The Nightmare of George and Rose

An old man hired me as a Private Detective to find out why his wife had left him 47 years earlier when they were 30 years old. It turned out that she didn't leave him. She was going to, she got in the car with her lover and realized she loved her husband too much, so she told him she was going to stay with her husband George. She started to get out of the car and he grabbed her, pulled her back in the car and told her she had to go with him. She refused and struggled to get out of the car. George had looked out the window just a moment before and saw his wife get in the car. He turned to go outside but twisted his ankle and fell over the small table behind him. He bumped his head and went unconscious. In the mean time, the lover would not let Rose go and wound up choking her to death from holding her so tightly. He didn't realize how hard he had grabbed her or that his hands were around her throat. Just as she died and went limp, he knew what had happened.  
 
He dragged her body into the house and saw George laying on the floor. He decided to hide her body in the basement and leave. After putting her body in a bath tub down in the basement, he walked out, not even checking to see if George was alive or dead.  
 
George had many health problems, one was his bad leg, the one that caused him to fall when it twisted as her turned. When he woke up he was calling out her name, but there was no response. He knew she was gone then, but not in the way he thought. George was unable to walk down the basement stairs and had not been down there ever since he injured his leg in a fall down those very stairs. He became afraid of the stairs after that and never tried, even a few days later when there was a bad smell coming from the basement. He figured an animal had gotten in and died, so even if his leg would allow him to go down and get rid of it, his fear of the stairs was too much for him. So he left the door closed and after a couple of weeks, the smell receded and he went on with his life, never knowing his wife was there in the house all those years. He always wondered why she left and his heart was left an empty void. Rose had no living family, as an only child of parents who had been killed in a car accident after driving half-way home after George and Roses wedding reception. They had been drinking at the reception, Rose became depressed, feeling guilty that she had caused the death of her parents by letting them drive home that night. But her father was no one to be argued with and made his choice. his obedient wife went with him as she had always done before and together they died when the car went off the road and into the river that washed their bodies back down through the darkness they had just come through. By morning, as the sun rose, Rose her some children yelling in her back yard, a little girl began screaming. She got out of bed to see what was the matter and as she went out the back door, she could see two bodies floating by in the river. When she got to the edge of the river, she could see the familiar looking dress on a woman that was face down in the water. And the man, wearing a striking blue suite, the same as the one her father had been wearing the night before, had already passed by the house, too far for her to see his face, but she knew it was him all the same.  
 
Her horror overwhelmed her and she never went into the back yard again. George could not console her and their marriage was never consummated. They loved each other deeply, but she could not let go of the blame she felt and because it was their wedding that lead to her parents death, she was never able to feel the sexual attraction she had so strongly felt the night before, that she so badly wanted to experience, but that they had both had so much to drink themselves, they passed out after getting into bed on their wedding night. After several years, she met a man who stirred those feelings in her again. An affair began on the seventh anniversary of her marriage to George. She was finally able to experience what she had been longing for all her life and she thought she was falling in love with a man who would eventually kill her and leave her body to decay in a cold damp basement.  
 
47 years passed and George was not feeling well. He feared he was dying as his body was becoming more a prison that a vessel for his soul. I was working in my office, solving all manner of cases involving missing persons as a Private Detective. It was not uncommon for people to call after the police had long given up on cold cases, usually marking the cases as run aways or broken marriages or unknown. In Roses case, George had never called the police because he always assumed Rose had just left him for another man. There was no one to wonder about her, as all of the friends she had in the past had stopped calling on her during the years of depression following her parents death. She had become reclusive, only going out to the store where the handsome manager would help her get her groceries and load them into her car. He seemed so kind and his hands never gave away the cold hard grip she would one day experience around her neck, in the final moments of her life. His touch was never so hard when he would gently carry her to his bed on the nights when Georges pain medication would mysteriously cause him to fall into a deep sleep all the while she was out of the house.  
 
