Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

My friend Nikki is like obsessed with ghosts. She always tells these creepy stories and she swears to have spiritual encounters. I never believe any of the stuff she says, but I always try to be a good sport and I play along with her tales.

One in the summer, she called me up and asked me to have a sleep over at her house, and of course I said yes. She told me a few times that at summer a ghosts plays basketball in her yard at night, and that’s why she barley gets any sleep. I put the warnings in the back of my mind, and drove to her place. We slept in her room because her basement gave me chills. It always seemed like her dolls were watching me. As we were watching TV, the screen suddenly became blank. She tried rewiring the cable box, but nothing happened. Then she looked outside her window and noticed that the power lines were somehow entangled with a pair of black converses.

I just thought that it was some college kids who were trying to play a prank on a friend. But apparently the joke was on us, because her mom said that the cable guy couldn’t come until tomorrow morning. So that meant we were stuck in a house with no TV.

It would be boring to stay inside, so I suggested that we play football or something outside. It was pretty warm but a gust of wind passed us by, and pushed the old basketball that sat on a rickety lounge chair, into the middle of her small basketball court. Since it was already out, we decided to play some basketball. I stared at Nikki, ready for her to make a shot. A basket was made, but not by her.

The basketball seemed to just fly out of her hands like it was being kicked out from under her arms. I told her that it was probably the wind, but it was very hot again, and it would be a miracle if even a tiny breeze flew by. She passed the ball to me, and I tried to make a shot, but I threw the ball into a shrub. I don’t know how that happened. My aim was perfect, how could it land in a bush that was like 10 feet in front of me?

We stopped playing  and decided to go back inside, but when we got to the door, it seemed that the wind must have blown the ball to the door mat. I picked it up at out it back on the lounge chair, but the wind blew it onto the court again. I gave up on it and headed for the house.

It was 1:00 a.m, and I still haven’t fell asleep. But Nikki seemed to be sleeping like a baby. I walked to her window, wondering if a ghost was present. And creepy enough the ball was slightly bouncing. As if someone had just played a game and ran of in a hurry. I tried to convince myself that maybe it was one of the neighborhood kids. But then again, Nikki’s parents had surveillance cameras all over the place, and they had the Monitor in their room, so if someone had come in to play, they would have noticed.

I was really creeped out. In the morning we went outside for a walk in the neighborhood. We stopped at one of the houses to talk to one of the neighbors who had been living in the neighborhood for years. When we were about to leave and go back to the house. I asked the old man if he knew if anything suspicious every happened at Nikki’s house. He said that a very rich family used to live there. They had a son named Dough, and said that he wanted to become a professional basketball player. Unfortunately, he died from cancer at the dreadfully young age of 16.

I thought my answers were solved, but it didn’t feel complete. I continued to have sleepovers at Nikki’s house for years over the summer. And every summer the same thing happened. I’d grown used to it after a while. but the one time that it freaked me out again was when Nikki said she saw a boy outside, but there was nothing. Then she said a few years later that she felt like something was pushing on her back.

I then realized that maybe the lonely teen ghost just wanted to have someone to play with. I didn’t really mention it again after the other episodes. I still didn’t believe it myself, even after all that I went through. But every year when I come to sleep over at her house, I can still hear a basketball  bouncing outside, and when I tried to look outside the window and find the ghost there, playing, there was just a lonely basketball bouncing without an owner.

Sent in by Phoniex Steller, Copyright 2009