READERS TALES
A Strange Old
House
My story occurred during the summer of 1990, in a small
community of West Tennessee called Lavinia.
Lavinia is a very old community,
which has a history of families and houses being built during the Civil War
era. My Nanny (which is what I called my grandmother on my mother's side) lived
in one of those old houses that had been built during that era. The house had
been taken care of, but it was a small house like much of the houses built to
common families in that time. I was 7 at the time, and my aunt, my cousin
and second cousin came up from Texas to visit my Nanny. We all went over one
day including my mother, and visited. Since my Nanny lived by herself, we visited
as often as possible to check on her.
Once we arrived, me and my second cousin,
who is just a little younger than me, started playing in a spare bedroom that
connected the living room and the bathroom. It was just us two in there and
everyone else was chatting in the kitchen. All of a sudden I felt a strange
urge to get out of that room, so I told my cousin to come in to the living room
with me, so she followed. As soon as i got in the doorway into the living room,
I turned around to look back in the room and that is when I saw what appeared to
be a man, floating about a foot off the floor. He had sunken holes where his
eyes should have been and his arms looked like they had been amputated, and to
his left, there was a small dog, just sitting there, both staring at me. I
reached out and jerked my cousin in to the doorway so she could see, and to my
surprise, she was seeing it too.
At that time I knew my imagination wasn't in
control, so we both ran into the kitchen and told everyone what just happened,
and they just laughed it off, except for my Nanny, who also believed that
something was in that house that seemed to taunt her as well.
A couple of days
later, we returned, but I wouldn't go near that room, if I had to go to the
bathroom, I would have my mother hold my hand and escort me, at that time she
knew something had really scared me in that room. During that visit, it was
raining outside, and laundry needed to be done, but my Nanny didn't have a dryer
at the time, and she would hang her clothes up in that spare room.
My aunt took
the responsibility of doing the laundry and when it came time for her to hang up
the clothes, she went into that room, and just as she put a clothes pin on a
hanger just as I walked into the doorway to be nosey and see what she was doing,
the clothes pin flew off the clothes hanger and hit the wall. It stayed
stationary for a couple of seconds, at this time I was frozen and could move,
the only thing I could do was watch, and then the clothes pin started to move
slowly down the wall, as if someone was scooting it down, until it almost
reached the floor and then fell. My aunt couldn't believe her eyes, and neither
could I. She was a very religious woman so afterward she prayed in that room,
while I ran away from that room to get away.
After my relatives went back home,
my mother received a call early in the morning, it was
my Nanny saying that she had fallen down and couldn't get up (no pun intended),
she was in her 80's and very frail. After my parents rushed over there and
got her and took her to the emergency room, they found that she had a broken
leg, but other than a bruise or two, she seemed fine, until my parents brought
her back to my house where I heard her story on how she had fallen.
This part isn't a first hand
account, but involves whatever was in that house. My Nanny said that she
woke up and had to go to the bathroom, She walked with
a walker to help her get around. She made it to the bathroom, which was
through that room, but on the way back she said that she saw what looked like a
power cord from a portable heater move into her path just as she was about to
pick up her foot to step, and at the same time she noticed a heavy weight
pressing her, which made her fall. I knew definitely for sure that what I
saw was a spirit of some sort, and that this had proved it. After that my
Nanny wanted out of that house because she didn't feel safe in it, and after my
incident I never really felt safe, especially in that one room! I am 18
now, and I still remember it vividly, and I think it sparked my interest for the
unknown and paranormal activities. That house made a believer out of me,
at an early age!
-Matthew.