The nights of passion she had wanted to spend with George were given to a man who lusted for her and wanted her under her control, there in his home, to be caged as a slave for his desires. He would do anything to have such a beautiful woman at his beck and call, to do his bidding and his body in any way he desired. Her passion had been unleashed, her only happy moments since her wedding were in the arms of a deceitful monster that would never love her, but that she was too far gone from reality to see him for what he really was.  
 
after George called me, another call came in, but the line was all static. I could barely make out the woman's voice, asking me if I could help her find her husband who had left her 47 years ago...  
 
Before I could ask her any questions, the line went dead. I thought what an odd coincidence that two people would call looking for their spouses who had both disappeared at the same time.  
 
I went to the address George had given me, but when I got to the house, there was a woman waiting for me and she said she was so glad I had come because she wasn't sure if I had gotten the address before the phone disconnected. She told me her name was Rose and she invited me inside. She was walking behind me, so I opened the door and walked in, holding the door for her to come in when suddenly a mans voice shouted, "who the Hell are you and what do you think you're doing in my house?"  
I told him who I was and he interrupted me, wanting to know why I would just walk in his house without ringing the bell. I looked behind me but Rose was not there, which spooked me, but I was now already in the house and curious about what was going on. I thought maybe I had gotten in the middle of some domestic squabble or an old couple with Alzheimer's disease who couldn't remember anything from one minute to the next. Little did I realize the dark truth I was about to discover and the grizzly remains that I would be looking at face to face in just a short time.  
 
George began to tell me the story of how his wife Rose had left him on that day so long ago, about seeing her get in the car and how he fell and hit his head. He told me how she was gone when he woke up and never saw her again. He said that before he died, he wanted to know why she had left him and where she had been, who she had been with and if it was his fault that she left.  
 
While I was there, the doorbell rang. It was the local grocer coming with Georges weekly delivery of food and other goods he required. He was unable to get out of the house anymore, so the manager was kind enough to stop by with whatever he needed each week. He seemed so kind and even went down to the basement to help him with his laundry while he was there. George was grateful to have someone so willing to help him, he had left everything in his will to the store manager who kept his laundry clean and made sure he had food to eat. What a nice man, he thought. But why did he stay in the basement while the laundry was washing and drying? Surely he could come back upstairs and talk a while. he never did, but he also never asked for any extra money for his efforts. He remembered that his wife had always had nice things to say about the manager when she would come home from the market, how he carried the groceries out to the car for her and made sure she had all the items on her shopping list. So he knew that a man so kind to his wife was someone he could trust.  
 
So while he was there, unloading the groceries into the cupboards, he kept looking at me in an odd sort of way. After he was done, he told George he would not be able to do the laundry this week, he had some things to take care of elsewhere. Her seemed very nervous and wouldn't look me in the eye. Leaving in a hurry, he didn't even say goodbye to George, which caused an uneasiness in the room that remained for some time after he was gone. While George was collecting his thoughts, I saw Rose walk down the hallway to the basement door. Just when she was reaching for the door, she turned to look at me as if to say something, but George snapped his fingers and asked me if I was paying attention to him and told me to stop daydreaming.  
 
He said he was not sure what he was going to do about clean clothes now that the grocer had left. he had enough for a couple of days, but would run out mid week. So I offered to help him out because I wanted to get some time alone with Rose to ask her what the Hell was going on. I saw her at the door to the basement, but after George got my attention, by the time I looked back, she was not there, so I assumed she must have gone downstairs. I would ask her why she just didn't do them for him, and I started to think that maybe she was the reason why the store manager always stayed down there while he did the laundry. Maybe it was always her doing the laundry, and maybe doing the grocer too. Kinda gave me the heebee geebees thinking of two 70 something old geezers getting it on in the laundry room, but I had to know what was going on with this couple.  
 
George finished telling me all about his wife and asked me if there was any way I could help him find her. I told him I was absolutely sure I could and it probably wouldn't take me very long at all. So we rapped up our discussion and I told George I would go down and take care of the laundry for him. He was so thankful for my willingness to help with the laundry I thought he was going to jump up from the chair and hug me.  
 
