Come With Me to the Dark Side - Spooky Stuff

*cue deep, monstrous laugh* Muwahahaa  

'tis the time of year to celebrate the strange and the unexplainable.  What better way to do so than to tell each other spooky stories?    True stories, urban legends, complete fiction, and even things that have happened to us, ourselves! 

Grab a blanket, gather 'round the campfire, and come with me to the dark side!  

What better way to start off our spooky stories than with one by The Masters of the Macabre, Edgar Allan Poe?  This is my favorite, of those I've read.  I present to you...


TRUE! --nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses --not destroyed --not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily --how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded --with what caution --with what foresight --with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it --oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly --very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! would a madman have been so wise as this, And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously-oh, so cautiously --cautiously (for the hinges creaked) --I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights --every night just at midnight --but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he has passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.

Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers --of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled. Now you may think that I drew back --but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness, (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers,) and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.

I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed, crying out --"Who's there?"

I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening; --just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.

Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief --oh, no! --it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself --"It is nothing but the wind in the chimney --it is only a mouse crossing the floor," or "It is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp." Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions: but he had found all in vain. All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel --although he neither saw nor heard --to feel the presence of my head within the room.

When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little --a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it --you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily --until, at length a simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye.

It was open --wide, wide open --and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness --all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.

And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense? --now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.

But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eve. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! --do you mark me well I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me --the sound would be heard by a neighbour! The old man's hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once --once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But, for many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eve would trouble me no more.

If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.

I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye --not even his --could have detected any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash out --no stain of any kind --no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all --ha! ha!

When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock --still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart, --for what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office, and they (the officers) had been deputed to search the premises.

I smiled, --for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search --search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.

The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat, and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears: but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct: --It continued and became more distinct: I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definiteness --until, at length, I found that the noise was not within my ears.

No doubt I now grew very pale; --but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased --and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound --much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath --and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly --more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men --but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I foamed --I raved --I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder --louder --louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! --no, no! They heard! --they suspected! --they knew! --they were making a mockery of my horror!-this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now --again! --hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! here, here! --It is the beating of his hideous heart!" 

That story has always scared me half to death!

True story: We lived in a haunted house. This would of been around 40 years ago, when we first moved here, my parents & my sisters.
There were these "cubbyholes" located in the kitchen & bathroom. Upon opening them, all you could see was packed dirt. We never figured out what their use was.
A snake crawled across my Mom's foot while she was sitting on the porch. A swarm of bees had us stranded inside the house all day.
A huge bullfrog got into our house while we were all sleeping. I was awakened by this thumping noise. I couldn't tell what it was because it was dark. My heart was pounding as I finally got up enough courage to run to my parent's room & get Dad.
Curtains would billow where there was no wind. Dad's guitar strings would strum with no one nearby.
The house is no longer there...

Oooo~!   Very spooky!

This happened less than two weeks ago:

The girls and I were upstairs getting ready for bed when my husband called up the stairs.  "What!?"

We of course had no idea what he was asking about, and told him so.

It turns out that while he was in the bathroom downstairs, someone had been pounding on the door, but no one was there.

This kind of thing happens a lot around here, and I didn't really pay much attention.  Maybe something we were doing upstairs caused the noise.

Except that it happened again.

The next morning my eldest reported that the same had happened to her.  I was in the shower at the time, and the others were sleeping, so it couldn't have been a noise coming from one of us...

I had trouble sleeping for the next couple of nights

I have a LOT of this kind of story to share, but I'll spread them out... after all, I'd like to keep this thread going for at LEAST until Halloween!

You guys are scaring me!   (← love this guy)
Ghost stories (when told or written well) are my very very very favorite kind.

oooh, scaring me, too!

My sister reminded me today, that in back of our haunted house, there was a huge hill. Well, over to the side of the hill was a small pathway.
Us kids, being naturally curious, just had to investigate.
I think I was the first...riding my bicycle on this pathway, I came upon a small clearing with little pieces of wood tied together. I didn't know what it was, but it felt freaky to me. So I turned around & hightailed it out of there, feet pedaling like mad.
My sisters investigated afterwards, only they went farther than I did. Turns out, there was another similar clearing, with strips of material tied into these wood pieces.
At that time, the movie, "Blair Witch Project" was not out, but the wood pieces we seen back then, were the very same wood pieces in the movie.

