"Who you gonna call?..."

Every ghost story seems to begin the same way. “It was a dark and stormy night.” or “We walked out to the graveyard.” Mine begins in a beach house.

In 1987 while living in North Myrtle Beach I rented a beach house just a block off the ocean. The house was a typical beach rental set-up. It was a two story building split into four apartments. Ours was the top left.

Being a block behind ocean drive we enjoyed the view of course. Especially on the front porch which was screened in. A single stairway led up the middle with a balcony leading to a creaky old screen door to each apartment on either end of the second story breezeway. Time, people, traffic and the occasional hurricane seasoned the faded white resort rental turned year round residence. The whole entrance, steps, screen door and porch was so old and creaky a cat could be heard coming up the steps from all the racket the journey would make.

I worked overnights at WNMB and part-time at the Outrigger Seafood restaurant. Mike, my roommate, was a bellman at the Sands Beach club and resort and he too had a part-time job at his mother’s roller rink. Everybody had two jobs back then. We had to if we wanted to afford our time off.

 I knew Mike’s steps as well as anyone would know the sound of a person’s voice. The sound his feet made on the rickety old stairway was as identifiable and unique as fingerprints. The screen door slammed behind him and he came bounding in with a tale of a house off the beaten path that was thought to be haunted.

So haunted was this place that voices could be heard speaking clearly enough as to understand the very conversations these specters were having with each other. Eye witness accounts tell of unseen spirits saying “This is not your house” and “You don’t belong here.” It was a house apparently so full of ghosts that somehow they were aware of the presence of the living and didn’t appreciate the intrusion and was quite vocal about it.

Mike had the address and it was definitely in an isolated area of the beach. The house was in the Little River neck area. Not a very popular place for tourists. A dead end road that was only accessible from Cherry Grove.

The barely paved road paralleled the Intra-coastal waterway. The tall marsh grass made a natural high fence that hid the road from passing boats. The road stopped at a faded orange and white road block sign with the words ROAD ENDS in broad black letters.

Mike who was immediately interested in going out to the house coerced me into tagging along. I suggested that we bring along some microphones and recording equipment and try and capture some of what other eyewitnesses spoke of. Maybe we’d be able to capture a ghost on tape. “We’d be famous” I said and so a plan was hatched.

Mike and I set out on a dry run to see if we could find this place in the daytime. Our plans were to head out there in the late afternoon this coming weekend and spend the night if possible. Since we had never really ventured out to this part of the beach we thought a reconnaissance mission might be in order.

Little river neck road started off curvy but soon straightened out and ran along with the waterway. A curve to the right would pull us away from the water and the road seemed to deteriorate from then on. An END STATE MAINTENANCE sign announced the obvious. The end of any resemblance to a frequently traveled roadway and loose gravel and potholes became the norm. Leaves, branches and debris reached out beyond the road’s edge and old washing machines, tin cans and twisted iron bed frames littered the ditches on either side as it became apparent that this place was a well known haven for illegal dumping.

The road ended without any fanfare. No more announcements marking it’s end except for a mailbox and a concrete sewer pipe barely covered over with earth to resemble a drive way. We pulled in and drove as far as it was possible before we had to give up and set out on foot. In font of us about a hundred yards away was the house we’d heard was full of the walking dead.

The house was a thin two story A-frame. A ramshackle thing pock marked with paint chip. The shutters were darker but not black and certainly not any other color, just a shade darker than what the house had intended to be at one time years ago. All the windows were knocked out and the door was wide open. The day was sunny and bright but despite that the interior seemed to have an unsettling blackness to it as one would see as he entered a cave. No natural light could possible shine thru to its center.

As we approached the weather almost instinctively seemed to change, turning from bright and sunny into overcast and dim. In reality the overgrowth from the tree tops around the house, changed day into dusk in just a few yards.

The closer we got to the doorway the darker the interior seemed to be from the outside. We could see the door had broken free from the top hinge and was barely hung still by the bottom one. The house sat on a serene piece of property as the view was remarkable in the back yard. The waterway and dock ended on a pathway leading off to the right of the house and one could make out the distant glimmer of the Atlantic ocean at the mouth of the waterway a couple of miles down stream.

