"Tales of McCawley Road" by John Reid

[John Reid]

"Tales of McCawley Road" (Part 23)

(Paul) What happened next?

(Katie) Jean was getting ready to have her baby and I asked Robert if they would consider moving in with us. They could have the upstairs as we would live downstairs.

He talked it over with Jean and they moved in. Well now the house no longer seemed so empty. In no time we all got along so well it seemed like one big family living there. Jean's father lived with them and he moved in as well.

Robert built an outside staircase so they could all come and go without having to disturb us downstairs.

Then on September 29th, 1954 Robert's son was born on Daddy's birthday so he named him Richard after Daddy.

Right about the time that Rickey was born I started having morning sickness. The doctors at Ft. Knox had told me I couldn't have any more children after I had that operation, so I thought I was sick of course.

Well I kept getting sick in the mornings and started to gain weight and Jean said, "Katie I think you're going to have a baby." I said, "The doctors said I couldn't have any more." She said, "Doctors don't know everything."

So when Dutch came home I told him what was happening so he drove me to Ft. Knox to be tested.

So on January 3rd, 1955 I was sitting in the waiting room and Dr. Neblett called me into his office. He said, "Good morning Mrs. Michelson. Please come in and be seated. I've spoken with your family doctor, Dr. Bates and he tells me you've been experiencing episodes of nausea since last September is that correct?

I said, "Yes but the morning sickness has passed now." He said, "Mrs. Michelson, you cannot be pregnant. I thought I made that clear to you the last time I operated on you."

I said, "And I'm afraid you were wrong. How do you explain this?" I opened my coat and showed him my rounded belly.

He said, "You recall that ten years ago I removed five ovarian tumors along with one ovary and half of the other one. I couldn't remove all of them at once and you were supposed to come back the next year and let me finish up. Obviously the last one has started to grow. I'd like you to be admitted today and let me operate on you in the morning."

I said, "Oh no you're not. You're going to wait until it's been nine months anyway."

Dr. Neblett said, "Mrs. Michelson I would not recommend an operation if there was a child in you but I've seen the x-rays and all that can be seen is a white mass and no fetal heartbeat can be detected. It's not a child, it's a tumor and the longer you wait to have it removed the greater the chance of it turning cancerous."

I said, "Well I'll tell you what I told Dr. Bates. If it's a tumor it's got legs."

Dr. Neblett said, "Are you saying you felt it kick you?"

I said, "Look Dr. Neblett I've had two children already so I know what it feels like to have a baby kick you from the inside. I don't care what your tests show I'm telling you I'm pregnant, but since you don't believe me either I'm going home."

He said, "Mrs. Michelson at least please promise me you'll come back each month and let me do a check up on you."

I said, "I can't promise you anything except that around June you'll be delivering my child." and I left.

Well I did go back around March and had more tests done. He came in and said, "Mrs. Michelson I hope you are happy. You've started a big argument among my doctors. One group of specialists thinks you are carrying twins and one or more of them is deceased, another thinks it may be a child enveloped in the tumor and others that it is only a tumor. My main concern is that you are going to delay the operation too long and the tumor could turn cancerous.

I said, "Dr. Neblett are we going to have to have this same argument again? I told you no one is operating on me until I reach full term."

He said, "You're a stubborn woman Mrs. Michelson I hope you know what you're doing?"

So on June 10th, 1955 I let them admit me into the hospital and then on June 13th, 1955 I knew it was time, so I gave Dr. Neblett the go ahead and they wheeled me into the operating room.

He knew from the last time that my heart could not take them giving me gas without me having a heart attack so all he could give me was a local anesthetic, so I was conscious all through the operation.

When he made the incision he asked me if I felt that. I told him it felt like a thorn scratch but I was in so much pain already that it actually felt good to me.

Dr. Neblett said he only saw the tumor and kept cutting away at it, but even though he didn't believe there was any baby inside he felt he owed it to me to listen one last time for a heartbeat and to his shock there it was!

I heard him say, "I don't believe it." An hour later Dr. Neblett leaned forward and said, "Congratulations Mrs. Michelson, it's a boy."

[John Reid]

"Tales of McCawley Road" (part 24)

(Katie) Well we brought you home and since Rickey was only 9 months older than you, you both learned to walk and talk at the same time. Actually you learned to talk before you could walk.

One of Jean's friends from down the road stopped by and she had a boy named Tommy who was the same age as you. You were sitting in your playpen and she leaned over and said, "Tommy can walk already, why can't you?" You looked up at her and said, "I'm a coward." She said, "Oh! He can talk!" I said, "Yes, can't Tommy?"

