When Son #1 was in high school, his class ring came up missing.
We tore the house apart, trying to find it with no success.
About a year later, I opened my freezer, and sitting there pretty as you please was that class ring.
Oddly enough, it was freaking warm to the touch.
We'd used that freezer daily, and it was in such a way it could not have been missed.
It was like it had been deliberately placed in front.
I'm not going to try and keep things in chronological order; I'm just going to write down what I remember or what I've been told.
1973-1974 Background: My mother and I shared one bedroom, one bed.
Because my aunt had a habit of stealing, my mother put two locks on the inside of our door, and the outside had a padlock.
At this time I could only reach one lock; I wasn't tall enough to reach the second.
I distinctly remember it storming; I was in the bedroom playing; I wasn't near the door; the door was open.
Suddenly the door slammed shut. I'm 3-4 years old; it scares me.
I go to open the door, and both inside locks lock.
I start screaming.
My grandmother comes running; she's telling me how to unlock the door, but I can't even reach the top lock, and every time I try to unlock the bottom lock, it keeps sliding back into the lock position.
Now in my mind, I was locked in for hours—I don't know how true that is, as they refused to discuss it ever.
I know the room was pitch black; I know my aunt was on the outside, clapping her hands and yelling; she hoped I died; she hoped the devil came and got me.
Whether I had a vivid imagination for a not yet 5-year-old or whether she somehow conjured something up, I don't know, but I will swear to the day I die what I saw and what I felt was as real as I am.
At some point, I looked over, and underneath our bed were flames; there were faces with open mouths in the flames; I could hear screams and moans; there was a tall red figure with a pitchfork; he wasn't goat-like; he was just a man with horns on his head, and he was laughing at me.
I hid in a corner by the door.
This lasted for hours but probably was only minutes.
At some point, my grandmother called my great-aunt, and they tried to get this door to open and failed.
They could not take the doorknob off; they could not take the door hinges off; they could not unlock it.
These women were not helpless little women; they could do plumbing; they could make furniture; they were more than able to remove a door, yet they couldn't.
I distinctly remember them getting an ax and trying to chop their way to the inside lock—again, that may just be my imagination, although I'm fairly certain there is a mark on that door.
I don't know how they got me, but eventually they did.
I came away from that day with a deep fear of small enclosed rooms, locked doors, and the dark.
The church we went to was not a hellfire and brimstone church; it preached gentle love for mankind, so how at that age I even knew what hell was—I don't know, but there you have it.
