Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

My Great Aunt and her husband built their house during the depression and lived there all of their lives.  They were unable to have children, and instead opened their home to whichever family member or friend needed a place to stay.  Eventually it was just the two of them, settling in their sixties and the promise of retirement.  Then I came along.  Born to parents who did not want me, I was eighteen months old when my Great-Aunt “Granny” and Uncle “Pap” took me in.  I was raised with a lot of love and rooted firmly in our small church.  I  spent my days learning to cook and chased my Granny’s heels as she went about her chores.  I loved her more than anything and my life was wonderful.

My home was a small farm in rural Pennsylvania, and although there were neighbors close by, I spent much of my childhood playing alone.  I had an incredible imagination, but I was practical enough to separate fantasy from reality.  One day when I was about eight or so, I was playing in the kitchen. From the corner of my eye, I saw movement in the doorway that led to the dining room. I turned and saw what I thought was a woman with dark hair and dark-colored pants watching me.  She then turned and walked quickly past the table. I got up and ran into the dining room in time to catch a glimpse of the back profile of the woman rounding the corner into the living room.  I chased after her, but she had disappeared. I didn’t feel afraid, but I was confused because I knew we did not have any guests and there was no outside door for her to have slipped through.

I told Granny what I had seen.  She did not assume I was “imagining things,” but immediately told me not to tell anyone what I had seen.  I insisted that it had been real.  Granny said that no one else would believe me and that they would say I was crazy like Geneava (an old neighborhood woman who claimed she saw “things.”)  I never brought it up again, although I never felt “alone” in the house after that.

When I was twenty, I awoke in the middle of the night, very disturbed and restless.  I didn’t know what had disturbed my sleep.  I felt a sudden concern for Granny.  I went downstairs to check on her and found her sitting up in a chair asleep.  I counted her breaths to be sure she was alright.  After a while, I returned upstairs, but could not sleep.

When morning came I dressed and went down to the kitchen where Granny was making breakfast.  I asked her if she was feeling well, and after she assured me that she was. I  decided to spend the day at my boyfriend’s house until I left for my evening college classes. However, that afternoon at about 2:00pm, I had an uncontrollable compulsion to go home.  I did, and found my Granny sitting on the porch looking down.  She was surprised to see me, thinking I would go straight to college after seeing my boyfriend.  I told her I had wanted to come home.  I asked if she was well and she again said she was fine, but tired.  I asked if she wanted me to call her doctor, but she waved me off.  Finally I left her alone and announced that it was time for me to go to school.

Granny asked me to get two dollars from her purse to buy bread for Pap and me.  She did not include herself and I mentioned this.  She just shook her head and repeated, “For you and Pap.”
I changed clothes quickly and proceeded to kiss her cheek, tell her that I loved her, and headed for the door.  She told me three times, “Remember I love you, always remember that I love you.”

Once I was at college, I sat down in my seat, only to be removed to take an emergency call.  As soon as I left, my Granny had gone to my Pap’s bed, climbed up with him and suffered a massive heart attack.  She was gone.  I was beyond consoling; my Pap immediately left the house, never to live there again.  I assumed it was from grief, but now I think it was something else.

I returned to the house by myself, but the warm loving feeling was gone. Maybe it was just mourning, but I felt uncomfortable in the house.  Yet I stayed.  My nights were quiet and sad.  I couldn’t afford to pay the satellite bill, so it was shut off.  There truly was no noise, no human presence.  I missed my Granny, I missed the good feeling of home, but soon I felt another presence.

One night, I was upstairs in my room and I heard a squeaking noise on the steps.  Only certain boards creaked, so I could count the noises and figure out which point on the stair case the person was walking.  The squeaking continued until they were near the top. I was afraid.  I was alone with no phone, no weapons.  I scrunched against the wall and closed my eyes.  I heard someone come in the room and felt them standing over me.  After a moment, it was gone.  I spent as little time as possible in the house after that.

Months passed and I began dating a young man from work.  I introduced him to my Pap because it was starting to get serious.  One day my Pap showed up at the house to visit me while I was one the phone.  There was a big window looking out onto the back porch and my Pap was looking through it at me while I talked to my boyfriend.  I waved Pap inside, but he stared at me strangely.  After ignoring my waves to come in, I hung up the phone and walked to the door.  Pap seemed reluctant to come in, but he sat at the table.  All of a sudden, he demanded, “Where is your friend?”  Assuming he meant my boyfriend, I told him that he was not here…that he was working.  Pap almost angrily said, “Not him…your girlfriend, the one that is with you.”  Uneasy now, I whispered, “There is no one here but us, Pap.”  He began to cry, great sobs and I asked what was wrong.  He told me that I wouldn’t believe him, that I would think he was crazy.

Finally I coaxed it from him.  “When you were on the phone, there was a woman standing behind you with long dark hair and navy blue slacks.”  He continued, “When you hung up the phone, she touched your elbow, then turned and walked through the dining room.”  Pap wanted to leave after that, and he never set foot in the house again.

Time rolled by and I married the boyfriend and had a baby.  The feeling of unease began to increase.  Finally, I graduated from college and was in a position to move.  We built a small house in Maryland and planned to move within days.  I had not packed anything, being tired from working the midnight shift as a security guard and my husband was a police officer who worked the evening shift.

Right before we were to move out, my husband told me good-bye before leaving for work as I was washing up in the bathroom.  I was getting ready to lay down before work since my son was at a babysitter.  I turned on the spigot and started washing my face when I heard my name.  I immediately assumed it was my husband and yelled, “I’m in the bathroom.”  Again my name was called and I gave the same response.  One of my biggest pet peeves is someone yelling across the house, so I began to get annoyed.  I finished washing as I heard my name a third time.  I stormed into the living room, yelling “What, what do you want?!”  There was no one there.  I went to the front window that overlooked the driveway and my husband’s truck was gone.  I grabbed my keys and went to my parents house to sleep.  The next day, we moved and I never went inside to collect our last belongings.

Many years have passed and ironically, I move back to the area, building a house next door.  I have dreams of my old house, frightening dreams of not being allowed to leave.  Sometimes I dream of my Granny and she is urgently trying to tell me something, “You need to know this, so pay attention…”  But I never find out what piece of information is so important.  I do feel at peace in my new house, but I try no avoid looking at the old one, I’m not sure why really.  A young family has occupied it for ten years now with seemly no complaints.

I don’t know who the woman was that Pap and I saw, nor do I know what woke me the night before Granny died.  My memories of youth were wonderful, but the latter events cast such a shadow on them that I know I never want to set foot again in my childhood home.

Sent in by Lisa, Copyright 2010 TrueGhostTales.com