(Paul) Ha ha, good one. So what happened next?

(Katie) Well Dutch came home in 1956. He was in Germany and wasn't supposed to come home for a whole year in February. I woke up one morning talking to that same beautiful lady I saw right before Pat was born. I was asleep and I went to ask her a question. I opened my eyes and saw her and then she vanished. All I remember her saying was, "Don't worry about Dutch he's going to be alright. He's coming home in October of this year. He'll be awfully disappointed but put up with him because it's for his own good." Well I woke up and I went to say, "Well what's going to happen?" and I saw who it was and she disappeared.

Now that was in July of 56 and I sat down and wrote Dutch a letter. He's still got it. I said that beautiful lady appeared to me again and told me you were coming home in October of this year and not February of next year and he made fun of me. He wrote back and said, "Well your beautiful lady's goofed this time." He said it wasn't 10 days later that he and a whole bunch of others got demoted from officer's to Master Sergeant's and got orders to be shipped home in October. So he showed my letter to a priest over there and he thought I had a visit from the Virgin Mary. He wanted me to come over there and see him and I wrote back and said, "Not on your life. I wouldn't cross that water for nobody. He can come and see me if he wants to." So he came home in October and he was naturally disappointed because he lost that rank of course, so that was the disappointment you see? As for it being the Virgin Mary, I don't know if that's who it was, I never did know who she was? But she sure scared the pants off of me the first time I seen her.

(Paul) So what happened next?

(Katie) Well with a house full of people we still had haunting activity, but we were all too busy to notice much. Oh, remember when I said both Donnie and Pat saw a man in that dining room at age two. Well it happened to you too.

Me and Florence and Sam were sitting at the kitchen table talking. You were two years old and you were in the dining room sitting on those steps that led to that archway that led to the stairs that went upstairs. You were writing a letter to Dutch who was over in Korea. Of course you weren't really writing but you thought you were. It was just scribbles of course.

Well all of a sudden you let out an awful scream and came running into the kitchen. I saw you reach between the refrigerator and the stove and get my willow switch and then run back into the dining room. Well we jumped up and followed and saw you hitting the steps with the switch yelling, "He tore my paper! The man tore my paper!" It was later on that I realized that all three of my kids saw a man in that dining room at the age of two.

(Paul) I don't know if I remember that or if it was a dream. I was sitting on those steps writing when I heard someone coming down the steps. I remember seeing a shadow falling on my paper and then a shoe stepped on it. I tried to pull it out and ripped it and I looked up...and I can't remember who it was? I know it wasn't anybody who I knew that lived there.

I also know that Rickey and I both had a similar nightmare the very same night once. We were outside by the back porch when he told me his nightmare and I told him mine. In mine I was sitting in a rocking chair at the top of those steps when I got this terrible feeling someone was going to grab me from behind so I rocked the chair deliberately down the stairs and was tumbling over and over down them. I woke up before I hit the bottom.

He dreamt that he was coming up the steps when he ran into to someone who was blocking his path and he looked up and it was an old man he never saw before so he tried to get away from him and dreamt he fell down the steps and was tumbling down them and also woke up before he hit the bottom.

(Katie) You never told me that before.

(Paul) Well we just thought they were dreams you know, but now I'm not so sure. I wonder if Uncle Robert and his family experienced anything back there.

(Katie) Well you can ask them. Robert and Jean are stopping by today.


Around noon they arrived, Katie makes everyone lunch and afterward they were all sitting around the kitchen table and Paul gets his tape recorder hidden inside his book and starts asking questions.

(Paul) Mom was telling me some scary stories about back home. Did you all ever see anything back there.

(Uncle Robert repeats his versions of seeing that ghostly looking white ape that came out from under the sofa and that he saw sitting on Katie that night. He said he saw it raise up and look at itself in the dresser mirror and then he tells his version of seeing that "Christmas Tree" light up on the hood of his car.)

(Paul) Did you see anything else back there.

(Robert) I had a dream...a nightmare, least I think it was? I was upstairs and I woke up and there was a skeleton flying over me. He had wings like a dragonfly, great big wings straight out like black thin lace. I felt the wind from them and it woke me up and I saw it flying right over the top of me. Well I swung at it and I fell out of the bed.

(Jean) I heard him holler you know and I came running in there and there he was on the floor. I asked him what happened and he just said he was dreaming.

(Paul) Mom said you saw Grandma come in your room once.

