True Ghost Tales

Iwakuni, Japan

This the true accounts that I experienced in the outer woods of Iwakuni, Japan in 2004. I was in the Marine Corps as a Sergeant stationed at Iwakuni, Japan. While stationed there I met a fellow Sergeant that I struck up a friendship with and we started hanging out. We would go on camping trips to nearby rivers and go on different adventures. On one night we were just hanging out at the barracks and had been drinking a few beers. Among the conversation my friend named Sonny began to tell me about a story of the seven seven haunted houses. Of course I am thinking just another scary story. Well the story goes:

Years back there was a famous doctor that had become very wealthy through his practice. With this wealth he built houses way out in the desolate woods for close family. There were seven different families that had houses built. In later years the doctor began to lose his mind and get a little crazy. He became a much secluded man towards the end. One night with no warning he slaughtered his own family and then continued the slaughter to the rest of the six houses and the family members inside and then killing himself. The local Japanese will not visit this site, because of known haunted experiences.

My thinking is great story, but my friend suggest we visit the site. So he calls his Japanese girlfriend to drive us out to the site. She fights with him not to go, but as polite and agreeable as the locals were with the Americans she finally agrees as long as she does not stay. She agrees to drop us off a ¼ mile from the trail, which is all that is left to get to the site of the seven houses. So we begin to walk to the front gate of the base and then get a cab to her car. We take some beer with us, a radio, and cigs planning to spend the night in one of the abandoned houses. Once we get to her house we load up in her car and she drives us 45 minutes into the deepest woods to the site. When we arrived she drove past the trail and pointed to where it was. She tried desperately to convince us not to go. I was thinking, (you got to be kidding, it is just a ghost story).

Well we unloaded and walked to the head of the trail. As I looked around I noticed there are no street lights, no houses, no cars, nothing. IT WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. Well we non-chalantly walked down the trail for at least 200 yards before we came across the first house. It was burnt to the ground. The next was partially still there. The next 5 I can’t remember for sure. I know there were three still standing. We went to the very end to where there was a place where a fire had been burnt before and a old rusted car was there (no idea how it got there, because there were no roads). Well we started a fire, turned on the radio, and partied a little like Marines do.

After awhile my buddy suggested we go check out a few of the houses. So we went to one that was the closest. We could see it from the fire. We walked inside the house and it was in pretty good shape aside from all the windows being busted out and rotted flooring. It was two stories but we could not go up the stairs, because half of the stairs had rotted away(I tend to get chills while telling this story, because of the realism of it for me). We did not spend much time in that one because of the deteriation. We went back down the trail after exiting that house looking for a better one to go into.

We passed, I’m not sure how many until we came to one on the left that was off the trail a good 100 feet (Yes we had a flashlight to see). It had a lot of growth of shrubs vines and trees around it. Made it a little hard to get to (Chills again). We finally made it to the front of the house and opened the screen door which was all that was left of the entrance. It still had the spring on it so it shut behind us. The stairs were right there as we walked in and were in good shape, so we walked up to the second story to check it out. Once up there it was not much left-just windows busted out and open rooms. The main room that was at the top of the stairs had a bay window that was busted out. We sat there and drank a beer and turned on some music(we had brought our stereo with us).

After awhile there my buddy starting talking about he believed in satan and that he knew how to do a séance. Well of course I think he’s full of it, but he continues on wanting to do one. Well I come from a Christian background and will not be a direct part with it. He turns off the radio and begins chanting what I don’t know. He does this for several minutes (Chills) when I hear a crash (Chills) back behind the house way up the hill.

Now let me explain the woods setting we are in. It is rolling hills almost mountains all wooded. These houses are sitting in a wooded valley. So when I say I heard a crash behind us up on a hill, I mean it was probably 200 yards away.

Then I heard more crashing. Then it began to sound like branches and even trees were breaking. The crashing was getting louder and closer to eventually breaking out right behind the house. This is were it really makes the hair on my whole body stand up even as I right this. When the crashing broke behind the house (which meant the end of the woods) there began obvious footsteps running around the side of the house (the reason we could hear these is because we were sitting right beside that bay window) towards the front. I heard this and immediately began to freak out saying to my buddy, “what the heck were you chanting and you need to make this stop!"

What ever it was ran around to the front, opened the screened door (to which we heard open and slam shut) and take two steps up the stairs to where we were and stopped. At this moment I am ready to jump out this bay window opening, but I know I’ll break a leg or two possibly. We begin yelling at each other what to do because me and him both are afraid now and eventually he says we should should just run down the stairs as fast as possible, head out the door, and run until we are all the way down the trail to the road again. And that is exactly what we did and some. We ended up running for t least a ¼ mile down the paved road once we reached it. After that we walked for 5 miles (assumption) to the closest railroad to get us back to base. Problem was we were out at 3 A.M. and the train didn’t run until 8 A.M. I never believed in ghosts until this experience.

Now for the discredits that may arise let me clarify a few facts. There is only one trail that leads to this site and it is a foot path. There are no lights to be seen ANY WHERE! There were no other people here besides us. There is no camp ground close around. The woods are as thick as they get. No one could of run down the steep embankment breaking trees and limbs to the extent that it sounded like a tornado. And all of the turmoil started after my buddy chanted whatever for a couple of minutes. I have told this story to many people in person and not a one of them did not believe me after hearing it. For one I have to stop at times because I get such extreme chills and goose bumps from just telling it, and two the people I have told it to know me as a truthful person. I told my brother and he wanted me to take him there and I told him no. For two reasons: one it would cost a heck of a lot of money, and two I swore to never go there again.

Sent in by Travis Reed, Copyright 2011