What the WHAT?!?  
Where did you grow up btw?

LMAO, R-Mom! Yes, very weird, isn't it?

My Dad was in the Air Force, so we always lived on-base (except for when we had to wait for on-base housing to become available). He's from this area (most all his brothers & sisters were still here) and when he retired, we all moved back home. I was in my early teens & my sisters were 6 and 7.
First, we lived in a trailer for maybe a year, until Dad found a job. Then, we moved into the haunted house and stayed for about 2 years.
Honestly, I think Mom & Dad knew something was going on in that house & around that area. They found a house to buy in no-time and we moved again.

Just a peek at my everyday life:

• Talking on the phone, and watching a basket full of apples slowly move two feet across a perfectly level table, then fly off, scattering apples about the room.
  
• Standing half a room from a bookcase and seeing books from the top shelf suddenly shoot out to land several feet away.
  
• Hearing a crash in the kitchen (or any other empty room,) rushing to see what happened, only to find nothing amiss.
  
• Things disappearing, only to reappear in a place where we've looked five times.  This happens weekly, at least!  My husband once lost his keys for TEN DAYS.  On day 10, he reached his hand under a table, and the keys literally fell from nowhere and landed in his outstretched hand. 
  

Next up is the actual creepy stuff...  

Wait-- and that stuff isn't creepy?!?!?! OMG I'm scared to know what the actually creepy stuff is...

This is the story of the Dibbuk Box, as posted on the this website.

Here is the story of the haunted wine box, exactly as it appeared on eBay. You form your own opinion.

The first buyer an antique buyer-refinisher

All of the events that I am about to set forth in this listing are accurate and may be verified by the winning bidder with the copies of hospital records and sworn affidavits that I am including as part of the sale of the cabinet.

During September of 2001, I attended an estate sale in Portland Oregon. The items liquidated at this sale were from the estate of a woman who had passed away at the age of 103. A grand-daughter of the woman told me that her grandmother had been born in Poland where she grew up, married, raised a family, and lived until she was sent to a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. She was the only member of her family who survived the camp. Her parents, brothers, a sister, husband, and two sons and a daughter were all killed. She survived the camp by escaping with some other prisoners and somehow making her way to Spain where she lived until the end of the war. I was told that she acquired the small wine cabinet listed here in Spain and it was one of only three items that she brought with her when she immigrated to the United States. The other two items were a steamer trunk, and a sewing box.

I purchased the wine cabinet, along with the sewing box and some other furniture at the estate sale. After the sale, I was approached by the woman's granddaughter who said, I see you got the dibbuk box. She was referring to the wine cabinet. I asked her what a dibbuk box was, and she told me that when she was growing up, her grandmother always kept the wine cabinet in her sewing room. It was always shut, and set in a place that was out of reach. The grandmother always called it the dibbuk box. When the girl asked her grandmother what was inside, her grandmother spit three times through her fingers said, a dibbuk, and keselim. The grandmother went on to tell the girl that the wine cabinet was never, ever, to be opened.

The granddaughter told me that her grandmother had asked that the box be buried with her. However, as such a request was contrary to the rules of an orthodox Jewish burial, the grandmothers request had not been honored. I asked the granddaughter what a dibbuk, and keselim were, but she did not know. I asked if she would like to open it with me. She did not want to open it, as her grandmother had been very emphatic and serious when she instructed her not to do so, and, regardless of the reason, she wanted to honor her grandmother’s request.

I finally ended up offering to let her keep what seemed to me to be a sentimental keepsake. At that point, she was very insistent and said, No, no you bought it!

I explained that I didn’t want my money back, and that it would make me feel better to do what I thought was an act of kindness. She then became somewhat upset. Looking back now, the way she became upset was just plain odd. She raised her voice to me and said, you bought it! You made a deal!

When I tried to speak, she yelled, we don't want it! She began to cry, asked me to leave, and quickly walked away. I wrote the whole episode off to the stress and grief she must have been experiencing. I took my purchases and politely left.

At the time when I bought the cabinet, I owned a small furniture refinishing business. I took the cabinet to my store, and put it in my basement workshop where I intended to refinish it and give it as a gift to my Mother. I didn't think anything more about it. I opened my shop for the day and went to run some errands leaving the young woman who did sales for me in charge.

