Are you afraid of the dark?

The sky was dark and the thunder loud. Grandpa drank Stroh's. Grandma smoked cigarettes. Together, they shared a decades-old mystery and a story we'd never forget. Are you afraid of the dark?

This is Chapter 10 of The Stories We Tell, a nostalgic lookback on friendship, growing up, and the hopes we have of becoming heroes. It’s The Wonder Years meets The Sandlot with sprinklings of Friday Night Lights.

New stories are published (almost) weekly.

For a list of all chapters, please visit: Chapter List - The Stories We Tell.

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The month was July, the sun had set for the evening, a storm loomed, and I shivered some as the cold off my grandparents’ basement floor sent a chill running from my feet up my spine and along the back of my neck. I’d just left their pool and water dripped off me as I tilted a large, glass mug the way Grandpa taught me to - the way you did so the foam wouldn’t overrun the beer - and watched as ice cold Stroh’s flowed from the beer tap. 

‘Ice cold Stroh’s.’ Growing up, my grandpa, my dad, and my uncles all had a way of performing these words, with waving hands and big, welcoming smiles, which made me believe the drink had mystical powers only unlocked when it came iced and cold and you drank enough of it. 

I remember, once, being at this small Italian restaurant fifteen minutes from home. The place served lasagna plates bigger than your head and spaghetti that tasted kissed by Italy. The server asked Grandpa and Dad what they wanted to drink. 

Together they lifted their chins high, smiled, and said, “Ice. Cold. Stroh’s.” Our little table laughed at the show. I remember watching and smiling, filing away the memory and hoping one day to be old enough to relive a new one with them.

Standing in the basement, I waited till the foam had settled just right then started back toward everyone at the pool. On the stairs leading up from their basement to the backyard pool, Grandma and Grandpa had a sign that read, 

“We don’t swim in your toilet. Please, don’t pee in our pool.” 

It always made me smile. 

When I stepped outside, Ryan, B, Mike, my sister, and one of her friends were all wrapped in towels eating bomb pops under cover of the awning that jutted off Grandma and Grandpa’s garage. The awning covered a small deck facing the swimming pool. Grandma swirled ice cubes in her mostly empty Manhattan, took a long pull off her cigarette, and flicked ash into a silver tray. She smiled. 

Grandma had a way of smoking where she let the ash run long off the end of the cigarette. She’d gesture with her hands as she spoke. and the ash would dance at the cigarette’s edge, a performer swaying in rhythm with its lead. Grandma would puff out a cloud of smoke, then smirk from behind it. The whole act felt mysterious and poetic, a dance with a devil too seductive to resist. 

Thunder cracked overhead and clouds colored in by midnight blue crayons rattled up in the sky. The first pat-pat of rain danced above us. The storm was here, and we should have gone inside. But there’s something about summer nights. Nights when the evening air is still warm, and you’re surrounded by friends you don’t want to leave. Nights longed for in the cold of winter. 

Nights when the darkness carries with it a bit of fright too tempting to leave. 

"Thanks, me-boy," Grandpa said as I handed him his Stroh's. He lapped a third of the mug in a single sip, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and smiled. 

“It's getting late," he smiled through another sip. "We can have your parents come get you or..." Grandpa trailed off and grinned something full of mischief at Grandma who seized the moment. These two had tangoed together for almost fifty years. 

"Don't do it," Grandma said. "Don't you dare do it." Our eyes jumped between the two of them, curiousity piqued. 

Grandpa looked around at the six of us wrapped in towels and out later than normal after an evening swim. Then, he gazed out into the storm and watched the rain for a second. We scooted forward in our chairs, inching closer. He waited a beat longer before speaking.

"It is kind of a perfect night. Oh, I don't know…." He tipped back his mug. "I just don't know. It might be a little too scary.”

“Don’t!” Grandma shouted but laughed a little too. “I’m telling you, don’t do it.”

Some people are born blessed to do certain things. Ken Griffey Jr. to swing a baseball bat. Dilophosaurus to terrify kids in movie theaters. Boyz II Men to harmonize breakup songs. Axl Rose to be melodramatic. 

Grandpa’s gift was storytelling. And, with us eating from the palm of his hand, it was time for him to create his masterpiece. 

“I’m going to tell you a story your parents never wanted you to hear,” Grandpa said.

The rain beat down harder, and a cool wind swirled through our circle. A shiver ran through me, and I jumped. Looking around at the faces of my friends, I knew I wasn't the only one whose stomach felt like it had just left the Demon Drop at Cedar Point. 

“Tell me,” Grandpa paused, looking at us. “Are you afraid of the dark?"  

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We changed into sweatshirts and dry clothes. Then returned into a tight circle. Grandma lit a fresh cigarette and held a new drink. Grandpa sipped from his fresh mug. “Ahhh - ice, cold,” he said to himself.

"So,” Grandpa started. “You know the old building over on Hayes and Clover? The one with the boarded-up windows and rotted fence.” We shook our heads ‘yes.’ “Yeah, you know it. The one your parents - because they’re smart,” he pointed at his temple, “told you to stay away from.” Grandpa paused and went one-by-one to make eye contact with each of us. “Well, tonight, I’m gonna tell you why.”

He took another big sip, then set his glass down. Hard raindrops splashed into the swimming pool behind us. 

"It wasn't always that way. I tell ya, it was once the best place in town. When I was your age, I used to go there and get milkshakes. Big, huge milkshakes. And always, always chocolate. Man, they were good.”

“Uhh hmm,” Grandma pushed her husband to keep his story on track . 

"Right, right. The owners, well, nobody ever knew where they came from. They showed up in town one day and opened this store. And it was great. You got everything there - food, clothes, coffee, you name it.”

