The Retreat

It was quiet on the retreat, so many hours of the day just dedicated to the craft of writing and creating wonderful memories along the way. We had rented the house on Airbnb so we had the place to ourselves. Just the seven of us. We each took turns cooking, and sharing stories along the way. Mornings were full of life and joy, and evenings full of laughter. But there was a secret we didn't know about this place. We should have guessed when we saw the name of the house on the website. "Grandma's House"

The first day we had fun settling in for the week. We played Cards Against Humanity that first night, it was a good icebreaker because many of us had rarely spent more than a few hours together. That was when we first heard it. A slight knocking or banging. We dismissed it of course, blaming it on the wind or the house settling. I found an old record player but much of the music was not to my taste, mostly the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but there were a few old hits that sounded good.

I slept in the library and let me tell you the place would get downright spooky at night. Every so often we would hear creaks, and what sounded like soft moans coming from the halls. Needless to say, we became vigilant of our surroundings. Being surrounded by mountains on four sides and only a small mountain road leading out of the glade. We took to walking and writing outside the house as much as possible.

We spent our days in the sun, and journeying down to the small creek that had a old wagon axle that had been retrofitted into a picnic table. We explored the nearby town, took a few snapshots of the local area, but most of all was the sky at night. “Grandma’s House” was smack dab in the middle of a Dark Sky Reserve and as such it was amazing to see the amount of stars we were actually missing down in the big city.

That night as we set down to bed it started again, the banging and the knocking. That next morning, we were all a bit out of it as we hadn’t got much sleep the night before. Our groups spiritualist who had brought her entire collection of Tarot Cards and Crystals decided that it had to be a ghost of the Grandma that the house was named after. Being a man of science and logic, I’ve never put much stock in the supernatural, but that house, that house had me doubting the very nature of existence.

On the morning of the second to last day, we did a little investigating and found little to no evidence of native activity or wildlife in the area. Still we remained vigilant. We spent that last night trying to distract ourselves with our writing, our games, even the bad music on the record player. Nothing helped though, because eventually it would be time for bed and that would only bring one thing.

On the last night we heard a banging on the doors like someone wanted in but when we went to look no one was there. I was reminded of that old B-Movie Evil Dead with Bruce Campbell. A lone house rented out to a bunch of friends, old texts, and mysterious noises. Outside only mountains and forest as far as you could see in the utter pitch dark of the Dark Sky sanctuary.

That next morning, we found no evidence anyone had been out there. No footprints in the dirt, no animal tracks.

We were all quiet and eager to leave that Thursday morning, and we swore to never speak of “Grandma’s House” ever again.