Hell Away From Home
A Ghost Warming Present
I've moved a few times in the last ten years. First to Cumberland, where the house was old, but clear of anything remotely creepy. It was a huge relief, honestly, just getting to go to bed at night and not being scared to go up the stairs and into a dark room. There were no voices, nothing moved on its own, no areas that radiated the feeling of "get out", and everything was very comfortable and calm.
That lasted only a couple of months. Eventually we had to move over across the tracks. We'd moved in with a couple we worked with, since they were moving out. We could already hear someone running up and down the stairs as well as knocking on the walls. I could feel something awful on the first landing that reminded me a lot of the feeling my friend's house had. Sam had to hold my hand to and from the bathroom each night, because this time we had to pass over the landing to get to the bathroom.
The hallway by the kitchen that led to the stairs that went down into the basement felt awful at all times of the day, and the closer to the basement you got, the worse it felt. It felt as if several people were in the basement, next to the unused fireplace, and the whole room next to the laundry room just felt like you should get out immediately. Every time I washed my clothes, I'd have to loudly explain what I was doing, and that I wasn't going to disturb them or go near the room or the hearth. Honestly, it didn't make it feel any better.
And somehow... it still got worse.
Sam and I had separate bedrooms, but I had slept in his room in the previous house, just because I could. Unfortunately, I only got to do this once in the new rowhouse. During my daytime nap I couldn't fall asleep. Something or someone was in the corner of the room watching me, and it wanted me out. The feeling was strong enough that I did just that. I got out and went to my own room. Sam always kept his bedroom door closed to keep the cats out, yet every time he came home, things in his room were moved, and some were broken. He had a decorative pirate ship and without the base ever having moved, the sails slowly, one by one, were broken off, as if someone snapped them off and dropped them on the floor.
He then started waking around 2am with the feeling of someone slowly pulling the sheets off of him from the foot of the bed. Gradually the sheets would be pulled, inch by inch, down to the floor at the foot of the bed. And then something would crawl up over him. He wasn't able to move, but he could feel whatever it was as its weight crawled up the bed, and he could feel breathing on his face. Once Sam could finally whisper asking them what they wanted or asking them to stop, they'd go away and he could move and speak again. This happened several different nights. Some days he'd wake up with bruises. Eventually he moved into my room with me, and something from the hallway that was a little less sinister would walk into the room, just to look around. Things moved in my room, and pencil sharpener blades were snapped (they weren't even bent, just found in half) and left on the floor.
And then a classmate from college decided to move in with us, into Sam's room. Her things began to move around, but she also started having horrific nightmares that caused her to pee the bed. Or at least we think they were just nightmares. When we finally moved out, we'd made one trip and had come back to gather the rest of our things. The basement windows were open, though we don't know why, and in the basement was a dead magpie, surrounded perfectly by a circle of dead flies.
Our next home was just with my mom. Aside from something watching us in the basement from behind a broken wall, everything seemed okay. But then we moved out into an apartment in Chalfant. Another bad apartment. Probably the worst, really.
It seemed innocuous enough. Four apartments in the building, mostly just a converted duplex. We had top floor and it was two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen. It was pretty small, but we were okay with it. Not for long, though, beside the landlord being a dick.
Shortly after we moved in, we decided we'd sleep in the same room. The room that Sam had chosen for himself turned out to be... unpleasant. He'd be in the room, any time of the day, and slip into sleep. He'd have nothing but nightmares and keep trying to wake from them, but only wake into another nightmare, more realistic. He'd try to stay awake and couldn't, and then the growling started.
Something in the room *growled*. We put a lock on the folding door and simply never went into the room and neither did the cats. One night, a large clattering came from that room while we were in the other room. The cats were all terrified, and staring at one spot on our wall. All of them fluffed up and arched and hissed and a few of them hid. They were terrified and we had no idea why. We also had no idea what that noise was.
