Monday, February 4, 2008

G is for Ghost

Have any of you ever seen a ghost?

I have. Twice. Or maybe one and a half, since the second time it wasn't really a ghost, just a visit.

Get a snack, here we go...

When I was a kid, we lived on this 5 acre ranch in California. All the houses on the street were on the same side and about 5 acres each. Behind us was nothing but open field and same across the street.

The house next to us (to the east) was haunted.

When we first moved in there was a family there but they moved away shortly after we moved in. (Was it something I said? jk) The next family moved in. My brother and I watched from our yard but there wasn't much to see. Their front door was obscured by trees and a bad angle relative to our yard. We could see the window of the bedroom that faced our house.

We saw the silhouette of a mover working in there and after about 15 minutes of watching the working man, we got bored and went back inside our own home.

Later that day, the new family came over to introduce themselves and to ask if the former family had left any keys for them. My dad said they hadn't. The new family said they couldn't get into one of the rooms and the realtor mentioned that the former family may've left the keys with us.

The room they couldn't get in to was the room where my brother and I watched the silhouetted man working in. My brother and I looked at each other and thought, "Naaaah. Couldn't be." Later, we went over to play with the new kids and my dad went with us to see if he could help out at all. Sure enough - it was the same room. My dad and their dad jimmied the lock and we got in. The youngest kid (L.S.) picked that room. It had this big portrait of a creepy looking old man on the wall and L.S. decided he liked it and would keep it up.

Fast forward 3 years.

The next family to move in was a big one. They had 6 or 7 kids and the oldest was Johnny K. sigh. Big crush on Johnny K. The boy smelled so good! He was about 4 years older then me and was really nice. He picked the creepy room and left the portrait up. He played guitar and was a nice kid who really looked after his younger siblings.

All the neighbor kids came home on the same bus and we'd usually head straight for the K.'s house because they had an Atari and a stay at home mom who'd give us cookies. Johnny's after school activites kept him til the late bus. One day, we came over to the K.'s house as usual but their mom had gone into town for more fabric (she used to make the most beautiful quilts).

We'd been there about an hour and were in the game room playing Atari when we heard Johnny playing his guitar. Barry K. thought Johnny had ditched his after-school stuff and went to knock on the door to ask him about it. I was standing next to him (any excuse to get a glimpse into Johnny's room!) and just as Barry was reaching his hand up to knock, the guitar playing became this screeching, feedback, crazed and LOUD noisy nonsense!

We covered our ears and were yelling for Johnny to stop it and to open the door. Then it stopped.

And then Johnny walked up behind us and asked what the hell we were doing and who was messin' with his guitar.

Barry and I about wet our pants.

Johnny opened his door and there was nothing in there.

A couple of weeks later, Johnny was doing his patented devil voice. He used to use this gravelly, scary devil voice to scare us younger kids and he'd chase us around and when he'd catch one, he'd tickle them til they begged for mercy.

We were all hanging out in Johnny's room and he started the devil voice thing. We started laughing and begging him to stop because we knew the tickle torture/fun was about to begin. He was just winding up in to it when all of a sudden, he went crazy. He started swinging his fisted hands around and Barry told him to cut it out, that he was going to hurt someone. Well, J ended up knocking us all to hell. He hit Barry first and knocked him in to the edge of his waterbed. Then Paul (another brother) came up behind J to grab his arms. J knocked him in to the closet, breaking the closet door. He knocked me into his weight bench - it fell over and just missed crushing my head with the free weights on the bar. The whole incident lasted less then 2 minutes with J jibbering nonsense in that devil voice. Then Aimee (the neighbor kid on the other side of them) ran up and slapped Johnny as hard as she could.

He stopped. He looked around, sort of dazed and confused. His eyes got all teary and he started apologizing profusely, helping each of us up. After that, he explained how, sometimes in that room, he'd be looking at that creepy portrait and he'd get these really weird thoughts in his head. He wanted to get rid of it but he just couldn't bring himself to do it for some reason.

That was it for us. We did it for him. We took that portrait off the wall (I remember it was suprisingly heavy) and cut it up and broke the frame and threw the whole thing in the trash.

