We are excited to announce the winner of the September 2024 Chattanooga Writers' Guild Monthly Contest is Isla Wilson with the submission "Spectre" and runner-up is Sue Carol Elvin with the submission "Cabin Fever."
The non-fiction category was "Yell(ow)". Thanks to all who participated. And thank you to our non-fiction judge, Sherry Poff.
Spectre
I’ve never believed in ghosts. I had evaded ghosts, ghouls, and the unnatural for so long that I had no reason to believe in them — under flickering lights, staring into shadows drawn far across the room, I knew that nothing was there. There was nothing to incite fear in me. Yet despite all of this, I have always been scared of the dark; I found reasons not to traverse down the hallways at night. I made up excuses for the bumps in the attic and the hiss of cold breath down my neck. To me, the noises must have been raccoons. The goosebump-inducing feelings down my back must have been the cold — there’s a chill outside, I’d whisper to myself; the boiler, which often worked just fine, must be broken.
Looking past the campfire stories of hauntings in the dark, what really makes up a supernatural experience? Is there more to the spectral than footsteps in the night and hushed murmurs down the hall? Perhaps the idea of the ‘supernatural’ is really just a way to view something that is, in fact, very natural.
Studies show that mold can cause hallucinations. However, these are not limited to mold — differing levels of electromagnetic activity may cause auditory hallucinations. Experiences with ghosts may be accounted for by sleep paralysis as well — both of these factors are naturally occurring within the world and our lives. My home, for example, is one of mold and rot. Even with years of treatment and visits from specialists, it will not go away, buried and seething under the wallpaper — maybe our ghost is the field of black mold writhing in the walls. Electromagnetic fields, sleep paralysis, mold — there is no lack of evidence pertaining to the spectral. They say that if you’re told a house is haunted, you notice everything. Every creak in the floor, change of temperature, whistle of the wind. You notice things deemed as paranormal that can really all be chalked up to nature; if you’re told there’s a ghost, you’ll start to believe there is one.
Or maybe ghosts are real, and all around us are spirits bound to earth, wandering aimlessly in their eternity. Maybe they’re just a small portion of a bigger, deep-seated evil that has never known what it’s like to be human; you could also say that ghosts are something of an old wives’ tale, an easy explanation for the things we do not understand.
Where I live, there have been things I don’t understand. Things that are difficult to slap a label onto, occurrences I cannot explain. I have never been an advocate for the paranormal, but my mother is firm in her belief that our house is haunted — walking down the hall at night, she feels eyes raking over her back. I can’t say I don’t feel it too. Sometimes I hear someone call my name, knock on the door, or pace up and down the hallway for hours on end, but nobody is there. The clicking down the hall makes me yellow, and time and time again I open the door to nothing. Under the star-pricked sky, clinging to my blanket as trains rattle in the distance, I am scared of even closing my eyes.
I’m home alone often. One autumn, for a reason I don’t remember, I had the house to myself from the morning to midnight. I made sure the doors were closed and locked, the curtains drawn and all the lights off. The doorbell rang.
That wasn’t weird, though — nobody had told me about a package, but we very well may have been expecting one. I peeked out the window through the black curtains, but nobody was there, leaves drifting over the concrete porch as if to assure its emptiness. It was October. Just the fall breeze, I thought, so the wind must have hit the doorbell. I stepped back, drawing the curtains tighter this time, and my stomach lurched as I heard my dog bark down the hall.
I stepped out and she reeled, growling and spitting towards the front door. There was nobody there, but her aggression did not cease, pointed at the shadows arching over the doorway. I made sure the doors were locked. Nothing could have gotten in. At that point I just had to ignore her as I went back to my bedroom, but she did not stop.
The barking was drowned out by a booming knock on the door, jarring and unnatural. No matter how strong the wind, only a human could have made that noise, and yet as I looked outside the window there was nothing there. I could do nothing but listen as I heard the door open and my dog quiet. There was a faint tap, tap, tap, and then there was nothing. My heart has never beat so fast.
After this, nothing else happened, and the door was still closed and locked when I checked on it. My dog was undisturbed and so was everything else. Everything was so normal, so indifferent, that it was terrifying — I had not dreamed the experience, I could swear on it, but my surroundings were convincing me I had. It never happened again.
