The paranormal is often intimidating, confusing, terrifying. But strange knocks, dark entities and growls in the night aren’t always bad. The following are two stories of welcomed bumps in the night.
A mother’s touch
Jo Ann Miller, Texas, visited her family in Independence, Mo., in fall 2009. She went to the cemetery where her parents are buried, and drove by the house she grew up in, the house where her mother lived for 60 years. Later, at a party, Miller watched a family DVD with pictures of her mother, father and baby pictures of her son, who died in 1995.
“After we came back to Texas I was talking on the phone to someone about how nice it was to see those old pictures and how good my mother looked, how good my son looked, and also how nice it was to see a photo of my brother-in-law,” she said. “None of them are living.”
About 30 minutes later, Miller knew she was not alone in her house.
“I felt a hand resting on my right shoulder,” she said. “Such a light touch. It was almost like it wasn’t touching me, but it was.”
No one was there.
She looked for other explanations, such as a breeze from the ceiling fan, but the fan wasn’t on.
“There was no explanation,” she said. “It was just a nice feeling to have that invisible hand touching my shoulder.”
She believed the touch was from her mother. The next morning she was sure of it.
“I woke up in bed, rolled over, and happened to see the digital clock in our bedroom,” she said. “It had the numbers flashing that were my mother’s home address numbers exactly. I believe now that it was my mother – or an angel sent by my mother – that touched me. It isn’t something I would want to happen very often, that’s for sure. But it was a comforting presence.”
The Ghost Watches Over Us
When Krissy Mathers and her significant other moved into their Texas apartment in 2007 they knew they were not alone.
“This wasn’t the first time that my partner and I had ghostly roommates,” she said. “In our previous apartments there were specters. I felt (them) as cold chills and that feeling of being watched. She, however, could see them as clear as day.”
Footsteps from invisible feet began thumping through their apartment. Curtains would blow when the windows were closed, and bursts of cold air would shoot through the apartment.
“We’d have closet doors open and close,” Mathers said. “We’d have pots and pans fall on the floor out of the cabinets after being undisturbed, and picture frames that went flying off the walls.”
Mathers noticed these incidents occurred when she and her partner were discussing emotional issues.
“They get animated when we get animated,” Mathers said. “They especially get worked up when there is negative energy in the house such as in an argument.”
One night, a spirit appeared in Mathers’ bedroom.
“One dark night in a half sleep dosing off in bed, I saw the curtains move,” Mathers said. “I felt the cold winds blow and I heard the steps. My partner was frozen stiff and finally said, ‘Do you see that?’”
Mathers then knew she wasn’t imagining what was happening in the room.
“I clearly could see the figure of a shadow man,” she said. “Long, shaggy, shadow Cousin It-looking shadow man. He was like Cousin It, but with thick, nappy dreads covering his entire body.”
Then the entity spoke.
“My partner heard the shadow man say that someone was trying to break into our apartment,” Mathers said. “And just then there was rasping and noises at our back door. We hit the wall with baseball bats and whatever was there ran away.”
The next morning they discovered someone had tampered with their back door.
“Our back door lock had been unscrewed and almost removed,” she said. “It was barely hanging on, but we probably would not have noticed it before leaving the house for work. This was happening during a wave of apartment robberies and car break-ins in our apartment complex. We felt that we had the shadow man to thank for stopping either an attempt at a robbery or a set up for a future robbery.”
After that, their ghostly roommate has stepped back into the shadows, only occasionally making itself known by footsteps walking through the apartment.
“It kind of makes me smile,” Mathers said. “Now I light candles and incense for it so that the space is cleansed of bad vibes. But I guess our shadow man is still watching over us.”
Copyright 2009 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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
The Things Children See
All little Diane Garder wanted to do was play. As she stood in her aunt’s yard one afternoon, she noticed someone standing nearby.
“When I was three years old I saw a shadow person,” Garder said. “It looked curiously at me as I played in the backyard of my aunt’s home.”
Alone in the yard – her family was inside – she approached the shadowy figure; it didn’t like that.
