At two years of age my niece Pammy was an unusual child in many ways. Her bright red curls matched her personalities ans she was so intelligent she seemed older than her years. And she was a happy child – until her parents moved to a new home.
Connie and Dan are her parents. They had been delighted to locate a huge old house in Terre Haute, Indiana (erm… this place I also never heard before…but I think is real wan gua..hehe..),with spacious bedrooms to house their growing family. Pammy was the fifth child and another was expected soon.
On moving day Pam’s parents were alarmed to find a smoldering teddy bear in the attic of their new home but in the confusion of getting settled it had been promptly forgotten. Later events, however, made it seem like a significant omen.
In this house Pammy began having severe nightmare s and visions, which everyone put down to an overactive imagination.Often in the wee hours of the mornings, clutching her beloved rag doll, Pammy would come whimpering to her mother’s bed.
‘Mommy, he’s pushed me out of the bed again. He won’t let me sleep and he’s trying to take my doll!’
At other times in the middle of the day Pammy would rush into the kitchen exclaiming, ‘Mommy, he pulled my hair and pinched me!’ She could not explain who ‘he’ was but she sounded is if it always was the same person and never a female. Once she told us her pesky visitor was big and old like ‘Pappy’ (her pet name for her great-grandfather) who was about 70 years old.
At times these experiences were so upsetting that Pammy would be near hysteria; perspiration would mingle with the tears streaming down her face. At other times she passes ‘his’ visits off with a shrug of her shoulders and refused to discuss them.
Connie and Dan decided that Pam was overstimulated by television or perhaps playing alone too much. She needed more companionship to discourage such alarming flights of fancy. Their solicitude, however, did not keep Pammy from awakening terrostricken in the night.
Then, one sunny afternoon in March 1961 (quite long long time ago ho….), the unseen tormentor nearly killed Pammy. She was standing in the center of the dinning room when suddenly her panicky screams filled the air. Connie ran to her – to find Pammy’s entire tiny body on fire! The flames leaping from the hem of her skirt engulfed her completely.
She suffered horrible disfiguring burns over 75 percent of her body requiring months of hospitalization and many skin grafts. In her torment of pain and drug-induced nightmares Pammy never once cried – but often she repeated, ‘Please, Mommy, don’t let him hurt me again.’
Careful investigation of the room where Pammy stood revealed nothing to account for the blaze. But while Pammy hovered between life and death in the hospital I (ehy…not me ah…the writer heard a strange story, one that I believe explains the tragic occurrence.
I was working as a nurse’s aide in the hospital. In the small coffee shop there it was not unusual to share a table with a complete stranger. One day I was seated with an elderly nurse’s aide I had not previously met and as usually happens among hospital staff we were discussing our patients and complaining about the particularly nasty ones. I’ll never forget her words as she unwittingly disclosed the mystery surrounding my sister’s home (eh.. the writer’s sister-Connie) and Pammy accident.
‘Of all the nasty people in the world,’ she said, ‘I had a neighbor who had everyone beat-old Mr. Clayton. I’ll never forget the old man. He hated everything, kids most of all. In fact, he swore that if any child ever moved into his house, the parents would be sorry. He was very wild. If anyone could come back and haunt a house, it would be him. He died last year, a horrible death, and I think he deserved it.’ She paused to sip her coffee, then continued, ‘He burned to death in his bed.’ I felt a sickening lurch in the pit of myh stomach. I had to ask, ‘Where did Mr. Clayton lived?’
Yes, George Clayton had lived in Connie’s big old house! Further questions elicited the information that Mr. Clayton’s deathbed had been in the room Connie and Dan used for dining room, exactly where Pammy had been burned.
Could all this be sheer coincidence? Or did a bitter old man wreak vengeance from the grave?? Im wondering what will happen to me if I stay in the old big haunted house….I think it could worst than what happened to this little poor Pammy….
This true story is written by Judith E. Dixon on March 19...wow..it was long long time ag...that time even my dad only 17 years old boy....what a interesting strange but true story...
