True Ghost Tales

I said I would post this story so here goes. Hope y’all enjoy it and I swear on my daddy’s grave it’s true to the best of my memory.

It all started when we moved to a new house when I was 11 years old. My family continued to live there until I was 18 or so. I remember we (my brother, mother and I) were all excited when we moved there because before we had been living in a ‘housing project’. So even though this neighborhood might still be considered the ghetto, it represented to us more room, freedom, and a step up in the world. But that all quickly changed.

It was minor at the beginning, a heaviness in the air and a constant feeling of being watched (and not by something that wished you well). Things easily put off to your imagination. Then I started to notice that family arguments seemed to become more heated than before. Again perhaps, a state of mind. Then the rocker in our living room started to rock by itself. This chair had belonged to my great-grandmother Ann and was prized by my mother so it sat in the far corner of our living room and always had. I actually remember this rocker in the house before this one and there it had rocked too.

When my brother and I told my mother about the mysterious rocking then, she told us it was Gran Ann visiting and not to worry. Even more creepy, my brother used to swear he would see an elderly woman in this chair knitting (come to find out later that was her ‘thing’ and she taught my mother to knit). The reason I bring it up is that in this house it was much more noticeable and often. My brother and I would be watching TV on the couch and notice the chair rocking (across from the chair). No one had been near it. No one had gotten up to vibrate the floor. It was like it decided when it started and when it stopped. Also I must state that this house had no central air/heating installed (there were not even any vents!) and we didn’t even have a window unit until I was 16 years and gone. But this is not what convinced me that there were other things going on.

It started with the attic. For this I’m afraid I will have to try to describe the attic. The attic was nothing more than a storage space on top of an A-frame house. This means to enter the attic you had to grab a chain in the hall and pull real hard. The hatch (with stairs attached) would come down with a really loud screeching sound because of the hinges. Then when you climbed up you were in a very small unfinished space. Not to mention extraordinarily hot in the North Carolina summer. It was a space you couldn’t stand in due to the slant of the roof. Nor did it have a floor. The middle was loose boards, maybe 3 feet in the center, set so you didn’t go through the ceiling beneath you. There was just the insulation of the house on either side of this. So we used it like anyone would. Boxes of holiday decorations, old toys, and things of that nature.

My brother and I were latch-key kids so we spent a lot of time alone. We started noticing heavy footsteps walking across the ceiling above us, often but not always followed by a strange dragging sound. I’m not going to tell you we were brave enough to check it out right then but curiosity getting the best of me, I got my mom to go up there the next day without telling her what I had heard. There I would get the shock of my life. Boxes that had been neatly sealed, taped and stored were now ripped open! I mean not sliced or cut. These boxes looked like they had been ripped or chewed! The contents were not missing but strewn all over. I found holiday decorations and school mementos in every corner of the attic. Even the farthest corner which due to the slant was no more than 6 inches high. It truly seemed to me like an angry person had ripped the boxes open and taken the contents and thrown them haphazardly in a rage. This continued for as long as we lived there.

We told my mother about this but sadly she didn’t believe us this time. Until one night,she was at home with us, sitting on the couch, watching TV. The footsteps started overhead. When I say foot steps, I’m diminishing a little. These sounded like someone wearing heavy boots was stomping over your head minus the vibration you would expect. My mother turned paler than usual and ordered us kids out of the house while she called her boyfriend and the police. She was convinced that someone had snuck into our attic.

When we protested that the footsteps were what we had been experiencing all this time, we were quickly hushed and sent outside. Well then the boyfriend came over with his gun and searched. And found no one. Then the police came and searched and found no one. There is no way to get out of the attic (excluding the hallway hatch) except for a small metal ventilation grille. So unless it was a disturbed person capable of entering through our E vent and then leaving and replacing the vent, because I checked that too, I don’t have any other explanations. Do you?

Also I am very interested in hearing any other stories about this property. It was a rental house and if anyone out there has stories from before or after I would love to hear them.

Sent in by L Phillips, Copyright 2011 TrueGhostTales.com