The Haunting of Hopp Hollow House

I was inexplicably drawn towards this place. One minute I was heading back to our hotel, and the next I was on Hopp Hollow Road. The steering wheel of my car was a divining rod that pointed and pulled in its own direction while I held on for the ride.

The car steered itself over a winding, twisty gravel road through dense woods heading for the Mississippi River bluffs. The day was ominous as lighting slashed through the murky sky and the wind blew brown winter leaves across my path. I felt as though some unknown force was drawing me towards it.

Who am I? I’m Garret Michaels, retired stock broker from San Diego. What am I doing in the mid-west -- fly-over country? My wife, Hedi and I got tired of California and decided to come back to our mid-west roots. We wanted out of the rat-race and into something slower paced. We liked to entertain, and decided to own an exclusive B and B. I’d been looking for a suitable place and ended up in Alton, Illinois; twenty minutes out of St. Louis high on the beautiful Mississippi River bluffs. That’s when the car got a life of its own.

I had no premonition that something was dreadfully wrong. I felt as if I were in a trance, but it didn’t bother me. The car stopped. I was there. It was a dilapidated, weather-beaten, three story stone structure so broken and in ruin that I knew without being told it just had to have a history. A history that the present owner, no doubt, would disclaim any knowledge of having.

My first impression was everything was gray. The roof and stone walls of the building were gray. The winding gravel road to the house was gray, the cliffs were gray, and the day was gray. Even the Mississippi River below was gray.

It would take major amounts of money to make it habitable much less a bed and breakfast inn. However, the view overlooking the Mississippi River from the back was magnificent, and the place had an irresistible allure. Despite all its problems, I just knew this was the spot for us.

I got the real estate number off the weathered ‘For Sale’ sign and called the agent while I was driving back to the motel to meet Hedi. The agent gave me all the information I needed. The next day Hedi and I decided to buy the place. Three weeks later we owned it.

***

It took a year of back breaking work to rehab our new investment, but finally we were ready for business. In two weeks, we would have our first guests. We were going to make it, and we decided to relax that night in front of the fireplace in the large lounge we made at the back of the house. The fireplace was on an inside wall facing large picture windows that provided a beautiful panoramic view of the river below over looking the tangled tops of hardwood trees. That night is when things started to go wrong.

The fire was blazing as we lay there on the carpet with a bottle of wine and some crackers and cheese. I was worn out. It had been a hard week making the final preparations for the guests, and I was enjoying the cozy company of my wife. “Want some more cheese?” she asked getting up.

“Yeah, sure. Hurry back.”

She moved off with a smile and went into the adjacent kitchen. An uneasy feeling came over me. I felt watched. Turning around and glancing out the windows I saw nothing but the black night and the reflection of the fire in the glass. I shivered from a cold draft and pulled the blanket more tightly around me turning back to the fire. It went out without dying down, or sputtering. It just went out like someone turned out a light. “What happened to our fire?” Hedi asked as she returned.

“Maybe we had a down draft. It just went out. I’ll check the damper.” The damper was open. I lit a match and the flame showed an updraft. So, I lit the fire once again and settled back on the rug with my wife to finish our wine and devour the fresh batch of cheese and crackers she had brought. Again, I felt I was being watched and turned around to look out the windows. I saw nothing but the glare of the fire. Then the fire went out again.

“What’s going on with the fire?” Hedi asked.

“I don’t know. The heck with it. Let’s go to bed. I’ll look at it in the morning. Something must be wrong with the flue.”

I spent the next morning checking out the chimney. Nothing outside was obstructing it to explain the previous night’s mysterious activity. Then I went into the attic to inspect it. I shouldn’t have gone there. That was a mistake. I didn’t know it then, but I was an intruder in the refuge of a malevolent spirit.

For an unexplainable reason, it felt colder in the attic than outside. Its claustrophobic darkness made my nerves stand on end; and the place had an eerie atmosphere as quiet as the moon. As my flashlight pierced its shadows, I saw it was cluttered with objects and festooned with cobwebs from end to end.

