Repost: Rural Ghost Story
maia
all...
I was talking to my Mom the other day, and this story came up. She says
that things actually did move around--that they saw them actually in
motion from time to time! That I didn't remember, but she swears that
it happened...
*****
I grew up in the rural mid-west. It was a typical farming community,
filled with very practical people who...I don't know, worked with cows
or whatever. (*grin*) When I think of the area where I grew up, I think
"uptight." Or possibly just "stoic." No one would ever talk about the
supernatural, or hauntings, or anything of the sort. Far too busy on
the farm to wonder about the unknown, you see. I can't recall a single
story about a neighborhood haunted house or graveyard--or anything.
Really. It's very weird. I've been fascinated by all things paranormal
since birth, but the only information I ever got about the area where I
grew up was either first hand (yikes!) or from my very best friends'
first hand accounts.
Anyway...biographical information aside, when I was about three, my
family rented a very normal looking house. I remember the interior far
better than the exterior, but I do recall that it had great big, green
shutters that I detested for some reason. We had been there for over a
month when my Dad (a wonderful agent of procrastination--really, he
makes it into an art form) started seriously unpacking. He found he had
a few boxes that needed to go into storage and crawled into the attic
for the first time.
Now, the "attic" was actually an odd, unfinished space directly off the
single upstairs room. It was very large. It was above my room, the
dining room, and the kitchen. My Dad had poked his head into the space
before they rented the house, but he had never been inside. As he
started taking boxes in there, he found several things that had been
left behin--a few boxes of nothing too interesting, odds and
end--nothing special. But in one corner, covered in dust was a large
frame, laying face down. Curiosity may well have killed the cat, but
one day it will definitely take down my Papa...so of course he trotted
right over to examine this finding.
It was a very large frame, maybe twenty-four by thirty-six inches. It
had a normal backing and a wire to hang it, so as my Dad brushed the
cobwebs off his mind raced. An eternal optimist, my father was sure
he'd found a long-lost masterpiece...or at the very least a fairly
decent paint-by-numbers in a good, recyclable frame. (Tee-hee.) So with
dangerous curiosity piqued, he turned it over. It was a portrait, an
oil painting, very old and in good condition. It depicted two young
boys--age undetermined, but pre-pubescent--in fancy, old-fashioned
clothing. It was fairly well-done, in a mid-to-late nineteenth century
style (American portrait, not European Impressionism, for the art
enthusiasts out there), but it wasn't anything special...except for one
thing: their expressions. There was something very wrong there. It was
almost like they wanted to look mischievous, but they couldn't hide the
evil underneath. Menacing. Very creepy. My Dad got the shivers, but
having a rather twisted sense of humor (watch out–-it seems to be
genetic! *grin*), he propped it against the unfinished wall, with the
intention of taking it downstairs to hang in the entryway to freak out
guests.
Of course, as soon as he left the attic...he forgot all about it.
A few days passed...then things started happening. The kitchen lights
started flickering, on and off at odd intervals. Pretty soon, the
dining room lights followed suit. Fearing faulty wiring (and worried
about fires), my Dad called the landlord and asked if this had ever
happened before. It had not, so an electrician was called in. No
problems were found: no shorts, no exposed wires, nothing that could
cause those things. Just one of those things. Mom and Dad accepted
this and tried to ignore it.
Then, of course, doors started opening and closing themselve--mostly
when no one was looking. My Dad had his leather workshop in the
upstairs room and would frequently go downstairs to get coffee, leaving
the door wide open and the lights on...only to return and find the door
shut and the lights off. (At least once, the door was locked from the
inside!) He started using a doorstop on his workshop door, but
sometimes it would be moved aside and the door would still be shut. He
checked the few doors in the house that were exhibiting this behavior,
but they were all fairly leve--certainly not unbalanced enough to swing
freely by themselves.
Now, Dad was starting to get a little worried that his debunking was
washing out. He was a native to the area and although more open-minded
than most, he was still a skeptical farm lad. Neither he nor Mom would
admit to a "ghost."
