Looking back on my experience now I realize that I probably
encountered something that some people spend their lives
wishing to experience. At the time however, I was not
impressed, and my only thought was to put as many miles
between myself and the root cellar as I possibly could.
That eventful summer I was fifteen years old. I had
travelled from sunny Florida up to northern Alabama to spend
a month with my grandparents. They were getting on up in
years and my mom wanted me to get to know them better. I
was less than thrilled with being confined to a farm in
Alabama for four weeks, but really had no choice. Besides
there were things to keep me occupied.
When I arrived one
of my many uncles carried my bags to the back bedroom.
Again I was less than thrilled because the "back bedroom"
was literally at the back of the house by itself. To reach
the room you had to travel down a dark hallway only to turn
down another dark hallway with the room and the end of the
second hall. None of my many cousins or myself liked to go
back to the room, and we always drew straws to see who
would end up sleeping there. However it seemed I had no
choice I didn't want to seem ungrateful to my hosts.
I settled in and after a couple of days became
interested with the activities of the farm. I managed to
stay busy and was usually quite tired by the end of the day.
The morning of the first encounter I was awakened by the
sight of my grandmother climbing out of a hole in the
floor. When I showed my surprise she laughed and pointed
her flashlight into the hole. The root cellar was what
she called it. And it was by no means a basement for the
only entry was the trap door in the hall. It was basically
a deep hole with a ladder. The walls and floor were dirt
and red clay. It had a musty smell and was quite cool. My
grandmother explained that she stored canned foods and
potatoes and such in it. She also confided that it was the
safest place to be in case of a tornado. Good to know, I
thought. Though the hole gave me the willies.
Throughout that day I helped with the chores around the
farm and didn't give the root cellar much thought. When it
came time to go to bed I travelled down the darkened hallway
to my isolated room and shuddered at the thought of there
being a large hole under the hallway. However I fell
asleep without much trouble.
Around 1:30AM I felt a rush
of cool air and heard the floor in the hallway creak. As I
sat up and let my eyes adjust to the light I saw my
grandmother going down into the root cellar. I remember
wandering if perhaps there was a storm on it's way, and I
called out to her. She stopped and turned to look at me,
then just continued on down the ladder. I got up and put
on my robe and went to the kitchen for some water and to
look outside to see if it was beginning to storm. It
wasn't so I headed back to bed. As I passed my
grandparents room their door opened and out walked my
grandmother. When I asked her why she was going into the
root cellar at this time of night she looked at me like I
was crazy and told me I must have been dreaming.
Two nights later I was awakened at about the same
time. Once again I saw my grandmother climbing down into
the hole in the floor. This time I turned on the light and
went to the trap door. It was closed. When I opened it a
rush of cold air hit me in the face. Too shakened to go
back to sleep I went into the den and turned on the
television.
Several nights went by and nothing happened. I was
beginning to think that I had been dreaming. Then the
activity began again.
At around 1:30 AM I heard movement
coming down the hall. I heard the trap door to the root
cellar open and I felt the cool air coming from below the
house. When I sat up I saw a woman who was now standing at
the foot of my bed. She was looking directly at me but it
was as if she didn't see me. She was crying and it felt
like I could feel all the sadness that the woman felt.
She turned and walked back to the trap door. She handed
something down the ladder and seemed to be talking to
someone in the cellar. However there was nothing in her
hands. She walked to the foot of the bed again and then
again to the trap door. She again seemed to be handing
something to someone below. Then she descended the ladder
into the root cellar and the door shut.
This time I was shaking so hard that I could hardly
breath. I grabbed my robe and raced to the front of the
house jumping over the trap door in the floor. My
grandparents found me on the couch in the den when they
woke up. I told them that I was homesick and wanted to go
back home early.
Several years later when my grandfather died my mother
and I were helping sort out old papers and items for my
grandmother, when we came across the deed and the bill of
sale to the house and the land. To our amazement we
discovered that my grandfather had purchased the house and
20 acres of land for the price of one dollar. When we
asked my grandmother about it she sighed and told us that
the house had been owned by a man who had a wife and two
children. For some reason the man had gone crazy and
killed and dismembered the two children. He put each of
their bodies into a seperate flour sack and put them in the
back bedroom. He then pulled up floor boards in the
hallway and dug a deep hole (the root cellar) in the
hallway. Upon completion of the cellar he lowered a ladder
into it and climbed down. He then had his wife lower the
flour sacks with the children into the hole. After she did
this she climbed down into the hole. The man then shot her
and then himself. The police found them after several
weeks, when neighbors reported them missing.
Many years have gone by now. My grandmother has passed
away, and the house sold to strangers. I now live in
northern Alabama with my child. And though I have not been
in the house in probably 20 years, I can still remember the
expression of sadness on the face of the woman. And I
wonder to this day if she still carries her dead children
to the hole. The memory of the root cellar haunts my
dreams.
Contact me here: cburrows30@hotmail.com
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