My stepfather says the house once belonged to his late grandparents, and he thinks that his grandmother is haunting it, that he has felt her presence for years. The gurney in which she took her last breath is still in our basement.
Maybe the knowledge of our own mortality is what chases us to believe in ghosts. They let us latch on to the idea that this is not all that there is, that we don’t have to leave forever, that the people you love haven’t left forever. This can’t be all there is to living.
I’d like to just say I don’t believe in ghosts. It’s easier that way, less harrowing, to dismiss the uncertainties of life with something concrete — my house is moldy. I was just tired. It was just the wind, there’s been a bad storm outside. But the world will not stop because of how we perceive it to work. There will still be a weird creak in the floorboards, the wind will still whistle uncomfortably through the trees, and in one room it may seem a bit colder than it was before. Real or not, ghosts will always be a way for people to explain the unexplainable.
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Isla Wilson is a student who enjoys writing in speculative prose. She lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Cabin Fever
At last, we were on our way to Gatlinburg for a much-needed break. Peter, my husband of 18 years, was, predictably, driving without directional assistance. He used the GPS only when he wanted to find Dunkin’ Donuts. So we ended up on Highway 515 (what the locals call the 4-lane) because it bypassed all the old 2-lane roads that came before. Oh well, how much time could this little detour take?
Just outside of Blue Ridge, GA, Peter spied a sign: CABINS. He slowed way down and looked across the 4-lane and back at the log cabin where the sign was. "I've always wanted to build a log cabin," said my very urban English husband, assuming it was a kit. Next, he drove the umpteen miles to the next crossover and back we went.
Inside, the receptionist (daughter of the Real Estate Broker), with a look of total disbelief, said in her very thick southern accent, "Log cabin kit? No. We sell cabins. The whole thing. Finished. Land and all. You're not from around here, are you?" We took her card and left.
For the entire five days, the little card with the big letters CABINS beckoned us from the cup holder. It was decided. We would go back, find the 515 (this time using the GPS) and look at some cabins for sale.
We spent two nights in two different cabins and though neither was what we wanted we were hooked. We had to have a cabin in the wooded mountains of northwest Georgia. Especially since the real estate rep (a step up from a used car salesman) assured us that it would pay for itself if we rented via Airbnb.
We settled on a perfectly adorable cabin that was affordable because of its size, 800 sq. ft.
At the same time, we bought a piece of land that we really didn't want. The agent (husband of the daughter?) showed us .6-acres with enthusiasm. "Beautiful dogwood trees, ain't they? Looks like mountain laurel across the creek.” He stooped down and brought up a handful of rocks in his dripping wet, cold hand. “Hit was panned for gold back in the day. Who’s to say thars not still some down here."
Peter had that look of glee with total surprise (as if he had just seen a large-breasted woman take off her shirt) that I knew well. I was not surprised when he said, with his adventurer's spirit to Leroy, the agent, "Write up an offer for half the asking price."
It was accepted. We soon found out why. It was totally unusable (thus unsalable) because it had no access to the road, no well, no septic tank, or anything else that a sensible buyer would require.
On the other side of Fannin County, the tiny cabin we bought sat on two acres at the top of a hill where acreage below was developed as a gated community with large, expensive cabins. My husband, with his chief engineer's ingenuity, turned the upper gallery into a master bedroom, with built-in drawers and closet. The roomy outhouse (complete with a moon on the door) became a laundry/2nd-toilet room. And dare I say, with my decorating genius, it became a hit with renters.
Alas, when the economy tanked (Wall Street hung those of us on Main Street out to dry) we needed to sell something. We put our three properties for sale: the condo on the bay in Florida, our primary waterfront home, also in Florida, and the beloved cabin where I enjoyed many days (Peter was working overseas) with my cat, Tommy, and my computer. You guessed it. The cabin sold in 2011, and all we had left in north Georgia was a small plot of useless land.
Beside it was an old hunter’s cabin and from time to time during the intervening years, we tried to contact the owner. "Queenie," we were told by a local, "owned most of the land on that road." There were several Queenies in that county, but we finally located the right one. This Queenie had given the land to her children, and they had promptly sold all but this hunter's cabin and three more plots. She was vague about how we might get in touch with the son who owned all. We gave up.
