Ghost Story #3

All Halloween All Week

When Todd and I were first married we decided it would be best if I moved into his dingy little apartment that was 5 minutes from his work and 45 from mine. It was the upper unit of an old house that he had gotten word of thanks to a good friend whose great aunt lived downstairs. Sure I knew about the walls that would drip with moisture in the winter, the shower (that was really a former closet) that you had to stand in crunched over like a humpback so you didn't hit your head on the slanted roof, the one small closet for both of us to share, and the less than normal landlord, but I moved in anyway. Why? Because the great-aunt-less-than-normal landlord only charged $150 a month for rent. That's why! A short time there and we could save up for our first house. It was worth the sacrifice.

So even when the landlord started asking us to come downstairs and check out her house because there was a little man hiding behind her TV, or a father and daughter sitting on her bed, or a spaceship flying in the porch area, we still stayed put. We did start to get concerned when she called me at work and asked my co-worker if I could please come home and collect all of my snakes, dragons, and alligators and put them back in their cages because they were scaring her. Sure she freaked us out every once in a while but we knew she was a sweet lady who was most likely just hallucinating from not taking care of her diabetes as she should.

We put up with it all to save a few bucks and it was worth it. Until it wasn't.

Our first Christmas in the apartment I tried to decorate and make the place look as homey and cozy as possible. I put up all my snowmen and reindeer, and even put little white lights and red bows on our fern tree. One of my favorite decorations was a set of snowman candlesticks. There was a momma, a daddy, and a little kid snowman, and they all had long white candles in them. I displayed them prominently on top of the television.

Soon I discovered that just about every time I would come home from being gone for a few hours the momma snowman would be turned around facing the wall. At first I just chalked it up to big trucks driving by and vibrating the floor. Or maybe Todd had bumped it. Or maybe I just nudged it when I was watering the plants. But then after a while I would specifically put the momma in a spot where I knew she couldn't turn around and yet, sure enough, I would come home and there she was facing the wall.

Seeing as how I had told Todd all about this strange occurrence I started to wonder if he was messing around with me. Was he turning the momma around? Nope. He promised. Then there were times when Todd was with me every minute of the day and we would come home and she would be turned around so I knew he was telling the truth.

This went on for as long as I had the decorations up and I was happy to take them down a little earlier than usual that year. There were a few other strange things here and there, noises and such, but nothing that really made me want to give up that $150 in rent.

Until one night.

It started out the same as any night. We went to bed, Todd on the right hand side closest to our bedroom door and me on the left hand side closest to the windows. We gave each other a good night kiss and then rolled over both facing away from each other. We are SO not cuddly sleepers.
A few hours later I awoke to footsteps walking across the living room floor. I listened as they approached our bedroom. Being too tired to turn around and look I just assumed it was Todd coming back from the bathroom. The footsteps continued into the bedroom, to the bed, around to my side of the bed by the windows, and then stopped at the foot of the bed. That's when I felt someone sit down at the end of the bed right by my feet. My legs even fell slightly to the side toward the dip in the bed.

I was so confused. Why on earth was Todd sitting at the end of the bed? On my side? What was he doing?

"Uh, honey? What are you doing?" I asked him, annoyed that he woke me.

And from directly behind me in bed Todd said, "Huh?"

I jumped about a foot in the air nearly giving Todd a heart attack. Hearing his voice come from his side of the bed, instead of at my feet where I expected him to be, gave me the fright of my life. I grabbed onto Todd and looked at the foot of the bed and there was no one there. The sensation of someone sitting on the bed was gone just like that.

I retold Todd the story through my tears and when I was done he got up to explore our tiny apartment. Of course, no one was there. And that was it.

The next week we started looking for a new house.

(Todd was just reading this to make sure I hadn't missed anything and he said, "Oh yeah. I never really told you this but someone who had lived in that house had committed suicide in the garage in the backyard before we moved in. I guess I didn't want to freak you out." Yeah. Thanks, hon.)

Ghost Story #2

All Halloween All Week

It was a long, hot, boring summer. Not at all the way I envisioned my last summer before starting high school. I was supposed to be at the beach working on my tan, not getting up four mornings a week at 5 AM to hustle over to my baby-sitting job. Wasn't I supposed to be having fun with my friends? Going swimming? Talking about boys? Stalking our crushes? Well, not if I wanted money. And this job paid pretty well for a fourteen year old. Never mind the fact that getting up early and missing out on so much fun had turned me into a grumpy, snippy, teenager that I hadn't been before. It would be over soon. Just a few more weeks.