On several different occasions we could hear loud crashing from that room, even though we had only a couch in that room and nothing else, and usually the sounds were accompanied by inhuman growling and snarling. A couple of times we found the door lock slid off of the top, even though we twisted the lock into place. The cats were terrified of that room and none of them would go in. Soon, the closet door in our room was opening itself. At first I blamed Sam and assumed he was just being careless, but I'd close the door at night, and then I'd get up early around 3am to get ready for work, and the closet door would be open again. And then it began that as soon as the door closed behind me, the closet door would open more and suddenly Sam couldn't move or scream and he'd have nightmares if he was still asleep. Whatever was in the closet was coming out as soon as I left, no matter what time I left, just to attack Sam. Bruises and scratches soon followed.
We also had Sam's ex and her kid move in with us into the horrible room next to us. We didn't tell them about anything that happened, but things started disappearing and reappearing. They moved out. We moved out. I assumed they stole a pair of our scissors. I couldn't find them anywhere and was a little mad. She said she hadn't taken them, but who knew? Whatever. We packed everything up and moved back to the apartment building my mom was in. Top floor. As soon as I started unpacking, right on top of the utensils, I found the scissors. I'd done all the packing, I hadn't seen the scissors and I'd been looking for them, and there they were, right on top.
After hearing someone in the room that was supposed to be my room (a young girls voice), and someone push my things over, we decided to smudge the whole apartment. The activity stopped there. The apartment was fine. Only the basement felt weird. Apparently the complex was once a very old school and the apartments were actually classrooms. The girl that was in my room could've possibly been one of the previous students that may've come to an early end. No idea what it was about the thing in the basement.
And of course, we moved from there to Missouri, onto a farm that our (who we thought was our friend) host inherited. It had been in the family for generations, acres of farm land, and he was selling parcels of it off left and right. But there was the original house, and I got to see black and white pictures of the house, and how old it was. And while I was sitting at the kitchen table I saw someone walk past the sliding glass doors, out in the yard. I assumed it was his wife, but she came up past me from another room. It had looked like a man wearing a flannel jacket, but they walked by quickly out of my periphery and I had no explanation except that I had seen her wrong, but it wasn't her. It wasn't anyone living there, so I ran over to the doors and went out onto the porch. No one. Even though the house was surrounded on that side by a fence, no one was anywhere to be seen.
I was accused of being crazy or of making it up, but I never saw anyone walk by again. But when I walked outside at night, to walk past the barn, something kept telling me to leave. Not just the yard, but the property. And I'd get in the truck, late at night, to drive miles down the road to the only pokestop near us, and try to hit the stop each night and catch whatever I could find. The problem being that a couple of nights, I didn't get into the truck alone.
Mind you, the truck was mine now, but it used to be our host's truck. But someone was now sitting in my back seat and wanted me to leave, wanted me to get out of the truck, too. Wanted me out. But I can't just pull over on the side of a country road and start walking. There were no lights, no people for miles, just farm land, and wild animals. (Including, but not limited to, bob cats. I had the pleasure of seeing bobcat cubs in my time there, along that same road.)
And what would I just do? Walk for miles and miles, not go back to the farm? Call someone with the next to zero reception I got out there? Over what? A ghost in my backseat? All I could do was talk aloud to them and do my best not to scream. And I made a couple of trips like that, but asked Sam to start coming with me. He hated it because it was so late at night, but I felt better knowing he'd have to suffer with me. I also didn't like wandering the farm alone for that same reason.
And one day we awoke to our host laughing and saying, "You guys almost got us good." "What are you talking about?" "That whole ghost thing! That was you guys last night, right?" "Us what? We were asleep til a little while ago. What are you talking about?" "You guys put on a mask and stared at us through our bedroom window! Quit playing around, we know it was you." "Dude, that wasn't us. We were sleeping." "Sure, sure! I bet you guys were!" And we were.
Nothing but bad things seemed to happen, there, and after the final break, I was kinda glad to leave. And that's when we came to where we live, now. No ghosts. Not anywhere that we've seen. Just coyotes and tree frogs. And that's fine. We're used to coyotes from Missouri, by now.
It's nice to have a break from all of the undead. After all, even my vacations weren't ghost free. My dad had this unfortunate habit of making our summer vacation plans a trip to Gettysburg, every. Damned. Year.