“The entity looked at me and when I acknowledged it, it seemed to have feared me,” Garder said. “I chased it and said, ‘Wait wait. It’s OK. Who are you? Do you want to play?’ As a little child I did not know yet enough that I should have been scared.”
She chased this figure until it ran between two trees, through a fence and vanished.
“Was this entity from a different dimension or a ghost?” she said. “My mother had an abortion a few years before I was born and the shadow looked like it would have been the age of the older sibling if it had lived on this planet and not had been terminated during my mom’s pregnancy. Could it have been my dead brother or sister? Till this day at the age of 26 I am in utter amazement and awe of such a being.”
Children see more than adults. Invisible friends, ghosts, little people. Children often startle their parents by discussing encounters with someone whose description is similar to a grandparent the child has never met. Is it imagination, or can children tap into a part of the world adults can no longer see?
Bill Bryant was one of those children.
“I saw the Hat Man when I was a kid,” he said. “My brother and I shared the same room. Maybe 30 years later I was talking to my brother about it at my mom’s house. He said he saw the same thing.”
The Hat Man is an often-seen type of shadow person that wears, of all things, a fedora.
“Last fall my sister was telling my mom of seeing the Hat Man,” Bryant said. “(Mom) remembered my story and described him to my sister before she could describe him.”
Is the ability to see the paranormal something we outgrow? Or do children experience frequent paranormal encounters because society has yet to tell them there’s nothing unusual under their beds – or up the stairs.
In the late 1970s, Stefanie Woolsey – then four years old – and her three-year-old sister saw something in their house.
“This particular event we experienced together still haunts us,” Woolsey said.
Woolsey’s family lived in an older, A-framed, red brick house in southern Indiana near the Ohio River. In the upstairs room under the peaked ceiling was the Woolsey children’s playroom.
“Our oldest sister was in kindergarten,” Woolsey said. “When she went to school, my mother encouraged my other sister and I to play upstairs while she cleaned the house.”
In the upstairs room, the girls would open a closet door “that looked like a barn door,” take out their toys and play. But their fun would always be cut short.
“We would play until we disturbed the Soldier Boy,” she said.
A young man, angered by the noise the girls made, would emerge from the closet and gruffly yell, “Get out of here.” The Soldier Boy wore a military uniform with big black boots.
“We were so little, as we turned the corner to the stairs we could only see his big, black boots,” Woolsey said. “My sister and I ran so fast we’d land on our rear-ends and flop down the stairs until we reached the bottom with our hearts almost beating out of our chests.”
Hearing the noise, their mother would step around the corner holding her cleaning supplies and tell them to go back upstairs.
“My sister and I answered, ‘We can’t. The Soldier Boy won’t let us,’” Woolsey said.
This happened almost every day for the year Woolsey’s family lived in that house.
“My sister and I collected our toys and played in the middle of the stairs appeasing our mother and the Soldier Boy,” she said.
Woolsey’s mother never saw the Soldier Boy, nor did she believe them, but she did notice strange things in the house.
“Even though my mother’s an avid cleaner, the house became infested with roaches forcing us to move to a wonderful, white house in the country,” Woolsey said. “The closest neighbor lived a mile away in an old church made into a house with a cemetery in the yard. My sister and I continued to have experiences – but not with the Soldier Boy.”
Can children see into an unknown world? It seems adults should not so easily discredit a child who speaks of a “friend” who plays in their room.
Copyright 2009 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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
“When I was three years old I saw a shadow person,” Garder said. “It looked curiously at me as I played in the backyard of my aunt’s home.”
Alone in the yard – her family was inside – she approached the shadowy figure; it didn’t like that.
“The entity looked at me and when I acknowledged it, it seemed to have feared me,” Garder said. “I chased it and said, ‘Wait wait. It’s OK. Who are you? Do you want to play?’ As a little child I did not know yet enough that I should have been scared.”
She chased this figure until it ran between two trees, through a fence and vanished.
