Summit Street Scare

Nonfiction Piece by Mackenzie Rosenau

All names and places are changed for anonymity

The dense fog clouded our vision as we ventured out of our house on 312 Summit Street. It loomed over the trees as if Mother Nature was setting the scene for the events about to occur in the next 24 hours. It was a chilly night at the beginning of February, which did nothing to calm our nerves. Although, there was no reason to be nervous at this point, I always had an intense sense of intuition, or maybe it was just my anxiety disorder; who knows.

We always had a habit of going off course; Genevieve and I did. Spontaneity was in our nature. I would know, I left the country a few months back with nothing but myself and two suitcases I packed the night before to get by, but that is a story for another time. We climbed into the car and immediately turned up the heat to thaw our chilled bones. As we pulled out of the driveway and sped down the road I knew that things would be better once we picked up our friends. I had always hated being alone, and Genevieve and I were almost the same person so she didn’t count as another.

My mood lightened considerably after my friends joined us in the car. Laughter and jokes surrounded us the entire drive, and I immediately felt rejuvenated from just a small interaction of us being all together once again. I often questioned why I had left them as I did in the first place. The lightness in the air drowned out the eeriness of the fog outside and any other horrors that

may await us. At least for now it did.

We returned to Summit Street with more energy than we left with, and we were determined to have a peaceful, productive night as we enjoyed the pizza we had picked up on the journey home. Boy were we ever wrong for this assumption.

It is important to note that Genevive and I are often known for our dramatics and speculations, no matter how out of the box they may be. We are performers, artists, and writers, so of course we would find any way to make something out of nothing, and everyone knew this as well. Therefore, it is not a surprise that nobody believed us when we speculated someone was living in our walls. Now, we did not come to this conclusion without reasoning. In fact, we had many sound reasons for why we believed this to be true.

Genevieve and I had moved into 312 Summit Street about a month ago. Not by choice of course, it is just where our school had placed us for the upcoming semester. We shared a large, teal painted room with a window that almost took up an entire wall and a closet the size of a regular window, or maybe even smaller. Upon moving into this house we were a bit skeptical due

to the house’s old age and odd qualities throughout, and of course the lack of closet space. Who would make a closet that small for two college aged girls to share?

The first night spent in this house offered some strange occurrences. For one, we had a room in the basement that resembled a dungeon. Upon further inspection we realized that this so called “room” had makeshift walls that were hiding some parts of the house. One of these “walls” had a curtain covering a suspicious opening. Genevieve and I, being the curious souls we were, decided to investigate what was behind this curtain.

“You pull back the curtain and look while I record,” said Genevieve.

I rolled my eyes and said, “That’s real brave of you.”

I bravely reached to peel back the faded beige curtain while bracing myself for the worst. As I lifted the curtain I expected to find empty space but instead it was just a wall, but as I continued to pull back the curtain a smaller empty space came into view which made me visibly jump in surprise. At this movement Genevieve let out a scream which then resulted in us both screaming together and running out of the room.

“I thought you saw something,” exclaimed Genevieve as we ran out of the room.

“I thought you saw something and that’s why you screamed,” I breathlessly replied.

We then proceeded to burst into uncontrollable laughter and venture back into the room to inspect the mysterious open space behind the curtain. When we went back into the room we peered into the dark space and immediately felt a sense of dread. There was a middle-sized room that contained the furnace and water softener. Which I supposed made sense, but it was such a large area for it. We did not venture into this space because we were too scared to set foot in there alone. But, as we turned away from the room, we saw something horrifying on the floor.

At the bottom of our feet sat an enormous wasp, bigger than anything I had ever seen. I immediately screamed and sprinted out of the room. Which I think is a justified reaction. As I was hyperventilating outside the room, Genevieve was yelling for something to kill it with. Against my better judgement, I threw her my slipper to rid ourselves of the terrible creature. We then realized that several dead wasps lay at our feet caked into the floor as if they had been there for a while. Genevieve and I made eye contact and once again sprinted out of the room and up the stairs, vowing to not set foot in there again until we had someone do a deeper inspection.

After this night, we enlisted Genevieve’s father to make sure there is no wasp nest or other creepy activity in the dungeon, in which we find out there is not.

“You two are just being dramatic,” her father said.

The story of my life I suppose.

As time went on, more instances started happening in the house that had our brains turning with endless speculations.

