The House at 758 by Kathryn Berla

Author:Kathryn Berla
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Grief, Loss, Death, Renewal, Rebirth, Love, Family relationships, Tragedy, Hope, Young love, Freedom, Summertime, San Francisco, California, Teenager, High school, Healing, Grief, Family, Mothers and daughters, Grandparents, Teenage girls, Teenagers
Publisher: Amberjack Publishing
Published: 2017-10-17T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter | 13

About three years ago, I had a disturbing experience. It bothered me for months and I even had nightmares about it long after that. This was before I knew what a real nightmare was and how quickly and unexpectedly it could take over a person’s life. For a long time, I convinced myself that this incident was a “harbinger”, a word we learned in English class that means something which is a sign for another bigger thing that’s about to happen.

Does everyone have a place in their house that’s a scary place? I do. My scary place is the garage, and even within the garage, there’s a corner where I still won’t go. But on that day I came into the garage to look for something . . . now I don’t even remember what it was. Back then our garage was a mess. Boxes were scattered around the edges of where the cars pull in. There was no order to anything so if you were looking for something you just had to go poking around until you found it. On that day, it was outrageously hot, but in the garage, it was cool and dry.

I saw the box I was looking for. It was high up on one of the shelves built into the wall. I looked around for something to stand on and saw an old Lego table that Mom thought we should keep in case any little kids came to visit. I leaned over to move the Lego table and strangely heard the sound of maracas. We had a pair of maracas, along with some other percussion type instruments like miniature conga drums, and an African thumb piano. Any musical instrument we ever showed an interest in, Mom would buy for us. Too bad we had zero talent for music. But at that moment, I just wondered who was shaking the maracas, and for one crazy minute, I thought I was hearing a ghost.

And then I saw it coiled under the Lego table, maybe six inches from my hand. A huge rattlesnake, fat across its middle, head raised back, body coiled, and the tip of its tail lifted into the air, vibrating just like a pair of maracas.

This was what I dreamed of for months after . . . its eyes. Its eyes looked like pure evil to me because in them I saw nothing. And I had never seen nothing before that moment. Nothing turned out to be the scariest thing I knew.

Somehow I got my bearings. I screamed, and the snake retreated, more scared of me (they say) than I was of it. My father rushed in and killed it with a shovel. Its body continued to writhe for minutes after it was dead, and a blood stain was visible for months afterward, despite repeated attempts to bleach it out.

After that, my father completely organized the garage to eliminate any potential hiding places. He explained to me that the snake had come in to escape the heat of the day, being a cold-blooded creature.

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