It contained a vast assortment of dusty trunks, old furniture, lamps, and clothes, but most unnerving was the feeling of an unseen presence in the darkness. As I approached the flue, an amorphous shape detached itself from the shadows and leapt towards me. I jumped back as a dress maker’s form toppled at my feet. My heart pounded like a trip hammer in my chest and goose bumps filled my skin. I realized I was gasping for my breath in the dusty air. Slowly my pulse resumed its normal cadence, and I continued towards the flue.

I heard someone talking. Quickly I did a full circle with my light, but saw no one. Yet I still heard the murmur. Who was up here with me? The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as I crouched down and, again, began a sweep of the attic with my flashlight. I saw nothing to account for the voice.

I stood up and slowly moved towards the source of the sound. The voice was coming from behind the flue. I put my flashlight on it. No one was there. I quickly looked behind the flue and on either side of it, nothing. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a soft glow in the shadows. Sitting on an old table behind the flue was a radio. It was on! I looked again. It was on. I walked over to it and it clicked off. That stopped me. There was nothing near it. How did it turn itself on and off?

The cord trailed off the table into the shadows underneath. I followed its length to its end. It stopped at the plug lying on the floor. It wasn’t plugged into anything. As I turned to get out of this nightmarish shadowland, I kicked a photo album on the floor and knocked some photographs out of it. I looked down at the one nearest my foot. It was a turn of the century picture of a wedding party. One of the men looked familiar. I bent down to examine it more closely and a chill went through my spine. The man was me.

I was dressed in formal attire and had mutton chops and a beard. I turned the picture over and read the scribbled note on the back. It said, “James Kane, best man, Frank and Etta Warren, bride and groom, and Mable Kittredge, maid of honor on Frank’s and Etta’s wedding day.” I dropped the picture and left the attic as fast as I could to find my wife. We had to get out of this house before it was too late.

Hedi didn’t believe me when I told her what had happened in the attic. She thought my imagination was getting the best of me because I was exhausted from the rehab work. Finally, we agreed to have a psychic tour the house and then make a decision afterwards.

***

By the next day, Hedi had arranged for a local woman to visit us the following afternoon. “I was hoping for someone to come over today. Is that the earliest she can make it?” I asked.

“Dear, you can’t expect someone to drop everything and come over here immediately to look for ghosts. I found a very reliable Alton psychic who said she would be here tomorrow. She also told me that there is nothing on record that says ghosts harm people. Of course, that’s assuming we have ghosts.”

“Nothing on record? Is that how she phrased it?”

“Well, it was something like that. Relax, everything will be alright.”

***

That night, the whining of a dog woke me up. I quietly got out of bed so as not to awake Hedi and padded downstairs in my stocking feet. The whining came from the deck overlook outside the lounge. Turning on the deck lights revealed nothing. I switched them off and stood for a minute looking at the moonlight shining off the Mississippi River far below. The place was as quiet as a graveyard at the end of time. Shadows danced across the deck with the moaning wind as a partner. I felt as though I were in another world filled with an unseen presence from the past.

I headed to the kitchen for some warm milk to relax and help me get to sleep easier. I heard a low growl as I entered. Standing in the doorway I looked around in the dim moonlight for a lurking creature ready to pounce. I didn’t see anything. Still, the growl seemed real enough so I turned on the lights and looked. Nothing was there.

I walked in, and the growling stopped. Chills ran up my spine as I looked in corners and under the table for the source. When I walked pass the gas stove, the burners lit with a pop and the kitchen lights went out. It scared the hell out of me, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Now I heard the hellish snarl behind me. I turned around and there in the shadows was a huge dog. Its eyes had the luminous glow of a wild animal. How had it gotten in the house? Where had it hidden when I was searching for it?

Before I could figure that out, I heard a pop from the stove. I looked around and saw the burners weren’t lit, but the gas was on. I heard the steady hiss, and I could smell it. As I reached to turn off the burners, the dog growled louder and advanced towards me. It was clear to me that the dog didn’t want me to move. The smell of gas was getting stronger, almost over powering. I grabbed a pan from the stove and swung around striking out at the leaping animal. I caught it alongside its head, but its momentum knocked me back onto the stove and across the now lit burners.

I yelled in pain as my hand came down on one of them. “Hedi, Hedi help!” I screamed as I got off the stove looking for the dog. The kitchen lights suddenly came on, the stove burners went off, the dog disappeared, but my hand still hurt. I heard Hedi running down the stairs. By the time she got into the kitchen, I’d put the frying pan down and had opened the icebox.

