People often ask me what led me to the darker side of history and folklore. I always tell them that growing up, my family had far more in common with the Addams Family and the Munsters. I grew up watching gothic horror and have lived in haunted houses for as long as I can remember. This is normal for me.
One evening, when I was a child, my parents went out for a date night and left me in the care of my teenage siblings. That was their first mistake. I remember this night so vividly. At the time we lived in a big weathered gray house dating to the early 1900s.
We knew it was haunted the day we moved in. We had moved our belongings in and had yet to unpack when we all fell asleep in the living room later that night as a family. All of us woke in the wee hours to the sounds of boxes being unpacked, but upon investigation, no one was in the house other than us, and nothing was unpacked.
The house, to this day we still call it “The Old House,” was the most haunted place I have ever lived. From shadow figures to phantom footsteps, we knew that our family was not alone. This brings me to that night. My siblings had the marvelous idea to conduct a séance in the living room. I won’t lie. I was terrified! I’m not sure if it was cold that night or if I had shivers of fear.
All the lights were turned off and the four of us arranged ourselves in a circle around a single candle on the floor. As the séance began, I had that eerie feeling one gets when something is creeping up from behind. I got it in my head that if I blew out the candle they would forget all about the séance. Well, I blew out the candle and, after a good scolding, my siblings relit the dang thing! Events continued like this for several minutes more when we heard a loud noise coming from upstairs at the same moment I blew out the candle for the last time!
I don’t think that we have ever run as fast as we did that night. All of us bolted for the door as if our very lives depended upon it. Into the darkness, we ran straight to the safety of the family station wagon. We had no idea where we would go. We just knew we had to flee! Unfortunately, we forgot the keys in our hasty exit.
As we sat in the car, one of my siblings noticed a shadowy figure peering out of my brothers’ bedroom window on the second floor! We all fearfully looked up at the window in horror to witness this ghostly figure. There it was looking right back at us. All we wanted was to drive away, but the keys were in the house, just inside the entryway.
We tried to convince one another to run in real fast and grab the keys, yet no one would go alone. Reluctantly, we each filed out of the relative security of the car and walked single file back to the front door holding hands. My brother at the front of the line was just inside the entryway when he reached the car keys and shouted for us to run.
It was chaos as we dashed back to the car. My brother started the engine, threw it into gear, and raced out of the driveway as if demons were hot on our trail. I don’t think we even had our seat belts fastened. We drove a couple of blocks to the store where we sat trying to collect our thoughts and calm our nerves.
We were so frightened that no one would sit in the car alone, so we all trouped into the store together to buy some comfort snacks. After sitting in the car snacking on junk food and stalling for a while, we realized that at this point we had no choice but to go back home. Our parents would be back soon, we reasoned. As soon as we returned, every light in the downstairs section was turned on and we all refused to go upstairs to our rooms until Mom and Dad came back. Thankfully, we experienced nothing more. That night at least…
** All images in this blog were created using AI generation.
Comments