The Ghost Of Halloween Past

You don't believe in ghosts, do you?

Neither do I, I think. I'm a rational guy who reads Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and their fellow defenders of the rational Enlightenment. If there's not a rational explanation for those things that go bump in the night, they're simply not there, right?

But I suspect well all have a story rattling around in the closet of our mind, something that feels true but defies explanation and all the rational analysis in the world can't make the memory go away. In fact, we're haunted by it. There are two times of the year when it's appropriate to share those stories: on deep summer nights around the campfire, when magic (and bears) are all around us, and on Halloween.

So. I have a ghost story about a deep and magic summer night and it's Halloween. No more beating around the bush:

I was 14. I remember that it was late summer, less than a year after a terrible incident that had a lasting impact on my family. The previous October, my eight-year-old sister had been killed by a car while crossing the street. The impact on my parents, my mother in particular, was devastating. She took to her bed and stayed there through the winter and into the summer. I thought I was doing comparatively well. There were still times when I missed my little sister's generous sparkle and there were other times when I found it difficult to believe I didn't have a sister any more, but my early adolescent agenda was full, particularly with myself.

For some reason, I was awake long past the time I would usually be asleep. The moon filled the yard with silver light. A warm breeze gently lifted the curtains of my bedroom window as if they were alive. It was quiet except for the rustling of the leaves in the breeze. I'm not sure how long I lay there, just taking this in, when something happened. Something that defied comprehension so much, I didn't believe it. The front doorbell rang.

First, you need to know that the front doorbell never rang. Everyone -- friends, relatives, service people, neighbors, all used the side door. Only strangers used the front doorbell. And we didn't get a lot of visitors at 2 in the morning, strangers or otherwise.

You should also know that compared to the merry tolling of the side doorbell, the front doorbell was loud and harsh, more a buzzer than a bell. And not a nice buzzer, either.

So I just stayed there, wondering “did I hear that?" and was almost convinced that I was in a waking dream or it was an auditory illusion of some kind when it happened again. (Stephen King italics).

This time, there was no doubt. The buzzer rang stridently for what seemed like a long minute. The mechanical clapper was so robust; I swear the house shook along with the buzz. I expected my father to leap out of his bed in the next room, go downstairs and investigate.

Still, no one else seemed to hear the buzzer. But it was so obvious and clear, I knew there could be no mistake. This time, I knew the front doorbell had just rung.

I put aside my reservations about what is and what is not impossible, and decided to get out of bed and look out the window. And there, on the front stoop was a little girl, approximately eight years old, dressed in a yellow party dress. A yellow party dress just like the one my sister was buried in. It was a traditional Catholic funeral, open casket.

She reached out, this little girl, and rang the doorbell again. At that point, I felt a number of things, all conflicting. I think the hairs stood up on the back of my head, yet I was excited, even happy. Here she is, I thought; I've got to go let her in. And as I raced downstairs, I thought "funny, it doesn't really look like my sister. Maybe it's another kid. someone who's lost or in trouble." I crept into the living room. There was a bay window overlooking the front porch, and I could still see her standing there. Her dress, like the curtains, was gently fluttering in the breeze. Or she herself was gently fluttering in the breeze, which of course was not possible. Possible or not, there she was. But I couldn't see her face, or if I could see her face, it was not quite recognizable. She stood there patiently. I could see her. She was waiting for someone to answer the door. No, she was waiting for me to answer the door.

I went into the porch, and, full of fear and excitement, I opened the door - and there was no one there. The front step was empty; in fact, the front step looked as if it had been empty all night. The soft magic of the moonlight and the breeze instantly dispersed, leave a kind of harsh glare that mocked my delusion. Of course there was no one there, you idiot.

Still, I went down the steps and looked around, all the time berating myself for being too late, for not getting there in time to let her in. No one around, I went back in the house, locked the door, and went back up to bed. Suddenly I was dreadfully tired.

I woke the next morning, went downstairs and quizzed everyone about the front doorbell. Even though the loudest, harshest doorbell on the planet rang three times, no one except me had heard it. They all considered very carefully, thought it over, and declared conclusively that no, they hadn't heard the front doorbell.

So I didn't take it any further. That was it really. This could only mean one of two things: The Rational Explanation: I must have hallucinated the 90 decibel doorbell. So out of touch with my own grief, I needed to construct a subconscious visit from my dead kid sister to understand how I really felt, and the conditions were right. I was calm, awake when it was quiet and distraction-free. I was open to a hostel visitation from my inner self.

The Other Explanation: She was there. She just wasn't enough there to cross over from the other side and actually encounter me. Or only part of her was there, which would explain the lack of face, going to the wrong door, not being there when I opened it. The rest of her stayed behind. But she knew that somehow, she could not get home and she was trying. Why she tried with me rather than my parents, whose room was right over the door and its clangorous doorbell, rather than my brother, who was closer in age, I'll never know.

Strangely enough, even though I'm a card-carrying rationalist, I really believe the Other, with a little addition: I believe she chose me because I was the one who needed the wake- up call. The others knew what they felt and felt what they knew. But I was numb and unavailable - at least until my dead sister rang the front door bell and I was the only one who heard it.

Happy Halloween, y'all.