“Was this entity from a different dimension or a ghost?” she said. “My mother had an abortion a few years before I was born and the shadow looked like it would have been the age of the older sibling if it had lived on this planet and not had been terminated during my mom’s pregnancy. Could it have been my dead brother or sister? Till this day at the age of 26 I am in utter amazement and awe of such a being.”
Children see more than adults. Invisible friends, ghosts, little people. Children often startle their parents by discussing encounters with someone whose description is similar to a grandparent the child has never met. Is it imagination, or can children tap into a part of the world adults can no longer see?
Bill Bryant was one of those children.
“I saw the Hat Man when I was a kid,” he said. “My brother and I shared the same room. Maybe 30 years later I was talking to my brother about it at my mom’s house. He said he saw the same thing.”
The Hat Man is an often-seen type of shadow person that wears, of all things, a fedora.
“Last fall my sister was telling my mom of seeing the Hat Man,” Bryant said. “(Mom) remembered my story and described him to my sister before she could describe him.”
Is the ability to see the paranormal something we outgrow? Or do children experience frequent paranormal encounters because society has yet to tell them there’s nothing unusual under their beds – or up the stairs.
In the late 1970s, Stefanie Woolsey – then four years old – and her three-year-old sister saw something in their house.
“This particular event we experienced together still haunts us,” Woolsey said.
Woolsey’s family lived in an older, A-framed, red brick house in southern Indiana near the Ohio River. In the upstairs room under the peaked ceiling was the Woolsey children’s playroom.
“Our oldest sister was in kindergarten,” Woolsey said. “When she went to school, my mother encouraged my other sister and I to play upstairs while she cleaned the house.”
In the upstairs room, the girls would open a closet door “that looked like a barn door,” take out their toys and play. But their fun would always be cut short.
“We would play until we disturbed the Soldier Boy,” she said.
A young man, angered by the noise the girls made, would emerge from the closet and gruffly yell, “Get out of here.” The Soldier Boy wore a military uniform with big black boots.
“We were so little, as we turned the corner to the stairs we could only see his big, black boots,” Woolsey said. “My sister and I ran so fast we’d land on our rear-ends and flop down the stairs until we reached the bottom with our hearts almost beating out of our chests.”
Hearing the noise, their mother would step around the corner holding her cleaning supplies and tell them to go back upstairs.
“My sister and I answered, ‘We can’t. The Soldier Boy won’t let us,’” Woolsey said.
This happened almost every day for the year Woolsey’s family lived in that house.
“My sister and I collected our toys and played in the middle of the stairs appeasing our mother and the Soldier Boy,” she said.
Woolsey’s mother never saw the Soldier Boy, nor did she believe them, but she did notice strange things in the house.
“Even though my mother’s an avid cleaner, the house became infested with roaches forcing us to move to a wonderful, white house in the country,” Woolsey said. “The closest neighbor lived a mile away in an old church made into a house with a cemetery in the yard. My sister and I continued to have experiences – but not with the Soldier Boy.”
Can children see into an unknown world? It seems adults should not so easily discredit a child who speaks of a “friend” who plays in their room.
Copyright 2009 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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
A Dark, Angry Presence
The run-down apartment in Brisbane, Australia, always felt wrong to Kayla Griffiths.
“Numerous friends who would visit would sometimes have to leave certain rooms or sometimes the entire apartment because of these energies,” Griffiths said.
Strangeness began the first week she lived there – the apartment spoke to her and her flatmate. The voice told Griffiths to get out of bed.
“Me and my original flatmate experienced a voice speaking to each of us,” Griffiths said. “To me it sounded like her, to her it sounded like me.”
Griffiths walked into her flatmate’s room and found her still in bed. Neither of them had spoken.
“Her face dropped,” Griffiths said. “We both knew something weird had happened but had brushed it off.”
The strangeness continued, slowly at first.
“Things began disappearing then showing up in places we would clearly see it,” she said. “Once I walked past the fridge and a bottle off the top of the fridge flung to the ground and smashed on the floor in front of my legs; enough to have little cuts on my legs, but nothing serous.”