With all of our ideas, we never fully suspected that someone may be living in our walls until that fateful night in the beginning of February. I had always been a firm believer in all things paranormal. So immediately my mind turned to the fact that a spirit may be haunting our new home. In fact, this was better for me. I was always able to interact better with things that are meant to be a figment of imagination as opposed to reality.

There were constant echoes of footsteps and creaks when nobody else was there, along with belongings being moved or set somewhere else. A window was even open a crack letting the cold breeze in from outside, when none of us had moved to open it and let the chill in. Looking back, these were all signs that we picked up on, but clearly our imaginations are too wild to come to an accurate conclusion.

With all this in mind, it is no wonder I was already on edge on that foggy night in the beginning of February. As we sat in our admittedly messy room eating our pizza, Genevieve and I began to conversate about the craziest things as we so often did.

“Maddie, did you move the bath mat in the basement today?” she asked me with a bit of laughter to her voice.

“No, what are you even talking about?” I asked while laughing along with her.

Genevieve replied, “Well when I went to get my laundry out of the dryer someone had fixed our leaking shower, cleaned up the water and hung the bath mat up in the dungeon room.”

I asked, “Did someone put a work order into maintenance to fix it like we talked about?”

“I don’t know but let me ask our housemates,” she replied seriously.

After asking them we realized something horrifying. None of us had put in a maintenance request or had even been in the basement recently.

“Maddie I am actually scared now,” said Genevieve with a quiver in her voice.

“Do you think it was the ghost?”

“A ghost couldn’t move a bath mat Maddie,” she replied seriously.

“I am just saying, what else could it be?” I asked with a roll of my eyes.

“I think an actual human had to have moved it, but the question is who?” responded Genevieve.

“Wait, so are you saying someone actually broke in here and cleaned?” I asked and rolled my eyes again. “I don’t think someone would actually take it upon themselves to do that and if they did then they are welcome to break in again.”

“It just doesn’t sit well with me,” Genevieve said.

After sitting in silence for some time Genevieve finally says again, “I am going to call Campus Safety and ask if anyone came to our house today to fix anything.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” I replied since now I was actually scared.

Campus Safety answered the phone, probably not happy they were being called at close to one in the morning by two girls saying they are afraid someone has been in their house. However, we did what needed to be done.

We were quickly informed that nobody had been in our house that day, and my brain quickly turned to ‘oh shit this is serious.’

After hearing our stories of sounds in the walls and objects being moved, Campus Safety decided to come over and do a deeper search of the house. Even though they had basically said they thought we were being delusional on the phone. Which is fair, because it’s Genevieve and I.

Three officers came barreling into our house after one in the morning to investigate our old and terrifying home. I fully expected them to find nothing and say we are over dramatic, similar to what Genevive’s father did about a month back, because that is usually how these things go for us. But turns out, for once in our lives we had been right about our fanciful ideas.

The moment the Campus Safety officer opened up the crawl space in our stairwell and said, “there’s a blanket in here,” my heart dropped to my toes.

“There’s also a coke can?” he questioned with a scared look in his eyes, I think he was realizing what we were also thinking at this moment.

There may in fact be someone living in the walls of our house.

As they continued to look, they realized there was also bedding laid out and a mirror. To fend off the horror and conclusions our minds were coming to, Campus Safety told us it was probably just storage from the last occupants of the house. But why would they put bedding and a coke can in such a dirty and dusty area when there are so many other spaces to store objects in the house?

Genevieve and I looked at each other in disbelief not for a second understanding why they were minimizing this situation. After this discovery, we ventured with the officers to the basement so they could further investigate the situation.

Remember that space I mentioned earlier in the dungeon room, that was thoroughly checked by Genevieve’s father after the wasp incident? Well, Campus Safety found a dirty pair of men’s underwear and a boarded-up window in there. Of course, Campus Safety says that it is probably just from the last tenants. But how was this not found when Genevieve’s father investigated?

Nothing was adding up in this situation whatsoever and I was becoming more infused with terror by the minute.

“You need to invest in some cameras,” the Campus Safety officer told me with a serious tone.

“Invest what?” I said with a laugh. “I don’t have any money.”

We climbed the creepy old stairs back to the top of the house where the crawl space was, and Campus Safety took all evidence that someone may have been living there out of the space.

