Chapter 7

In West Virginia they couldn’t buy alcohol at a restaurant so they usually had dinner across the river in Ironton, Ohio. That next Friday night just after they crossed the bridge John turned right instead of left. Gary jibed, “Something on your mind pal?”

“I was just thinking about what Charie was saying about how limiting these small river towns are.” They all chuckled. He drove to the first cross street and turned left, heading toward the next cross street where they could get back on course.

Penny yelled, “STOP THE CAR.”

“Jesus Pen,” John said, “you scared the hell out of me.” He eased the car to a stop. “What’s WRONG?”

“BACK UP JOHN.”

“What the hell are you talkin about hun?”

“Just back the car up a few houses and I’ll show you.” He did as she asked. “Right here,” she said, “LOOK.” They all looked.

It was a one story brick building, a side by side duplex with matching front porches. In front was a for sale sign that said, Duplex for Sale by owner. Inquire within, or call 740, 254-8769. A light was on in the residence to the left. The one on the right was entirely dark.

“I can’t BELIEVE this,” Penny said, almost shouting. “I DREAMED about this place last night.” What she didn’t share was that she had dreamed about it numerous times since she was a little girl. Hear voice was eager, “We HAVE to go in. Something is going to happen there and I KNOW it’s gonna be good.”

“Yeah,” John retorted, “They’ll probably be reading about the four young people who were murdered here.” Everybody but Penny laughed.

The recurring dream had been one in which she was a little girl of ten years old. She was in a car. They were going to see friends in a town just across the river from a city in West Virginia. They had driven in the car from Frankfurt, Kentucky to the place across the river from Huntington, West Virginia. It was a one story brick building, a duplex with matching front porches, each with white railings and white columns. They would be visiting for the weekend.

The woman (her name was Aggie) was quite small, not much taller than the ten year old Penny. The man had a strange name. It sounded to Penny like “Corn.” She remembered the outside and inside of the house, nothing else. When it was time for her to go to bed she was frightened to stay in the bedroom where she was supposed to sleep.

“That’s okay,” she remembered Aggie saying to her parents; “she can go to sleep in your room.” Both her mom and dad lay in bed with her, her mom reading a story until she fell asleep.

The next thing she remembered was awaking in the room where she went to sleep. She heard voices, her mother’s and father’s, and Aggie’s and Corn’s. She heard laughter. She heard a woman say “Ooh, ooh, OOH.” It was muffled, like it was coming out of the closet. She didn’t understand. She heard her mother laugh and say, “Ride that big boy Aggie.” A man’s voice said, “He-he-he Aggie looks like a jockey ridin a big horse.” She heard the “ooh, ooh, OOH.” Then she heard her father’s voice say, “OH GOD AGGIE, I’M GONNA CUM.”

Getting out of bed she opened the closet door. She fumbled for the light. When she flipped the switch she saw her reflection in the mirror at the end of a walk-in closet. But the voices were louder. They were coming from behind the mirror. She had heard her daddy tell Aggie he was going to come. “Come WHERE Daddy,” the ten year old Penny yelled. “Where ARE you?”

She heard her mother say, “Oh gawd Corwin, (to the little girl it sounded like Corn) where in the world did you learn to eat a pussy like this? Mmm-mmm-MMM.”

The other woman (Aggie) said, “One of the places he learned Polly was on this jockey-girl’s tiny pussy tee-hee-hee.”

“A pussy,” her father’s voice said, “that is squeezing the bejesus of this horse’s cock, ha-ha-ha.”

Another man’s voice (it must have been Corn’s) said, “I admire your size Paulie, but I like the way mine slides so easily in and out of Aggie’s little cunt, ha-ha-ha.”

He gasped, “Ooh, ooh,” and then said, “But Polly, yours surely has an educated way of squeezin my ole cock like a fist.” There was more laughter, a lot of oohing and ahing, words like “fuck and pussy and cum” before it all grew quiet.

Her eyes began to droop and she went back to bed. But in her dream she woke up in the other bed.

In the car Penny murmured, “They must have taken me back to my own room when they came to bed.”

“Honey,” John said. “What the hell are you talking about?” He looked at his wife then turned and looked at Gary and Charie. They were other rolling their eyes at each.

“I think she’s losing it,” John said.

It was the same dream she had been having for years, since, since before the time she had first seen the pictures her dad had been hiding. Last night she dreamed about the four of them driving by this house. There was going to be an older woman, a tiny one about 5’ tall.

The look on her face was silly. Grinning she said, “I know you are all not going to believe this but it’s déjà vu. I’ve been here before. And if I tell you what I think is going to happen you’ll take me back over the bridge and commit me.”

John had experienced weird moments like this before with his wife. “Come on Honey, you’re not going to put me through this crap again, are you?”

“Honey,” she answered, “I’m telling you that this is so eerie that I’ve got goose bumps. There’s a small, attractive woman in there that is going to say things to us that you’re not going to believe.” John had never believed Penny’s pronouncements that she had ESP.

But Gary was inclined to believe her. Charie had recognized that Penny seemed prescient when nobody else had an idea of how to answer some unusual circumstances of how they met. She said, “Well, it would be an adventure anyway. I say let’s do it.”

Usually when Charie said something forcefully people had a way of going along with it. The only one who typically resisted when Charie made this kind of decision was Gary. But this time he merely said, “None of us can afford to buy a place, we’ve only been married for two years. None of us has any money. But it’s no further away from work than where we live in Huntington. So, what have we got to lose? Lead on witchy woman.”

Wondering how they could even be thinking about moving John pulled the car over to the curb. They all got out and walked across the street giggling as if they were on some kind of scavenger hunt. “This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done,” he protested. They walked up the three stairs to the porch of the house on the left, the one with the light on in the window. Penny knocked on the door. They waited. She knocked harder. The porch light came on and the door opened a crack.

“Yes?” a woman’s voice asked. From what they could see of her she was tiny.

“This is just like my dream,” Penny whispered. Raising her voice she said, “We saw your sign out front and wanted to talk with you about it.”

“I don’t know what we are going to talk about,” John said under his breath.

The door behind a glass storm door opened wider, showing a petite, older woman, perhaps in her mid to late 50’s. Her hair was dyed red but didn’t have the harsh appearance of most bottle dyes. Smiling she opened the storm door. With a twinkle in her eye she said, “It’s too early for Christmas carolers.” (Christmas was just two weeks away.) Our couples laughed. “You said you wanted to look at the place ... to buy?”

“Yes,” said Penny, looking both ways, hoping. But she knew she would get no support from her husband or friends.

The woman chuckled, looking at the four young people and said, “You look awfully young to be lookin for a house. Are you sure you’re not just playin some kind of prank?”