Wyso And The Other Creepy Kids on Gerard Street
Man's Best
Sparkers
Better Dig 2
Haunted house art by currens on Pixabay.
Fast forward to the second and third haunted houses I’ve lived in. The two haunted houses are connected in space and energy and throughout time.
We moved from Hellhound House to The Old House, and I sighed with relief. But the first night in our new home, I heard chains and footsteps in the attic.
Chains. I know, so cliché for a ghost. And then something brushed against me and moaned. It was the moaning that got to me.
Image by Mystic Art Design from Pixabay
Re-Possessed
Black Angus cattle image by Unsplash on Pixabay
Sure, I was living on a registered Angus ranch with lots of cows bellowing. And so you might ask: “Could it have been cows?”
Yes, it could have been.
But it wasn’t.
Mom retrieved Dad’s old army cot from storage for scaredy-cat Clara to sleep on. This time, however, my parents put the cot in their room instead of my brothers’ — my brothers’ room was too small.
There I slept until high school. And even while in high school on nights when the moaning was deafening and the touch of something cold against my warm flesh ousted me straight out of bed — on those nights — I sought safety on the old cot in my parent’s room.
While in college, I had none of those ghostly encounters. Well, some, but not until I moved out of the new dorm to an ancient dorm. More about that ghost later.
Left for dead. Image by Sabrina Eickhoff from Pixabay
It was only when I returned home for a visit that the hauntings began again in The Old House. The hauntings fostered my night terrors. On many nights during the summer, I woke my parents screaming.
The Old House was over a hundred years old. My parents did much to restore the home and clean-up the property. But the pastures housed old covered wagons remains, not for decoration but left for dead. And there were bones. Some human. Some animal. I buried the ones I thought were human, hoping to put my ghost to rest.
A New Start? Or Not.
After my freshman year in college, my parents built a new house in front of the old house with the goal to have the old house removed once the new one was completed.
On the very night we moved in — it was summer and I was home from college — the very night the young couple who had bought The Old House moved it to their property, I woke to the sound of the new cabinets opening and then slamming shut.
I looked at my clock. It was three.
Something pulled the covers from me, and a chilly breeze wrapped me in its icy grip. I followed the breeze to a door in the utility room. The door stood wide open, though it had been dead-bolted and untouched for days. I shut and locked the door and returned to my bed. As I nestled back into the sheets, the smell of lemons permeated my room, and I wished more than anything that old army cot still remained in my parent’s room.
But hey, I’d just finished my sophomore year in college and was to be married that same summer. Too old for such silliness. I put the light on in my closet and stayed awake the rest of the night.
Three Hours Later
The phone rang early the next morning. I answered it, since I was awake.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hi,” she replied. “We’re the people who bought your old house. I just wanted you to know it burned to the ground last night. Nothing left.”
I heard her crying. “Sorry,” I said. “How?”
“No one is sure yet,” she said.
“What time did it happen?” I asked.
“Around three this morning,” she managed to say before hanging up.
ProbeFiling
My ghost wanted me to know that he’d moved into the new house. And there he remains.
Whenever I returned home, there were always the mysterious sounds and the unexplainable. The night terrors were always a factor. Sometimes he’d call my name or touch me, usually at three in the morning.
After my parents passed, I inherited the ranch and sold the home plus twenty acres. But the home sat on the market for over two years before anyone made an offer.
Whenever a real estate agent brought someone to look at the home, something like snakes in the bathtubs, or stuff oozing from the ceiling, would discourage potential buyers. It was always something explained away by the realtor. The snakes slithered in through the septic. The ooze was a leak in the roof. It’d be fixed.
But I knew it was my ghost.
Should Have. Wished I Would Have.
Any time I was in the house, lights flickered. Light bulbs popped, burst, and spewed chards. Before moving from Texas, I should have investigated the history of property to see if I could figure out who the ghost was.
I’ve never contacted the new owners to ask if they’ve experienced anything unusual. Poor newly-wed couple who bought the house and acreage divorced a short time after moving in. I wonder if my ghost had anything to do with it. The couple seemed happy.
As my courage grows, and as I disclose more of the information that has mystified me since my childhood, perhaps I will contact them.
A Pause
After my husband and I moved to Burnet, Texas; ghostly encounters discontinued until we moved to South Fork, Colorado — The Ranch House and a new ghost made her presence known to all who entered.
Friends and relatives who visited us reported some eerie occurrence they’d experienced and couldn’t explain. An occurrence that made the hair on the back of their neck stand at attention.
The Ranch House story will be Part 5 of our Ghost Hunt.
Tell Me
I’d love to hear your ghost stories. Or knowing what is your favorite ghost movie? I watched Sinister over the weekend. It stars Ethan Hawke and has definite creepiness. I recommend a watch for any ghost hunter enthusiast.
Sinister 2 doesn’t have Ethan Hawke, and the reviews are not compelling. But hey, generally what the critics hate I love, so I will give it a watch someday. I mean, there’s just not that many great ghost movies out there.
Ghostly Photo of the Week
Photographer Neil Sandbach, while on assignment, captured the above image in 2008 when he was photographing some landscapes at a farm in Hertfordshire, England for wedding stationary. A couple planned on having their ceremony there. When Sandbach examined the digital copy of the photo on his computer, he discovered the image of what appears to be a ghost child.
Sandbach said he was sure no one else was there when he was photographing. Before the wedding, the couple asked the staff if they’d encountered anything unusual. The couple didn’t mention Sandbach’s photograph. The staff collaborated the story admitting they’d seen a young boy dressed in white on several occasions.
The Probe’s Mission Statement
The Probe is devoted to:
- the exploration of the unexplainable,
- finding the truth in occurrences that resemble science fiction,
- researching and reporting on topics that could be flung upon the wall of weird.
- Ghost Hunt — Part 3: Repo House - April 8, 2021
- Ghost Hunt — Part 2: Elementals and Ghosts, Is There a Difference? - April 1, 2021
- Ghost Hunt — Part 1: Carl Sagan’s Flatland - March 18, 2021
This is really interesting. I’ve had a lot of ghostly experiences in my life, but it’s been so long since anything has happened that it’s easy for me to pass it off as childhood whimsy. However, I sometimes feel that it’s not houses that are haunted, but people. It seems there are some people where the haunts follow them, like you 🙂
Come on Travis, you gotta tell us about some of your ghostly experiences. I bet what you are calling childhood whimsies are still all around you, but as we grow older we push them away and refuse to see, or hear, or allow those unexplainable encounters to touch us. The older we get the stronger force field we put up around ourselves.
I used to think the ghost had followed me from one house to another, but each time it’s a different energy. Hellhound House ghost was evil. The Old House and The Repo House is the same ghost—a young male. (Please don’t ask how I know. It’d be embarrassing to explain.) But the ghost that haunts the house we live in now is a little girl. So though I think that your theory is partially true, I’m not sure it applies in all encounters. Thank you for commenting. I love hearing from you.