Author’s note: This is the last of a four-part story on the haunting of Sheryl Rackliff of Rockland, Maine. Rackliff’s troubles began by using a Ouija board at a friend’s apartment and, when she went home, something followed her.
What’s in my home? Sheryl Rackliff wondered during the days and weeks after she investigated her friend Alicia’s haunting. She felt drained, emotionally and physically.
But more so, she felt she was not alone.
“I blessed myself with holy water, sage and strong prayers for protection from this thing,” she said. But her energy was gone, and a creeping sickness had gripped her. “I feel as I no longer have an immune system as I am always getting sick now and I got worse after I started investigating her home.”
As she sat at her 18-year-old daughter Amanda’s computer before bed one night, she heard someone say her name.
“I heard my daughter and her boyfriend and my stepdaughter and her boyfriend call my name quietly,” she said. “I listened to be sure it was them calling my name because I hear my name called in here often. I then heard my daughter’s boyfriend say ‘no one is in the kitchen,’ then they called my name much louder.”
As Rackliff approached the kitchen, she heard the cupboard doors and silverware drawer opening and closing loud and fast. When she arrived, no one was there – but Rackliff felt there was.
“I kept feeling like someone is watching me,” she said.
Soon, as the boyfriends prepared to leave, the noises began again.
“I was standing near my basement door and we all heard the sound of someone playing pool on my pool table,” she said.
“Oh, my gosh,” Rackliff later wrote in her journal about that night. “I hear footsteps coming down or going up stairs right now! Sounds like it is upstairs as I can hear walking. I still hear it, now it's coming back down!”
Exhausted, Rackliff soon went to bed, but her sleep was restless. The sound of pots and pans banging rang from downstairs. Amanda heard it, too.
“It seems to be moving all around this house,” Rackliff later wrote. “What type of spirit or evil am I dealing with? This has done it tonight as to putting fear into my daughter big time. Everything that has happened here this night has her very scared.”
Night after night the cupboard doors and kitchen drawers slammed open and shut, and something pushed Rackliff’s boyfriend’s daughter to the floor. Lights started going on and off, latched doors opened and the mouse on Amanda’s computer moved on its own.
Then Rackliff’s world exploded.
Amanda’s friends stayed the night to get up early for a trip when Amanda began pounding on Rackliff’s bedroom door. One of her friends was acting strangely.
“Jen had woken up and looked at Jofi and started talking about her grandmother saying (she) hated her, then Jen's eyes closed,” Rackliff said. “They assumed that Jen was sleep talking until then she opened her eyes again and started to growl and hiss.”
Jen kept growling and hissing and began pulling her hair. By the time Rackliff reached the room, the others were holding Jen down.
“I ran to her side knowing that she was being possessed,” Rackliff said. “I started screaming her name.”
When Jen pulled her eyes open, Rackliff could only see the whites.
“Her eyes were so evil looking,” she said. “They were … very bloodshot, they were very glassy and her pupils were very small. I started screaming for whatever was doing this to her to get the hell out of her body.”
Then Jen fell forward. They laid her down and Rackliff demanded to know what happened.
“I said ‘Jennifer,’ do you know where you are and tell me who is with us in the room,” Rackliff said. “She said in her own very weak, frail voice ‘Sheryl,’ then her head turned up towards Jofi. She stared at him and her eyes were creepy looking again then her fists tightened and she started to growl and hiss again and then in her own voice but more so like she was a man she said, ‘I am going to (expletive) kill her.’”
Jen began fighting but couldn’t break the hold. Rackliff demanded whatever had Jen to release her and Jen collapsed. After the girl awoke, the teens left Rackliff’s house and slept somewhere else.
“I am scared and scared very bad,” Rackliff said. “What do I do? Whatever I am dealing with – evil, possibly demonic – I honestly feel it wants me dead.”
Rackliff’s house is still active. She’s contacted people familiar with hauntings and hopes they can rid her home of whatever is terrorizing her family.
“Nothing evil will shake my faith in God,” she said. “Please pray I get my strength back and have the power to quiet it down until the team comes.”
