karenErile

The sound starts up around midnight, rising from the park. It slices through the late summer chorus of crickets and tree frogs like a deranged soprano. Is it a monster? Is something being killed? Up and down Shawnee Street, windows…

Even on a bright Sunday afternoon, I feel spooked driving through Elkins Park, a grassy suburb just beyond the city border. Here looms the massive, haunted-looking shell of the old Widener estate, its parched, ragged lawn overgrown with vines. Nearby,…