When I got down the hallway to the door, I reached to turn the knob. It was ice cold and wouldn't open. I asked George if there was a trick to opening the door, but he told me he wasn't sure, he hadn't been down there in years. I saw that there was a lock on the door, so I asked him where the key was. He didn't know, but the grocer was always able to get down there, so it must be somewhere around there. I had just seen Rose at the door a short time before, so I wondered if she had taken it with her down into the basement. I noticed to bolt in the doorknob had just enough space for a screw driver to fit in and I might be able to pry it open. I asked George if he had a toolbox and he told me yes, but it was in the basement. But he did have another screw driver in the kitchen drawer by the sink. I went to get it and when I got back to the hallway, I saw that the door was open. So I figured his wife had come back up and left it open for me. As I began to walk down the stairs, I felt a cold breeze on my arms and a chill come over my entire body. The lights were on, but it seemed strangely dark and musty. The washer and dryer were right there by the bottom of the stairs, but I heard a noise come from another room further into the basement. It sounded like someone whispering and splashing water. I called out, "Rose, is that you", but no one responded. The lights were not on at the far end of the cellar, so I tried flicking the light switch, but had no luck. There was a flashlight by the washing machine, so I grabbed it and walked down the hallway to the other room. I saw that there was no light bulb in the outlet, but there were a couple of them on the floor right next to where I was standing. I screwed one in the socket and it went on immediately. I still had the other one in my hand, but now the room was partly illuminated. I could see the figure of someone in a bathtub, but it was still to dark to make out who it was. I called out again, "Rose, is that you?" But no answer came forth. The flashlight went out just as I was about to point it at the person in the tub. I reached up to the ceiling where I had seen another empty light socket just before the light died. I fiddled about until I found it and was able to screw the bulb in. As the light came on and illuminated the room, I saw her, laying in a tub of water that was rippling as though someone had slapped the surface of the water just a second before. Her face was hollow, her skin was black as coal, her eyes were empty sockets like the light bulbs had been missing just moments before. There was no life in her and had not been for 47 years. The water was black like midnight and there was a powerful odor of bleach in the air. I noticed bottles of bleach opened and empty all around the basement room floor. Then I heard it, a scream coming from the laundry room. I ran back and looked around the room, but no one was there. I called up to George and asked him if he was alright. he said yes, everything was fine.  
 
Just then the door at the top of the stairs closed and I could see someone standing next to me out of the corner of my eye. Without looking, I said "Rose, is that you?" and an answer came back this time. She said, "yes, why do you keep asking me if that's me? I've said yes three time already. Now when are you going to help me find my husband?"

She told me how she thought her husband must have found out about an affair she had many years ago and that right after she decided not to leave him and end the affair, George disappeared and never came back home again. She wanted to find him and apologize for her infidelity and beg him to forgive her. She vowed to stay with him and take care of him until the day she died.  
 
I told her that I knew where her husband was, and that he was nearby. I explained that he thought she had left him many years ago for another man and he was heartbroken. She asked me why he left and where he went? I told he was never left, he was here in the house and had been here all these years hoping that someday you would come home to him. She said that was impossible, she had been living here all this time and he was not there. I asked her how it could be that two who loved each other could exist in the same house for 47 years and not see each other or hear each others lonely cries in the night. She asked me, had he died and has been a ghost haunting the house for so long? She told me there were times when she felt someone washing her in cold water from time to time, that someone would touch her in her sleep and bring her deep pleasures, but she would always wake up alone and cold like the river.  
 
I told her no, he was alive, though not well, feeling close to death. he called me to see if I could find you before he died and let you know that you are welcome to come back, that he longed to hold you in his arms again and had only survived all these years from the hope you would return.  
I told her that there was a ghost in the house, but it was not her husband's ghost. She looked at me with a frightful expression, asking me what I was talking about. She had been living in this house alone for 47 years. I asked her to come up stairs and sit with me in the living room where George is waiting for her.  
 
At first she said no, called me crazy and told me to get out. She began screaming at me, accusing me of lying and throwing everything within reach at me. I started running up the stairs, but the door was locked again. I heard George on the other side of the door, asking me if I needed help. I told him yes, that someone was in the basement attacking him. Rose came up the stairs and grabbed me by the neck. She began to choke me and I wondered how an apparition could be crushing my neck with so much force. I could feel myself passing out as I fell down the stairs.  
 