Copyright 2008 by Jason Offutt
Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
A Haunting in Maine -- Part Three
Author’s note: This is the third of a four-part story on the haunting of Sheryl Rackliff of Rockland, Maine. In part two, after a group of paranormal investigators stir up something in her friend Alicia’s apartment, Sheryl invites Alicia and to her home. That’s when the haunting gets more personal.
After a quiet night, Alicia and her children went back to their apartment, taking with them Alicia’s three-year-old granddaughter Dashia.
Dashia soon finds they’re not alone.
“Dashia screamed to Alicia, ‘Grammie, a man was whispering in my ear and breathing loud and made my ear hot,’ she said. “‘I screamed at him and told him to stop breathing in my ear.’”
The little girl’s claim was only the first incident of the day. Sheryl later stopped by Alicia’s apartment with her boyfriend and Meredith and found the activity had just started.
“We arrived just after Brie (Alicia’s daughter) had walked out of the kitchen and a pen came flying across the kitchen at her,” Sheryl said. “Then … we smelled burning coming from the kitchen.”
They rushed in to find the stove’s small front burner glowing red although that burner had never worked while Alicia had lived there. Alicia turned it off then noticed the refrigerator door open. Although she’d never had trouble with the door, it now wouldn’t close.
“She said, ‘what on earth? It always closes on its own,’” Sheryl said. “She repeatedly (tried to) show us.”
But the door wouldn’t close. Sheryl, her boyfriend and Meredith soon went home.
Days later, they lost contact with the paranormal team that investigated Alicia’s apartment.
“We could not find them any longer,” Sheryl said. “So I searched … only to finally find them working (in) Pennsylvania. I was extremely upset as it was such a bad feeling of abandonment.”
After researching the tools paranormal investigators use, Sheryl decided to handle her friend’s apartment herself.
“I had purchased everything any paranormal investigator would need and started conducting my own investigation,” she said. “This left me knowing why the (original team) never returned back. Evil. Pure evil. Possibly demonic.”
Alicia’s building, Sheryl found, had a sinister past.
A family of seven had once lived in the house. Soon after they moved in, something unseen began throwing the five children into the walls and the father supposedly became possessed, locking his children in the house and setting it on fire, killing four of the children.
Shortly after Alicia had moved into the building, Sheryl had a fascination with a pile of rocks in the basement and she soon found why.
“I have had this very strong fascination with some boulders and rocks piled up in the basement and just above them were charred beams from a fire,” she said. “There was a big mystery that lies below those boulders.”
During her investigation, she started moving the rocks – and found that something in the house didn’t like it.
“My EVP recorder came up with lots to hear such as it telling me to, ‘Beware,’ repeating my name over and over, lots of growling and hissing, swearing, you name it. All in a male’s voice,” Sheryl said. “I can say I was shocked but seemed to love it and grew more obsessed.”
Then, on another visit, she found something she wishes she hadn’t.
“Once I started investigating, activity started happening at my new home,” Sheryl said. “Each time I investigated the more drained of energy I became and the more irritable I became, which is not my nature.”
As she moved rocks from the pile, with Meredith and Alicia close behind, the basement doors slammed down by themselves.
Alicia tried to open the doors with no luck. She requested help and the doors opened.
“I am still tossing away and notice some sort of white material, so I moved a big rock and flipped it over, then Meredith screams, startling me a bit,” Sheryl said. “‘A hand. Sheryl, look at the bottom of the rock. A handprint.’”
A bloody handprint glared out from the stone Sheryl had moved. The white she had seen was a young girl’s skirt.
“I grabbed my stuff, leaving a few things behind to pick up the following day,” Sheryl said. “We just wanted out.”
When Sheryl arrived home, she discovered the skirt was in her equipment bag.
“I had asked everyone if they had put it in the bag and they said no, they did not want it removed from the basement,” Sheryl said. “Things started up very bad at my home. I put everything away not wanting to look at them any longer.”
The days went by and she grew increasingly weak.
Next: It’s in her home
Copyright 2008 by Jason Offutt
Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.
After a quiet night, Alicia and her children went back to their apartment, taking with them Alicia’s three-year-old granddaughter Dashia.
Dashia soon finds they’re not alone.
