I've never really been
one who believed ghosts to be real. in fact, I use to laugh at my wife, Kathie, when she
would tell me about her ghostly experiences. I just chalked them up to her imagination and
forgot about them. Well, that's what I USE to do. Now that I've experienced things first
hand I can honestly say ghosts DO exist and they are all around us. Back in 1998, before
my wife and I were married, I would go down and stay the weekends with her at her mother's
house in Vandercook Lake. Being a small house, Kathie stayed in a makeshift room in the
basement and her son stayed upstairs in the bedroom next to his Grandmother. As evening
fell one day in August of 1998, my wife's mother said goodbye and left for work. She
worked as a home health aid and often spent the night at patients homes to help care for
them. Kathie and I were looking forward to spending the evening alone. Her sons Father had
come to pick him up for the weekend just an hour before, so we were going to have the
house to ourselves. Around midnight, we locked the doors and windows, and went downstairs
to go to bed. It had been a long day and we were both very tired. Somewhere around 3am
Kathie woke me up and said, "Did you hear that?". My half-awake response was,
"Hear what?". "That" she responded. I listened carefully for several
minutes before finally hearing what she was hearing.
Footsteps...clearly....concisely....without a doubt, FOOTSTEPS! Knowing that her mother
and son were both gone for the evening, I immediately thought that someone had broken into
the house. Kathie told me that this had been going on for about a week now and every time
she went to check, no one was there. As usual, she got out of bed and went upstairs;
nervously I followed. We checked everywhere, and I do mean EVERYWHERE,...twice. No one was
in the house and there were no signs of entry, either forced or otherwise. Shaken, we
returned to bed.
Approximately an hour passed before the footsteps started up again. They paced from one
end of the house to the other. Never stopping in between and never varying from their
path. Now, I'm not a burglar, but it seems to me that no burglar would break into a house
and just paces the floor. And he definitely wouldn't pace the floor, hide while we looked
for him, and then start pacing again after we went back to bed. Stunned, we just sat there
listening. After 10 or 15 minutes of the pacing, we heard the back door open. Okay, we
thought, something is not right about this. We headed back upstairs only to find the back
door wide open. We shut, relocked the door, and went back to bed. Because this had been
ongoing for her, Kathie had no trouble falling back to sleep. I, on the other hand, was
still trying to rationalize the night's events in my mind. As I lie there thinking, this
overwhelming feeling of fear engulfed me. I couldn't see anything, but I had this strong
sense that someone was standing next to me. As I turn to look, I became immobile. Nothing
would move, not my head, arms, legs, nothing. It felt like someone was sitting on my chest
pinning all of my extremities firmly to the bed. I remember yelling for Kathie to help me,
but no words were coming out of my mouth. It was like I was somehow trapped in my own
body. After what seemed like hours, the feeling finally left me. It had only been 5
minutes. In the morning I told Kathie that if she wanted to see me she would have to come
up to St. Johns and stay at my place. I wasn't going to spend one more night in that
house.
One week later Kathie was visiting my Chiropractor to have her back aligned. She told him
the story about the previous weekend, and he gave her the phone number of a Indian woman
who could help rid her house of the spirit. The Indian woman was a patient of his and had
rid his new office of a shadow that seemed to roam about. Kathie took the number and spoke
with the women later that evening. The Indian woman asked her no questions, but
immediately seemed to know what was going on. She told Kathie "This is someone that
was
close to you who died recently".... "He was paralyzed".... "He just
wants you to know he's okay and that he can walk again". Kathie was shocked. She had
only spoke with her for 10 minutes, but she already knew all these things. The woman had
just described her friend Steven would died recently from complications associated with
his paralysis. I was taking a film class around that time and we used his cemetery plot as
a scene for one of my short films. Apparently he had followed us back from the cemetery.
At least that's what we think. The Indian woman told Kathie to light a white candle the
next time she hears the footsteps and just talk to Steven. Tell him she's happy he can
walk but he needs to leave because he's scaring us. Also, tell him that David is part of
her life now and it's unacceptable for him to be holding David down just to scare him.
Kathie followed her instructions and the footsteps stopped.