When I opened my eyes, George was standing over me. He told me he was frightened to death but he knew he had to help me. He asked who was there, that had attacked me. I told him she went down the hallway to the room at the far end of the basement. But I told him to be careful, she was very angry and very, very strong. He opened his old toolbox that had been sitting there on the cellar floor for over 50 years. He pulled out a hammer and a saw and proceeded cautiously toward the room where I told him she was. I got up and grabbed a wrench and screw driver for my own protection and followed George down the hall. I told him that I had seen something in the room earlier that he might not want to see. He asked me what and I just told him that if he was going to go in there, he was going to find the answer he had been looking for all this time. He hesitated and then started walking again, more slowly than before and with a shake to his hands that he could have cut down a tree with the saw he was carrying in one hand and hammered a hundred nails through knots in wood like a jack hammer.  
 
The light was still coming through the door from my earlier visit into the silent tomb. as we reached the door a voice came from behind. Rose was standing there, calling Georges name. He turned to see her, glowing as beautiful as the day they married. Tears streaming down her face, and just as quickly down his own. George never looked into the room, and as they embraced I turned to walk away. George and Rose each said thank you at the same time, for finding the one each had sought for all these years. I said I hadn't done a thing, just came over to help them clean some dirty laundry that had been laying around for a lifetime.  
 
As I was leaving, I walked past the living room where I had been talking with George earlier. he was sitting there in his chair, his eyes were closed and no breath was coming from his open mouth. The house was still and a breeze came from the basement, warm like sunlight on a hot summer day. It blew all around the living room, into the kitchen where it lifted a grocery bag up into the air and then it fell to the floor. I picked up the bag and saw the receipt inside. It had the store location printed on it along with the name of the store manager. I decided to pay him a visit and maybe raise some serious Hell while I was there.  
 
When I got to the store, it was closed and abandoned for what looked like many, many years. There was a barber shop across the lot from the store, so I went over and asked how long the store had been close. The barber was an old man who told me the store had shut down 47 years ago after the store manager went crazy and shot two of his cashiers before killing himself with a bullet through his brain. I asked him what the managers name was and when he told me, I looked at the receipt in my hand, with his name printed on the bottom just above the date, from the day he killed two cashiers, himself and Rose.  
 
At that moment an icy breeze blew around the lot and raised a dust cloud that was blowing papers and dirt everywhere. I had to close my eyes to keep from being blinded. The wind was so strong it knocked me down and yanked the receipt out of my hand. As the wind calmed, I opened my eyes to find myself laying in my bed at home, alone and not sure if it was all a dream or a story that George and Rose needed to be told.
 
A few days later, I was driving down a road that seemed eerily familiar. I didn't recall having been down it before, but for some reason, all the houses seemed like I had seen them all before. Then it happened, I saw it, George and Roses home. I slammed on the brakes and my tires screeched on the pavement. A woman bent over and doing some gardening in front of the house jumped out of her shoes from the startling noise. She walked towards my car and asked if I was OK and if I needed any help. I pulled over and got out of the car, looking at the house in amazement. I asked her if her name was Rose by any chance. She said "Heavens No"! She told me her Aunt was named Rose, but that she had been dead for years. She inherited the house from her Uncle George after he died. She said that there was a great mystery surrounding how her Aunt had died. Her body was found in a tub in the basement after her Uncle was found dead in a chair in the living room. She had been dead for many years, no one was sure how long or how she had died. They said that George had a serious leg injury that made it impossible to walk up and down the steep cellar stairs, so they did not believe he even knew she was down there. They said there was evidence that someone had been there recently doing laundry and that there were signs that Roses body had been tampered with and moved around frequently, but there was no DNA or any evidence found to give a clue to who had been there. There were not even finger prints on the washer and dryer that still had clothes in them. The washer had not been run and the clothes were covered in dirt. There was a drain at the far end of the cellar that constantly gurgled from water that would back up from the river whenever it rained. The floor was always wet around the drain and as black as midnight from the mud. Roses wedding ring was found sitting on the dryer at the bottom of the stairs. It's a mystery that may never be solved.  
 
I then told her, I had this dream a few days ago, I think you are the reason why I had it. Let me tell you the story of George and Rose and how there love endures to this day.  
 
JJ