“Dashia screamed to Alicia, ‘Grammie, a man was whispering in my ear and breathing loud and made my ear hot,’ she said. “‘I screamed at him and told him to stop breathing in my ear.’”
The little girl’s claim was only the first incident of the day. Sheryl later stopped by Alicia’s apartment with her boyfriend and Meredith and found the activity had just started.
“We arrived just after Brie (Alicia’s daughter) had walked out of the kitchen and a pen came flying across the kitchen at her,” Sheryl said. “Then … we smelled burning coming from the kitchen.”
They rushed in to find the stove’s small front burner glowing red although that burner had never worked while Alicia had lived there. Alicia turned it off then noticed the refrigerator door open. Although she’d never had trouble with the door, it now wouldn’t close.
“She said, ‘what on earth? It always closes on its own,’” Sheryl said. “She repeatedly (tried to) show us.”
But the door wouldn’t close. Sheryl, her boyfriend and Meredith soon went home.
Days later, they lost contact with the paranormal team that investigated Alicia’s apartment.
“We could not find them any longer,” Sheryl said. “So I searched … only to finally find them working (in) Pennsylvania. I was extremely upset as it was such a bad feeling of abandonment.”
After researching the tools paranormal investigators use, Sheryl decided to handle her friend’s apartment herself.
“I had purchased everything any paranormal investigator would need and started conducting my own investigation,” she said. “This left me knowing why the (original team) never returned back. Evil. Pure evil. Possibly demonic.”
Alicia’s building, Sheryl found, had a sinister past.
A family of seven had once lived in the house. Soon after they moved in, something unseen began throwing the five children into the walls and the father supposedly became possessed, locking his children in the house and setting it on fire, killing four of the children.
Shortly after Alicia had moved into the building, Sheryl had a fascination with a pile of rocks in the basement and she soon found why.
“I have had this very strong fascination with some boulders and rocks piled up in the basement and just above them were charred beams from a fire,” she said. “There was a big mystery that lies below those boulders.”
During her investigation, she started moving the rocks – and found that something in the house didn’t like it.
“My EVP recorder came up with lots to hear such as it telling me to, ‘Beware,’ repeating my name over and over, lots of growling and hissing, swearing, you name it. All in a male’s voice,” Sheryl said. “I can say I was shocked but seemed to love it and grew more obsessed.”
Then, on another visit, she found something she wishes she hadn’t.
“Once I started investigating, activity started happening at my new home,” Sheryl said. “Each time I investigated the more drained of energy I became and the more irritable I became, which is not my nature.”
As she moved rocks from the pile, with Meredith and Alicia close behind, the basement doors slammed down by themselves.
Alicia tried to open the doors with no luck. She requested help and the doors opened.
“I am still tossing away and notice some sort of white material, so I moved a big rock and flipped it over, then Meredith screams, startling me a bit,” Sheryl said. “‘A hand. Sheryl, look at the bottom of the rock. A handprint.’”
A bloody handprint glared out from the stone Sheryl had moved. The white she had seen was a young girl’s skirt.
“I grabbed my stuff, leaving a few things behind to pick up the following day,” Sheryl said. “We just wanted out.”
When Sheryl arrived home, she discovered the skirt was in her equipment bag.
“I had asked everyone if they had put it in the bag and they said no, they did not want it removed from the basement,” Sheryl said. “Things started up very bad at my home. I put everything away not wanting to look at them any longer.”
The days went by and she grew increasingly weak.
Next: It’s in her home
Copyright 2008 by Jason Offutt
Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
A Haunting in Maine -- Part Two
Author’s note: This is the second of a four-part story on the haunting of Sheryl Rackliff of Rockland, Maine. In part one, after a Ouija board session in her friend Alicia’s apartment went bad, Alicia threw the board in a Dumpster. Before Sheryl left, she retrieved the board and took it home.
Sheryl Rackliff’s bedroom was usually colder than the rest of the apartment, but never as cold as it became when she brought the Ouija board into her building.
She thought something ghostly may have followed her home from Alicia’s apartment, so she took pictures.
“Nothing really happened other than catching a face in my back window,” Sheryl said. “I take my pictures in sets of three… In the three pictures I saw something getting larger and larger. Once I downloaded it to my computer and could really examine it, I could make out a face forming much better from picture (to picture). It looked like a devil.”