After about a half-hour, I got a call on my cell phone. The call was from my salesperson. She was absolutely hysterical and screaming that someone was in my workshop breaking glass and swearing. Furthermore, the intruder had locked the iron security gates and the emergency exit and she couldn't get out. As I told her to call the police, my cell phone battery went dead. \ I hit speeds of 100 mph getting back to the shop. When I arrived, I found the gates locked. I went inside and found my employee on the floor in a corner of my office sobbing hysterically. I ran to the basement and went downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs, I was hit by an overpowering unmistakable odor of cat urine (there had never been any animals kept or found in my shop). The lights didn't work. As I investigated, I found that the reason the lights didn't work also explained the sounds of glass breaking. All of the light bulbs in the basement were broken. All nine incandescent bulbs had been broken in their sockets, and 10 four-foot fluorescent tubes were lying shattered on the floor. I did not find an intruder, however. I should also add that there was only one entrance to the basement. It would have been impossible for anyone to leave without meeting me head-on. I went back up to speak with my salesperson, but she had left.

She never returned to work (after having been with me for two years). She refuses to discuss the incident to this day. I never thought of relating the events of that day to anything having to do with the cabinet.

Then, things got worse.

As I already indicated, I had decided to give the cabinet to my Mother as a birthday gift. About two weeks after I made the purchase, I decided to get started refinishing it. I was surprised to find that the cabinet has a unique little mechanism. When you open one of the doors, the mechanism causes the opposite door, and the little drawer below, to open at the same time. It is very well made. Inside the cabinet, I found the following items: 1 1928 U.S. Wheat Penny; 1 1925 US Wheat Penny; One small lock of blonde hair (bound with string); One small lock of black/brown hair (bound with string); One small granite statue engraved and gilded with Hebrew letters (I have been told that the letters spell out the word SHALOM); One dried rosebud; One golden wine cup; One very strange black cast iron candlestick holder with octopus legs.

I saved all of the items in a box intending to return them to the estate. The family has refused the items, so they will be included in this sale of the cabinet.

After opening the cabinet, I decided not to refinish it. I cleaned it, and rubbed in some lemon oil. It was at this time that I noticed that there was an inscription in Hebrew carved into the back of the cabinet. I have no idea what it says or if it is significant. I have included a picture of that inscription below. On my mother’s birthday, October 28, 2001, my mother called to tell me that she was going out of town with my sister for three days, and we postponed celebrating her birthday together until she returned. On October 31, 2001, my mother came to my shop. We were going to have lunch together, but before we were going to leave, I gave her the wine cabinet. She seemed to like it. While she examined it, I went to make a phone call. I hadn't been out of sight more than 5 minutes when one of my employees came running into my office saying that something was wrong with my mom.

When I went back to see what the matter was, I found my mom sitting in a chair beside the cabinet. Her face had no expression, but tears were streaming down her cheeks. No matter how I tried to get her to respond, she would not. She could not. It turns out that my mother had suffered a stroke. She was taken to the hospital by ambulance. She ended up suffering partial paralysis, and losing her ability to speak and form words (she has since regained the ability to speak). She could understand things being said to her, and could respond by pointing to letters of the alphabet to spell out words she wanted to say. When I asked her the following day how she was doing, she teared up and spelled out the words: N-O G-I- F-T. I assured her that I had given her a gift for her birthday, thinking that she didn’t remember, but she became even more upset and spelled out the words: H-A-T-E G-I-F-T. I laughed and told her not to worry. I told her I was sorry she didn’t like the cabinet, and that I would get her anything she wanted if she would promise to get well soon.

Still, I didn't associate anything that had happened with the cabinet itself or anything paranormal. Frankly, I don’t think I ever even used the term paranormal until this last month.

I'll try to make this short now. I gave the cabinet to my sister. She kept it for a week, then gave it back. She complained that she couldn't get the doors to stay closed and that they kept coming open. There are no springs in the door mechanism and I have never found that the doors come open. I gave it to my brother and his wife who kept it for three days and then gave it back. My brother said it smelled like Jasmine flowers, while his wife insisted that it put out an odor of cat urine. I gave it to my girlfriend who asked me to sell it for her after only two days. I sold it the same day to a nice middle aged couple. Three days later, when I came to open the shop for the day, I found the cabinet sitting at the front doors with a note that read, This has a bad darkness. I had no idea what that meant. Anyway, I ended up taking it home.

Then, things got even worse.