My alarm clock went off at 4:50 AM, as usual. I hit snooze twice, as usual. I walked with my eyes half closed to the bathroom, splashed some water on my face, and as I threw my hair back in a ponytail I heard the timer on the kitchen stove go off. What in the world? Why on earth was mom up at this time? She's cooking something? Now? I rolled my eyes and headed back to my room to get dressed. Just as I was finishing up I heard the timer on the stove go off again. Feeling super agitated (what else was new?) that my mom was up at an ungodly hour baking I ran downstairs to show her my annoyance and make her see how loony she was acting.

I rounded the corner to the kitchen and there was no one there. I walked into the living room and then the dining room. No one.

A chill ran up my spine and I took off running out the back door to my baby sitting job. I cut through the neighbors' yards looking behind me every few steps. I ran faster and faster, so sure that any moment someone was going to grab me from behind.

I got to my job in less than 30 seconds and let myself in. I said hello to the kids' dad all the while trying to appear somewhat casual. As he left for work I went downstairs to their TV room and flipped on the tube for some company. I didn't want to be alone with my thoughts. I was freaked, to say the least. I didn't know what to think. Had someone been in our house? Was someone messing with me? Am I crazy? Did I really hear it? What if someone was still in the house? Mom was sleeping! Dad wasn't home from his third shift yet. Should I call her? I don't want to wake her up and freak her out. What if I'm just being crazy?

I waited until the clock struck 7 and then immediately picked up the phone and called my mom. No answer. I tried every 5 minutes for the next half hour. No answer. The kids were up now and asking me who I was calling every couple of minutes. I told them I just had a question for my mom, but I think I was starting to worry them too. Finally a little after 7:30 mom picked up the phone.

"Hello?" she said.

"Mom? Are you alright? Is anything weird going on?" I asked.

"Ha! I'm fine! Why?" she responded.

"Well, maybe you should just come over here. I have a really weird feeling. Have you looked around the house?" I said trying to stay calm.

"Why? I mean, I've been up and around, but what am I looking for?" she chuckled, slightly amused.

"Well, I heard the kitchen stove go off this morning. Twice. I thought for some crazy reason you were downstairs baking but when I got down there you weren't there." I finally told her.

"Oh! That wasn't you? I heard it too. I was wondering what you were doing." she said, finally understanding.

"No. It wasn't me. And, I don't know. I just have a bad feeling. I think you should come over just in case someone is in the house or something." I pleaded.

"Don't be silly! There is no one here. And dad will be home in a few minutes. Don't worry about it." she said, laughing now.

"Well, just call me when dad gets home and make him check around the house or something." I cautioned.

"Honey. It's fine. Trust me." she comforted.

I hung up the phone though I was still uneasy. I thought about it for the better part of the day, and it just didn't make any sense.

When 3 o'clock finally rolled around the kids' mom came home and I was free to go. I walked back home, opened the gate in the backyard and walked up to the back of the house. I could hear my mom singing in the kitchen and I was immediately put at ease.

I opened the back door and walked up the hallway steps. The minute I stepped foot into the kitchen where my mom was the timer on the stove started beeping again. Only this time not only was the timer beeping but the numbers on the clock were flashing and rolling. The numbers were jumping and flickering so fast they never really settled on one number. The just kept up their jumbled flipping craziness.

My mom and I stood stunned and grabbed each other's arm. We were frozen in our spots, clinging to each other with our mouths wide open.

Finally it stopped. I looked at mom and she looked at me. There were no words. Her eyes were big as saucers and mine were watering.

"Well, uh, um, there's. Uh. There's gotta be a short or something. I mean. The clock must just be broken or something. Because, uh. That doesn't just happen. Uh. Maybe it has a battery? Maybe it needs a new battery?" she said, again trying to comfort me.

Mom immediately grabbed the phone book, called the Sears where they had bought the stove less than a year ago, and asked to speak to a repairman. She asked if there was a separate battery compartment for the clock. Nope. Could there be a short? Not if the burners and oven was still working. Mom tried the burners and the oven. They both worked. The repairman asked why mom was asking and when she told him what had happened he said, "Eh! Spooky." Yeah. That helped.

Okay. So no reasonable explanation for it. What was it?

