(NOTE:
The following tale occurred between 1988-1991, in Reedley, California. The author
had just graduated High School, and had chipped in with two friends to rent a house
together. The author states that he had thought of ghost stories as something to be
told around campfires, until the following experience made him open his eyes to the
possibility of the paranormal and an afterlife...)
Although
the house was 50 years old and outdated, it became home for us. We all felt at times
that we were being watched, and as though we were intruding into someone else's space, but
those feelings faded away after awhile. About 8 months after we had moved in, things
started happening. Keys, money, etc., would turn up missing, and then would be
found right out in the open after we tore the house apart looking for it. I would think I
heard someone call out my name, but no one had. This happened to all three of us at
different times of the day and night.
My
girlfriend at the time came over to spend the night. We were in my room, when she
suddenly froze like a deer in headlights. I asked her what was wrong, and she told
me, "Did you know your house is haunted?" I asked her, "What are you
talking about?" (At this time none of us thought that the house was haunted.)
She told me that she had just seen a woman walk through the door of my bedroom and give
her a very mean look, then she had walked back through the door and disappeared.
Although I thought the whole thing was crazy, I ended up taking my girlfriend home because
was no way she was going to stay at my house.
My
neighbors asked me who the man and woman were who were always staring out of the window of
our house, never waving or moving. It gave my neighbors the creeps. I thought
at the time that the neighbors were mistaken, seeing something from their point of view
that looked like a pair of people, and didn't give it a second thought. We began to
hear things like dishes and other things being moved around, and in general something just
being noisy. We thought it was each other, but then would find out none of us were
making the noise. The TV and lights then began turning on and off by themselves.
My
roommates' girlfriend was there one night, and she went into the bathroom and began
screaming like she was being murdered. My roommate kicked in the door, and she said
that when she was going into the bathroom, a man appeared in front of her and slapped her
hard across the face. (She had a mark on her face for some time
afterwards.) There was no way a man could have gotten out without any of us seeing
him, and we didn't know what to say about what she had seen. She left, and my room-
mates and I began talking about what was happening. I told them what the neighbors
had said about seeing the man and the woman in the window. We didn't know what to
say or do.
Nothing
happened for awhile, and we thought that maybe whatever it was had left, but we were
WRONG. One of my roommates moved out because he said that something had tried to
choke him in the middle of the night. He had tried to call out to us, but neither
one of us heard him. Within a few hours, he had all his things. He told us he
would pay his share of the next months' rent, but he wasn't coming back.
A
few weeks went by with nothing happening, until I was home alone and outside talking with
my neighbor. She suddenly said, "There, look behind you--there's the woman
that's always staring out of the window." I turned around, and sure
enough I saw her, clear as day. My first thought was that someone had broken
in. I said, "I'll put an end to this right now." I ran into
my house and bolted the front door, and said very loudly, "There's only two ways out
of here, and the back door is your best bet." I went into my room and grabbed
my baseball bat, ready to roll some heads. I checked the back door first, and the
chain was still attached to the door. I checked every room and closet, and anywhere
else someone could hide, and found no one. My neighbor was out in the front yard
when I came back out, and asked me if anyone was there, and did I check everywhere?
We talked about all the times she had seen the man and woman. I thought it was
totally weird, because that was the first time I had ever seen something like that.
It wasn't like in the movies, where you could see right through them; the woman looked so
real it wasn't funny.
After
that incident, I talked to my roommate, and we both agreed that it was time to find
another house to live in, even if it meant moving back home with our parents. About
three days later, I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone (the same girlfriend who had
seen the woman in my bedroom) to let her know I had gotten home okay from our going out
earlier that night. I went to sleep at about 1:00 AM, and was awakened around 3:30
AM by someone touching me. My first thought was, wow, my girlfriend is here. I
said, "Hey, Babe, you finally came over. Thanks." I could feel
someone lying next to me, and naturally thought it was my girlfriend. I was pretty
much awake by this time, and I asked, "What are you doing here?" A female
voice said, "I'm always here." That woke me up completely, because I
didn't recognize the voice. I looked behind me and nothing was there, and the
feeling of a body next to me was gone, so I put the incident off as a strange type of
waking dream. About fifteen minutes later, I was almost asleep when I felt someone
next to me in bed again. This time it scared me. I was frozen with fear as I
felt someone touching me and rubbing my back the way a lover would. I didn't know
what to do. I could hear a woman whispering, but couldn't make out the words.
That was more than enough to make me finally break out of the frozen like trance. I
jumped up out of bed and turned on the light, but no one was there.
I
went out and stayed on the porch until sunrise. I then packed up my remaining
things, and told my roommate what had happened to me. His eyes were wide! He
said, "Well, forget this. I'm not staying here alone." And he
started packing also. We only came back during the daytime to clean the place up and
remove the furniture. Neither one of us ever stayed the night there again.
After
those three years of living there, I became more open to ghosts. I guess after you
admit to yourself that ghosts are real, you become more sensitive to them. I've had
other experiences since then, but they were not as intense. Believe me or not, but
that's my story.
-Unsigned-
