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.