A Rusty Wheel Brought Dark Thoughts

This story is about very recent events at my home.

I recently submitted a story on behalf of my husband called "The Cadejo". Yesterday, August 24, I was updating him on what the comments on the story were, and stated that people were interested if he had more stories. He confirmed that he had no more personally, but that he knew of a lot of stories from other people, and folk stories from his hometown. We discussed finding a forum somewhere to share them with anyone who would be interested.

After dinner and watching some TV, we headed to bed at the normal time, and since it was warm here, we had our windows open. Our room has four large windows, and we live on a quiet paved road in the countryside. Our house is situated on a nearly 90 deg turn in the road, and the bedroom is on that corner of the house, so we easily hear traffic or neighbors walking from one side to the other, especially with the windows open.

I awoke at approximately 1:30am to a strange noise coming from the road. The night was pretty still, and I stayed in bed listening to it without moving. I heard a squeaking rusty wheel sound that reminded me of the sound my old wheelbarrow makes. I listened to it as it took the corner of the road and continued down the street, past our house and down the road until it was approximately in front of our neighbors' home (spaced a bit away). It was moving slowly, I would say at the same speed as a walk.

As the sound of the wheel passed our house, the dog across the street started barking madly. For some reason, at this moment, I remembered that I had left the sprinkler on in the back yard. And although there are no water restrictions here, I felt guilty for overwatering so I nudged my husband and told him that I would turn off the sprinkler and be right back.

I hopped out of bed, down the stairs, slipped on my flip flops, and headed out my front door with my red-light flashlight in hand. The moment I stepped out of my door, the dog across the street stopped barking. I should point out that my front door is actually placed on the side of the house, and set back away from sight of the dog. But if you walk forward a few steps on to my front porch, you can see about 270 deg, and I can see down about 4 houses down the road.

Although we lived in the country, there have been the odd wanderer or stranger, so I left my light off while I scanned the neighborhood. Granted, I don't have night-vision, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I walked down the front steps to the side of the house and turned off the spigot (the hose from there led to the back yard), and returned to my porch. I looked around again, and stood quietly, trying to listen for anything. I heard nothing, and went inside.

As soon as I stepped past the threshold, the dog started the incessant barking again. I shut the door behind me and returned to the bedroom. My husband had been woken up by me and went to the bathroom and returned to bed, immediately tossing and turning trying to get comfortable. I laid down, and a flood of negative thoughts and memories hit me. I got angry and annoyed at people and past incidents that I thought I had long gotten over. The dog was still barking loudly, and I finally decided to shut the windows and turn on the a/c unit to drown him out. It worked, the barks were faintly audible over the hum of the a/c. The negative thoughts continued, though.

Eventually I fell into a fitful sleep. I dreamt of nightmares, and kept tossing and turning and waking myself up by being uncomfortable. I could tell my husband was also having a rough sleep, and I felt bad for nudging him, thinking that waking him in the night must have led to him unable to get back to sleep.

In the morning, as we were driving into town, I apologized for waking him. He said it was ok, and that he wanted to know that I had gone outside, but just that he had nightmares and couldn't get a decent rest. I told him I had nightmares too. Then I mentioned the squeaky wheel I had heard that woke me up to begin with.

He interrupted me and said "that means someone will die" in a very serious voice.

I said "What do you mean?"

He replied, "In Nicaragua, they say that Death travels on a rusty wagon pulled by two animals, and he stops in front of the house of someone who will die. Some people say it's the Devil, some say it's Death, either way it's a bad omen."

"It passed our house," I said.

"So then if the folkstory is true, one of our neighbors will die." He said.

I went on to tell him about the barking dog. My husband thought about it, then said he thinks that the dog was seeing something I couldn't. Another strange thing is that our two dogs, who were inside with us, did not bark or make any sound, nor try to follow me outside. They usually accompany me when I go out the door, but since they made no attempt to follow and I wanted to quickly get the water off, I didn't call for them. Both dogs were sitting side by side in the foyer, waiting for me when I came back in. They never barked or reacted to the dog across the street, which is not in character for them. And the negative thoughts, they were overwhelming. I feel really rattled from last night.

I shared this story this morning with a friend who watches my dogs when we are out of town, and she was not surprised at all that something weird happened. She stated that she usually feels uncomfortable in the house, she always closes the bedroom door so she feels safe, and she avoids the basement completely.

I was surprised to hear this, because that house is comforting to me, although personally, the basement used to feel dark and menacing to me too, and my husband finds it dark and creepy, and my black lab would refuse to go down there except to pass through to the garage. My other dog would stay in the room if I was in there, but never by himself. I always assumed the reason the room felt that way was because the paint colors were dark and the windows were heavily curtained. Only last weekend did I clean the basement from top to bottom and opened the curtains and rearranged furniture to try to make it more usable, and its made a difference to me. We have started using the room for gaming.

In discussing this incident, my husband and I realized we've never blessed our home. In all other homes I've bought, I first put a ring of salt around the entire perimeter before sleeping there the first night, but in our current house, it was a fixer-upper and under construction for the first couple of months and I must have forgotten. One of my coworkers has recommended a sage cleansing, and we will likely make a prayer circle with our dogs in the middle and ask for protection for our little family, but any other suggestions are welcome.