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.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Woman Had Black Eyes
Leanne Smith couldn’t explain her panic.
Smith carpooled to work in Deale, Md., in 1999 when one night her driver stopped at a small grocery store, leaving Smith in the pickup alone.
“We parked at the edge of the parking lot with the store entrance and lot behind us,” Smith said. “We had worked late and it was well after dusk.”
Smith relaxed as she sat in the truck, watching cars going through the intersection, waiting for the driver to come back.
“I make note of my emotions because in this peaceful, relaxed state, I was hit with an unbelievably strong sense of fear or danger,” she said. “There was no rational explanation for this intense fear and I was able to be objective. It was really strange to me, feeling this fear all of a sudden.”
Realizing she was slipping into a panic attack, Smith tried to figure out what might have triggered this immediate overwhelming terror.
“The fear or sense of danger didn’t increase or become more intense,” Smith said. “The (initial) intensity was extraordinary.”
Then she noticed a possible trigger for her fear; a group of about 10 young men who were “roughhousing” in the parking lot behind her. Smith leaned closer to the passenger side mirror to watch them.
“A couple of them sounded drunk and it sounded as though it was possible a fight might be brewing,” she said. “I went to move the rear-view mirror to get a better view and saw something out of the corner of my eye.”
From the passenger seat, Smith slowly looked to her left, and found the cause for her terror.
“I looked over at the driver’s window and there, facing me, was a woman looking in at me,” she said. “Not just glancing in, she had her shoulders square to the driver’s door of the pickup, standing about a foot and a half away from the window, which was closed.”
The appearance of the woman rammed the intense fear deeper into Smith.
“My heart shot to my throat and I couldn’t move,” she said. “I just looked at her and she at me.”
Although the harsh shadows cast by the yellow streetlamps obscured part of the woman’s face, Smith could see her eyes. The eyes looked “empty.” Smith said the streetlamps that reflected off everything in the parking lot didn’t reflect in her eyes.
“They appeared dead,” Smith said. “Black voids. Nothing there. She seemed to have a look on her face as if she knew the fear that gripped me and enjoyed it.”
The woman’s gaze held Smith fast.
“I don’t know how long she stood there,” Smith said. “It didn’t seem to be very long, but at the same time, the intense fear made it seem like minutes.”
The woman suddenly turned and got into the passenger seat of a 1972 Plymouth Duster parked beside the pickup where Smith sat.
“The driver, who I couldn’t see, backed the car out of the lot and left,” Smith said. “Immediately, all fear and sense of danger was gone. Very strange to me how sudden it was with it being so intense a few moments before.”
Although Smith has seen this distinctive car a number of times since, she’s never again encountered the sinister woman with the black, dead eyes.
“I filed it away as a question mark and haven’t really thought much about it until I recently read a thread with a reference to ‘black-eyed kids,’” Smith said. “I looked at different blogs referring to these ‘black-eyed kids,’ and came across an anecdote with a description of a woman with black eyes and the unbelievable sense of danger the author experienced and it reminded me of my experience.”
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.
Smith carpooled to work in Deale, Md., in 1999 when one night her driver stopped at a small grocery store, leaving Smith in the pickup alone.
“We parked at the edge of the parking lot with the store entrance and lot behind us,” Smith said. “We had worked late and it was well after dusk.”
Smith relaxed as she sat in the truck, watching cars going through the intersection, waiting for the driver to come back.
“I make note of my emotions because in this peaceful, relaxed state, I was hit with an unbelievably strong sense of fear or danger,” she said. “There was no rational explanation for this intense fear and I was able to be objective. It was really strange to me, feeling this fear all of a sudden.”
Realizing she was slipping into a panic attack, Smith tried to figure out what might have triggered this immediate overwhelming terror.
“The fear or sense of danger didn’t increase or become more intense,” Smith said. “The (initial) intensity was extraordinary.”
Then she noticed a possible trigger for her fear; a group of about 10 young men who were “roughhousing” in the parking lot behind her. Smith leaned closer to the passenger side mirror to watch them.
“A couple of them sounded drunk and it sounded as though it was possible a fight might be brewing,” she said. “I went to move the rear-view mirror to get a better view and saw something out of the corner of my eye.”
From the passenger seat, Smith slowly looked to her left, and found the cause for her terror.
“I looked over at the driver’s window and there, facing me, was a woman looking in at me,” she said. “Not just glancing in, she had her shoulders square to the driver’s door of the pickup, standing about a foot and a half away from the window, which was closed.”
The appearance of the woman rammed the intense fear deeper into Smith.
“My heart shot to my throat and I couldn’t move,” she said. “I just looked at her and she at me.”
Although the harsh shadows cast by the yellow streetlamps obscured part of the woman’s face, Smith could see her eyes. The eyes looked “empty.” Smith said the streetlamps that reflected off everything in the parking lot didn’t reflect in her eyes.
“They appeared dead,” Smith said. “Black voids. Nothing there. She seemed to have a look on her face as if she knew the fear that gripped me and enjoyed it.”
The woman’s gaze held Smith fast.
“I don’t know how long she stood there,” Smith said. “It didn’t seem to be very long, but at the same time, the intense fear made it seem like minutes.”
The woman suddenly turned and got into the passenger seat of a 1972 Plymouth Duster parked beside the pickup where Smith sat.
“The driver, who I couldn’t see, backed the car out of the lot and left,” Smith said. “Immediately, all fear and sense of danger was gone. Very strange to me how sudden it was with it being so intense a few moments before.”
Although Smith has seen this distinctive car a number of times since, she’s never again encountered the sinister woman with the black, dead eyes.
“I filed it away as a question mark and haven’t really thought much about it until I recently read a thread with a reference to ‘black-eyed kids,’” Smith said. “I looked at different blogs referring to these ‘black-eyed kids,’ and came across an anecdote with a description of a woman with black eyes and the unbelievable sense of danger the author experienced and it reminded me of my experience.”
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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