Do You Believe in Ghosts?
Late at Night
I had owned a home that was set back from the street several hundred yards, and was surrounded by woods and a stream. It was a beautiful setting, beautiful mature plantings, azaleas, huge pine trees, wild flowers, an old willow tree with a swing on it, and an old cement pool 20 x 40. Two decrepit sheds sat on the property. The house was a ranch, in which the main part of the house was over 80 yrs old, and was an old ranger station at one point. It had since been added on to. A new bedroom behind the huge stone fireplace, and an extention added to the master bedroom. They had put in a door-sized greenhouse in there, and you could see the back yard. It was so neat to see the deer come in the yard. There were floor to ceiling bookcases on either side of the fireplace, and it had a galley kitchen with honey pine floors and counters. I fell in love with the place.
One evening, my cousin had come over to visit, and her and I were sitting in my kitchen having coffee, it was somewhere around 10 pm or so. I sat facing my kitchen door, behind which sat my tiny laundry room, two steps down to the left. The exterior back door was to the right. There was access to the crawlspace in the laundry room.. The interior door didn't sit flush on the floor, and I always kept a light on in the laundry room. Anyway, we sat there talking, when I stopped mid-sentence and started frantically waving to her. She kept saying what?? I said shhhhh, and kept pointing. She turned around in her seat and I pointed to the bottom of the door.
There you could see what looked like someone's feet standing there on the other side of the door. I kept mouthing to her, someone is there,,,,,,well, we didn't know what to do, so my first reaction was to grab hold of the doorknob and pull on it tight to keep it closed, as there was no lock. So there we stood for I don't know how long, and I said do something! She went to my stove and handed me a frying pan LOL,,,,I just looked at her and whispered, go call the police. I only had one phone in the living room so off she goes, leaving me standing in the kitchen with God knows what behind the door, holding on to the knob with one hand and the frying pan with another. I could hear her talking, saying we think someone is in the house. She was gone for what seemed like an eternity, and in the meantime I had set the frying pan down and kept holding the doorknob. As God is my witness, it started to turn, and it was NOT my hands turning it,,,,,,I was about to pee myself,,,,,
Finally, she comes back to the kitchen but not before arming herself with a huge knife. Then, she hands me the knife and leaves the kitchen,,,I was panic stricken,,,then, I hear a noise in the laundry room, and by now I'm freaking out, and she's yelling to me from the living room to open the door, I said are you out of your mind???? she said open the door, I said what????? she said it's ok, the cops are here. So in the fleeting moments I'm thinking, she's telling me to open the door, whoever's there will burst in, cause I was still thinking there was someone there, and we'll be murdered before the cops arrive. Suddenly, without warning,,,the door flies open, and who is it but the cops. Two of em, GUNS drawn! By this time, my daughter, who was a teenager at the time woke up, came out to the kitchen to see what was going on, and got the scare of her life, cops in her house with guns,,, I had to calm her down and explain what was happening,,,
Stranger Than Fiction
Now, this is where it gets strange. I KNOW the outside back door was LOCKED, so I have no clue how they came in through my back door. Not only that, there was nobody in the laundry room, only the cop who had come through it.
Well, they proceed to ask us what occurred, and we explained what happened. They told us they searched the entire property and found nothing, oh, and by the way, it was winter with snow on the ground. There were no footprints. He asked me did anyone wish me harm? I said well I don't think so, but I had thrown out my boyfriend, and he knew my house inside out. But there were no signs of anyone. So, now that we're feeling kinda foolish, the cop asks, are you girls drinking? Very indignantly, we said NO absolutely not, we're having coffee. Then he says, well, were you watching a scary movie? Well the nerve! He thought, apparently that we were just two old ladies who imagined something and blew it out of proportion. I told him, there was someone in here, and how the doorknob turned without me moving it. And he gave me a look, you know the one, 'the raised eyebrow',,,
So, he took his little report, and told us perhaps we should consider retiring for the night. Right! we'll get right on it! Go right off to 'sweet dreams' after being scared out of our wits,,,,geeze,,,
Mystery Solved?
Did we ever find out what really happened? no, sad to say. But a few days later, I was outside my daughter's bedroom, and saw what looked like a piece of wood poking out from beneath the pine needles, and I picked it up, and sure enough it was a handmade cross, maybe two feet tall, with a name and date '1948-1960' on it. I don't recall the name anymore, and I thought oh heavens, are we on top of an old cemetary or something? I should have researched the history on the house, but I never did, and I convinced myself that the gravemarker was for someone's beloved pet.
I have since sold the house, as it was getting way too costly to maintain, but I sure do miss it.