The negative feeling increased slowly, too. The feeling grew stronger the longer Griffiths lived in the apartment. Hatred, anger, self-loathing.
“The rage and anger we felt started off with little arguments and annoyance over small things, which we palmed off as stress,” Griffiths said. “And slowly things started getting more angry. It felt like there were constant tensions in the house.”
Griffiths’ flatmate – also her best friend – became so angry she moved out.
“We ended up not speaking anymore,” Griffiths said. “I had thoughts that were completely paranoid about her, thinking she was doing things to hurt me.”
Then Griffiths’ boyfriend, a devout Roman Catholic, moved in, and the negative feeling in the apartment grew worse.
“The anger then seemed to heighten between me and my boyfriend, starting off with big yelling matches, then throwing things, then pushing,” she said. “It became more and more violent where I would feel as if I had lost control of my mind.”
The anger would completly take her over. At one point she hit her boyfriend over the head, knocking him to the ground.
“It’s hard to explain, but it was like my eyes glazed over and I blacked out while this force of just anger and hate took over,” she said.
Then the anger and negativity became solid.
“I was in a pretty deep sleep when I woke suddenly, automatically looking at a corner of the room,” Griffiths said. “My eyes shot open and I was staring at this figure about seven foot tall, with some sort of robe or cloak-looking outline.”
The entity had no face; it was just a massive black mass.
“The even scarier thing is that it was pitch black in our room, and this figure was so black it was like I was seeing it in the sunlight,” Griffiths said. “I feel as if my soul or subconscious knew it was there before I even woke up, that’s why I was staring straight at it.”
Fear and panic racked Griffiths.
“I instantly knew it was evil,” she said. “I needed it gone; there was a sense of urgency to make it go away. I don’t know what this thing was, all I know is I have never felt so terrified in my whole, entire life.”
Griffiths lay there, the breath knocked from her lungs, trying to scream, but nothing would come out.
“All I managed to do was call my partner’s name out,” she said. “The way in which I did, he woke straight away and saw it. The figure was still just standing in the corner of our room.”
Griffiths buried her head under the covers, clinging to her boyfriend. He prayed until the entity went away.
“I am now convinced there is a God, because if there is something that evil out there, there’s got to be something that saved me from it that night,” she said.
However, Griffiths is concerned she was the cause of the negativity in the apartment. She and her former flatmate had often used a Ouija board before they moved into the apartment.
“I believe something followed us,” Griffiths said. “I honestly think my soul was somewhat in trouble until I met my boyfriend. I believe his religion and knowledge has saved me from whatever wanted my soul.”
Griffiths and her boyfriend moved out of that apartment and haven’t seen the entity nor felt the negativity since.
“Thankfully nothing has really happened here,” she said. “We actually left because it got to the point we were scared of killing each other. Since we’ve been in our new home we haven’t had one fight. I’m pretty certain it’s leaving me alone because my partner protects me.”
Copyright 2009 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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
“Numerous friends who would visit would sometimes have to leave certain rooms or sometimes the entire apartment because of these energies,” Griffiths said.
Strangeness began the first week she lived there – the apartment spoke to her and her flatmate. The voice told Griffiths to get out of bed.
“Me and my original flatmate experienced a voice speaking to each of us,” Griffiths said. “To me it sounded like her, to her it sounded like me.”
Griffiths walked into her flatmate’s room and found her still in bed. Neither of them had spoken.
“Her face dropped,” Griffiths said. “We both knew something weird had happened but had brushed it off.”
The strangeness continued, slowly at first.
“Things began disappearing then showing up in places we would clearly see it,” she said. “Once I walked past the fridge and a bottle off the top of the fridge flung to the ground and smashed on the floor in front of my legs; enough to have little cuts on my legs, but nothing serous.”
The negative feeling increased slowly, too. The feeling grew stronger the longer Griffiths lived in the apartment. Hatred, anger, self-loathing.
“The rage and anger we felt started off with little arguments and annoyance over small things, which we palmed off as stress,” Griffiths said. “And slowly things started getting more angry. It felt like there were constant tensions in the house.”