But Sheryl didn’t have the time to worry about her home just yet; she was trying to help her friend Alicia. But the haunting at Alicia’s apartment was escalating.
“As time went on things were only getting much worse at Alicia’s home,” she said. So Sheryl called a team of paranormal investigators. They agreed to come to Alicia’s apartment on Feb. 18, 2006, but before they arrived, the fun had already started.
“We went to Alicia’s bedroom,” Sheryl said. “It was too light as Alicia will not allow the hall lights to be shut off due to her fear.”
Sheryl and a friend, Meridith, went into the room and closed the door halfway.
“Her room was freezing cold,” Sheryl said. “We asked the spirit or spirits to please show its presence somehow, with a knock, touching one of us on the shoulder, moving the curtains or turning on the television.”
Nothing happened.
They asked again, and on the third try the bedroom door closed.
“We heard it latch,” Sheryl said.
She opened the door a little more than halfway and it slowly closed and latched again.
“It was done in a manner like someone quietly closing the door to a child’s bedroom so as not to wake the child,” Sheryl said. “But when I went to open the door, it didn’t open as easy as the first time.”
It felt like someone was holding the knob from the outside. The door tugged away from Sheryl, “like it was playing with me. I then freaked out.”
When the paranormal investigators arrived, the activity got worse.
“As we were in the living room we heard a loud crash and smash in the kitchen,” Sheryl said. “Then we heard one of the men … say, ‘here we go guys.’”
Something ripped the man’s audio recorder from his hands and smashed it into a kitchen wall. Throughout the night, Alicia’s cats played with things no one else could see, and a disembodied male voice spoke to the group, although no one could understand what it said.
The ghost hunters started packing up at about 1:10 a.m.; the psychic in the group saying the Ouija board had brought evil into the house.
“After everyone left I stayed with Alicia,” Sheryl said. “It was just the two of us.”
The sound of someone dragging their feet down the hallway scraped through the apartment, and Alicia screamed when she saw a black figure.
“I was not really scared through any of this,” Sheryl said. “I still to this day will walk into Alicia’s bedroom alone in the dark waiting for the door to close on me. But finally, after more different sounds, Alicia agreed to my pleading with her to come stay at my home. She decided to.”
Next week: A demonic entity.
Copyright 2008 by Jason Offutt
Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.
Sheryl Rackliff’s bedroom was usually colder than the rest of the apartment, but never as cold as it became when she brought the Ouija board into her building.
She thought something ghostly may have followed her home from Alicia’s apartment, so she took pictures.
“Nothing really happened other than catching a face in my back window,” Sheryl said. “I take my pictures in sets of three… In the three pictures I saw something getting larger and larger. Once I downloaded it to my computer and could really examine it, I could make out a face forming much better from picture (to picture). It looked like a devil.”
But Sheryl didn’t have the time to worry about her home just yet; she was trying to help her friend Alicia. But the haunting at Alicia’s apartment was escalating.
“As time went on things were only getting much worse at Alicia’s home,” she said. So Sheryl called a team of paranormal investigators. They agreed to come to Alicia’s apartment on Feb. 18, 2006, but before they arrived, the fun had already started.
“We went to Alicia’s bedroom,” Sheryl said. “It was too light as Alicia will not allow the hall lights to be shut off due to her fear.”
Sheryl and a friend, Meridith, went into the room and closed the door halfway.
“Her room was freezing cold,” Sheryl said. “We asked the spirit or spirits to please show its presence somehow, with a knock, touching one of us on the shoulder, moving the curtains or turning on the television.”
Nothing happened.
They asked again, and on the third try the bedroom door closed.
“We heard it latch,” Sheryl said.
She opened the door a little more than halfway and it slowly closed and latched again.
“It was done in a manner like someone quietly closing the door to a child’s bedroom so as not to wake the child,” Sheryl said. “But when I went to open the door, it didn’t open as easy as the first time.”
It felt like someone was holding the knob from the outside. The door tugged away from Sheryl, “like it was playing with me. I then freaked out.”