“What is it? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

It sounded lame, but all I could think of at the moment was to ask her, “Where’s the milk?” I knew she would never believe my tale. She had already told me it was all my imagination. After some serious scolding from Hedi, I went back to bed, but my nerves were like rubber bands, snapping with each creak or pop of the old house for the rest of the night. Nothing further happened, and I finally passed out and went to sleep.

***

The next afternoon the psychic, Mrs. Geller, arrived and toured the house, including the attic. The wedding photo of Frank and Etta was missing, and the photo album I had previously kicked on my last visit there, contained only postcards sent to them by friends on vacations. Maybe I was really just imagining all this. I began to doubt my sanity. We went to the kitchen to discuss her findings.

Mrs. Geller began by saying, “As you probably know, this house was built by Frank Warren as a hunting lodge in 1900. But what you might not know is that Frank fell to his death over the cliff in back in 1902. James Kane, a close friend of the Warrens, later married Etta, sold the house and moved to San Francisco. Since that time, rumors have prevailed of a ghost dog and a solitary man being seen here. Many of the former owners sold because they felt the place was haunted.”

“I sense the presence of a strong aura in the house, especially in the attic. What you need to do is make contact with the spirit. Find out what it wants. If we can find out what it wants, then we can help it get to the next life.”

I hadn’t told anyone about the incident in the kitchen, and I wasn’t going to either. I had an overwhelming sense that the psychic was right. Our rehab had stirred up something from the past. Zigzagging chills began to climb my spine. I had the imminent expectancy of dark specters rising from the grave. I just wanted to leave the place as quickly as we could. “Excuse me, but I think this is just a bunch of mumbo jumbo. The place looks great. If we sell it now, before any new rumors start, we might break even.”

“Dear! We agreed to have a psychic look at the place. We were going to decide together what we wanted to do. Now that you don’t like the answer you’re changing the rules. We’ll get back to you, Mrs.Geller.”

“That’ll be fine. I think the three of us could have a seance, make contact with the spirit to find out what it wants, and then work on getting it settled on the other side. Don’t worry Mr. Michaels, I won’t tell anybody about our meeting today,” Mrs. Geller said as she shook our hands and left.

“I don’t want to sell. I like it here. You fell in love with this place first and then showed it to me, remember? Now, just because she says we may have a spirit here you want to sell,” Hedi began.

“Wait a minute! That was before I knew that we had spirits. Now I want to sell before anybody else finds out about them.”

“You heard her. There were rumors about this place before we came here. It’s common knowledge with the locals. We won’t get our money out of here unless we stay and turn it into a profitable B and B.” With that, Hedi stomped upstairs.

I went out to the car and drove away. I needed time to sort my thoughts. It was night when I finally stopped at a gas station and decided to call Hedi and let her know where I was and to apologize. After all, we had agreed to decide together what we would do next, and my earlier pronouncement had precluded any discussion.

No answer. We only had one car so I wondered where she was that she didn’t hear the phone and pick it up. I left a message on the answering machine and started home. It was another stormy night, and the gloomy weather filled the car. As I headed for Hopp Hollow Road, lightning flashed across the dark sky and my imagination spun up again.

The shadows created by my headlights on the curvy, rough road got me thinking about the witches in Macbeth conjuring up evil spirits, and ghosts dancing in the eerie glow. I sensed something behind me and looked in the rear view mirror. There was nothing there, but I felt the impending materialization of something violent. The feeling increased the closer I got to home.

It was dark when I pulled up. Where had Hedi gone? Did she leave? No, it had to be something else. Walking up to the front porch, I noticed a glow coming from the attic dormers. As I looked up, I saw a shadowy form of a woman move across one of the windows. Was it Hedi or some spectral shape coming back to haunt us?

“Hedi,” I called upon opening the front door, no answer. The darkness nipped at my heels. Turning on the lights, I went into the kitchen to our bulletin board to see if she had left a note. I checked the answering machine. My message wasn’t there - only static. An apprehensive feeling filled me.

As I rushed up the stairs towards the bedrooms, I felt as though I were passing through some form of nebulous membrane that separated my world from a nightmarish wickedness. I kept turning on lights and calling for Hedi as I went. Silence and a foreboding feeling were my only answers.

