I know that a lot of people don’t believe in ghost stories. Whether that’s because of religious beliefs, the fear of possibility or maybe they’ve just never had an experience before. Whatever their reasoning is, I get it. I know how crazy it makes people (and me) sound when they tell a story about something they experienced. But even if it sounds crazy, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t true. My own personal stories are things that don't get talked about often. My family and I share them and joke about it every once in a while, but never really delve into how weird it all really was. I actually don’t think about it much now that I’ve moved out but for some reason every year around this time I remember.
The things that happened were never “dangerous” or what you see in the big-screen horror films. They were more creepy situations that never added up, and that no one ever had an answer for. My sister and I both had bedrooms on the second floor of our house across from one another – our parents’ room was down the hall. My sister, who was around 15-years-old at the time, woke up from a nap one afternoon to the sound of our Mom calling her name from downstairs. Our Mom called her name over and over, echoing up the stairwell even after she had woken up. My sister called back “what?” and didn’t get an answer. Annoyed, she immediately got up and searched the entire house only to realize that no one was even home.
Later that year, my family took our annual beach trip down to Florida. My sister’s boyfriend would watch our house and feed the cats each year while we were gone, often staying over and sleeping on the couch. One night, he was downstairs watching television in the living room when he heard a door from upstairs slam shut. Startled, he went up to check it out and saw my bedroom door, which had previously been left open for the cats, shut at the end of the hall. He re-opened the door which is when he saw my closet light turned on in the corner of my dark room. Unnerved, he went back downstairs. A few minutes later he heard a loud crash again in the upstairs hallway. Thinking one of the cats had knocked something large over, he ran up to see our attic stairs pulled down from the ceiling where they were originally tucked away. At the top of the stairs, the light to the attic had been switched on. Needless to say, he didn’t sleep over that night.
One of my own stories happened when I was 14-years-old. I was home alone and downstairs in the kitchen on the phone when I heard loud thumping noises from above me in my sister’s bedroom. It sounded like someone was shuffling heavy boxes around, or like they were rearranging her furniture. Both cats were in the kitchen with me at the time, when I heard the noises start making their way down the hall and to the stairs. I was telling my friend what I was hearing and she could hear the same noises through the phone. The thumping made its way down the stairs and I was completely frozen. When they stopped, one of the cats that were on the opposite end of the kitchen from me arched his back and hissed at the air. All of his fur stood up on end and he began backing up towards me, continuing to hiss. I heard myself hush my breath and the hairs on my arms lift. After a few moments, he calmed down and I felt my heart stop racing. To this day, I don’t know what it was.
Of course, there were other stories, but it's hard to tell them all in just one article. But after those few years, everything suddenly stopped. My family and I have shared our experiences with each other, but in a way avoid talking about them now. I don't think I'll ever really know what happened or that we'll ever fully get answers. But I do know that if anyone ever asked me if I believed in ghosts, that without hesitation I'd say yes.
