Visions in the Dark

There is an old farmhouse and barn in front of me. I can see an older couple working in field out back. I am not sure which, but the couple is either just really old fashioned pioneers or menonites. There is a doorless shed by the east side of the house and I wandered into it. Along with an assortment of old fashioned farming implements, homemade brooms line the far wall. I ask the old mennonite man if I can buy one when he comes over to see what I am doing tresspassing in his shed. Instead I am hired (or forced?) to become a live-in-maid to keep the farmhouse clean.

The mennonite couple disappear and a new couple appear as owners of the farmhouse. They are still older, but they look like they come from the Victorian era. I cannot think of anyone whom the lady of the house (the Mistress) looks like, but the man of the house (the Master) looked very much like Christopher Walken. The outside of the farmhouse looked the same, as did the barn, but the doorless shed disappeared and a long covered porch now wrapped itself around the east side of the house.

The inside of the house was still mainly Victorian/Edwardian era but seemed to have some seemingly out-of-place modernizations scattered randomly about. Though the house wasn't all that large, there was another maid who lived there as well. We usually worked together and while I was relatively pragmatic, the other maid was extremely superstitious and constantly tried to convince me that every creak, or misplaced object, was caused by ghosts. I did not believe in the ghosts theory and tired to argue that the house was old and prone to creaking and that objects get misplaced all the time, but the other maid would have none of it.

The other maid and I were asked to clean out the sothern rooms of the farmhouse because the Master wanted to convert them into a variety store. It was at this time that I started to see unusal things happen, like curtains move when there was no breeze, electrical cords pull themselves from the wall, and doors open and close by themselves. In the main hall, drops of blood fell from the ceiling and pooled on the floor. No matter how many times the other maid and I cleaned up the blood, it always reappeared the next day. Most frustrating was the fact that the Master and Mistress of the house never experienced anything strange, nor saw the blood, and would dismiss our complaints as nonsense.

I was now convinced that the house was haunted afterall, but was still not all that creeped out until the drops of blood from the ceiling became bloody bootprints that appeared decending the stairs and entering the southern rooms. At one point I was cleaning something in the main hall and heard footfalls on the stairs. I turned and saw not the Master as I was expecting, but the bloody bootprints. I quickly tried to duck into one of the adjacent rooms, but the double glass doors either locked of their own accord or jammed. I quickly spun around so that my back was pressed up against the glass doors and the lights in the hall began flickering. The temperature in the room dropped dramatically and I could see my breath. I was frozen in terror as I watched the bloody bootprints slowly and ominously stomp towards me. I cowered and shut my eyes, but just before they reached me, the sound of the footfalls disappeared, the room temperature returned to normal, and the lights stopped flickering. The glass doors behind me swung open and I made a hasty exit from the main hall and ran into the other maid, who saw everything from the other side of the glass doors.

Not only did the other maid quit after that but the bloody bootprints following me around the house became a common occurance. While it did take me a while to get used to, I eventually figured out that if I made no attempt to run from the ghostly follower, or try to clean up the bloody mess, the ghost would soon leave and the bloody mess would eventually disappear on its own.

I was standing in the southern room at one point, brainstorming ideas for the variety store, when I was summoned by the Master. I went to his private study in the north end of the house and when I got there, he lectured me on how no women in his household should leave the premises without a male escort. I realized at this time that I had never so much as stepped out onto the porch in all my time of working there as a maid, let alone leave the property. I got angry and shouted "There is my escort!" I pointed to the bloody bootprints that followed me into the room and the Master finally sees them for the first time, but says nothing.

Almost immediately after the lecture, I began to see ghosts in and around the farmhouse. The first is a little boy in a blue coat and white shorts, playing with an orange ball, near the pond at the front of the house. One Sunday I am sitting with the Master and Mistress and their guests when I get up and go into the kitchen for something. When I return, there is an old man sitting in my seat. He looks exactly like the character Oscar Leroy from the show Corner Gas (baseball cap and all). I recognize him as a friend of the family in the dream and he starts telling me about how it is his birthday. I realize that the old man is a ghost and I exclaim outloud to the Master and Mistress that their friend is dead, but everyone in the room just looks at me like I am crazy. Some get angry because they think I am being disrespectful since they know that man I am talking about and that it is his birthday.

I beg the Master to call the family of their friend but they wil not. The ghost of the old man gets up and asks me to follow him outside into the front yard. I do so, and the family and their guests follow me to see what I am up to, though I suspect it is just to observe me because they think I have lost my mind. The ghost of the old man tells me about how he died peacefully in his sleep, and as a hearse drives by in the distance, he points to the completed variety store at the southern end of the house and to says "Never stop writing down your ideas." The ghost then fades away. I walk over to the pond (though it looks more like a muddy pit at this moment) and stare quietly into the murky water. The Master comes over to me and finally says that he will get someone to call the family of his friend, to confirm his condition, because no one else yet believes that the old man is dead.

The Mistress runs out of the house and proclaims that their friend is dead and that it was self-inflicted. While everyone reacts to the news of their friend's suicide, I walk away saying "He lied to me!" (about how the old man said he died). Later, the Master, Mistress and guests are sitting around talking about how strange it was that someone would want to kill themselves on their birthday, but no one seems particularily upset at the loss of thier friend. I am disturbed and upset at their apparent apathy.


The dream ends there.

The birthday-suicide thing is something that I had been ruminating about for a few days because I struggle with suicidal ideation as a result of clinical depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.