When the paranormal investigators arrived, the activity got worse.
“As we were in the living room we heard a loud crash and smash in the kitchen,” Sheryl said. “Then we heard one of the men … say, ‘here we go guys.’”
Something ripped the man’s audio recorder from his hands and smashed it into a kitchen wall. Throughout the night, Alicia’s cats played with things no one else could see, and a disembodied male voice spoke to the group, although no one could understand what it said.
The ghost hunters started packing up at about 1:10 a.m.; the psychic in the group saying the Ouija board had brought evil into the house.
“After everyone left I stayed with Alicia,” Sheryl said. “It was just the two of us.”
The sound of someone dragging their feet down the hallway scraped through the apartment, and Alicia screamed when she saw a black figure.
“I was not really scared through any of this,” Sheryl said. “I still to this day will walk into Alicia’s bedroom alone in the dark waiting for the door to close on me. But finally, after more different sounds, Alicia agreed to my pleading with her to come stay at my home. She decided to.”
Next week: A demonic entity.
Copyright 2008 by Jason Offutt
Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
A Haunting in Maine -- Part One
Author’s note: This is the first of a four-part story on the haunting of Sheryl Rackliff of Rockland, Maine. Sheryl’s troubles began at a friend’s apartment and whatever was there followed Sheryl home.
Alicia’s new apartment in Rockland, Maine, was cold. Unnaturally cold.
She moved into the apartment Dec. 31, 2005, with her children Brieanna, 15, and Buddy, 13, and immediately knew something there wasn’t normal. Although they slept in different bedrooms, that first night they all woke at 4:21 a.m.
“They thought it was rather freaky that all of them were awakening at the same time but let it go,” said Alicia’s best friend Sheryl Rackliff – although Alicia didn’t confess her experience to Sheryl for weeks. “After three nights of this and being awoken at 4:21 a.m. they all started hearing noises. Light taps, scratching sounds and the feeling of being watched.”
The bedrooms also grew colder; too cold to sleep in.
“Cold enough they could slightly see their breath,” Sheryl said. “Alicia and the kids went into the living room to all sleep together and they noticed it was much warmer than the two bedrooms that were adjoined.”
After three nights sleeping in the living room, they began seeing the shadows of a black, human figure near the bedrooms. After that, Alicia decided they needed help.
“Alicia neglected telling myself and our other best friend Meredith as she thought we’d think she was loosing her mind,” Sheryl said. “Meredith and I were very understanding and set up a night to do some investigating of our own.”
A few nights later, Sheryl and Meredith went to Alicia’s home with cameras and a Ouija board. When they got settled in, Alicia’s children sat over the board.
“The kids wanted to be the ones doing it as we asked it questions,” Sheryl said. “The darn thing answered questions that there is no way those kids would know.”
The answers were friendly, at first.
“It said it was many of lost loved ones with us,” Sheryl said. Not placing much stock Ouija boards, she wandered the apartment inside and out taking pictures. When she returned to the apartment, the board was more active.
“Everyone was still playing with Ouija Board. They were freaking out thinking they were really talking to loved ones,” she said. “Maybe they were, or maybe they were not. The spirits could have been playing tricks on us all.”
At that time, the spirits were genial, so Sheryl asked it a question.
“I asked for some of my close friends that passed if they were there,” she said. “It said ‘no’ to all my questions. Then I asked if anyone I loved was with me – it went to yes.”
The board then spelled Todd. No one knew about Todd.
“Todd was my best friend since we was four years old,” she said. “We were always inseparable.”
Throughout Todd’s numerous moves from Maine to Connecticut from fourth grade to high school, they kept contact. But when Todd moved back to Maine when he was a freshman in high school, his mood changed. He started talking about suicide.
“He was not the same Todd I remembered,” Sheryl said. “He was not happy with life, always very quiet, told me how he wished he could just die.”
The next year, Todd’s mother, divorced, moved back to Connecticut. Years past, the two graduated, married others and had children. Then Todd, divorced, tried to initiate a romantic relationship.
“I was in an abusive relationship and spent lots of time talking with Todd who tried and tried to get me out of the relationship,” she said. “I finally did it. One month latter, after turning Todd down, he shot himself in the head.”