When my wife became pregnant we moved up to St. Johns to be closer to my parents. My
Mother had said she would watch our kids, Jake (9) and Maddie (2), during the day so we
both could work. After a little looking we found a house that was older but well within
our price range. We have been living here for just over a year now and for the most part
things have been pretty quiet. The only exceptions are a few incidents that have happened
recently.
Before I go on, I'd just like to say that whenever my wife wakes me in the middle of the
night now, I know I'm not going to like what she has to say. With that said, it was
mid-May and roughly 3am on a Friday morning. My wife shakes me awake and says; "Did
you hear that"? "Hear what?" I grumbled. "Maddies train", she
whimpered. I sat there quietly listening. Yep, sure enough, her toy ride on train, with
the annoying choochoo whistle, was
downstairs blaring away all by itself. My heart raced as I climbed out of bed to go
investigate. As I approached the bottom of the stair and turned the corner, there sat the
train in the middle of the living room floor all by itself, whistle blaring as if Maddie
herself were playing with it. The whistle is a long drawn out sound that starts out much
like an actual
train whistle (whoo whoo). It then goes on to emulate the sound of the two steam engines
that power the wheels (chug chug). It takes approximately one minute to complete this
entire cycle. If Maddie pushes the button anywhere in between, the whole process starts
over from the beginning. Well, Kathie and I both noted that as the whistle was blowing it
would sometimes go through the entire cycle while other times it would go part way and
then start over. Much like it would if someone pushed the button. On top of that, it would
sometimes pause for several minutes before starting up, while other times it would start
again immediately after finishing. It is hard to imagine, but it sounded as if someone, or
something was "playing" with the train. I picked up the train and flipped it
over to remove its batteries. As soon as I picked it up, the whistle stopped and never
started again. I quickly removed the batteries, put them in a drawer, and went back to
bed. In the morning I checked the batteries to see if they were weak, thinking that maybe
if they were, it was causing the train to malfunction. No such luck, the batteries were
almost brand new. Needless to say, the batteries stayed in the drawer.
A few weeks after that incident, another toy of Maddie's began "playing" by
itself. Not at night this time, but during the day. My wife was doing chores around the
house and a toy snail that plays music when you press the button on the bottom just
started playing all by itself. When she went to check on it, it was on its side. It scared
her a little since she knew the snail would only play music if it was sitting on the
button or if someone pushed it. Maddie and Jake were with their grandmother that day so it
was obvious that neither of them had done it. Again the batteries were checked, and again
the batteries were like brand new.
Probably the creepiest thing of all happened when a friend of my wife's had stopped over
to visit. Anna and her daughter, Aliana, were on there way home one afternoon and decided
to stop and see Kathie. Aliana is about three years old and she likes to play with Maddie
and Jake. The three kids were upstairs playing in Jake's room while Kathie and Anna
gossiped about work and other things downstairs. After an hour or so, Anna told Kathie she
needed to get home and start dinner. She called up the stairs to Aliana telling her to
come down and get her coat on. Anna heard Aliana say "Come downstairs with me."
Assuming she meant Jake or Maddie. Anna thought nothing of it and again told her to come
downstairs. Aliana trotted down the stairs where her mother was waiting with her coat. As
she was sliding her arms in her coat, Alaina asked, "Can Stevie come with us"?
Kathie, who heard her say
this, responded with "You mean Jake"? "No" Aliana replied, "I
mean Stevie". My wife stood there dumbfounded. She began probing Aliana with
questions. "What does Stevie look like? Is he tall or short?" "Tall"
Aliana said. "Does he have black hair or blonde hair?" Kathie asked.