We couldn't figure it out. And we didn't understand why it went off right after I woke up in the morning, hadn't gone off all day, and then went off again the minute I stepped into the kitchen. What was going on?

Mom told me of something she had read once. She didn't want to freak me out, but she'd heard that ghosts are sometimes attracted to negative energy much like a teenage (bitchy) girl gives off. We talked about how foul I had been the past few weeks. How I had been talking back and grouchy, and an all around pain in the ass. Maybe that had something to do with it?

Then seeing how I was getting a bit freaked by that idea she said, "Or maybe it was just grandma telling you to behave."

"Well knock it OFF grandma!" I said, trying to see the humor.

I'm not sure I believed either theory, but I certainly didn't want to test it either. And yes I was still a grouchy, bitchy teenager from time to time, but nothing like I had been that summer. Somewhere in the back of my mind I really didn't want to find out if my mom had been right.

To this day the clock on my mom's stove does not work. And every once in a while when I am standing alone in that kitchen, and I glance over at the jumbled numbers on the clock, a chill runs up my back.

(Freaky, right? Well, wait until you hear the third ghost story on Thursday. It is so scary!)
(Oh, and one more thing. Don't be too hard on my mom. She and I were always watching ghost shows and talking about stuff like that together. She didn't really want to freak me out just to make me behave. And I didn't take it that way. We were both just looking for an explanation and she shared with me something she'd read about.)

Ghost Story #1

All Halloween All Week

It wasn't a dark and stormy night. I wasn't all alone. It happened on a night not unlike any other night in my house when I was growing up.

I was about 10 years old. I had begrudgingly gotten ready for bed, brushed my teeth, gotten into my pajamas, and headed back downstairs to say goodnight to my parents one more time. Okay, if I'm being honest, I really went down there to stall. My 16 year old sister, and roommate, didn't have to go to bed until much later and I really pushed it every night trying to get my folks to let me stay up later and later. No such luck this night. They gave me kisses and the standard, "Goodnight. God bless you. I love you."s were exchanged and defeatedly I went upstairs to my bedroom.

I crawled into my twin sized bed and pulled the cream comforter with pink flowers up around me. I turned on the old fashioned clock radio for some sweet, soothing music to help lull me to sleep. I turned the knob on the side of the clock and watched as the needled slid back and forth on the faceplate with the orange backlight glowing. Jackpot! I found one of my favorite songs. I reached for the light on the bedside table and snapped it off, turned over to face the wall, and snuggled down in my bed thinking about my grade school crush as Huey Lewis sang "Happy to be Stuck With You".

Just as my crush was about to ask me to dance the music on the radio got fuzzy. Great! Way to ruin my fantasy! Stupid static! Stupid radio!

I turned back over to face the clock radio hoping to adjust the station a bit, and I froze. From the orangey glow of the clock I saw the needle moving back and forth on the faceplate and the knob on the side was slowly turning. I couldn't move. I couldn't look away. I just watched as the needle went back and forth, back and forth, up and down the faceplate, all the while going in and out of static and music. Finally it came to a stop.

I jumped out of bed and ran down the hallway, flew down the stairs, and jumped onto the couch where my mom and sister were watching TV. They immediately new something was wrong just from the sheer speed at which I burst into the room. Never mind the look on my face.

I whimpered as I retold my story to my mom, dad, and sister. My mom tried to think of things to calm me. Perhaps I had just fallen asleep and dreamt it. Dad thought that maybe my eyes (and ears?) were playing tricks on me. For once my sister backed me up. Maybe it was the look in my eyes, or maybe it was the fact that she knew I hadn't even been in my room long enough to fall asleep when it happened. Either way, they believed me enough to let me stay up later that night. At least until my sister was ready for bed.

When my sister and I finally went to bed later that night we put the clock radio down on the floor so that we couldn't see it, and we didn't listen to music to help us fall asleep. And for the first time in a long time I asked, "Anne? Can I sleep in your bed tonight?"

(On a side note: I had only fuzzy memories of this up until a few years ago. Todd and I were watching some kind of television show about hauntings. On it they had almost the same scenario play out with a clock radio that looked JUST LIKE MINE growing up, but it had a green backlight instead of orange. When I saw the needle moving on that clock radio on the television I immediately teared up. The tears just started rolling down my face. I wasn't sad or even that scared. I almost felt like I was reliving it again. So bizarre!

So anyway. That is Ghost Story Number 1. But trust me. They get scarier. Stay tuned tomorrow for another freaky ghost story!)