Griffiths’ flatmate – also her best friend – became so angry she moved out.
“We ended up not speaking anymore,” Griffiths said. “I had thoughts that were completely paranoid about her, thinking she was doing things to hurt me.”
Then Griffiths’ boyfriend, a devout Roman Catholic, moved in, and the negative feeling in the apartment grew worse.
“The anger then seemed to heighten between me and my boyfriend, starting off with big yelling matches, then throwing things, then pushing,” she said. “It became more and more violent where I would feel as if I had lost control of my mind.”
The anger would completly take her over. At one point she hit her boyfriend over the head, knocking him to the ground.
“It’s hard to explain, but it was like my eyes glazed over and I blacked out while this force of just anger and hate took over,” she said.
Then the anger and negativity became solid.
“I was in a pretty deep sleep when I woke suddenly, automatically looking at a corner of the room,” Griffiths said. “My eyes shot open and I was staring at this figure about seven foot tall, with some sort of robe or cloak-looking outline.”
The entity had no face; it was just a massive black mass.
“The even scarier thing is that it was pitch black in our room, and this figure was so black it was like I was seeing it in the sunlight,” Griffiths said. “I feel as if my soul or subconscious knew it was there before I even woke up, that’s why I was staring straight at it.”
Fear and panic racked Griffiths.
“I instantly knew it was evil,” she said. “I needed it gone; there was a sense of urgency to make it go away. I don’t know what this thing was, all I know is I have never felt so terrified in my whole, entire life.”
Griffiths lay there, the breath knocked from her lungs, trying to scream, but nothing would come out.
“All I managed to do was call my partner’s name out,” she said. “The way in which I did, he woke straight away and saw it. The figure was still just standing in the corner of our room.”
Griffiths buried her head under the covers, clinging to her boyfriend. He prayed until the entity went away.
“I am now convinced there is a God, because if there is something that evil out there, there’s got to be something that saved me from it that night,” she said.
However, Griffiths is concerned she was the cause of the negativity in the apartment. She and her former flatmate had often used a Ouija board before they moved into the apartment.
“I believe something followed us,” Griffiths said. “I honestly think my soul was somewhat in trouble until I met my boyfriend. I believe his religion and knowledge has saved me from whatever wanted my soul.”
Griffiths and her boyfriend moved out of that apartment and haven’t seen the entity nor felt the negativity since.
“Thankfully nothing has really happened here,” she said. “We actually left because it got to the point we were scared of killing each other. Since we’ve been in our new home we haven’t had one fight. I’m pretty certain it’s leaving me alone because my partner protects me.”
Copyright 2009 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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
The Haunting Followed Them
Something was wrong with the house.
Angie Kelly of New Cumberland, Pa., and her family moved into the large Foursquare that sat over a large series of caves in the 1990s.
“There was a hole in the back yard that lead down to the caves,” Kelly said. “We kept a board over the opening so kids and dogs wouldn’t fall in.”
But the Kelly family had more to worry about than cave openings.
“Being in the basement doing laundry, I never felt like I was completely alone,” Kelly said. “It was a strange feeling, like someone was watching me.”
Whatever was watching Kelly may have been watching her toddler, too.
“My son, Ryan, was also exhibiting very strange behavior,” Kelly said.
Ryan began slamming himself against the safety rails on his bed and tried to throw himself through the house’s large front window.
“At one point (he) attempted to throw himself down the stairs,” she said. “This was a frightening thought.”
Then things started happening in Ryan’s room.
“A horrible odor filled my son’s room, and just his room,” Kelly said. “Before too long, his room was overrun with flies. They were all over the windows, ala ‘Amityville Horror.’”
Kelly couldn’t get rid of the smell or the flies.
“They seemed to have no desire to leave his room,” she said. “The odor seemed to emanate from his closet and I had to remove his clothes so they wouldn’t stink.”
Finally, Kelly turned to religion.
“We never did figure out what the smell and the flies were all about, but after hanging a cross in his room, the smell left and the flies disappeared,” Kelly said.
The Kellys finally moved away from whatever lurked in that house.