"Black" Alaina responded. Finally, with some apprehension, Kathie asked,
"Where is Stevie now?" "He's standing at the top of the stairs, I asked him
to come down with me but he wouldn't" Aliana casually replied. "And where was he
before?" Kathie asked with a slight quiver in her voice. "He was upstairs in
Maddies room just looking out the window". With that, Kathie quit asking questions
and said goodbye to both Anna and Aliana. Later that evening, Kathie called Anna to
explain why she was asking Aliana so many questions. Aliana had described exactly what
Steven had looked like, without ever having seen him. Anna didn't act the least bit
surprised. Apparently the year before Aliana had this imaginary friend that she would talk
to and play with, a little boy with brown hair. She would go as far as to ask for extra
food at dinnertime so her friend could have some too. Anna thought this was a little odd
but didn't worry much about it. One day, Anna was down in the office of her apartment
complex paying the rent, when the subject of kids happened to come up. Anna told the
manager all about Aliana's imaginary friend and how she would always play with him,
especially in the bathroom. The manager's expression went from a friendly smile to one of
shock. He explained to Anna that several years before she moved in, a small boy and his
mother lived in that same apartment. The boy was taking a bath one evening while his
mother was on the phone. For reasons unknown, the boy was found drowned in his bath water.
Aliana could see and play with the little boy and it was the same with Steven. He was at
our house and Aliana was talking and playing with him. Kathie was stunned, but still happy
to know that it was Steven who was haunting our house and not an unknown ghost. Me, I'm
still not very comfortable with it. I didn't know Steven before he died and I can
"feel" him around the house. Even before I found out it was him, I could sense
being watched, especially in Maddies room. The bathroom is another place that kind of
gives me the creeps. When I'm in the shower, I notice that once in awhile the room will
get darker, like someone walked in front of the light. And when I'm in front of the mirror
I have this strong sense that I'm being watched. This stuff doesn't happen everyday, just
once in awhile. Kathie seems fairly unaffected by anything out of the ordinary. I, on the
other hand, have trouble sleeping at night knowing that at any second a board could creak,
footsteps could be heard, or toys could start going off by themselves. Our son Jake has
even heard what he thought was one of us walking around in the upstairs hallway at night.
Last Thursday, I came downstairs to get ready for work and I noticed that the air
conditioner was on. Thinking that Kathie left it on when she went to bed the previous
evening, I turned it off and told myself I'd mention it to her when I got home. Later that
evening when I arrived home, Kathie asked me why I turned the AC on that morning. I told
her I turned it OFF before I left for work thinking she forgot to turn it off the night
before. She responded by saying that it was ON when she got out of bed just one hour after
I turned it off. We knew it was not a malfunction because the unit is only a couple years
old and the switch had physically been turned. We also knew that Maddie and Jake had not
been down there anytime between their bedtime and when they had woken up the next morning.
Our upstairs hallway light seems to have a mind of its own. Sometimes, for no apparent
reason, the switch simply will not work. The wiring checks out okay and the bulb is never
burnt out, it just won't come on. After a couple days, it will just start working again.
Lastly, this past Sunday, I was upstairs getting my shoes to go outside and I noticed Jake
had left the TV and VCR on in our bedroom. I turned off the TV and VCR then went around
the bed to pick up my shoes. As I bent down and grabbed my shoes, the TV and VCR both
turned themselves back on. I looked around to see if anyone had come upstairs and turned
then on behind me, but no one was there. I quickly grabbed my shoes, turned the VCR and TV
off again, and ran downstairs. That was the most current event.
Not to drag this letter out any further, but I thought it might be of interest to note
that Kathie is quite sensitive, or should I say susceptible, to these sort of things. I
had never experienced any ghostly phenomenon before I met her, now it seems to happen a
lot. Ever since she was a kid ghosts have made themselves known to her. At the age of
eight, in Ypsilanti, she used to see a little girl in a white dress running from the
neighbor's yard to her back yard. She was opaque and kind of glowing, Kathie just knew she
was a ghost. Come to find out, a fellow who murdered his entire family owned the
neighbor's house. The girl had gotten away and was running to the neighbor's house (what
was now her house) for help. Her father caught her in-between the properties and murdered
her there in the yard.
In a different house, she use to complain that an old man would sit in a chair on the
porch roof outside her window just staring in at her. He too was semi-transparent and kind
of glowing. She'd always try to sleep facing away from the window, but sometimes she'd
wake up in the middle of the night facing the window and there he'd be. Her parents
disregarded her screams and crying over the old man as just a nightmare. Until one day her
Dad was out
doing some yard work and he happened along the side of the house where the porch roof and
her window were. Up on the roof, sitting next to the window, was one of the chairs from
their patio set. I asked her Dad about the incident and he has no explanation for how the
chair ended up on the roof.
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