by Katie of Chicago, Illinois
I'm 28 years old now and I grew up in a house that has seen its fair share of visitors over the years. When I was thirteen, my mom and I moved into an old house built around 1900 in the older section of our neighborhood. Shortly after we moved in, my mom went back to school for her masters degree on top of working full time, so I was alone in the house all the time.
The first incident that happened was a few months after we moved in. I went to bed one night around 11:00pm and I was still laying there wide awake waiting to hear if my mom was coming home. My windows were closed, but all of a sudden this cold, loud gust of air came through the room and past my ear ;and it was carrying a sound with it of children that sounded like they were playing on a playground. Then a young girl's voice whispered in my ear, "Did you hear what he did?" and then the gust blew out. Even though it was a whisper, it was right up to my ear and I grabbed it because it almost hurt my ear drum. It scared me so bad that I stayed up all night.
After that I would sometimes see a shadow of a little girl run from my closet into the loft that is outside my bedroom. There is a little door in my closet, about two and a half feet high that leads into a crawl space, and I've always had an eerie feeling that she was coming from there.
That went on for a couple of years where I'd see the shadow and then it stopped coming around, although we've since seemed to have shadows around that appear and disappear out of the corner of your eye. When I was about sixteen, something else happened. I'm a really deep sleeper, but I woke up in the middle of the night to find this thing standing in the doorway of my bedroom. It was this really bright light in the shape of a tall person waving its arms and moving like a slow mold of Jello. I watched it for a few minutes, but I had to shield my eyes because it was so bright, then it slowly disappeared. I ran downstairs to my mom's room and woke her up and I told her what happened, but she said I was dreaming. I know I was wide awake and I refused to sleep up in my room for weeks.
Then in 1996, my grandpa passed away. One night my mom woke up in the middle of the night to see my grandpa sitting on the foot of her bed. She was really happy to see him, but since she had the experience she finally started believing me and my stories of the house.
I eventually went off to college and I've moved in and out of the house since. I moved back about a year ago and things started happening again. I was back home for about a month when my mom went on vacation. One night I was sitting on my bed reading and something started to rub my back. It was accompanied by the familiar smell of my grandma who passed away in 2000. The next night, the same thing happened and I felt so warm and loved - I know she's looking out for me and I was so happy that she came to see me!
That October, a good friend of mine was killed in a motorcycle accident - a hit and run. We were all devastated since it was so sudden. A benefit was being thrown for his wife and daughter, so I was getting ready to go and I went into the basement to find some shoes that were still packed from my move. All of a sudden the lights went out just in the basement. It freaked me out and I ran upstairs and stood up there looking downstairs until the lights went on. As soon as I went back down there and went up to the box, the same thing happened where the basement light cut out. That was it, I got out of there and didn't look back. There's no way our basement lights could have gone out like that without the rest of the lights in the house doing the same thing. It wasn't storming, so that added some extra fear, plus our basement is really creepy even with the lights on. The next night I was on my computer when I started getting whiffs of gasoline. It was coming and going every few seconds, then after awhile, my entire room smelled like gas. I was totally paralyzed waiting to see what would happen, then it got so strong that it seemed like someone was putting a rag covered in gas right under my nose. I was gagging from it, then felt someone touch me (I was alone in the house), and the room had a really heavy feeling of sadness. I was really scared then I thought maybe it was my friend coming back to tell me he was still there. When I asked if it was him everything stopped. The smell totally went away and I was scared and excited at the same time.
Of course I told my best friend the story at Thanksgiving and we were totally convinced it was him. Well, that night her two daughters spent the night at my house. My mom was traveling and my friend and her husband were hitting the 5:00 am after Thanksgiving sales, so I was going to watch her kids that night and the next day - so them spending the night gave us a chance to sleep in. The youngest slept in a guest room next to mine while the older one slept on the pull-out couch in my room. Around 12:00am she woke me up, because she saw lights floating around my room. Sure enough, little orbs of lights were putting on a show for us. My friend's youngest daughter came running in, because a few minutes earlier she got up to use the bathroom. When she opened the door coming out, it slammed back in her face; then when she saw the lights she about died. We all huddled up on the couch and watched it, then we packed up and took off!
I hope the ghosts that have come and gone have moved on to better places, and for the loved ones that have come back, well, they've given me such a gift knowing they're still watching out for me.