(Jean) Oh yeah, I remember that now. I had seen Mr. Murphy but I had never met Mrs. Murphy. Yeah she came in our room. I saw this old woman who looked just like Katie in the face but she was bigger. She walked in and I was laying there too scared to move. I saw her come over and cover Robert over. Then she looked me right in the face and said, "You'll be good for Robert." and then she turned and left and I saw her go down the steps.

I got up and looked and didn't see anyone, so I knew it must have been a ghost. I didn't tell Bob about it, but the next morning I went downstairs and I told Katie, I said, "Katie I believe I saw your mother last night" and I told her what I seen? I described her, how she wore her hair and her dress and everything and I said she had a cameo on her dress.

(Katie) So I said, "Yeah she had a cameo she always wore." I went in and got her picture and Jean said, "Yes that's the woman I saw."

(Paul) Did you ever see her?

(Katie) No but I heard her once. I was moving that big old refrigerator once to clean behind it and it got caught on a piece of tile and nearly tipped over on me and I heard Mammy's voice so plain, she said, "Oh Katie, be careful!" Well it was so plain that for just a second I forgot she was dead! But then it hit me and it shook me up so bad I had to go out and sit on the back porch for a while and have a cigarette.

(Robert) I heard her too once. I was supposed to get up early to go work and the alarm didn't go off, or if it did I didn't hear it, but I heard Mam's voice. She said, "Robert...Robert!" and I woke up and looked at the clock. I would have been late if Mam hadn't woke me. I never told anyone that either.

(Jean) I know Ronnie has told me a lot of stories of things he seen back there but you know Ronnie. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to them because he's such a tease, I wasn't sure at the time if maybe he was just trying to scare me.

(Paul) What did he see?

(Jean) He said he was back to that old creek, you know the one that run behind our house? He said he was fishing and the sun wasn't even up yet and he heard splashing. He looked over and there was something standing waist deep in the creek and that water was over Ronnie's head and he was six feet tall. He said it looked like some big hairy ape! Well he said he threw fishing pole and all and ran home. He told me about it but I thought it was probably a bear or something so I didn't really believe him.

(Katie then repeats the story about the large gorilla like thing she saw jump off of the back porch.)

(Jean) Oh one night when Bobby was about 12 years old he woke up screaming. I rushed into his room and his eyes were as big as saucers. I said, "Bobby what's wrong?" When he finally calmed down enough he told me that there was some ugly looking white monkey sitting on his chest.

[John Reid]

"Tales of McCawley Road" (part 25)

A few weeks later Donnie stopped by so Paul saw his opportunity to tape record more stories. He sneaked his tape recorder out with him.

(Paul) Uncle Robert and Aunt Jean were over and she told me that Ronnie said he saw some big hairy ape like thing back in that creek and mom said she saw something like a gorilla leap off the back porch. You went fishing back there a lot did you ever see it?

(Donnie) Yeah but not in the creek. I don't know if you remember or not but it was worse than England when the fog came in back there. You couldn't see the garage.

So I warmed up some food for our dog King on the stove cause it was winter time, see? I went out to give him the food and I came on back in. I left the garage door open and later I went back to close it and that was when I heard King fighting with something.

I thought it was that dog named Gypsy who lived down the road. Like I said you couldn't even see the garage in the fog. All you could see was a big blurred light.

I spotted the hammer laying on the back porch and I took that with me in case he attacked me, you know. Well I got within ten feet of it and all you could see was a blur. All I could see was two white things moving.

Well I had the hammer drawn back and whatever it was stood up and just kept coming up. It was about four or five feet tall. They were on the side of the garage where there wasn't no light. Then I saw it cock it's head back and forth trying to see me too! Well man! That's all I seen of it cause I threw hammer and all and I run!

I ran in the house and everybody was gone except Dad. This was about 1959, after he got home from Korea. He was sound asleep and I said, "Dad! There's something out there and it's killing King!"

So he jumped up and we both went out there and there lay poor old King. He was alive but hurt real bad. We carried him into the house and I seen that he was bit in four places. He had four holes in his chest as big around as a pencil.

(Katie) Well when I got home Donnie told us what happened and the next morning I went out to the garage and Dutch was with me. In the garage we had a gallon jug of kerosene and whatever it was had broken that jug and stepped in it and it looked just like an ape track! You could see the thumbprint and all!

Then up in the wooden rafters of the garage we found long white course hair caught on some nails. Dutch just shook his head. He didn't know what to make of it?

That was when I opened up and told him about all the stuff we had been through while he was gone. He said, "If it was that bad why didn't you get a priest to bless the house?"

