The Lath and Plaster Man

In the autumn of 2004, my stepfather, a retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant named Frank, traded his drill for a framing hammer. He dragged my stepbrother Leo and me, both fourteen, to a condemned Victorian on the outskirts of Duluth, Minnesota, right across from the old Ironwood Cemetery. The city had hired him to gut the interior and install drywall, a job he insisted we did for ‘family bonding’ and because it was cheaper than hiring actual labor.

We started in the parlor, ripping out the plaster and lath. The walls were layered with decades of paint and grime, and the air was thick with dust that made our eyes water. Leo and I worked in silence, swinging our hammers at the brittle plaster, while Frank barked orders from the hallway. The house had a strange smell, like old pennies and mothballs, and every few minutes, a draft would sweep through despite the boarded-up windows.

Suddenly, a scream cut through the noise. It was Leo, bursting from the adjacent dining room, his hands clamped over his face, blood seeping between his fingers. ‘Something in there punched me!’ he yelled, his voice trembling. Frank stormed over, his face red with irritation. ‘That’s a bunch of bullshit,’ he growled, brushing past Leo to inspect the empty room. But as he stepped through the doorway, the temperature plunged, and we heard a low, guttural laugh that seemed to come from the walls themselves.

Frank froze. For a moment, he was the Marine again, scanning for threats, but then he shook his head and called us to keep working. I tried to check on Leo, but Frank shoved us back to the parlor, muttering about ‘nerves’ and ‘imagination.’ But Leo’s nose wouldn’t stop bleeding, and his eyes were wide with terror. He whispered, ‘It wasn’t a punch. It was like a fist of dust and splinters, and it hit me from behind the wall.’

We resumed our work, but the atmosphere had changed. Every crack of the hammer against plaster echoed too loudly, and the shadows in the corners seemed to deepen. I noticed that the lath behind the plaster was not uniform; in places, it formed patterns, like crude letters or symbols. When I pointed this out to Frank, he ignored me, focusing on his demolition. But then, as I pulled down a section near the fireplace, I uncovered a hidden cavity. Inside, lying on a bed of straw, was a child’s shoe, caked in dried blood, and a small, hand-carved wooden soldier with its head missing.

A cold breeze swept through the room, and the shoe twitched. Leo gasped and backed away, but Frank, now pale, reached in and pulled out the shoe. He studied it with a strange intensity, then muttered, ‘This was my brother’s.’ He had never spoken of a brother. Before we could question him, a heavy thud came from the second floor, followed by the sound of something dragging across the floorboards. Frank’s jaw tightened, and he ordered us to leave, but the front door wouldn’t budge. The doorknob rattled, and a voice hissed through the crack: ‘You’ll finish what he started.’

We were trapped. The house creaked and groaned, and the plaster walls seemed to breathe. Leo and I huddled in a corner as Frank, his drill forgotten, stood frozen. Then, the lath began to move, the wooden strips twisting and snapping like bones. From the walls, a figure began to emerge, a man made of plaster and lath, his face a hollow mask of cracked paint. He had no eyes, only dark sockets, and his hands were long, with fingers like splinters. ‘You buried me under the floorboards,’ he said, his voice like gravel. ‘You and your brother. You left me to rot.’

Frank’s face contorted with a mixture of terror and recognition. ‘It can’t be,’ he whispered. ‘You’re dead.’ The figure stepped closer, and Leo and I could see that he was missing a hand, his arm ending in a jagged stump. ‘Dead, but not gone,’ he said. ‘Your brother’s blood soaked into this house, and now it’s soaked into you. Finish the wall, and I’ll let the boys go.’ Frank, trembling, picked up a hammer and staggered toward the wall. But instead of attacking the plaster, he turned and swung the hammer at the figure. The hammer passed through, hitting the floor with a dull thud, and the figure laughed.

Then, the walls themselves began to close in. The lath splintered and wrapped around Frank’s ankles, pulling him to the floor. Leo and I ran for the front door, now ajar, and escaped into the twilight, leaving Frank’s screams behind us. We never saw him again. The house was condemned and demolished a year later, but sometimes, at night, I hear the sound of a hammer tapping against my bedroom wall, and I know that the plaster man is still looking for someone to finish his wall.