As I approached the attic door, I heard a low growl. The beast from my previous encounter was in front of the door. It stood as I approached and barred its teeth. It was hard for me to think of this as only a ghost. It seemed real enough to me. Plus, when I’d last encountered it in the kitchen, it felt real when it knocked me into the stove. Was it real or was a spirit?

The psychic’s comment that there were no records of a ghost hurting anyone flashed through my mind. Yeah, sure. I didn’t want to test the theory. Slowly I backed away. It followed just as slowly. I backed all the way down the hall and stairs, and it followed me all the way.

I had a plan. I’d gotten rid of it before when I swung at it with the frying pan. Would it follow me all the way into the kitchen? There was only one way to find out. It did. Now all I had to do was find the pan. Where was the damn thing? As I backed up, I completely forgot that our clean pots and pans were hung above the food counter in the center of the kitchen. I banged my head on one. I glanced up. It was only a sauce pot, but what the hell? It was better than nothing and at least gave me something to swing at the dog or apparition or whatever it was.

I grabbed the pot and stopped retreating. Now I advanced on the dog. It disappeared. “Well what do you know,” I said pleased with myself. Just the same, I looked around the kitchen to make certain I was alone.

I ran back up the stairs and headed for attic. Hedi was just closing the attic door when I got there. She jumped when she saw me. “Where have you been?” She asked.

“I’ve been calling you since I got here. Where were you?”

“In the spooky attic. I thought there might be something up there we could use. I guess I didn’t hear you.”

“Why did you have the lights off?”

“What are you talking about? The lights are on. Did you spend the day in a bar somewhere?”

This wasn’t getting us anywhere. It didn't make any sense to continue questioning her or tell her about my encounter. She would think I was crazy. “Hedi, I apologize. You’re right. We said we would discuss the house after we found out what the psychic said, and I changed the rules. Let’s do what she suggested.”

“Why the change of heart?”

I really didn’t want to tell her I was angry at something almost a hundred years old making me feel apprehensive in my own home. We’d spent a lot of money fixing this old place up, and we most probably wouldn’t break even when we sold. No ghostly dog was going to drive me out of this place. It was going to have to find somewhere else to live.

I told her, “Driving around gave me a lot of time to think about it. Let’s see what the psychic turns up at the seance before we make up our minds. Okay?”

“Fine. I’ll call her now.”

***

Mrs. Geller arrived at nine the next night for the seance. We sat around a poker table that was in a corner of our lounge. The only illumination in the room came from a roaring fire and candles placed on the table. Mrs. Geller explained it’s easier to see spirits under dim illumination when there’s some contrast rather than in the day when it’s too bright, or at night when it’s too dark.

Frankly, I didn’t know what to expect having never attended a seance before. We all held hands and Mrs. Geller told us, “No matter what, don’t let go. Remember, a spirit won’t harm you unless you give it power over you by being afraid if it. Some spirits are very angry when we summon them back because they like to make their presence known on their terms rather than ours. If we don’t break the circle of hands, they can’t harm us. If we let go, we break our power over the spirit. It can then escape as most do, or it can turn on us. But that’s never happened in any seance I’ve held. Are we ready?”

After that guidance, I wanted to say, No! I didn’t buy that gobble gook about not being hurt; but I had agreed to do this with Hedi and I couldn’t back out now. I decided to hell with the quivering mass of worms in my stomach and my spine tingling twinges, and grabbed on to each woman’s hand as though it were a life preserver.

She called for the spirit of the house to make itself known. This went on for several minutes before I began to feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as they did when I was in the attic.

Suddenly, the dog appeared not as a misty see through image, but solid. A man in formal clothes was next, but he was different. I could see him and through him at the same time. I thought that this was the spirit that was causing all the trouble. He was the one with the unfinished business.

The dog immediately turned my way and growled. It began to advance towards me, and I squeezed my partners' hands in a death like grip. It was strange, as the dog approached it became transparent, until it looked like the man when it was only a few feet from me. It stopped its approach and returned to the man’s side. Maybe there was something to this hand thing after all. I loosened my grip on both women's hands.

The man slowly surveyed the room until his gaze fell on me. His eyes began to glow. “Spirit! What do you want here?” Mrs. Geller commanded.