“Call us if you hear any more noises,” said one officer.

“Yeah and maybe burn some sage while you’re at it,” said the other with a laugh. After they left with all the evidence, panic truly started to set in. Is there really someone living here? Why would they clean up the water in the basement? What do we even do since Campus Safety doesn’t seem to care? In a frenzy, we called our parents to inform them of the situation.

“I don’t like that one bit,” my father said to me on the phone. “I’ll come down there and sit all night with my machete if I have to.”

“You live over an hour away, you're not driving down here in the middle of the night especially when it is so foggy,” I said.

After hanging up the phone, Genevieve and I decided there was not much we could do for the rest of the night except lock our bedroom door and pray that we weren’t in danger.

I tossed and turned as shadows danced along our walls from the night light we decided to turn on. I couldn’t sleep. Not with the idea in my head that a real person may be sleeping in the wall next to me. I kept my ears and eyes open all night hoping to whatever superior being listening, that we remain safe and undisturbed in this house for the foreseeable future.

When the sun finally peaked over the horizon, I dragged my tired body and mind out of bed and left my house. Or should I say my hell? I was on the phone with my panic stricken mother as I walked down the side of the road.

“I’ll call them myself if they won’t do anything!” she exclaimed.

My mother always had a way of dramatics and blowing things out of proportion, and I wonder where I get it from.

“Just calm down,” I said with an exasperated tone. “We will contact Campus Operations later to clarify some things and if that doesn’t work I will reach out to someone higher up.”

“Okay well keep me posted, I don’t like this at all,” she replied to me with an angry tone.

“Don’t worry I will,” I responded as I hung up the phone with an eye roll.

She always had a talent of pissing me off for no reason even though I know she just cares about our safety and feels the same way I do about this terrible situation.

After walking through the crisp cold, I meet up with Genevieve and we decide to call Campus Operations. Or rather, I make her do it because I am too scared.

“Turns out a maintenance person was actually in your house the other day and didn’t tell you,” said Campus Operations while on the phone with Genevieve.

“Well why didn’t someone inform us of this?” questioned Genevieve irritatedly.

“We don’t have to tell you when we come and go, we can go in whenever we want,” they responded in an attitudinal tone.

With a roll of her eyes Genevieve said, “Okay well thanks anyways,” and hung up the phone.

“Well I guess that gives us an answer to the basement situation, but what about the items in the crawl space, the noises, the underwear, and the window in the basement?” I said angrily.

“I don’t know but it doesn’t make sense that they would go into our house without telling us, and that is the main thing that caused this whole situation!” Genevieve exclaimed.

“I think we need to reach out to someone else about this because what are we supposed to do?” I asked with a shaky voice. “I mean are we just supposed to live in a house where all these unexplainable items were found and where we hear noises twenty four seven!”

I immediately reached out to a higher up at the university requesting help with the situation. After this, the only thing we had left to do was wait and ponder in our own silence.

As the day dragged on, I dreaded going back to the house where a possible extra roommate may await me, but I was brave and did it anyway.

I walked to my bedroom where Genevieve was waiting and I informed her that I still had not received a response from anybody, to which she answered with an exasperated sigh.

As we laid in our respective beds decompressing for the day, Genevieve jumped which startled me.

“Did you hear that?” she questioned.

“Genevieve stop,” I said seriously.

“No I am being for real, I heard something,” she replied, her eyes twinkling with terror.

I immediately set down what I was watching and started to listen and I heard a continuous banging sound in the wall once again. I met Genevieve’s eyes and she ran across the room, locked the door and jumped in my bed.

“Text the other girls and see if it is them,” I whisper to her.

“I will,” she whispered back.

We received almost an immediate reply informing us that no, they are not even in the house at the moment but they are about to pull in the driveway.

Of course we start to panic until the sounds eventually stop.

Later in the night as we are still awaiting a response to our email of urgency, I turn to Genevieve with an idea.

“I think I am going to write about this,” I said with a small laugh “I’ll call it the Summit Street Scare, it could prove to be interesting.”

“It’s still a Summit Street Scare, the story isn’t even over yet or resolved,” she replied to me.

She was right, after all, we were forced to sit there and listen to the echoes of sounds in the walls and wonder about the belongings that were left behind by some phantom being in the night. Or were they even left behind at all? This truly was and is a Summit Street Scare.