Since the day I brought it home, I began having a strange recurring nightmare. Every time I have the horrible dream it goes something like this: I find myself walking with a friend, usually someone I know well and trust at some point in the dream, I find myself looking into the eyes of the person that I am with. It is then that I realize that there is something different, something evil looking back at me. At that point in my dream, the person I am with changes into what can only be described as the most gruesome, demonic looking Hag that I have ever seen. This Hag proceeds then, to beat the living tar out of me. I have awakened numerous times to find bruises and marks on myself where I had been hit by the old woman during the previous night. Still, I never related the nightmares to the cabinet, nor do I think that I ever would have.

About a month ago, however, my sister, and my brother and his wife came over to my house and spent the night. The following morning, during breakfast, my sister complained that she had had a horrible nightmare. She said that she recalled having had it a couple of times before, and went on to describe my nightmare exactly to the last detail. My brother and his wife froze as they listened, and then chimed in that they had both had had the exact same dreams during the night as well. The hair was standing up on the back of my neck and still is. As we talked, it became clear that the common denominator was that each of us had had the nightmare during the times that the cabinet was in our respective homes. I called my girlfriend and asked if she could recall having any nightmares recently. She described the same nightmare, same Hag, everything. When I asked her if she remembered the date when she had the nightmare, she said she did not. Then I
asked if it happened to be the night before she gave me the cabinet back to sell for her. She said, Yeah! Hey, how did you know that?!!!

Now then, since my family discussion, it seems like all hell is breaking loose. For a week afterward I started seeing what I can only describe as shadow things in my peripheral vision. In fact, numerous visitors to my house have claimed that they have seen these shadow things. I put the cabinet in an outside storage unit and was awakened when the smoke alarm in the unit went off in the middle of the night. When I went to see what was burning, I opened the door and didn’t see any smoke. However, I did get hit with the smell of cat urine. When I went back inside, the smell was there in my house. I DO NOT OWN A CAT AND I NEVER HAVE. I went back outside and grabbed the cabinet. I brought it back inside and tried to research it on the Internet. While I was surfing the net, I fell asleep and once again had the same freakin nightmare. I woke up at around 4:30am (when it felt and smelled like someone was breathing on my neck) to find that my house now smelled like Jasmine flowers, and just in time to see a HUGE shadow thing go loping down the hall away from me.

I would destroy this thing in a second, except I really don’t have any understanding of what I may or may not be dealing with. I am afraid (and I do mean afraid) that if I destroy the cabinet, whatever it is that seems to have come with the cabinet may just stay here with me. I have been told that there are people who shop on EBAY that understand these kinds of things and specifically look for these kinds of items. If you are one of these people, please, please buy this cabinet and do whatever you do with a thing like this.

Help me.

You can see that I have no reserve price or minimum bid. If I can make things any easier let me know and I will do everything within my abilities.

One more note. On the same day my Mom had her stroke, the lease to my store was summarily terminated without cause.

The measurements are 12.5" x 7.5" x 16.25"

ALL OF THE ITEMS THAT I ORIGINALLY FOUND INSIDE THE CABINET ARE INCLUDED IN THE SALE AND WILL BE DELIVERED WITH THE CABINET.

On Jun-12-03 at 02:15:30 PDT, seller added the following information:

There is no way that I can respond to all of the e-mails I've received since I put this thing on-line. I'll try now to update and answer the most common questions I've been receiving.

1. No, I am not religious.

2. No, I do not wish to have or participate in any sort of exorcism, or case study, or photo sessions at my home.

3. No, I will not sell any of the individual pieces which were originally found separate from the other pieces and the cabinet.

4. No, I do not speak Hebrew nor do I know what the word "keselim" means. I don't know that the word is even
   or  or  a Hebrew word.

5. At the end of the auction, I have decided to take an opportunity to speak with the winning bidder for two reasons: a.)To make sure that the winning bidder is a serious adult who has employed some valid reasoning skills in making the decision to accept whatever this is. I will not be judgmental. Do whatever you want or need after the sale. b.)To offer full details of the events that have transpired. After I have carried out those responsibilities, and upon payment, I will have the cabinet and its contents delivered by U.S.MAIL, FED-EX, or UPS to the winning bidder. At that point, I will have no further involvement with the matter in any way, shape, or form. Period.

