by John Mull
I have two stories, that are both strange. One is a good natured story that you may have heard of before. If so, I apologize, but I think it's still worth sharing with you, just in case you've not heard it.
In a small sub-division, outside of Waco, Texas, a school bus full of children stalled on a train track. They were hit by a train, and all were killed. The tracks were on a level grade. It is said that a car can pull up on those tracks with the transmission left in neutral, and the brake not applied. If you sit there for a while, you will sometimes feel something pushing you across the tracks. The most amazing part of this story is, I heard about a man who wanted to test the theory. He went there with another man, who was operating a camcorder. They were in a truck with a shiny back bumper. They took some water and threw it on the back of their truck. Then, they took flour and did the same thing...to cover the back with the flour. They sat on the tracks for quite a while and nearly gave up when they felt something push them over the tracks. They got back out of the truck to get a shot of the back end. They were shocked and a bit horrified to see fingerprints of little children in the flour. The streets nearby are now named after the children, who are now spending their after-life defending others from the same fate they suffered.
I was a child when I heard this next one. The house has now been torn down, so I have no evidence, unless the local police have kept records of all the reports they received. I've never checked it out, but it happened in Red Lion, Ohio. This was a rural area of farmland, northeast of Cincinnati, Ohio. The house had only two neighbors. One was directly across the street and the other one was very close - right next door. I'm telling you this, because as you know, many farm houses are far away from each other and these were as close as any city homes. In getting to the ghost story, the elderly lady of the house was very kind and giving. The neighbors looked at her as a grandma-type and visited her quite often. On the other hand, her husband was a quiet man who kept to himself, when they had visitors. He always had a cold stare, that people didn't understand. As it turns out, the family mentioned after their death, how cruel he could be at times. His wife spent her life with a dominating and sometimes cruel man, who kept her under his thumb. When he found out he was dying, he shot his wife twice with a double-barreled shotgun. Then, he hung himself in the living room closet.
The remaining family members who inherited the house, decided to move in. From the very moment they moved in, they began noticing strange paranormal activity. Things like doors slamming, loud footsteps on the stairs, cold chills, and even one of the children saw "Grammy" (grandma) in the corner of her room, watching over her while she was almost asleep. It was as if she was trying to protect her, because the child said, "Grammy was smiling at me." At first, her parents just wrote it off as a child's wild imagination, until the following night, when they went to bed. There was so much noise and disturbance coming from the living room, the father went downstairs to investigate. He ran back up to the bedroom screaming for his wife to grab the kids. What he told his wife was hardly believable. He said that things were being thrown at him from across the room and that he heard a mumbled voice telling him to, "Get the @%# out of my house!" They grabbed the kids and got out, leaving all of their clothes and furniture.
After a few years, they decided to have the house painted and rent it out. The painter left the house half-finished. He left his scaffolding, ladders, paint, and all. He said he saw the ghost of an elderly man standing in the picture window, watching him paint the porch. He even gave a description of the man he saw, that matched perfectly. The neighbors reported seeing the porch swing moving many times, on nice days (with no wind). In life, the elderly lady spent many hours on that swing. One person, on a porch swing made for two, swings unevenly, as the empty side is always opposite of the side the person is in. The neighbors loved her, but this really freaked them out. About ten years after the old couple died, the family tried to have the house demolished. The company hired to do this had no luck trying to start their equipment. They even tried driving the equipment onto the lot, only to have them stall, before they had a chance to start the demolition. It took about another two years, before the house was gone.
I know ghost stories get embellished over the years, but I told it as honestly and as accurate as possible.