The ground crunched beneath us and with each step it seemed to intensify. We both wondered if we were somehow stepping on some unearthly open wound and that we might be causing something some god awful amount of pain and suffering with each step. There was literally no noise except for the sound of our steps and the occasional breath we’d hear each other take. No birds chirped and we were well out of range of the break water. Not even a motorboat passed behind the house. “It’s dead silent” Mike said and neither one of us was comfortable with his choice of words.

We both acknowledged there was an eeriness about the grounds alone and assumed that once inside the feeling of a presence might be too overwhelming for us to remain silent. Mike was first to step on the stoop. I peered in thru the window next to the entrance.

I was reluctant to touch the window sill for fear I might catch what the house was infected with. Mike peeked just inside the doorway. We both remained perfectly silent. I was expecting something to lunge at Mike at any moment. I was ready to run as fast as I could leaving my friend behind to fend for himself.

 Later I would wonder if there might have been something “under” the house waiting to reach out at my feet as I stood up against the window sill staring in.  I didn’t want to dwell on that idea.

Our tour of the interior involved an obstacle course of debris from room to room. We had an unsettling feeling the whole time and were relieved to be backing out of the driveway and heading home. Neither one of us felt comfortable enough to talk about it until we were safer down the road.

Once in safer territory we started to talk about our experience. We both agreed that even though we were letting our imaginations get the best of us there was an obvious presence in and around that house. We joked that if we were both going to commit to this that we had better be wearing adult diapers.

We pulled in our driveway and finally felt safe. We shrugged off any weirdness we had brought home and were back to talking about our plans the following night. We tried but couldn’t climb the old stairs silently enough and gave up letting the full weight of our steps make our presence known to the neighbors below. The screen door creaked open and slammed shut and in an instant we were home safe.

The weekend was fast approaching and I had slowly been bringing home equipment from the radio station. By week’s end we would have everything we needed for our quest for the paranormal truth. With everything laid out on the table Mike and I stood over our supplies and took inventory of what we had.

Two back packs

4 Microphones

4 Cables (2-5ft) (2-10ft)

4 Stands and bases

2 Headphones

3 Flashlights

16 Batteries/ extra batteries (8-D-cell) (8-C-cell)

6 Disposable cameras

 (Food, drinks)

2 sleeping bags

(Notebooks-supplies)

4 Blank reel to reel tapes

4 Cassette tape

1 Cassette recorder

1 Reel to Reel machine

Everything was on the table all nice and neatly organized.

As we were taking inventory and talking about what we hoped to see the following night there came a loud knock on the door. More than a knock someone pounded on the door. Mike and I froze and didn’t utter a sound. We stood motionless staring at each other from opposite ends of the table.

Neither one of us moved because you see neither on of us remembers hearing anyone come up the rickety old stairs much less open the creaky old screen door.

 The door knob jiggled.

It jiggled as if someone on the other side was testing the lock.

Loose metal clanked.

Neither one of us moved.

Then another pounding on the door broke the silence in the great room of the beach house, this time much louder than the first. An angry address as if someone was banging on the door with their open palm. Next we heard the sound of someone’s hand sliding across the thin panel of the door on the other side. A sound like sand paper, moved slowly across as if giving up on anyone daring to answer the door the knock on the other side.

Then more silence.

 Mike was only two, maybe three feet from the door. He felt for one of the chrome microphone stands just in case. He reached out for the door knob and turned the lock. Gripping the door knob with his left hand he held the chrome microphone stand in his right ready to swing.

He turned the knob and flung the door open.

There was nothing there.

Both of us looked at each other. Neither one of us could speak.

We didn’t go out to the house like we had planned and we didn’t really talk about that night for a few days. We didn’t share with anyone else how truly terrified we both were out of fear of being laughed at or thought to be making to be making the whole thing up. When I brought the equipment back to the radio station I was asked what happened. I made up some story that we couldn’t get out there because it was looking like rain or some excuse, I don’t rightly remember.

I didn’t tell anyone at the radio station about that night at the beach house. I didn’t tell them that we didn’t hear anyone walk up the rickety stairs. I didn’t tell anyone that we never heard the screen door creak open and I especially didn’t tell anyone about the pounding on the door.

But I did tell you.