The man surveyed the room again, looked down at the dog and suddenly pointed to me. “Him!”

“You can’t have him. Why do you want him?”

“He killed me for my wife. I thought he was my friend until he pushed me over the cliff.”

There was a sudden crack of lightning that sent all of us off our chairs. I lost my grip on both women. “Maintain the circle, maintain the circle,” I heard Mrs. Geller say. He swooped down at me like a hell raised demon. I had the premonition of a grave as he advanced through the dim light. My wife and Mrs. Geller were already holding hands, but he and the dog were between them and me. As I stood there, the eerie ghostly forms began to take a more solid shape and their shadows became black.

I remembered Mrs. Geller saying spirits are only as strong as you allow them to be by your fear. That’s right! The less afraid I am, the weaker they are. I remembered when I hit the dog with the frying pan and later chased him with the pot. He had disappeared. No damned ghost was going to chase me out of my own home.

I heard Geller say to the spirit he was wrong. I hadn’t killed anybody. I just bought the house this year. The spirit was mistaken. As if by magic, the man produced the photograph and threw it at the women. It landed face up on the table. Both my wife and Geller gasped. They saw the likeness. Hedi cried out, “He’s not this man. He wasn’t even born then.”

The man and dog sensed my fear wasn’t building and that stopped them from fully materializing. Then the man hurled a stream of vile blasphemies at me that were so vehement and forceful that I felt his hot stinging hatred. The dog snarled and growled and began to advance again. They were trying to frighten me.

I had a plan. I sidestepped my way to the fireplace as both creatures slowly advanced. I noticed that they were not solidifying. I wasn’t certain how strong their half materialized bodies were, but I intended to take no chances. I reached for the poker.

Without warning a second specter emerged out of the dark shadows. I did a double take. He was the man I’d seen in the wedding photo, my likeness but with all the facial hair of the nineteen hundreds. “He’s not who you want Frank, I am,” the second man said.

Frank slowly turned. The dog looked back and forth between the second specter and me. It whimpered and began to turn transparent until it almost disappeared. “Yes, yes now I can see he isn’t you, James. My best man and my murderer.”

He flung himself at James and the ghostly shapes swirled and swooped about in a violent fight. Frank was now as transparent as James. My fear wasn’t fueling Frank’s specter anymore and he reverted to his ghostly transparency.

The women, still holding hands, were cowering in a corner of the room as the two ghosts savaged each other. Two malevolent spirits risen from Hell snarling and shouting at each other while they struggled. I had an inspiration. Quickly, I dodged around their churning forms and dashed to the bay doors which I opened to the deck overlooking the bluffs. With any luck, I might get them out there. I ran to the women and joined the circle. “Mrs. Geller how can we get them outside?”

The poor frightened lady looked at me without comprehension, but my wife knew what I was thinking. The three of us moved out the door to the edge of the deck. Then we let go of Mrs. Geller’s hands and stepped aside. She cried out, “We must maintain the circle. We must maintain the circle.”

Both Hedi and I moved quickly out of Mrs. Geller’s grasp and grabbed hands. Mrs. Geller sank to the deck hysterically weeping and covered her head. My wife screamed. It was so loud I thought she was being killed. Both entities stopped their fighting and turned to look at us. They saw Mrs. Geller and approached. With each closer step, they slowly solidified more and more.

They were almost to her when Hedi and I quickly sidestepped, and moved so they were between us and the deck rail with the cowering Mrs. Geller at their feet. They gained strength as they looked down at the psychic. Both were solidifying into complete bodies with distinct shadows.

Just as James materialized fully, Hedi and I holding hands rushed him and knocked him back against the rail. Suddenly, Frank swooped between us and hit James on the chin with his fist. The rail broke, and James slowly went over the edge of the bluff into the blackness.

We backed up. Frank turned to look at us, and slowly smiled. The dog reappeared alongside him, turned to look at us and wagged his tail. Then both slowly became transparent and disappeared.

As we stood there, holding hands waiting for something else to occur it dawned on us that this was it. Frank wanted revenge against James and now that he had it, he could crossover. We went to Mrs. Geller who was a shaking quavering mass of hysteria. Gently we led her into the house and Hedi made some tea.

We had our first guests a week later. We’ve lived here ten years now -- ghost free.