“The house also got hit by lightning while I was living there,” Kelly said. “It was a very weird year that I lived there, just one strange thing after another. It was kind of a relief to move out. The entire experience in that house was very bizarre.”
But whatever was in the house may have followed them.
“In the mid-1990s, I lived in a rented duplex,” she said. “It was probably built in the 1920s. On various occasions, I would see a dark man that came down my stairway, take a left turn and head for my kitchen.”
That’s all the dark man, a walking shadow, would do; walk down the stairs and take a left turn.
“That didn’t bother me much until one night I awoke to the screaming of my young son,” she said. Ryan was now about four or five years old.
She ran to his bedroom and asked what was wrong.
“He was sitting up in bed, hysterical, and said, ‘Please make them go away,’” she said.
“Who?” Kelly asked.
“All of these people,” Ryan screamed.
Kelly couldn’t see anyone in the room, but she believed her son did.
“All I know is that he was absolutely hysterical and the incident frightened me for a very long time,” she said. “Was his room a portal? Could be.”
They eventually moved from the house and it sat vacant.
“Recently this same house was put on the market for sale,” she said. “It sat for a long, long time, the price dropping and dropping. It finally sold, but after many months on the market. I am convinced the reason the house sat so long for sale is that people know it is haunted.”
Copyright 2009 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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
Angie Kelly of New Cumberland, Pa., and her family moved into the large Foursquare that sat over a large series of caves in the 1990s.
“There was a hole in the back yard that lead down to the caves,” Kelly said. “We kept a board over the opening so kids and dogs wouldn’t fall in.”
But the Kelly family had more to worry about than cave openings.
“Being in the basement doing laundry, I never felt like I was completely alone,” Kelly said. “It was a strange feeling, like someone was watching me.”
Whatever was watching Kelly may have been watching her toddler, too.
“My son, Ryan, was also exhibiting very strange behavior,” Kelly said.
Ryan began slamming himself against the safety rails on his bed and tried to throw himself through the house’s large front window.
“At one point (he) attempted to throw himself down the stairs,” she said. “This was a frightening thought.”
Then things started happening in Ryan’s room.
“A horrible odor filled my son’s room, and just his room,” Kelly said. “Before too long, his room was overrun with flies. They were all over the windows, ala ‘Amityville Horror.’”
Kelly couldn’t get rid of the smell or the flies.
“They seemed to have no desire to leave his room,” she said. “The odor seemed to emanate from his closet and I had to remove his clothes so they wouldn’t stink.”
Finally, Kelly turned to religion.
“We never did figure out what the smell and the flies were all about, but after hanging a cross in his room, the smell left and the flies disappeared,” Kelly said.
The Kellys finally moved away from whatever lurked in that house.
“The house also got hit by lightning while I was living there,” Kelly said. “It was a very weird year that I lived there, just one strange thing after another. It was kind of a relief to move out. The entire experience in that house was very bizarre.”
But whatever was in the house may have followed them.
“In the mid-1990s, I lived in a rented duplex,” she said. “It was probably built in the 1920s. On various occasions, I would see a dark man that came down my stairway, take a left turn and head for my kitchen.”
That’s all the dark man, a walking shadow, would do; walk down the stairs and take a left turn.
“That didn’t bother me much until one night I awoke to the screaming of my young son,” she said. Ryan was now about four or five years old.
She ran to his bedroom and asked what was wrong.
“He was sitting up in bed, hysterical, and said, ‘Please make them go away,’” she said.
“Who?” Kelly asked.
“All of these people,” Ryan screamed.
Kelly couldn’t see anyone in the room, but she believed her son did.
“All I know is that he was absolutely hysterical and the incident frightened me for a very long time,” she said. “Was his room a portal? Could be.”
They eventually moved from the house and it sat vacant.
“Recently this same house was put on the market for sale,” she said. “It sat for a long, long time, the price dropping and dropping. It finally sold, but after many months on the market. I am convinced the reason the house sat so long for sale is that people know it is haunted.”
Copyright 2009 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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
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