THE PASSAGE

My Ghostly Visitor

Chapter 10

I quickly bolt up to a sitting position in my bed and gasp, feeling as though someone poured a bucket of water on me. Confused and panting for breath, I turn on the lamp on the nightstand, cautiously looking around the room, trying to understand what it was that woke me up so abruptly. I glance at the door, knowing that I locked it after my shower last night. Was I dreaming? I don't remember having a dream. As my eyes roam about the room, I realize that nothing seems out of the ordinary.

Through the open window, I hear the sounds of hundreds of frogs, steadily croaking their nighttime song. Yet as I continue listening to them, I phantom that they are speaking to me, all of them calling to me, "Come out. Come out. Come out."

I reach up to the window that I had opened earlier and pull it shut, trying to drive out this insanity that has crept into my mind. But I can still hear the frogs, as if they are even more desperately calling to me now, in a voice that only I can understand.

This is silly. What is wrong with me? Am I going mad? I turn off the light and lie back in bed, pulling the covers over my head in an attempt to drive out the sounds of the night, hoping sleep will soon find me again. However, now I have a vision of them embedded in my mind. I can see those frogs, hundreds of them, sitting on their lily pads, pleading with me, "Come out. Come out. Come out."

When I fail to erase them from my mind, I angrily pull the covers off my head and look at the clock, 3:20 a.m. I am wide awake. I don't think I am going back to sleep any time soon. The frogs continue their non-stop calling throughout the swamp, refusing to give up their beaconing pleas to me.

Okay, I know it's silly, but I'll go out. I can't sleep anyway. I might as well go out and sit on the porch for a while. Maybe after a few minutes, I'll get sleepy again.

I turn the light back on, open my bag, and retrieve my spare clothes. After fumbling with my underwear, I pull on my jeans and a T-shirt. I can't find my sandals at the moment, so I step into my tennis shoes without bothering to tie them. I hope I didn't wake Pop or Toby earlier. I had not heard any evidence that I did.

I unlock the door to my room, then tiptoe down the hallway towards the door leading out to the porch. After unlocking the deadbolt, I quietly pull the door open and look outside. A cold shiver runs through me as I look out at the ghostly image of the swamp, illuminated only by a partially cloud-covered moon. For a moment, I consider closing the door and going back inside, back to the safety of my bed. Throughout the swamp, the frogs continue their desperate calling for me, even louder now.

I walk out onto the porch, then quietly close both doors behind me as I make my way to the rocker. Looking around, I see that thick low-lying fog is starting to engulf the swamp. There is so much fog that I can barely see past the porch. Nervously, I sit in the rocker as I watch the billows of fog rolling in and out around me, hovering about like ghosts in the night.

And then, as if on cue by some mysterious force, all the frogs quieten at once. I sit frozen stiff in my rocker, afraid to move, as this eerie silence lurks over the swamp. I can feel the hairs on my arms standing up and my heart thumping away in my chest.

I sit like this for what seems like an eternity, nervously anticipating something insane to happen, yet all the while, hoping that it's just my overactive mind playing tricks on me.

Several more minutes pass with still nothing but silence. The fog is the only thing moving out here, lurking about to and fro, floating with the breeze in uncanny silence.

I sit back in the rocker and take in a deep breath, then let it out. Feeling a little more relaxed now, I close my eyes for a moment, wondering if I will be able to get back to sleep if I go to bed.

With my eyes still closed, I feel the fog brushing over my body now, cold, damp, and eerie, a feeling as though something supernatural is somehow trying to make its presence known to me. I try to block it from entering my mind, too afraid to open my eyes because I fear that it may be real. All around me, I feel its presence, engulfing me like the fog of the night. And then—a voice next to me.

"Nice evening, isn't it?"

Immediately I sit upright, startled and surprised, looking over to my right, in the direction of that voice that seemed to come from nowhere. Darkness, it's so dark out here now, nothing but darkness and fog, a ghostly female voice, and the thumping of my heart.

I look closer, barely seeing a form materializing from the fog in the rocker next to me. I try to speak, but the words don't come out. My muscles feel frozen, and my breaths are ragged.

"I sorry I scared you, child. I didn't mean to."

I feel her breath on my face as she speaks, cold like the fog, reminding me of death. I squint my eyes, looking towards that eerie voice, a voice I recognize from somewhere in the past. I finally manage to speak. "Who...who are you?"

"Julie Brown, my name. My friends used to call me aunt Julie. You can call me that if you like."

"Aunt . . . aunt Julie, are you a friend of Pop's?"

"Oh child, I loves him like he my own son. In fact, that one reason I here tonight."

I look out towards the end of the pier, unable to see a thing, wondering who this woman is and what she is doing sitting out here in the dark.

"Um, okay. Let me see if I can go and get Pop for you."

I start to stand and immediately feel her hand grab my wrist, and I imagine that it's the hand of a corpse—my muscles freeze. My legs give out from under me, and I slump back into the rocker. I am gasping for breaths, my vision now a blur.

"There no need to wake him, child. I here to see you."

Julie Brown was a voodoo priestess who lived in Frenier, Louisiana, in the early 1900s. Much of the story that follows is based on written history.

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