By: Cheryl Mecham
When my brother Mark and I were kids we practically lived at Grandma Brown's house because it was a stone's throw from the single-wide trailer that we called home. Imagine a tall, two story clapboard that stood against a bank of tall, weedy lilac bushes.
The old house doesn't get much sun because it's tucked beside a hill and timber stands behind it, dark and misty. A werewolf forest, where the trees grow straight and limbless for a glimmer of warm sun and season's of fall leaves and pine needles pad the earth beneath. Out front a sloping patch of lawn meets the barn yard where the old weathered barn stands on a parcel of acreage that's part of Catskill Mountains, in New York State.
Generations of Browns have lived out their lives there. The old clapboard was erected to house boarders and allow family privacy, sort of a bed and breakfast, except lunch and dinner was served too. Artists and writers from the city appeared each summer to paints and compose under the spell of the quiet countryside.
My kid-self found all kinds of evidence it was haunted; doors that squeaked on their hinges, cold pockets of air swirling in bedrooms and the hollow sound of footsteps on the staircase and hallways long after everyone was settled in bed. Then to top it all off ... the hanging. One of Grandma's boarders didn't come down for breakfast one morning. He was found swinging from a light cord in a second story bedroom.
Was the suicide's ghost the cause of the haunting? Alone in the house one night my mother heard the echoing foot falls descend the staircase herself. A ridge of gooseflesh tingled across the nape of her neck and crept up her limbs. She wouldn't stay in the house alone after that, even when the sun streamed through the south windows.
When twilight settled around the house and the back-woods creek cooled sending off a gauzy fog around its foundation the ghost story not only sounded plausible, but down-right authentic. I didn't like to stay after dark ... ever.
But once in awhile Grandma would ask me to sleep over. She'd have to bribe me with chocolate flavored Yoo-hoo at dinner and promise we'd bake a cake before I'd consent.
I'd forget most everything about ghosts while Bonanza was on, but the minute Grandma switched off the TV and all you could hear was the drone of the old refrigerator I'd panic. She'd always ask as we climbed the haunted stair case, "Where would you like to sleep dear?"
"With you," I'd give my routine response, not breathing until she'd say, "Well, sure then."
She'd drop her top denture plate into a glass with a bubbling concoction then tuck the chenille bedspread snugly around me, only to yank it off once she had crawled in bed.
It wasn't until her snoring started that I'd begin to hear the noises. Pressed against her back and hardly breathing I'd listen as the old house moaned and creaked. Terrified, my heart hammering wildly and my eyes squeezed tight I'd lay awake and listen until Grandma's warmth and rhythmic snores eventually lulled me to sleep.
Once I grew up and grandma grew very old the haunting seemed like a figment of my imagination. Until we were staying in the house and my husband said, "It sounds like people are whispering in the hallway. It's just creepy."
I didn't hear the late night whispers – probably too tired to care after chasing our kids around all day – but one evening as we retired to bed and had just clicked off the bedside lamp we were haunted.
"Do you see that?" my husband whispered as I raised up on my elbow. Now I can't see much without contacts, but I did see It.
When something paranormal is floating around the furniture it's good to have another eye witness present because you can hardly believe what you're seeing. The Thing bobbed around in the very air that we were breathing, if we were breathing at all. It seemed to be a tubular mass of soft florescent-type light which spiraled off in all directions as if probing the room. It had no recognizable shape or features. Oddly though it appeared as light – it didn't give off light, the room surrounding it remained pitch black.
In utter amazement we watched a few seconds in terrified awe and then It noticed the two of us. All at once it's spiraling-probing stopped. Then, it seemed to suck its glowing limbs back into itself then abruptly descended the stairwell. In half a mili-second I was out of bed and tearing up the stairs after It, because our two young daughters lay vulnerable in the second story room above us.
Nobody's messing with my kids – even if they don't have a body or recognizable life form! In momma-bear mode I arrived breathless and straining to see in the pitch dark of their bedroom. My husband was suddenly behind me. Our little girls were sound asleep until we carried them down stairs and made a bed for them right beside ours. And there they stayed for a few days until we were sure the specter wasn't coming back.
But, what was it? In the light of day we marveled at what we had seen, and began to share our story. Folk patiently listened then look at the ground or across the room, but never at us and said, "Well, I'll be darned," polite speak for, "that's unbelievable."
When it comes to paranormal happenings its tough for people to wrap their mind around them. No one wants to believe. Even I didn't want to believe what we were saying, but I had seen it. My husband had seen it. It had seen us – and once it did, ran off with its tail tucked between it's legs.
Now I'm not sure what it was, but I'm sure it wasn't from the dimension I live in. Was it lost? Probably not. I think it was exploring. Was it intelligent? Heck yes! It had the good sense to fly when it saw us, and kept on going when a mother was protecting her young.
Living a scary story is much different than hearing one, I've been around long enough to have the hair stand up on the back of my neck a time or two. The only reward for having the wits scared right out of you it getting to tell your story and having someone, anyone believe it. So, during this spooky season when witches and goblins and ghosts of all sorts are haunting our neighborhoods share your scary stories about spooks and spirits. And you never know ... if you're lucky someone might tell you a tale that will scare the socks right off of you
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