Inside, the house was dead. The front door opened into a main (once-living) space covered in dreary layers of dust, stagnant air, and rat droppings. Yes, the rats surely made their home in the nooks and crannies of torn upholstery and occupied cabinets and shelves. The couple was surprised to find the house fully furnished, albeit with outdated items. Knick-knacks still sat out in the open while cans and stored away jars remained in the kitchen area.
"Whoever lived here left in a hurry," commented Salvador.
"Well, it's ours now," replied Elena.
The couple and their 3 children , set to work and thoroughly cleaned the rat-infested house that appeared to have been abandoned for some time (there exists even first-hand accounts of the mild-mannered Salvador incorrigibly swinging a dead rat in the faces of his misbehaving kids). It didn't take long for the family to wipe the past clean, comfortably settle in with their own things, then startlingly uncover far more profound stains.
There were numerous minor incidences where strange noises were heard or odd images appeared but no one paid very much attention to them. Salvador thought he heard a voice crying out from the bathroom while he served himself a plate in the kitchen. Wondering why nobody had yet attended to whoever was in the bathroom, he passed the dining table where Elena and all three kids sat eating dinner together. Elena spotted his confusion.
"What's wrong with you?"
"Is someone in the bathroom?"
"No. We're all right here. Why? What is it?"
"No, nothing" he said, shaking it off.
On another day, Elena's brother tried repeatedly to convince the family that he saw a woman he'd never seen before standing in the garage beckoning him to go to her. But, it was 90 degree weather and he was drunk so the others teased him that it was probably wishful thinking.
Eventually, Elena and Salvador fell onto hard times. They were forced to sell their car and they lost the house. On one of the last days they were to remain in the house, Elena prepared a large saucepan for her family favorite meal, chicken mole. Salvador was out in the nearby peanut fields and the kids were coming in and out with baskets from the fields. With her concentration on the sizzling and bubbling stove and her back facing the rest of the kitchen, Elena suddenly felt that she was not alone. Knowing for a fact that each of her kids had left the house for another round of pickings, she couldn't shake the sensation that someone else was in the room - a shift in molecules or slight change of air that spurs goosebumps on the arm or stifles your breath. Determined not to carry on with such childishness, she stirred the contents of her saucepan until she heard a heavy sigh, like a tired woman coming in from the heat.
"Socorro, is that you?"
Hoping to see her eldest daughter, she turned but didn't see anyone. The house was silent and empty. She continued cooking until she heard an even louder sigh, this time closer than before. She froze when her vision fell on the shiny metal reflection on the saucepan and in it saw a matronly figure, gasping for air, hover directly behind her. Before she was completely crippled by fear, Elena dashed out of the house and cut across her neighbors' yards until she reached the peanut fields, wooden spoon still in hand.
One of the nieghbors, Lucita, had become a good friend to Elena. Once they had moved out of the beautiful ranch-style, Lucita shared a story with Elena. Lucita's aunt was the woman who had lived in the house before Elena and her family moved in. The woman had allowed her niece and her husband to move in with her. The husband was no good. Trouble from the start. He was caught up in all sorts of schemes and should never have been trusted. One day he tried to rob the woman but instead choked her to death, her last breath stifled on her very own kitchen floor. He ran away and no one heard from him again. Lucita and her children moved into a house nearby. It wasn't much later that Elena and Salvador arrived and took the house as their own- but, of course, it never really was.
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