growling each time it came close to him or one of us.

If we were inside, Bruno would plop himself in front of the window and growl at the tree. The tire swing would always be swinging. When we were playing on the swing, he would growl and bark every time we jumped off the swing into the pond.

It wasn't until a neighbor came to introduce himself that the story started to come together. "This used to be a Station Master's house," our neighbor explained.

"Station Master? As in the Underground Railroad?" Mom was awed at the prospect of owning a piece of American heritage, and thought it was the coolest thing ever. This was the first time I remember thinking that where I lived was now creepy.

"Yes ma'am, the Underground Railroad. Mr. Arnold owned this stop, he and his wife. But the Confederates found out and hung the Station Master and his wife, right there from that tree where your tire swing is. They hung all the slaves from the tree, and burned and buried the bodies in the woods.

That weekend, dad hired a company and chopped down the tree. We never played in the pond again or went into the woods.

Bruno still sits by the window, growling.