Tales From Anxietyland - The Bleaching Shack

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[/b]This story comes from my fear of what might be lurking behind the shed, paired with my fear of ghosts. This story has a tragic ending. It comes from Section 1 of my Tales From Anxietyland collection: Ghosts.[/b]

Warning: contains gore, death, ghosts, violence, cruelty, suicide.

If you have anxiety about death or ghosts, please don't read. I know if I hadn't written this myself, I'd avoid it. Writing it gives me a sort of control over my fear, if only for a little while.
Horror/evil ghosts fans: read to your own pleasure.


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Ada had always feared being out in the backyard by herself. She got a strange feeling every time she got too close to the back right corner of the yard. Ever since the day she had been brought home to the farm, she had been wary of the large yard behind the farmhouse. Even as a baby, she would burst into tears every time her mother brought her within twelve feet of the small stone shed sitting at the edge of their property.

One day, when Ada was eight years old, her grandpa was helping her pull weeds in the garden on the far side of the field.

"Well now, Ada, we've got to git done soon," said her grandpa.

"I know, Grandpa. We've got to beat the evening freeze," Ada replied.

"No, no, my darling Ada. Yes, we don' want to be out in the cold, but we also don' want to git in the way of the Whitened Farmwife," said Grandpa.

Ada shivered. Something about that name gave her the creeps. "The- the Whitened Farmwife? Who's that, Grandpa?"

Grandpa cleared his throat. "Well, I reckon you're old enough t'hear the story by now.

"It was a long time ago, back in the years right before the war. A young man had just wed the prettiest girl in this little town. He brought her home to his family's farmhouse. This farmhouse.

"Now, the wife missed her old house. It was a beautiful big old thing with cream colored walls and windows so clear you could see into the Life After This One just by looking through them on a clear summer morn. But most of all, the wife missed her garden.

"The garden at her old home was filled with all kinds of exotic plants. They came from all over the world, from the Amazon Forest to the River Nile. The wife missed her plants so much, that one day she ran back home and tried to bury herself in the garden, between the roots of all the plants, and become one herself."

"She tried to bury herself to become a plant?" Ada asked incredulously.

"Yessir!" responded Grandpa. "That she did! And when her husband found out, he was real mad. He marched right on over to her old place, pulled her up out of the soil, and dragged her back home. He locked her up in one of the rooms on the top floor and only let her come out when he had his folks over, or when important people came to visit so he could showcase her beauty to them. He loved bragging about how pretty his 'little beauty of a farmwife' was.

"Then one day he forced her to start working out in that stone shed over there in the corner of the yard, and bleach all her clothes."

"Why'd he make her bleach her own clothes?" asked Ada.

Grandpa scratched the back of his neck. "Well now, I reckon he thought it'd make her look even more beautiful if she were draped in gauzy white clothes.

"But anyway, working with all that bleach started to drain the color outta her. Her eyes, her hair, her skin, they all became paper white.

"When the neighbors saw her walking to and from the bleachin' shack lookin' all white like that, they started callin' her the Whitened Farmwife, since no one knew her name. All her husband ever called her was 'my pretty little farmwife.'

"But soon after, the war started and her husband thought he'd go out and become a famous general. So he locked up his wife in her room and went out and enlisted, expectin' to rise up the ranks within a few days and come back a war hero."

"But that's not how wars work," protested Ada.

"I know that, and you know that, but the husband didn' know that. He was a rich, entitled fool who only knew how to mistreat people and whine for his own way until folks got so annoyed they gave in. He didn' know the firs' thing about fightin' and sure enough, he got killed in the first battle he was a part of.

"Now, the wife had been sittin' in her room, wasting away and waitin' fer her husband to return and unlock the door when she realized that he was never goin' to come back. So she picked herself up and smashed through the winder. Shards of glass went everywhere and the wife was all cut up and bleedin', but she didn't care. She was determined to make it back to her beloved garden. And that she did.

"The wife made her way to her old home but found that her garden and the house were on fire from some careless stranger chuckin' his old cigarette over the fence. The wife cried out as if the garden burning was burning her own insides and clawed at her skin to get the fire out. It didn't work, so she dove into the flames as a last effort to stay with her garden and died with it."

"She died?" Ada asked.

"She died," Grandpa repeated solemnly. "But her ghost survived and couldn' stand to stay in the ruined garden of ashes, so she drifted over to stay by the old bleaching shack, where she's stayed ever since, killing ev'ry man who crosses her path come the evening freeze, and plucking every little girl who comes by right out of the air and making them work for 'er, bleaching clothes 'till the end of time."

"But that's ridiculous!" Ada exclaimed. "I've been in that shed loads of times, and all that's in there are gardening tools and our mowers!"

"Have you ever bin in there during the evening freeze, though?" asked Grandpa.

Ada fell silent.

They continued weeding in an eerie silence. Ada had once seen what looked like shimmering white fabric blowing out from behind the shed, but every time she looked back at it there was never anything there. Finally she asked, "Is that what happened to Auntie Freya when she was a girl? The Whitened Farmwife took her?"

Grandpa's eyes welled up with tears. "Yes," he said sadly. "She was out here playin' with a little neighbor friend o' hers and it got too late and they got too close. I watched them git nearer and nearer to the shed. I didn' believe in the legends, so I let them. But then I saw her come out. A clear, white, flowy thing who just reached out and grabbed 'em. I couldn' do anything because I was so frozen in fear." Grandpa sniffed and wiped away a tear.

Ada reached out a hand and placed it on her grandpa's arm. "It's okay," she soothed. "Why do we still live here if there's an evil ghost that lives behind our shed?"

Grandpa wrestled Ada into a hug. "B'cause your grandma and I don' wan' t'leave Freya. She's still there, just... emprisoned by a ghost. If there's any way of saving her... we have to stay here until we find it."

Grandpa released Ada and picked up his shovel. "Now c'mon. Let's go inside."

Ada nodded and grabbed the bucket of weeds. They headed inside and ate some dinner with the rest of the family, but all Ada could think about for the rest of the night was the Whitened Farmwife and her poor Auntie Freya.

Auntie Freya must have been around my age when she was taken, thought Ada. That means they've had decades to try and save her. Ada crossed the room to her bedroom window. Auntie Freya's right over there, she thought, looking at the shed. Grandpa said he was too scared to do anything, but maybe the way to get everyone back is to just talk to the ghost and demand for her to release everyone.

Ada was convinced that this would work. She snuck outside and made her way over to the old bleaching shcack. "H- hello?" she called out tentatively. "I want my auntie back!" she said with more force. Ada stood facing the shed for a moment longer before the ghost finally appeared.

The Whitened Farmwife was petite but glided a foot off the ground and wore many layers of white fabric that made her seem larger than life. The fabrics swirled around her and when Ada looked close, she could see shards of glass stuck in her skin and silvery burn marks all over her body and clothes.

"Excuse me, miss, but I believe you have taken my auntie? I need you to please give her back." Ada tried to speak like she heard grownups speak to each other respectfully and calmly and with conviction. She patiently waited for the ghost to return what was hers, but instead the fabric crept closer and closer until all Ada could see was white. Ada tried to scream for her Grandpa to help, but no words would come out of her mouth.

The Whitened Farmwife retreated with her new victim and the bleaching shack was quiet once more.