Now, I will admit that my memories of this time are hazy, but I recall
several things: I remember the lights flickering, I remember hearing
doors shut when all three of us were in the same room (I'm an only
child--we three were the whole household), and I remember setting foot
in
my father's workshop alone ONCE. I do not recall what happened in
there, and furthermore...I don't want to. We only lived there a short
time, but I basically had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into
that room for the rest of our stay. My room was under the attic, also,
and I remember seeing dark shapes in my room at night, in the glow of my
nightlight. They moved, and even that young I knew that the nightlight
cast shadows that didn't move unless something in front of it was
moving. I stopped sleeping in there. My parents would routinely find
me on the sofa in the morning after they had tucked me into my bed the
night before. After the noises started, I began to sleep with
them--right in between them, usually with my head covered. What I
remember most clearly about that house was being terrified.
We had been there a few months when the noises started. It was really
just a few knocking sounds, every few day--nothing too scary. Once in a
while, you could almost hear whispering in the room. But it was the
progression, the flickering to the doors to the noises. It was too
much. My Dad finally broke down and asked the landlord if any other
tenants had ever experienced anything in the house. The landlord denied
it, but whether this was true, or he didn't know, or it was simply
another example of the aforementioned closed-mouthed policy of the
area...my Dad never found out.
Events finally climaxed one spring evening. It was very calm--not the
stereotypical "dark & stormy night." I was visiting my grandparents for
the evening. My parents were sitting at the dining room table,
discussing the things that had happened in the house. They bandied
about theories, maybe this, maybe that. My mom said, "Maybe we're just
imagining all of this..." No sooner than the words came out of her
mouth a huge *THUMP* was heard overhead...then a horrible dragging
sound, like a dead body being pulled across the floor, or perhaps (they
prayed) a very large trunk. There was nothing in that attic large
enough to make that noise, not even if it toppled over and was pushed
(by what or whom, they dared not think). "Are you going to check on
that?" Mom asked. Dad shook his head. "Are you?" "NO [expletive
deleted] WAY." Then they heard footsteps upstairs and by this time Mom
and Dad were heading towards the kitchen door, keys in hand. Right
before they stepped out, they heard the upstairs door open. They ran to
the car in a panic without bothering to lock the door, and sped away.
They spent the night with a friend, leaving the house to whatever they
had offended with their flippant commentary. The next day they found
another house.
Unfortunately, their new residence was occupied until the end of the
month--still three weeks away. So we returned to the house, very much
on
guard. We slept with the lights on, when we slept at all. The house
was a little more calm, as though something had exhausted itself with
such a display. There were a few flickering lights, and a couple of
closed doors, but no more noises. A few days after the big scare, my
Dad was sorting through things and packing. He remembered the boxes he
had stored in the attic and went to fetch them. Everything was exactly
as he had left it, nothing had fallen or been moved, including the
creepy painting he had propped against the wall. As soon as he saw it
again, he began to sweat and feel nauseous. Those boys didn't look
mischievous at all. They looked malevolent, and he was terrified. It
was all he could do to approach that painting and turn it back down,
against the floor. But he did, and he felt better immediately.
The funny thing is, not another single thing happened in that house
after that. We had two and a half weeks of serene calm.
Coincidence? Sometimes Dad and I pretend so.
*****
There you go. Hope you guys enjoyed that (again)!
maia
...Porch Queen of Elipses
B J Kuehl
Wow! That was a good one, maia. Worthy of being made into
a movie.
BJ - Porch Holder of the Magic Pitcher
(name your brew, and the pitcher will provide)
Haunter
missed the story, Maia. Do you have it posted on your web or
something? I'd sure like to see it. Send it to me email if you want
to/can.
Thanks
Haunter
Sydney
and i almost hit the ceiling. Absolute kudos to you and that excellent
story!
maia wrote:
--
ki o tsukete!
-sydney
come visit Tsukino Usagi's Moon Kingdom at
http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/sydseverythingpage/index.html
RedBear
best 5-year-old, Bobby voice~
--
Bran
Southern Gentleman, Porch Scholar &
Ursine Porch Protector
<< remove NOSPAM to reply >>
B J Kuehl wrote in message <7jm1eh$l08$1...@uwm.edu>...
maia
>
> Wow! That was a good one, maia. Worthy of being made into
> a movie.
>
> BJ - Porch Holder of the Magic Pitcher
> (name your brew, and the pitcher will provide)
Hey, now...Don't give me ideas like that!
TEE-HEE!!
maia
...Porch Queen of Ellipses...
S. Marianne Munkholm
Marianne