6.) To all of you who have offered to pray, I may not be religious, but I am certainly open to the possibilities --no matter what your religion might be. THANK YOU!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Jun-14-03 at 05:216 PDT, seller added the following information:

Here is another update for everyone following this listing.
NO! No, I will not circumvent, or make any deals outside of EBAY - EVEN FOR MORE MONEY THAN THE FINAL AUCTION PRICE!!! If you want to win the auction and have the kind of money some of you are offering, there shouldn't be any reason why you cannot simply place your bid in an open honest fashion. I'm sure you can understand why I might be suspicious.

ALSO....

For those of you wanting to know if I am still experiencing anything out of the ordinary, I thought everything was going OK until I got home on Friday - the 13th of June - and found that the fish in my fresh water aquarium - all 10 - were dead.

I'm still hoping that all of this is coincidental crap.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

Oh my goodness, that is one creepy story, Genki.

I would seriously consider reading the book, but I think I would be too afraid...no joke.

Yeah...   It's one thing to watch a scary movie / read a book / play a game, but when it's based on TRUE events... That's just a bit too much for me!

This happened when my eldest was still a toddler. 
We had just gotten her to where she would sleep in her own room through the night -- finally!   We were tired, and since it was a nice day, her aunt had come to take her for a ride.  Whilst they were gone, my husband and I decided to get some cleaning done.  We went into our daughter's room to pack up her play gym, which looked something like this:



It was square, with a slide that folded up, and "hinges" at the four corners that allowed us to lay it flat.  It was thick plastic (more so than the one shown above,) big, bulky, and heavy.  We wanted to vacuum, so we got it folded, hefted it up, and jammed it into our daughter's crib.  As you can imagine, it barely fit, but with the crib's railing up, it was snug and secure.

We left the room, probably to work on another part of the house and retrieve the vacuum cleaner, shutting the door behind us.

I don't know why we shut the door... After all, we were going to be going back in there soon.

The second the door clicked shut, WHAM!!!

The door shuddered behind us, startling us both.

What the hell...

We just looked at each other, bewildered.  What had just happened?

I tried to open the door, but it was jammed -- there was something heavy on the other side.

My husband managed -- with difficulty -- to shove the door open, only to find that it was the play gym keeping us from entering the room.

Shock.

The gym had been perfectly secure in the crib, and the gate was still up!  The darned thing had to have come UP out of the crib and flown 6+ feet across the room in order to slam against the door.

We were spooked. :faint2:Suffice to say that our dear daughter did not spend the night in her own room for quite a while after that!

From Yahoo! News -- Article located HERE.

Edwin Gonzalez’s wife Lillian is the one who fell in love with the home.
“Since she was a little girl, she’s always wanted a Victorian,” he explained. It was Thanksgiving 2008 and Lillian’s sister sent her the Gardner, MA listing. Three days later, Edwin and Lillian went to see the home.

“The minute we walked in, we felt like we were going back in time,” Gonzalez said. “Lillian said, ‘This is mine!’ It was a dream home, really, it’s very charming. It calls you in.”

They bought the home and moved in about six months later. That’s when they started hearing rumors about the stately Victorian. Apparently, their dream home was haunted.

Haunted history
The home is known as “The Victorian.” A gorgeous and enormous estate, it was built by furniture maker S.K. Pierce in 1875. With bay windows, intricate wood work and a mansard roof, the house is a prime example of the period’s Victorian architecture.

Nonfiction author Eric Stanway is writing a book about the home’s history, which he believes could be the cause of alleged ghost sightings on the property.

The first owner, Pierce, moved into the home with his family and shortly after, tragedy struck. His wife died suddenly of a bacterial disease, and he remarried another woman, Ellen, 20 or so years his junior. The age difference didn’t sit well with Pierce’s son, Stanway says.

As a result, Ellen inherited the property instead of Pierce’s son. Following her death, Ellen’s son, Frank, took over the home in the 1900s. Frank, however, reportedly lost the entire estate in a card game, though he was allowed to remain living in the basement.

“He’s one of the ghosts,” explained Stanway.

There are other rumors of unhappiness in the home, says Stanway. A girl drowned in the pond out back and at one point, the home reportedly operated as a brothel and one of the women working there was murdered in an upper bedroom. Another resident, a Finnish immigrant, fell asleep while smoking and burned to death.

“It’s had its share of things,” said Stanway. All of these events, he theorizes, have led to the influx of ghosts. “The place is crawling with them!”

The home at one point was slated to be torn down, not because of ghost activity, but for another issue. The house had not been updated for some time and at one point, stood vacant for 20 years.
Yet after the home was condemned, the city of Gardner didn’t have the funds to go through with demolition. The house ended up selling to another buyer. A younger couple, Stanway says, bought it with plans to fix it up.

