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GHOST |
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When I was in my late teens and living on my own. I was always looking for a new thrill, a rush of adrenaline that would make me feel alive and excited, driving my heart to pump blood through my veins at a furious pace, stretching every little capillary to the point of breaking, making me feel alive and vibrant. Maybe there was more to life than living day to day. I was willing to go to great lengths to fill my need for this passion. This story is one of many of my experiences that made life a little extra ordinary.
On the north end of the city near an old meat packing plant just along the railroad tracks, there was a little cottage located on a small tract of land that fit between a narrow alley and a house my sister rented. It was built probably in the 20's or 30's, faded white with a weather worn wire fence surrounding its small yard. A crumbling stone sidewalk lead up to it's old wood screen door. It had a high pitched roof with wooden shingles badly in need of repair and small windows with screens with a slight rusty tint to them. There was something eerie about this old house that made it stand out among the others in the area. Some people said it just had character and others said there was something spooky about it.
A poor elderly man had rented the old cottage for about ten years or so, ever since his wife had passed on. The old fellow, whom sported an old straw hat and clothes of some twenty to thirty years past, never seemed to have many visitors. My sister would see him on some of his daily walks to the market and offer a few words to him, which would lead into some stories of his life. He sometimes talked of his departed wife of forty years whom passed on some years back, growing up in the area and how things had changed over the years. He would tell her about mysterious things that had happened in the area and in his house. The one story that fascinated me was the one he told of a ghost that roamed his house.
As the story went, shortly after moving into the house, one night at about 1 AM he was awakened from shuffling noises he heard coming from the kitchen area. Startled and not knowing what to expect, he grasped in the dark for his glasses he had placed on his nightstand and peered towards the dimly lit kitchen doorway, which he could faintly see from his bed. Then suddenly the shuffling noise stopped and from somewhere in the kitchen the sound of footsteps came, slowly but distinctly, louder and louder, closer and closer. He could hear the footsteps and knew they were getting near but couldn't see anyone, no body and no movement. The warmness of the room evaporated and a cold chill crept around him emanating from the area of the footsteps. The steps stopped at the side of the bed and he could feel some kind of a presence near him. The mattress slowly sunk down as if someone had just sat down on it. Frozen in a state of panic he waited for what he thought seemed like an eternity. Whatever it was that was on his bedside sat silently for a few moments and then stood back up and then slowly walked back to the kitchen and the eerie experience ended. The old guy said he was scared stiff at first but then after a few visits he had learned he could conquer his fears by talking to the thing as if it were a friend. The spirit would never speak, it would just walk in and sit down for a short while and then get up and leave again. The old man felt that it was a lonely spirit that could not find rest. |
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| The old man moved away and my sister told me of the cottage for rent and the old mans ghost stories. I was a young man at the time and always seeking a thrill. I rented the cottage because I wanted to experience something supernatural. I wanted to see a real ghost. I moved in and stayed awake all night the first night to see this apparition. I tried to pick out any odd sounds that night that might be something other than normal, but to no avail, nothing abnormal happened. I had heard once that a spirit couldn't rest if the person died of a violent death and their body was hidden. That might explain an appearance of a ghost. So I decided to check out the house from top to bottom to find any clues of foul play. There was no attic and no hidden rooms. The basement in the house had no windows and only one light with a string switch that turned it on at the bottom of the stairs. I went down there one night to check out the floor and walls to see if there were any loose bricks, concrete, or any evidence of a body buried in the basement. The creaky old stairs were narrow and dark. With only a flashlight in my hand I reached for the light at the bottom of the stairs. No luck, it didn't work. I worked my way around with a flashlight pushing away the cobwebs as I searched. The dark basement was quite empty except for this big dusty old chest abandoned off to one corner and I was a little apprehensive to open it at first. I leaned back took a deep breath and kicked it open with my foot, then jumped back. The trunk lid flew open with a bang, and after the dust had settled, I found the trunk unoccupied except for a few old clothes with a slight odor of mothballs. It was a spooky looking basement, cold and damp but no bones or hidden bodies to be found. |
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| I had almost forgotten about the ghost until a hot summer night in the middle of August. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I was lying on the bed with the lights out listening to the stereo and just nodding off to sleep at about 1AM when I heard this uncanny noise. It sounded as if my stereo was slowly switching from one channel to the next, all by itself. I was instantly wide-awake, a cold chill ran down my spine and I could feel the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Here it was, the ghost was real, and I was actually experiencing a real supernatural phenomenon, the ghost was here. Oh what a rush of adrenaline. I flipped on the light and the stereo noise of switching channels slowly blended into the start of a song. I would like to lie and tell you about how it was a real ghost and how it haunted me and sat on my bed and all kinds of scary stuff, but that was as close as I had come to seeing a ghost in that house. The mysterious channel-changing incident was just the introductory part of a newly released song. |
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| The hunt for the ghost was almost as good as being in the presence of one. I don't know if there really are ghosts and I guess that I will never really believe in them until I see or hear one with my own eyes and ears. |
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