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Aggie's Ghost
by
Harry Buschman
(Dedicated to Peggy Shumate)
When Mr. Gruenwald killed his wife and hanged himself in his basement, Aggie
was the happiest thirteen year old in the village.
The Gruenwald's lived in back of Aggie. He was a cranky old bastard and he
owned a hardware store. They argued a lot, and from her bedroom window, Aggie
would watch them in their kitchen waving their arms and shouting at each other.
When the hardware store didn't open for three days running, the police came
to the conclusion that they better check on the Gruenwald's. They found what
was left of Mrs. Gruenwald in a pile on the living room sofa and Mr. Gruenwald
was hanging from a beam in the basement.
Aggie was ecstatic. It was like Christmas had come; she was a murder junkie.
"We gotta get over there," she nudged me as we watched the police go over
the house with a fine tooth comb. "I gotta see -- they say he went at her with a
hatchet -- chopped her up real fine, like stew meat."
She was making me sick. "Must have been a lotta blood," I ventured.
"Buckets and buckets," she said eagerly.
After a month or two somebody bought the hardware store, but nobody wanted
the house. "You can't sell a haunted house," Aggie said. Although I'm sure
Aggie would have bought it if she had the money.
"You know Mr. Gruenwald still walks around in there, don't'cha?"
"How about Mrs. Gruenwald?" I asked her.
"No," Aggie shook her head. "She's gone to Heaven, but Mr. Gruenwald's
gotta walk around in there forever." She looked at me shrewdly. "I found a way
in. Wanna go in there with me?"
She found a way in through the back cellar door. The police sealed it but
somebody had broken the seal. Aggie claimed it wasn't her, but I'm not so sure.
"I'll meet'cha here after school," she said. "Y'better bring your
flashlight, it'll be dark in there."
It was about four in the afternoon when I got there. Aggie had already been
there an hour. "Geez, you're slow," she fumed. "What kept'cha, I been here
forever." I tried to explain about stopping for a flashlight but she ignored me.
She worked the police seal loose and we let ourselves into the cellar.
"Is this where ....?" I started.
"Yeah, see that chair over there? I think that's what he jumped off of." I
swallowed hard and turned on the flashlight so we could find the stairs to the
kitchen.
There were dirty dishes in the sink. They might have been from the
Gruenwald's, but more likely the police. A lot of furniture had been taken away,
but the
kitchen table stood in the middle of the room.
"He did it in the next room," Aggie whispered. We edged our way in and I saw
the sofa by the window. She was breathing hard now. "Right there -- that's
where he took the hatchet and hack .... hack." She made wild chopping motions
with her hand.
"Who the hell's down there!!"
It was a gruff man's voice and it was followed by a raspy cough. I could hear
footsteps on the floor above us and I think I was more scared than at any
other time in my life. I looked at Aggie and her hair was standing on end,
straight out of her head like the Bride of Frankenstein, her eyes were big as
billiard balls. She looked for all the world like a scared shitless Little
Orphan
Annie.
I looked up the stairs, and from where I stood I could see a pair of naked
hairy legs.
"It's him!! Gawd-a-mighty Aggie, it's Mr. Gruenwald!!"
We ran wildly through the dining room, then the kitchen, the two of us
bunched up together in the doorway to the cellar trying to get out first. We
clattered down the stairs and headed for the cellar door -- I remember taking
one
last look as we burst out into the open air. The naked legs were coming down the
cellar stairs.
We ran. We ran until we couldn't run any more, we ran all the way across town
and we really didn't know where we were when we stopped.
The next month the city tore the house down. Somebody said tramps were
hanging out there. Aggie didn't believe it for a second, she said they did it to
get
rid of the ghost of Mr. Gruenwald.
Harry Buschman 2001
(742)
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