There were never any more instances in that room as far as I know.


The other time was when I was stationed in Germany...

I was sleeping peacefully in my bed in the barracks of the hospital I was stationed at in Wurzburg, Germany. I woke up and there was a bright light at the end of my bed, like someone had opened the door to the hallway and shone a spotlight in. My brother was standing in front of the light and I could only see him in silhouette. I couldn't really see his face because of the backlight, but I'd know that stoner hair anywhere.

I asked what he was doing here and how'd he even get here. He turned his head ever so slightly so I could see his face and he just smiled at me. I reached for my glasses on my nightstand and when I looked back, he was gone. I thought it must've been a dream but I did have my glasses in my hand and it all seemed so damn real.

I went back to sleep and when I woke up the next morning I called my brother to tell him about this crazy dream I'd had. He was just coming home from the hospital. About the time I had my dream (or whatever it was), my brother had crashed while riding his motorcycle and it was a pretty nasty crash. Not as bad as most, he had a helmet on and didn't break anything, but they spent about 4 hours cleaning gravel out of his skin. If you've ever had road rash that needed debriding, you know how painful it is. If you haven't... well, trust me - you're very lucky. He was never in any danger of dying or anything but, I don't know, I still think he visited me.

Crazy, right?

Do y'all have any ghost stories that you've experienced?

Need a good campfire, Ruth!

P. S. Very cool raffle here.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for mentioning the raffle! I (and the animals) really appreciate it. :-)

sophanne said...

That first story is just creepy multiplied.

No ghost stories but dead people visit through the light switches and the volume on the television.

I told Mr. Sophanne that Fred (his dead brother) was visiting and he'd mess with the t.v. Then the sound cut out. When he didn't believe it, it happened again.

Yarnhog said...

I would love to have a first-hand exciting ghost experience, but the only one I ever had was so trivial it's not worth mentioning.

My youngest son, however, from about 18 months to 3 years, used to regularly regale me with tales from "when he was alive before."

Anonymous said...

I am solid rock when it comes to ghostly perceptions, ESP, any of that stuff, but I have heard enough stories like yours that I don't rule out the possibilities.

My neighbor had an upholstery business in her home. A client brought her a large papa-san chair that had belonged to his father, who had died. During the time chair sat in the living room waiting to have its cushion recovered, my neighbor saw an old man sitting quietly in it several times. She said she never felt any threat or emotion from him, he just sat there. Her daughter came over one day and felt something strange about the the chair but never saw the old man.

Corwink said...

I don't think I have ever seen a ghost. However I do have "Adult Night Terrors" and that is a hell of a ride. I heard a medium once say there is no such thing as night terrors. That what a person is experiencing is past life episodes. I say phooey! If that is the case I must have had several shitty lives. LOL!!

Crazy Knitting Fool said...

When I was about 7 we lived in a house in the country and the house next to us was haunted. One night I got up to go to the bathroom and looked out the window. There was one light on and a rocking chair was rocking really fast but there was no one in it. All of a sudden it stopped and the light went out. I never looked out that window at night again!

Unknown said...

Yikes! Nothing like that has ever happened to me. I think I would pee my pants!

Diane said...

I have an interesting spirit in my house currently. It's been here for a couple months. I finally mentioned it to my hubby and kids. After all they think I'm crazy already.

My cat Joey always jumps up at the end of my bed, walks up my left side and sleeps on top of the covers with his head on my left hip. A few months ago I felt Joey jump up and walk up to around my knee and then stop. I looked up and no cat. I looked over at the door and it was closed. I felt the weight of the cat on top of the covers but no cat.

It's happened a couple of time. It's not frightening or threatening. More like a playful spirit.

Olga said...

wow. That episode you had in that room sound so demonic-* shudder* very strange. My husband had a simular experiance like Diane had, a couple of weeks after we moved here, our dog died. One night my husband couldn't sleep and he went down stairs to lay on the couch, in the stillness of the house he heard our dog Odie come down the stairs and her nails clicking on the tiles as she walked across them. Then he remembered- Odie was dead! He was so freaked out, he didn't know if he dreamed it or if his mind was just playing tricks on him.

Miss T said...

Great stories!