Ghost Stories

Mac thinks this is hocus-pocus and nonsense and that we're all making it up. But as far as I know, this is all true.

I do believe in ghosts, spirits and haunted houses. I do. I didn't used to, but I do now. I don't believe in them in a Ghostbusters movies style but I do think they exist. I don't know much about ghosts or the paranormal, but hey, we all have our reasons for what we believe.

I lived in a house where a murder and suicide happened. When I moved into the old country house everyone knew it was the site of a grisly crime but no one told me. So I lived there with a former Sam and with Mac. Sam traveled lots for his job so Mac and I were there alone. Often. It was in the country, in the middle of nowhere with no near neighbors. No one to hear you scream in the night.

Mac was about 4 or 5 years old when we lived in this place. Weird things happened at this house that couldn't be explained. I would complain to Sam about stuff and he would get a weird look on his face and tell me I was crazy. But often, when he was gone on a trip, I would get up in the morning and every kitchen cabinet door was opened. This happened on more than one occasion. Mac was way t0o little to get them open and I was the only adult there. This happened all the time. It was creepy and weird. It would happen when Sam was home but he usually found them open and would get them closed before I saw and wouldn't say anything about it.

There was a mudroom off the kitchen and we cleaned and cleaned it. We put in new carpets and Daddy-O painted a mural on it and I turned it into a playroom. Mac refused to play there; he thought it was scary. And it had a weird smell. It didn't matter how much I cleaned, it still smelled and Mac was still scared to even go in there.

There were spots in the house that were cold. All the time. This old house didn't have central air conditioning and there was spots where frost formed at time. In the middle of July in the Midwest. It was creepy and weird. And scary.

And everyone knew what happened there but me. My friends and family managed to keep it a secret from me for almost a year. I kept talking about all these weird things that happened and people would exchange looks and then tell me I was imagining things. I swear, after almost a year there I was scared of my own shadow and would jump at the strangest sound. I was wrung out and jumpy and it was terrible. I thought I was going mad. I was scared of the house, to be in it alone, with just Mac, scared to be there alone.

Then one day some guys were doing some roof work and I was inside washing walls and I heard them talking through the open window about how they weren't supposed to talk about the house to me. Then one guy said no one could pay him enough to live in this place, after what happened.

I went outside and threw a monster hissy fit until they told me. A man murdered his wife in the kitchen. He killed himself in the mudroom. And their little girl hid in the kitchen cupboards while it all happened, until people found her. She was only 4 or 5 years old when it happened. It had happened just 14 years before I moved in. When the cops got there, all the cupboard doors were open and flies and the bodies and the smell... oh god.

Well, you can imagine I was furious and relieved all at the same time. I finally knew the house was haunted and I had believed the house was haunted; now I felt like I had some proof. And I think people around me thought so too. I didn't know the house history so I couldn't make stuff up or have an "over active" imagination. I think my friends and family were freaked out but didn't know how to tell me. And we had looked for a house to rent for a long time and this was just what we wanted, and the rent was cheap.

I moved OUT within a week of finding out what happened there. And I don't think I slept a night there once I found out. It was awful.

I thought of this story again because my Bro said Ms. K sees a ghost called Debbie. She's 20 months old and hardly speaks words yet, but she sees a Debbie. They don't know if it's an imaginary friend or what, but Bro thinks it's a ghost or a spirit. I made a "she sees dead people" joke and no one but Mac- the non believer- thought it was funny.

Those are my ghost stories, as I know it. My friends and family always sort of joke when I move and I want to know if the place I'm renting housed a dead person or not. I lived above a funeral home for almost a year and never really batted an eye about it (it was the greatest apartment of my life!) but after living in the murder/ suicide house, I now ask the death questions of my landlords. Some of my friends should realize they are responsible for this curiosity.

So when people kid around about being afraid of things that go bump in the night, I don't usually take that too lightly.

Maggie