Queenie was dead, so we heard from the locals. Thus we started trying to find her son. We got lucky when a past-due bill for taxes was delivered, and we discovered he was in jail. Murder? No, it was only kidnapping. Seems he locked a former girlfriend in that cabin. He may have shot her or shot at her; we never found out the truth, but at any rate, he was eager to sell all for little more than we had paid for the .6-acre plot next door. We bought, having never been inside, in May of 2015.
The insurance agent that was recommended by the closing attorney (a brother-in-law?) called. "Don't nobody have keys?" A niece (or some other kin) who was hired to measure the place said she couldn't even get up to the shack for the tall grass. Snakes. She was afraid of snakes. Besides, anybody could see it was a teardown.
So up we go, using the GPS so as not to have any unnecessary delays.
Peter rented a bushhog and cut a path to the cabin. The doors were locked or jammed, but we found a window that could be jimmied open. Because I was not tall enough or strong enough to hold Peter, I was designated to be pushed through the open window. I landed in the only room with any character at all but not knowing this at the time I was pleasantly surprised—and hopeful. There was pine paneling on two walls, a huge sliding glass door and a wood-burning stove.
Later I noticed the paneling was vertical on one wall and horizontal on the other and the sliding glass doors were so cloudy you couldn't see through them. Nor did they slide. The floor was peeling linoleum and the ceiling was pockmarked with buckshot.
As I walked through the house to the back door to let Peter in, hope began to vanish and in its place was the realization that the niece was right. It was a teardown...not worth saving.
The linoleum gave way to planks and dirt. The master bedroom with dirty windows that couldn't be opened for a variety of reasons had white sheetrock that was gouged. The en-suite bathroom commode did not flush, and the last time the hideous plastic shower tub enclosure had been used, it was used to clean some kind of greasy equipment that left a film over at least half. We found the same greasy film covering the shower stall in the other bathroom. The kitchen was the worst. Cabinets that had lumps of mold in the corners, a huge refrigerator next to the stove, and impossible lighting.
I cried.
Peter, on the other hand, was optimistic. He expected me to perk up when he said, "There's a dishwasher."
It didn't help. It didn’t work anyway.
We left with him assured (and trying to assure me) that he could turn this dilapidated wreck into a lovely, desirable cabin by the time the rental season arrived...four months hence. And so the renovation began.
To appease me (and entice me to come up and help him), Peter rebuilt the porch first. He even added a roof so I could sit comfortably under the fans when I wasn't running errands, finding misplaced tools, or cleaning something.
Still I bitched, "The well with its ugly plastic fake rock covering is ruining the view from this side.”
He built a lattice fence, which I covered in native honeysuckle vine.
“There's no way to landscape these 2 acres."
Stonemasons were hired to make a path along the creek and winding up to both the south and new east entrance.
It was now Christmas, and we invited our helper and his daughter for our holiday meal. The sulky teenager only added to our depression...not to mention the underdone veggies that nobody ate. Still, Peter slogged on. At least he no longer had to shower outside with cold water.
By mid-April, everything was complete...with furniture even...except the kitchen. We needed to be ready for the beginning of rental season in May.
"It's too dark," guess who was complaining once again. "Pine floors, pine walls, pine cabinets. And yucky, pitiful lighting."
Not to be deterred, Peter came through with flying colors—literally. He painted the cabinets a bright, sunshine yellow. The same welcoming yellow that greeted guests at the door.
To say that I was happy is an understatement. That I apologized for my behavior during the process—not so much. Guests raved about the cabin coziness and the landscaping, but it was when they left a note saying that the yellow cabinets were their favorite feature that I was completely satisfied.
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Sue Carol Elvin grew up in the Florida panhandle on the gulf coast. She attended Gulf Coast Community College, Memphis State and Christian Brothers. Sue Carol began writing while living on a horse farm with her then husband and four children. She had several essays, short stories and poems published during these years. Her debut novel, The Memory Guardians, will be released October 15, 2024 by publisher Booklogix. Sue Carol resides in Chattanooga, TN with her husband, Peter, and their cat Clawed.
The Monthly Contests rotate through a pattern of Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Nonfiction throughout the year, with a new theme each month.
Go to the Monthly Contest Series Info page to view the genre and theme for each month.
This contest is free to enter for members of the Chattanooga Writers’ Guild. To become a member, click HERE.