Grandma jumped in. “They stayed open during the Depression. H**l, I bet you they saved half this town from starving in those days. Nobody ever knew how, but they always had just enough food and just enough clothes and blankets for everyone.”

Smoke curled in the air as Grandma swirled her cigarette, the long ash hanging for its life.

She continued.  “Then one day, they were gone." A gray fog formed over her. She leaned closer and whispered, "Vanished..." 

We gasped. 

Grandpa looked at Grandma, now reclining in her chair and smiling over her Manhattan, and continued where she had stopped. 

“That's the thing. Nobody knows what happened. John and Mertie - that was their names - John and Mertie Boop. They were the two sweetest people and one morning - poof - disappeared. The police. People in town. We all looked for them. Nobody saw anything. Nobody heard anything. Like two ghosts in the wind. Here one day. Gone the next." 

“And" Grandma spoke, her voice low, “legend has it a group of high school kids from out of town got word of this story. They went looking inside for old Mertie and John. What I was told - and cross my heart and pray to Saint Ruth on this one - is they went inside and never came out." 

Grandma, cigarette hanging between her index and middle finger, placed her right hand over her heart and shook her head. 

“After that, the city boarded it up. Ask your parents, they’ll tell ya," Grandpa said. 

Straight from an R.L. Stine book, more thunder cracked. Rain banged on the roof and formed a wall around us. Even if we wanted to leave, we weren't running out now. The storm had us trapped. We were characters, now, inside Grandma and Grandpa’s ghost story. 

Grandpa, ever the entertainer, took another sip and closed his eyes for a long moment, letting time pass and nervousness dance in the air around us, waiting for the ice-cold Stroh’s to give him life. 

"Shall I continue?" he finally asked. Yes, we shook our heads. We were in too deep to escape now. 

"Some years later, good friends of ours bought it. Fixed it up real nice. Could buy groceries and stuff for your house on one side. On the other, they had a small restaurant that cooked up the best burgers in the state. I’m not lying, either. They had a plaque on the wall from the town Chamber of Commerce saying they made the state’s best burger or something like that. 

The best part, though, is they served beer. Ice, cold, beer. And they poured into these small glasses they would just keep refilling and refilling. I tell ya… beer just tastes better in a short glass. We had some good times there. I think even a wedding anniversary party upstairs where they’d made a little dance area." 

Grandma took her turn in the storytelling ring. 

"But, after a couple years, they started hearing things." Her voice trailed off into a short sip of her Manhattan. 

“What things?” We said. 

“It started with tapping,” Grandpa said. “Late every night they’d hear it rising from the basement. Tap tap... tap tap..." 

“Tap tap... Tap tap..." Grandma whispered. “Tap tap… Tap tap.” 

“So, each night they went looking for it. Tore the store to pieces. But never saw anything. They only heard the taps every night. Haunting them. Teasing them.” 

Tap tap... tap tap... Grandma bounced her fingers off the table. 

"Then, it changed.”

A deep, collective inhale came from us. 

“Every night, up from the basement like a cry rising from a grave, they heard a voice calling... Boooooop… Boooooop…” Grandpa whispered at first but got louder as he repeated it. “Boooooop... Boooooop..."

“Boooooop... Boooooop...." Grandma whispered into Mike's ear. He jumped back and almost fell over. 

“That’s why our friends left it. Why nobody has gone near it since. Everyone knows. There’s darkness inside that place.”

"No way," we cried. "You're lying!" 

"Beeleeive… whatever you want." Grandpa dragged out the word. “But, let me tell you one last bit of this story.”

He looked at Grandma. She scooted closer. We could feel the heat from her breath. “They deserve to know the truth.” 

“See, I was just like all of you. Told my friends they were full of it. So, one night, I was drinking down at the old train station bar with my friend Rolly - you know, the furnace man - and we had gotten to drinking and carrying on and somewhere in it the ghost story came up. 

Rolly said to me, ‘this whole story is bull. If ghosts are real, they ain’t wasting their time in our little town.’ 

So, I said, ‘Rolly, I believe you. I don’t buy into any of this ghost nonsense either. But what do you say to you and I getting some more beers and going to see if this ghost stuff is real once and for all?’

And you know what? Rolly said yes. 

So, the bar let us fill a bag full of canned Stroh’s and ice and we walked it over to the old store. We had to move some cinder blocks around to reach into one of the windows and squeeze through loose boards and broken glass best we could. When we got inside nothing much happened for a little while. We just sat there drinking our beer, trying to hear everything we could.”

Grandpa stopped and took a long sip.

“And then, it started.”

Tap tap... tap tap... Grandma's fingers played the table like a piano. Tap tap.. tap tap. 

“The cry came up from the basement clear as day. Rolly and I couldn't move. Frozen. Like we were trapped by a spirit or something. And the voice just got louder and louder. 

“Boooooop... Boooooop..." Grandma said. "Boooooop... Boooooop..." 

"I don’t know how, but Rolly finally snapped free and shook me till I escaped whatever had a hold on me. Whatever was left in that basement felt like it was getting closer. We jumped out the window, ran, and never looked back. Ran outta there so fast we left the darn Stroh's inside."

When I got home blood dripped off me, and we didn’t know why. Finally, I looked down and saw it. We ran out of there so fast I didn’t know I cut myself on the glass.”

Grandpa rolled up his shirt sleeve and pointed to the jagged scar zigzagging up the inside of his forearm - the one we all believed, until just this moment, he had gotten in the war.

Our eyes danced around the circle. We squeezed our seats closer together. Nobody could talk. Nobody could move. The moon and the stars had fled, and the night had turned pitch black. It was us, the storm, and the ghosts. 

“I still feel that spirit in my bones,” Grandpa said. “Every time I look down at my arm.”

Grandma smiled. “Come on, let’s call your parents. It’s time they took you home.”