The Purgatory House, Essay Example

Southampton is a quintessential south Jersey town. Comprised of sprawling suburbs, forests and pastures, it is a picture perfect place to raise a family. The Dressler family moved into 42 Purgatory Road, Southampton, NJ in 1993. Rich, the father, is in the United States Air Force, which had given him orders to move from Texas, to the McGuire Air Force base in Wrightstown, NJ. His wife, Marie, is a writer, working on her 4^th book, in between raising their daughter, Jenny, and teaching piano lessons out of their home. Jenny was a typical 5 year old, ever so curious, with blond hair and blue eyes filled with wonder.

The old farmhouse is situated on 20 acres. A majority of it is forested, but there are a couple of pastures, and a little lake adorned with a giant oak tree with a swing hanging off one of its branches. This was Jenny’s favorite place to play. The farmhouse has five bedrooms and three bathrooms, three floors and a basement. It’s far more space than the family of three needs, but the price was surprisingly low, and the property had a sort of whimsical feel, the perfect inspiration for finishing Marie’s book.

When the family first moved into the home, Rich took some time off of work to settle in. He and Marie spent the better part of their days painting the house, and unpacking their things. They struggled to fill the empty rooms with their belongings, and couldn’t decide what to turn the extra rooms into. They eventually decided on a playroom for Jenny, an office for Marie, and a guest bedroom. The hours would pass in what felt like an eternity, like moving always tends to. Occasionally, they would lose Jenny in the monstrosity of the house, and eventually find her exploring the deepest corners of the house, or outside by the pond, pushing her doll on the swing.

After a week of settling into their home, Rich returned to work at the base. His commute was easy, which meant he could be home in time for dinner. Marie was still trying to pull together the loose ends, and would often get distracted tidying up the house in between writing her paper. That night, over dinner, Jenny asked her parents if they could get animals for their farm. Rich and Marie locked eyes over the pot roast, having a conversation, without ever actually uttering a word. They both thought it would be good a good learning experience for their daughter, to have responsibility at such a young age. Finally, Rich agreed and they made plans to look into getting some chickens and a couple of goats.

That weekend, Rich went to a local farm, and bought a flock of ten chickens, and two goats for his daughter. He had never seen Jenny so excited. Since she wasn’t in school yet, and she was their only child, she didn’t have anyone to play with. It didn’t help that while her mom was home every day, she was so consumed with writing her book, she barely paid attention to Jenny. From that day forward, Jenny spent almost every waking moment outside with the animals and her doll. She would talk to them, have pretend picnics, she even tried to have tea time with the chickens. Marie’s office overlooked the pastures where she had a clear view of Jenny. Every so often, she would stop typing to look up and watch her daughter. Weeks passed and Jenny seemed to mature years beyond her age. Her parents were impressed with the impact the responsibility of the animals had had on her personality and vocabulary. They assumed that the conversations she was having with the animals, though one sided, were improving her speech. Until one day when Marie heard Jenny in her bedroom talking. Marie approached quietly and listened from the hall. She overheard her daughter saying, “I can’t tell them, they won’t believe me.” Marie turned the corner to find Jenny alone in her empty room. She asked her daughter, “Who were you just talking to?” To which her daughter responded, “Allie”. “And who is Allie?” Jenny blushed. Her mom asked her again, “Who is Allie, Jenny?” And finally, Jenny said, “Allie is the girl that lives here too, she’s my friend.” Marie was perplexed, but reassured her daughter that no one else lived in the house. Jenny said, “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you, I knew you wouldn’t believe me.” Marie didn’t know how to approach the situation. The only reasonable explanation was that her daughter had developed an imaginary friend. That night in bed, Marie told Rich what had happened. They both agreed that she was probably lonely and had made up an imaginary friend to keep her company. They decided that it was okay for the time being because she would probably outgrow it when she started school and met kids her age the following year.

The following week, while Marie was pounding away on her keyboard in the office, she heard laughing coming from outside. She quickly looked up and saw a little girl alongside her daughter, chasing the chickens around the field. She scanned the rest of the property looking for the girls’ family, but there was no one. Marie came downstairs and outside to talk to the girls. “Hello”, Marie said. “Hello”, said the girl. “What’s your name?” “AllisonAlacon” replied the girl. “Nice to meet you Allison. Where are your parents?” The little girl blushed. “They’re in heaven.” Marie’s heart sank.She asked, “Where do you live?” Allison told her that her and her parents had been homeless, living in the woods in a broken down school bus. Her parents had been very sick, and passed away a few months ago. Jenny begged her mom to let the little girl stay with them. Marie took the girls inside, and made them lunch. When Rich came home, they decided to have her stay over, clean her up, and call the authorities in the morning.

That night, Marie was woken up by the sound of the piano. As she walked downstairs, she noticed her daughter reflection in the living room mirror. When she rounded the corner, she found Allison, along with her daughter, plopped at the piano bench, playing Beethoven’s 9^th symphony. She reached her hand out to touch her daughters shoulder, but when her daughter turned around, her eyes were rolled into the back of her head, and all there was, were the whites of her eyes. Marie was startled, and the little girl, Allison, was chuckling. “Jenny!” Marie yelled, shaking her daughter. But Allison’s chuckling grew louder and louder. Marie ran upstairs to get her husband. Rich woke up and came downstairs, but the two girls were just playing normally, Allison was teaching Jenny how to play the piano. “Well now this isn’t the best time to be learning piano, you girls go back to bed.” And the girls got up and scampered back upstairs. “That didn’t look so scary to me, Marie.” She swore up and down about what she had seen, but her husband didn’t believe her. They went back to bed.

Marie didn’t sleep well that night, and in the morning she called the local police station and told them the situation. They asked what the little girls name was, and when Marie told them, the officer laughed. He told Marie that the Alacon family had been deceased since the 70’s. The mother had gone insane, killing the father in his sleep, and then drowning Allison in the lake. The police found her hanging from the tree by her neck. Marie dropped the phone. She stood frozen in the kitchen, as if she had seen a ghost. And in fact, she had. All of it was starting to make sense. The house had been owned by the state previously, and was listed for half of what it was worth. Her daughter, Jenny, had developed an invisible friend named Allie, who in fact was the same Allison Alacon. Marie didn’t know what she was going to do, all she knew was that she needed to get her daughter away from whatever that little girl was.

Marie searched the house, high and low yelling for the girls. From the second floor of the house, looking out of her office window, she saw the little girls by the lake. She turned on her heels and ran as fast as she could to reach them. When she emerged from the house, she saw a womans body hanging from the tree. Dressed in a white gown, Marie rounded the tree, and saw the blood running out of the womans eyes, ears and nose. She quick went to the waters edge, searching for her daughter. But it was too late. Allison had drowned Jenny as a sacrifice to her mother.

Marie held her daughters lifeless body in her arms, crying hysterically and screaming for help at the top of her lungs. The police arrived shortly after to check up on her after the phone had been dropped. Marie insisted that Allison had drowned her daughter in the lake, and that the mother was hanging in the tree. But the police saw nothing but Marie and her daughters lifeless body in her arms. Marie was taken into custody, and ordered a psychiatric evaluation, in which she failed. She was ordered to live out the rest of her days in a psychiatric ward. Her husband, Rich, never forgave her for what she did to their daughter, and quickly moved away from the house to leave behind the terrible memories. The house is abandoned to this day.