“Ouija board Todd” told Sheryl he had not yet crossed over, and couldn’t until she was with him.
“He said lots of stuff that really freaked me out,” Sheryl said.
Then the Ouija board turned bad.
“The board went from talking friendly to evil,” Sheryl said. “It said it was in the hallway. We asked ‘who is in the hallway?’ It replied back, ‘all of us.’”
After another half hour of abusive talk, the planchette shot across the board and fell to the floor. Sheryl and Meredith soon left and Alicia threw the Ouija board in a Dumpster.
Next week: A paranormal team investigates.
Copyright 2008 by Jason Offutt
Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.
Alicia’s new apartment in Rockland, Maine, was cold. Unnaturally cold.
She moved into the apartment Dec. 31, 2005, with her children Brieanna, 15, and Buddy, 13, and immediately knew something there wasn’t normal. Although they slept in different bedrooms, that first night they all woke at 4:21 a.m.
“They thought it was rather freaky that all of them were awakening at the same time but let it go,” said Alicia’s best friend Sheryl Rackliff – although Alicia didn’t confess her experience to Sheryl for weeks. “After three nights of this and being awoken at 4:21 a.m. they all started hearing noises. Light taps, scratching sounds and the feeling of being watched.”
The bedrooms also grew colder; too cold to sleep in.
“Cold enough they could slightly see their breath,” Sheryl said. “Alicia and the kids went into the living room to all sleep together and they noticed it was much warmer than the two bedrooms that were adjoined.”
After three nights sleeping in the living room, they began seeing the shadows of a black, human figure near the bedrooms. After that, Alicia decided they needed help.
“Alicia neglected telling myself and our other best friend Meredith as she thought we’d think she was loosing her mind,” Sheryl said. “Meredith and I were very understanding and set up a night to do some investigating of our own.”
A few nights later, Sheryl and Meredith went to Alicia’s home with cameras and a Ouija board. When they got settled in, Alicia’s children sat over the board.
“The kids wanted to be the ones doing it as we asked it questions,” Sheryl said. “The darn thing answered questions that there is no way those kids would know.”
The answers were friendly, at first.
“It said it was many of lost loved ones with us,” Sheryl said. Not placing much stock Ouija boards, she wandered the apartment inside and out taking pictures. When she returned to the apartment, the board was more active.
“Everyone was still playing with Ouija Board. They were freaking out thinking they were really talking to loved ones,” she said. “Maybe they were, or maybe they were not. The spirits could have been playing tricks on us all.”
At that time, the spirits were genial, so Sheryl asked it a question.
“I asked for some of my close friends that passed if they were there,” she said. “It said ‘no’ to all my questions. Then I asked if anyone I loved was with me – it went to yes.”
The board then spelled Todd. No one knew about Todd.
“Todd was my best friend since we was four years old,” she said. “We were always inseparable.”
Throughout Todd’s numerous moves from Maine to Connecticut from fourth grade to high school, they kept contact. But when Todd moved back to Maine when he was a freshman in high school, his mood changed. He started talking about suicide.
“He was not the same Todd I remembered,” Sheryl said. “He was not happy with life, always very quiet, told me how he wished he could just die.”
The next year, Todd’s mother, divorced, moved back to Connecticut. Years past, the two graduated, married others and had children. Then Todd, divorced, tried to initiate a romantic relationship.
“I was in an abusive relationship and spent lots of time talking with Todd who tried and tried to get me out of the relationship,” she said. “I finally did it. One month latter, after turning Todd down, he shot himself in the head.”
“Ouija board Todd” told Sheryl he had not yet crossed over, and couldn’t until she was with him.
“He said lots of stuff that really freaked me out,” Sheryl said.
Then the Ouija board turned bad.
“The board went from talking friendly to evil,” Sheryl said. “It said it was in the hallway. We asked ‘who is in the hallway?’ It replied back, ‘all of us.’”
After another half hour of abusive talk, the planchette shot across the board and fell to the floor. Sheryl and Meredith soon left and Alicia threw the Ouija board in a Dumpster.
Next week: A paranormal team investigates.
Copyright 2008 by Jason Offutt
Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.
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