Maps
- Apartment 101: Duke
- Apartment 102: Boyd
- Apartment 103: Beach (marked "Superintendent")
- Apartment 201: Winter
- Apartment 202: Vacancy
- Apartment 203: Waller, Estevez
- Apartment 204: Willis
- Apartment 301: Mercer
- Apartment 302: Infante
- Apartment 303: Ryder
- Apartment 304: Dorder
- Apartment 401: Park
- Apartment 402: Box Removed
- Apartment 403: Box Removed
- Apartment 404: Fitzgerald, Place, Schlatter
- The boxes for all four apartments on the fifth floor have long been removed.
…Had the dream again. Started like the other times, like a sex–dream from the old days (oh how I miss those days— even just the dreams!), but then turned into a nightmare. Just a black shape hanging there above me, crushing me, holding me fast while its pale-yellow eyes burned through me. Woke in a cold sweat…
…Night hag. Now I remember! A little research at the old Temple of Knowledge down the street jogged some dusty brain cells. I’m having night hag attacks—at my ripe old age! Maybe there’s a story in this, or even a full–blown novel. Ghosties were never my forte though, and these days I’m afraid jotting down more than a shopping list would require dusting off more brain cells than I have left to me. Ah me! This is more the purview of Messrs. Campbell and King anyway…
…So Kurt has them too. Not terribly surprising. I seem to recall that 10% of the population have seen the Night Hag at least once. If true, there’s probably another “victim” or two here in the Sisters somewhere. Maybe I’ll ask Maria to say a prayer for me. But I probably won’t, and she probably wouldn’t anyway…
…Having read Hufford & Ahern, I’m beginning to wonder—is she real?…
…Talked to Ahern, but all he wanted to talk about was The Oyster Men, rather than the Hag. He told me nothing I didn’t already know. Kurt, on the other hand, thinks we’re definitely haunted. This seems to amuse him. Oh to be young and fearless—and foolish! —again…
…Who are these 3 Sisters, anyway? Faith, Hope & Charity? Clotho, Lachesis & Atropos? Stheno, Euryale & Medusa? Old Will’s Weird Sisters? They look Greek or Roman to me. Have to ask Mrs. Starrett about them some- time. She’ll probably send me a bill for the answer. But the thought remains: do the 3 Sisters have anything to do with the haunting? Have to have Kurt see what he can find out about this place—especially the fire that closed off the top two floors. Did someone die up there and leave a nympho- maniac ghost?…
…I AM haunted. Whispers in the dark. The damned hag. Paranoia. Crazy Maria stares at me. That little Wills waif stares at me. I’m going mad. Need to get away. Away from the Sisters, away from the damned hag. Fresh air. Fresh scenery. I’d go back to Kingsport if I wasn’t afraid of what my dreams might be like there, NOW…
…Thom. De Quincy, Levana & Our Ladies? Something to do with hallucinations or drug–dreams a la Confessions? Must check to see…
…What have I done? What have we done? I should feel alive, renewed. I did feel that way at first, but now… I can’t believe I was so stupid. Stupid, stupid old fool. I have undone us. Undone us all…
Elderly Man Dies in Traffic Mishap
Frank Ryder, 74 years old, died in a traffic accident yesterday after stumbling off a curb and into the path of a van driven by Susan Suarez.
The elderly Ryder, who walked with the aid of a cane, was described by witnesses as suddenly slipping off the sidewalk directly into the path of the van.
Frank Ryder, a naval veteran of the Vietnam War, was a retired travel writer but was better known for his detective and science fiction novels in 1950s, 60s, and 70s. It is not known if he had any next of kin, and authorities are requesting help locating any relatives of the man.
SAPD has ruled the death as an accident and no charges are pending.
- 1892: On January 7th, The Three Sisters building is opened after two years of construction. The building is named after Christine Salmon Wolfe, Deirdre Salmon Frey, and Elizabeth Salmon, heiresses to the Salmon munitions fortune. Newspaper articles about the opening of the building include photographs showing the three women, all in their seventies or older, standing in front of the building as it is being opened to the public. Any investigator who witnessed the death of Frank Ryder recognizes the woman identified as Elizabeth Salmon as the woman who frightened Ryder to his death
- 1913: In
the early morning hours of April 25th, a fire breaks out in The Three Sisters,
killing three residents. The fire apparently started in the top front apartment
where an elderly woman, Imogen Nolotski, sixty–nine, apparently fell asleep in
Apartment 503 while smoking. Also killed in the fire were David J. Harris and
his wife Mary Anne, of Apartment 502, aged fifty–six and fifty–five,
respectively. The other residents all made it to safety with relatively minor
injuries.
- 1921: February 23rd, eight-year-old William Dodge of Apartment 203 dies of an
undisclosed illness. The young Dodge’s obituary appears below.