But the new owners only lived there a few years before moving out. Again, the home was vacant until Gonzalez and Lillian decided to buy in 2008.

Ghost sightings
Gonzalez says he knew nothing of the home’s history when he moved in, but from day one, he’s reported odd things happening: an enormous potted plant tipping over for no reason, shadowy figures, footsteps, and a glass ornament that was moved from the mantle to rest exactly in the middle of the floor several times.


But, it wasn’t until Gonzalez saw his first ghost that he started to believe that the home was more than just a bit odd. Prior to that, he dismissed any haunting story.

“I heard rumors about ghosts, but I thought it was so silly and I thought people just said that because [the house] was creepy,” he said.

But then he had what he calls a “life-changing experience.”

“I saw a man appear in the nursery, in broad daylight, in what was my office,” Gonzalez said. “When I looked, this man, with jet black eyes, looked at me in this pasty white color. I didn’t expect it; I started shaking.”

Around the same time, a new neighbor stopped by asking Gonzalez if one of his kids could play. Gonzalez and Lillian don’t have children, but the neighbor claimed to have seen a small boy several times in the window.




Unbeknownst to Gonzalez, Lillian was having her own strange experiences, which culminated one morning. Laying in bed, Lillian said she felt a sudden pressure on her chest and lungs, making it impossible to move. That moment in 2011 scared both Gonzalez and Lillian enough that Gonzalez decided it was time to move out. Gonzalez says they haven’t really been back since, other than to host the occasional ghost tour.

Today
Gonzalez and Lillian still own the home and have had it featured on a few ghost hunter TV shows. This fall, they’re offering ghost tours of the home with benefits going to the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life.

Despite their experiences, Gonzalez is unsure about selling. They still love the home and see its potential.

“It’s still Lillian’s dream to fix it up,” he says. For now, they’re holding onto it — living in an apartment, while deciding whether the ghostly property is worth the investments.

Do you still live in the same house, Genki?

That was in our apartment, many years ago, but these things just follow us wherever we go.  *ponders* It does seem that the most alarming incidents DID happen in that apartment, though.

That's pretty scary, Genki. Do you just get used to these things happening? I think it would truly freak me out, especially when my husband has to work overnight, and I'm here...all alone.
Yikes, I'm scaring myself!

The noises in this house intensify when I'm by myself. I hear everything & then I can't go to sleep, I'm afraid to shut my eyes.

We sleep with multiple fans (on high) in the room.  It helps drown out other sounds... which is good, 'cause it can be a bit distracting to hear voices or phantom music.  Yes, we have a radio in our room, but when it's unplugged, and NOT coming from outside/anywhere in the house?   Spooky stuff!

It's pretty much same-old, same-old most of the time, but the pranks get a little old, and that pounding on the door incident (see post #5) did make it a little hard to sleep for a couple of days

  I think you need to call Ghost Busters!

No doubt!  Things have actually gotten a lot worse in the past couple of months, but I'll come back to that later.

For now, check this out:


Full news article HERE.

"Nothing serious"..?? Enough to keep ME from ever living there!     
At least the owner made a full disclosure.

Hee hee, I'm the opposite! I wanna go stay there overnight until I see dem ghosts!!   :evilgrin

Wow.  So things have been spooky around here as usual -- except it's been amping up since I last posted.

We've had lots of spooky noises, crashes, and things moving around on their own, but that's nothing new.  Things falling isn't new, anyway.  What IS new is things moving standing UP on their own.  We had a hand soap dispenser that had fallen over on its side on the bathroom counter.  Slowly, slowwwwly... my husband watched it right itself.

Ohhh kaaaaay  

That was about a month and a half ago.  Then there was yesterday and today, when shampoo bottles were rattling around in the shower, untouched.  TV's clicking like they were turning on and off very quickly, and then...

You may not want to read this next part, it's pretty freaky.

No, really!

Scary!

Are you sure?  OK then, you asked for it!

My husband was walking out of the room when one of the kids' balls -- untouched -- slowly rolled across the doorway in front of his feet.

Well that's not so scary, is it.

What's scary is that the ball came to rest on top of a business card that we haven't seen since for at least 17 years and two moves ago . . . A business card for the local mortuary!

EEKS!  Just soooo glad I wasn't home at the time, and that it happened during the day.  It would have been so much worse at night!


The last couple of days