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.