“OBITUARY—William Eric Dodge 1913–1921
William Eric Dodge, aged 8 years, died Thursday of natural causes at his home in The Three Sisters building, 504 San Pedro Avenue. William is survived by his parents, Matthew and Caroline Dodge, of the same address, and two younger brothers, Richard, age 5, and Steven, age 2. William Dodge was a bright and creative boy, and a beloved son. Death is believed to have been due to complications from a recent illness. Memorial services are to be held Monday morning at 11 M at the Crater–Sterling Funeral Home, with interment to follow at St. John’s Lutheran Cemetery.”
1931: Katherine McCully, thirty–one, living in Apartment 303, commits suicide by slitting her wrists with a razor in the bath- tub on January 19. She is believed to have been lonely and despondent for some time.
1938: June 4th, factory worker Sanford Jones, twenty–two, a tenant of Apartment 202, bludgeons his wife Judith, seven- teen, to death. Sanford claims Judith was seeing another man, so he killed her.
- 1959: Dustin Woodley, thirty–nine, living in Apartment 401, is found dead in his apartment on September 11th. He apparently hanged himself as much as a week earlier, and though no foul play is suspected, the police are baffled by the fact that Woodley’s left hand has been cut off after his death and is still missing. The door to Woodley’s apartment is found locked, his keys inside the apartment with him. Woodley has a long criminal record for breaking and entering, and several armed robberies.
- 1960: On May 25th, pastry chef Mario Pignatelli, fifty–four years old, a tenant of Apartment 404, leaps or falls to his death from the fire escape of The Three Sisters building. Pignatelli’s possible motives for suicide are unknown, and in the end the police treat the death as an accident.
- 1964: Oliver Curran, eighty–two, is found dead in his bed- room in Apartment 103. Cause of death is ruled as natural causes—heart failure.
- 1977: On the night of October 20th, college student Dewey Kilbey, twenty–two, and his girlfriend Amy Hiebert, eighteen, are robbed and murdered in the alley behind The Three Sisters by “two Mexicans” who are subsequently caught by the police in possession of Kilbey’s wallet. Despite inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case, both receive life sentences. Kilbey and Hiebert are not residents of the building but were walking through the neighborhood after attending an old film noir movie revival at a nearby theater.
- 1993: February 25th, Corey Plainton, twenty–one of Apartment 202, is shot to death—fourteen times—in his apartment. Plainton has a reputation as a local drug dealer, and police quickly arrest Forrest “Nails” Berends, thirty–one, Joe Kirby, twenty–one, and Albert “Money” Kipp, twenty–four, in connection with the murder. Nails and his accomplices are known rivals of Plainton, and eyewitnesses positively identify them leaving the building just after the shooting.
- 1993: November 11th, spinster Sunday school teacher Lorna Garcia, ninety–nine years old, dies alone in Apartment 303. She has lived in The Three Sisters for thirty–nine years, her only companions at the time of her death a pair of black cats. Authorities are unable to find any next of kin.
II. Frequency and distribution
Kurt Winter: Journalist and friend of Frank Ryder
[Essay that Frank Ryder Wanted before he died]
"Lo! here is he, whom in childhood I dedicated to my altars. This is he that once I made my darling. Him I led astray, him I beguiled, and from heaven I stole away his young heart to mine. Through me did he become idolatrous; and through me it was, by languishing desires, that he worshipped the worm, and prayed to the wormy grave. Holy was the grave to him; lovely was its darkness; saintly its corruption. Him, this young idolator, I have seasoned for thee, dear gentle Sister of Sighs! Do thou take him now to thy heart, and season him for our dreadful sister. And thou,"−turning to the Mater Tenebrarum, she said, −"wicked sister, that temptest and hatest, do thou take him from her. See that thy sceptre lie heavy on his head. Suffer not woman and her tenderness to sit near him in his darkness. Banish the frailties of hope, wither the relenting of love, scorch the fountains of tears, curse him as only thou canst curse. So shall he be accomplished in the furnace, so shall he see the things that ought not to be seen, sights that are abominable, and secrets that are unutterable. So shall he read elder truths, sad truths, grand truths, fearful truths. So shall he rise again before he dies. And so shall our commission be accomplished which from God we had, −to plague his heart until we had unfolded the capacities of his spirit"
This essay was written by Thomas de Quincey and published in Suspiria de Profundis in 1845. The entire book and essay can be found here.
Child Drawings
Drawings by William Dodge, 1920 and 1921:
- a woman dressed in black kneeling on the ground amid dozens of crosses
- a lady with three dogs on leashes
- a few pictures of the outline of a child’s hand
- an ornate silver key; a gold bug
- countless drawings of various types of dinosaurs, often fighting each other in bloody combat
- several more of cowboys and In
- dians fighting, sometimes on horseback
- a man accompanied by a dark humanoid shape with bird wings
- an evil-looking woman with a big bloody knife
- a leering witch and a cat with arched back standing next to a black cauldron with a hand protruding from it
- exceedingly well drawn face of an old woman
- a lady waving at cars on a bridge, the water line is drawn above the cars
- numerous drawings of cowboys and Indians
- a boy laying in a bed surrounded by three females
- a billboard at a crossroad for tires, saying "Buy 3, get 1 Free!"
- a desert with cactuses and tombstones
- a UFO
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