I've moved a few times in the last ten years. First to Cumberland, where the house was old, but clear of anything remotely creepy. It was a huge relief, honestly, just getting to go to bed at night and not being scared to go up the stairs and into a dark room. There were no voices, nothing moved on its own, no areas that radiated the feeling of "get out", and everything was very comfortable and calm.
That lasted only a couple of months. Eventually we had to move over across the tracks. We'd moved in with a couple we worked with, since they were moving out. We could already hear someone running up and down the stairs as well as knocking on the walls. I could feel something awful on the first landing that reminded me a lot of the feeling my friend's house had. Sam had to hold my hand to and from the bathroom each night, because this time we had to pass over the landing to get to the bathroom.
The hallway by the kitchen that led to the stairs that went down into the basement felt awful at all times of the day, and the closer to the basement you got, the worse it felt. It felt as if several people were in the basement, next to the unused fireplace, and the whole room next to the laundry room just felt like you should get out immediately. Every time I washed my clothes, I'd have to loudly explain what I was doing, and that I wasn't going to disturb them or go near the room or the hearth. Honestly, it didn't make it feel any better.
And somehow... it still got worse.
Sam and I had separate bedrooms, but I had slept in his room in the previous house, just because I could. Unfortunately, I only got to do this once in the new rowhouse. During my daytime nap I couldn't fall asleep. Something or someone was in the corner of the room watching me, and it wanted me out. The feeling was strong enough that I did just that. I got out and went to my own room. Sam always kept his bedroom door closed to keep the cats out, yet every time he came home, things in his room were moved, and some were broken. He had a decorative pirate ship and without the base ever having moved, the sails slowly, one by one, were broken off, as if someone snapped them off and dropped them on the floor.
He then started waking around 2am with the feeling of someone slowly pulling the sheets off of him from the foot of the bed. Gradually the sheets would be pulled, inch by inch, down to the floor at the foot of the bed. And then something would crawl up over him. He wasn't able to move, but he could feel whatever it was as its weight crawled up the bed, and he could feel breathing on his face. Once Sam could finally whisper asking them what they wanted or asking them to stop, they'd go away and he could move and speak again. This happened several different nights. Some days he'd wake up with bruises. Eventually he moved into my room with me, and something from the hallway that was a little less sinister would walk into the room, just to look around. Things moved in my room, and pencil sharpener blades were snapped (they weren't even bent, just found in half) and left on the floor.
And then a classmate from college decided to move in with us, into Sam's room. Her things began to move around, but she also started having horrific nightmares that caused her to pee the bed. Or at least we think they were just nightmares. When we finally moved out, we'd made one trip and had come back to gather the rest of our things. The basement windows were open, though we don't know why, and in the basement was a dead magpie, surrounded perfectly by a circle of dead flies.
Our next home was just with my mom. Aside from something watching us in the basement from behind a broken wall, everything seemed okay. But then we moved out into an apartment in Chalfant. Another bad apartment. Probably the worst, really.
It seemed innocuous enough. Four apartments in the building, mostly just a converted duplex. We had top floor and it was two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen. It was pretty small, but we were okay with it. Not for long, though, beside the landlord being a dick.
Shortly after we moved in, we decided we'd sleep in the same room. The room that Sam had chosen for himself turned out to be... unpleasant. He'd be in the room, any time of the day, and slip into sleep. He'd have nothing but nightmares and keep trying to wake from them, but only wake into another nightmare, more realistic. He'd try to stay awake and couldn't, and then the growling started.
Something in the room *growled*. We put a lock on the folding door and simply never went into the room and neither did the cats. One night, a large clattering came from that room while we were in the other room. The cats were all terrified, and staring at one spot on our wall. All of them fluffed up and arched and hissed and a few of them hid. They were terrified and we had no idea why. We also had no idea what that noise was.