I said, "I've been trying to get Father Donnelly to come back here for years and either he puts it off and forgets about it or I did."

Dutch said, "Is that so? Well let's go pay him a visit this morning. He won't ignore me."

So we drove over to St. Rita's. Dutch knocked on the Rectory door and the housekeeper answered. She said, "May I help you?"

Dutch replied, "Please tell Father Donnelly that the Michelson's are here to see him."

She said, "Do you have an appointment?" He said, "My wife made one years ago and he never kept it."

She said, "Father Donnelly is busy right now, perhaps if you'd have called ahead."

He said, "You tell Father Donnelly that he will see us right now or we will all meet in the Bishop's office later."

She said, "I see. I'll relay the message. You wait here." She came back in about two minutes and said, "Father Donnelly will see you now."

We went into his office and he said, "Mr. and Mrs. Michelson what seems to be the trouble?"

Dutch replied, "The trouble is you've been derelict in your duties."

He said, "I don't understand?" Dutch said, "My wife asked you to come out and bless the house 18 years ago and you never showed up."

Father Donnelly replied, "So she did. You're absolutely right. I do apologize."

Dutch said, "We don't want an apology. We want to have the house blessed."

Father Donnelly said, "Of course, of course. I'll be there first thing in the morning."

Dutch said, "No, you'll come right over now and do it."

Father Donnelly seemed a little flustered. He said, "Well I...I mean...Oh very well, very well."

So he followed us over to the house. We stood out in the front porch and Father stood in the living room. He said some prayers in Latin and then began sprinkling the Holy Water. Robert was standing in the doorway and the moment he did that it felt like a cloud of pressure lifted up from the floor to the ceiling.

We all felt it. Father Donnelly said, "I think I'm beginning to understand the urgency of this now."

After he left Robert said to me, "Did you feel anything when he done that?" and I nodded "yes".

One month later Dutch sold the house and we moved to this one.

[John Reid]

"Tales of McCawley Road" (Epilogue)

Bobby grew up and went to fight in Vietnam. He was killed there. Uncle Robert was the next to go. In 1973 he was working as a security guard for Stanford Oil and he was shot and killed by some robbers who robbed the convenience store across the street.

Katie developed more tumors and died of Colon Cancer in 1979. Dutch's diabetes caught up with him and he grew sick after Katie died. Paul took care of then both Until they died. Dutch passed on in 1983.

Pat moved out to Sacramento, California and Donnie passed away from heart failure in 2002.

Paul moved to St. Petersburg, Fl. The tapes he had made of his mother's stories burned up in a house fire in 1988, but he had transcribed them word for word into a blank book which survived.

Even today he likes to take it off of the shelf and read it. He can still hear his mother's voice in his head every time he reads them.

He often wonders if anyone else who rented that place after they moved out ever experienced the strange phenomenon of the house on McCawley Road.


The house on McCawley Road was bought by a real estate man named Cavin and he rented it out for years but it was torn down by the city after a girl was raped and murdered back there when it sat abandoned. Today the land it sat on sits like an island of trees in an ever growing community, but for some reason those five acres have never been developed by anyone. On one side of the property line is a growing subdivision on the other a factor and an apartment complex.

It does appear that the curse that old man Hobbs put in that place stating that it would never do anyone any good is still in effect.

THE END

[The Muse]

The whole thing is too eerily like real life.....makes me wonder........

[John Reid]

Well thanks for reading it even if it did take 2 months for somebody to notice it. Still waiting for Omen to read it and give me a little feedback.

[John Reid]

I am still trying to decide what to do with this?

It is way too short for a novel, more like a short story. It can't be published by itself.

I have tried making it longer by adding a lot of filler and day to day stuff in between the horror tales, but that just seems to dilute it too much.

I thought about making up some fictional horror to go add to it but it just ruins the purity of it and the fiction just stands out as well fiction.

I suppose I could try and find some other real life hauntings to write about and make it just one of many short stories in a book. I like that idea best but they are not easy to come by.

What I need are more regional tales. There is Waverly Hills Sanitarium, a famous ghost hunting spot.

And there is a famous local cryptid called Sheep-Man and a very famous UFO tale in KY about little silver colored men who invaded a farm house.

So I guess that is where I will go with this. Your thoughts?

[The Muse]

Find out if visual adjectives has a mystery or horror anthology?

[John Reid]

Still waiting for Omen to get around to reading this.

[The Muse]

Agreed.....

[John Reid]

I thought I would bring this back to the top once more.