Where it all began…Ghost Story #1

I think before I get into more recent stories of my paranormal adventures, I should tell you about where it began.

First of all, as a kid, I always loved spooky stories, ghosts, and things of that nature. One time, our church youth group took us to a cemetery, at night, to have scavenger hunts, play hide and seek, etc. It still seems strange to me that you’d take a group of kids to a dark cemetery to play but hey, whatever. I enjoyed myself that night and I believe that is one reason I do not find cemeteries scary.

As for the paranormal events taking place…that did not happen for me until I was around 11-13 years old. We were living in a townhouse not far from my school. It had 3 levels. Basement, middle level, and upstairs.

The basement was a typical basement and pretty big. The middle level was the living room, kitchen, & bathroom. Upstairs was 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. There also was a crawl space above my room but it was not an actual attic. We did not store things up there or anything like that.

So one day, I was walking through the upstairs hallway and was tossing a rolled-up pair of socks into the air. I guess I was getting ready for school or something. Well, my pair of socks accidentally hit the square crawl space door that was on the ceiling. That is when it all began.

There were a bunch of little things that would happen that I could not explain. I thought maybe it was just me. But once my friends started experiencing things too, I knew something was going on.

One of the earlier and more scary events was when my Cocker Spaniel, Snuggles, went missing. Yes, missing. I am already aware of how crazy this will sound but this was one of the more dramatic events.

I was home from school and watching TV in the living room. Snuggles was laying on the tile flooring by the front door. All the doors and windows were locked since I was home alone. That was the rule. If you are home alone, you lock up.

Feeling hungry, I got up to go into the kitchen to get something to eat. I was probably in there about 5 minutes or so. I came back to the living room and Snuggles was gone. Now, when I have food, that was a dog that was right at your feet begging. Only this time, she was no where around which I found odd.

After searching the house from top to bottom, I could not find her. I called her name and nothing. At this point, I was starting to get pissed. Having already experienced some activity, I decided to try something.

I stood in the center of the living room and I said, “If you have my dog, I demand you give her back…NOW! I am going into the kitchen and when I come back, I expect to see her right back where she was!” Such a brave 12-year-old…HA!

Stomping off into the kitchen made me feel really silly that I was talking out loud, making demands, and expecting results. I waited 5 minutes.

I came back into the room and there was Snuggles. Asleep right by the door where she was before this whole thing started. Um. Pretty unnerving. I was terrified but found myself saying, “Thank you.”

While I can completely understand how hard that could be to comprehend, I am telling you, it happened. And that is where my interest in the paranormal really started. Rightly so. I conversed with it, whatever “it” was. I still found myself feeling uneasy now knowing that something was really there.

Another instance happened to a friend of mine, Ginny. We were upstairs in my room and she wanted to go downstairs and get one of the cats. I told her they are either in the living room or possibly in the basement.

She came back upstairs with a horrified look on her face. She said she found the cats. They were in the basement but would not come up the stairs and she felt something that made her hair stand up.

I went downstairs with her and sure enough, all 3 of our cats were sitting in a row at the bottom of the stairs in the basement. I tried to turn the basement light on and the lights would not work. I got a flashlight and shined it down the stairs. Their eyes were fixated on something even though we could not see anything. Those cats were always good at coming when called so for them to just sit there like that was extremely unnerving.

There was a dark feeling like Ginny had mentioned. I felt it too. So we just backed away and went back upstairs. There was no way in hell I was going to go down into that basement to get the cats!

I also had many nightmares in that house and I am not and was not the type to suffer from nightmares. Nightmares nowadays simply consist of being stuck back in a job I hated. Ha!

Most of the experiences was feeling watched, like you weren’t alone, and seeing a flash out of the corner of your eye.

Once we moved to a new place, it all stopped. That is why I feel, to this day, that the previous place had been haunted.

But what I was to experience later in life, made the events in that place feel like child’s play…Oh yes, there is more!

Stay spooky.

M.