On several different occasions we could hear loud crashing from that room, even though we had only a couch in that room and nothing else, and usually the sounds were accompanied by inhuman growling and snarling. A couple of times we found the door lock slid off of the top, even though we twisted the lock into place. The cats were terrified of that room and none of them would go in. Soon, the closet door in our room was opening itself. At first I blamed Sam and assumed he was just being careless, but I'd close the door at night, and then I'd get up early around 3am to get ready for work, and the closet door would be open again. And then it began that as soon as the door closed behind me, the closet door would open more and suddenly Sam couldn't move or scream and he'd have nightmares if he was still asleep. Whatever was in the closet was coming out as soon as I left, no matter what time I left, just to attack Sam. Bruises and scratches soon followed.
We also had Sam's ex and her kid move in with us into the horrible room next to us. We didn't tell them about anything that happened, but things started disappearing and reappearing. They moved out. We moved out. I assumed they stole a pair of our scissors. I couldn't find them anywhere and was a little mad. She said she hadn't taken them, but who knew? Whatever. We packed everything up and moved back to the apartment building my mom was in. Top floor. As soon as I started unpacking, right on top of the utensils, I found the scissors. I'd done all the packing, I hadn't seen the scissors and I'd been looking for them, and there they were, right on top.
After hearing someone in the room that was supposed to be my room (a young girls voice), and someone push my things over, we decided to smudge the whole apartment. The activity stopped there. The apartment was fine. Only the basement felt weird. Apparently the complex was once a very old school and the apartments were actually classrooms. The girl that was in my room could've possibly been one of the previous students that may've come to an early end. No idea what it was about the thing in the basement.
And of course, we moved from there to Missouri, onto a farm that our (who we thought was our friend) host inherited. It had been in the family for generations, acres of farm land, and he was selling parcels of it off left and right. But there was the original house, and I got to see black and white pictures of the house, and how old it was. And while I was sitting at the kitchen table I saw someone walk past the sliding glass doors, out in the yard. I assumed it was his wife, but she came up past me from another room. It had looked like a man wearing a flannel jacket, but they walked by quickly out of my periphery and I had no explanation except that I had seen her wrong, but it wasn't her. It wasn't anyone living there, so I ran over to the doors and went out onto the porch. No one. Even though the house was surrounded on that side by a fence, no one was anywhere to be seen.
I was accused of being crazy or of making it up, but I never saw anyone walk by again. But when I walked outside at night, to walk past the barn, something kept telling me to leave. Not just the yard, but the property. And I'd get in the truck, late at night, to drive miles down the road to the only pokestop near us, and try to hit the stop each night and catch whatever I could find. The problem being that a couple of nights, I didn't get into the truck alone.
Mind you, the truck was mine now, but it used to be our host's truck. But someone was now sitting in my back seat and wanted me to leave, wanted me to get out of the truck, too. Wanted me out. But I can't just pull over on the side of a country road and start walking. There were no lights, no people for miles, just farm land, and wild animals. (Including, but not limited to, bob cats. I had the pleasure of seeing bobcat cubs in my time there, along that same road.)
And what would I just do? Walk for miles and miles, not go back to the farm? Call someone with the next to zero reception I got out there? Over what? A ghost in my backseat? All I could do was talk aloud to them and do my best not to scream. And I made a couple of trips like that, but asked Sam to start coming with me. He hated it because it was so late at night, but I felt better knowing he'd have to suffer with me. I also didn't like wandering the farm alone for that same reason.
And one day we awoke to our host laughing and saying, "You guys almost got us good." "What are you talking about?" "That whole ghost thing! That was you guys last night, right?" "Us what? We were asleep til a little while ago. What are you talking about?" "You guys put on a mask and stared at us through our bedroom window! Quit playing around, we know it was you." "Dude, that wasn't us. We were sleeping." "Sure, sure! I bet you guys were!" And we were.
Nothing but bad things seemed to happen, there, and after the final break, I was kinda glad to leave. And that's when we came to where we live, now. No ghosts. Not anywhere that we've seen. Just coyotes and tree frogs. And that's fine. We're used to coyotes from Missouri, by now.
It's nice to have a break from all of the undead. After all, even my vacations weren't ghost free. My dad had this unfortunate habit of making our summer vacation plans a trip to Gettysburg, every. Damned. Year.
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