Haunted

At certain times in my life, I have found myself facing things that I could not rationally explain under the current understanding of scientific law. Most of them have been pleasant, or at least interesting; a few of them have been frightening.

At one time, I was dating a young man who shall be known as Benedick. Benedick lived in a neighborhood not far from the one I grew up in, but in some ways it was as different as if it were in another town entirely. It was slightly lower income, so the houses were all a little smaller and in a little poorer repair... and it was haunted.

That's the only way I have of explaining it. Sometimes it was just a feeling of something creepy behind you. Sometimes it was shadows where no shadow should be. Benedick not only agreed with me about the feel of the neighborhood, he told me a story about it.

Many years ago, he was alone in his family's house, and he heard a voice, a child's voice, screaming repeatedly "Let me out! Let me out!" coming from the direction of his garage. He went into the garage, looking about, but he didn't see anything or anyone. He went outside to see if there were someone outside, but again he heard the noise from his garage, "Let me out!" He checked once more, but there was nothing.

I thought it was a nice spooky tale and fit the feel of the neighborhood, but as time went by I forgot all about it. It wasn't until years later that I would remember.

I was driving through the neighborhood on my way to his house, something like four years later. It was dark, and there was no one on the streets, not even the usual contingent of cats. All of a sudden, I heard a child's shrill voice screaming from behind me, as if it were coming from my trunk, "Let me out! Let me out!" I screeched to a halt, looking around wildly, but there was nothing and no one to be seen. I drove the rest of the way to his house, pulled over, and opened the trunk. Nothing. No one was around.

It wasn't until I was telling him what happened that I remembered what he'd said.