I originally intended to spend some time today writing about the ghosts I've met in the past, but I haven't been as interested in the subject today as I had hoped, so I'm having trouble bringing all the memories to the surface.
If you ask me if I believe in ghosts, I'd probably say "maybe". I don't believe in ghosties that can impact the real world, like in movies. I think my sense of ghosts is that they are memories with a little more substance than normal thoughts.
That doesn't make a lot of sense, I know. So let me tell you a couple of ghost stories.
If I've ever run into a ghost, it was when I was with my best friend growing up, Wendy. If I've ever seen a haunted family, hers was the one. I don't think they were very haunted, but enough that we ran across things we didn't understand every once in awhile. Now, I'm going to emphasize that Wendy and her brother had mean senses of humor, so some of what happened could easily have been practical jokes. The only ones I plan on writing are ones that apparently scared them as much as me.
There were two instances that I've always remembered as *real* encounters with the unknown. The first happened when I was very young. I went over to ask if Wendy could come out to play. I was either alone or with my older brother David. The curtains were drawn closed on their front window, which usually meant they weren't home, but I could see shadows moving behind the curtain, so I knocked on the door. I heard sounds, maybe voices, maybe just movement. I kept knocking and saying, "I saw you, enough with the joking! It's not funny!" But they never answered the door. I left, extremely miffed. A couple of days later I saw the family in the driveway, unpacking their car. I went up to them and asked why they hadn't answered the door. Wendy's parents looked more and more alarmed as I told them what I saw and heard, and the entire family suddenly started to check the house to see if anything was missing. The day I had visited was the day they had left on the trip. No one was home. There was no sign of any forced entry, nothing was missing. It could have been a burgler or intruder, but we'll never know for sure. I wouldn't think of it as a ghost, except for the other incident...
I used to do the ol' sleepover thing at Wendy's house. My parents were cool with it, since it was just next door. We'd usually sleep in sleeping bags in the living room, after having snacks and talking half the night. On one such sleepover, we'd had a cheerful night and settled down to sleep. Neither of us were completely asleep when we both heard footsteps. We thought it might be her older brother trying to scare us, so Wendy waited until the footsteps were in the middle of the living room and snapped on her flashlight. There was nobody there. We consulted, I confirmed that I'd heard it too, and we uneasily tried to go back to sleep. It was no use. The footsteps returned, moving from the same spot they'd last been at. They circled us, this time with me turning on the light in pure panic. It wasn't the house settling. I know what houses sound like, and this sound was definitely footsteps. Every time we turned off the light, the footsteps were back, walking around us in the living room. Finally, one of Wendy's parents came in to tell us to get to sleep. Still half-convinced it was a prank, we told the adult what was going on. "You're imagining it, go to sleep." We refused until the parent checked to see if older brother was in his room and asleep. He was. Satisfied? No, but when the parent left we sheepishly turned out the light. A few moments later the footsteps returned. They walked around us once more while both of us listened in terror, then they walked steadily out of the living room. After a little while, that seemed like years, Wendy said, "Is it gone?" I replied, "I think so." and then we eventually slept.
We tried to come up with reasonable explanations for it, but we never did. Both of us were absolutely SURE there was somebody in the room with us. Both of us heard the footsteps, and both of us felt somebody there. When we turned on the lights, the feeling of someone in the room went away.
There are other incidents. Every single one that I take seriously happened when I was with a member of this family. Some of them I'm sure are pranks, I just don't know how they were pulled off. I know I went through high school and college convinced that the family was haunted (and it was the family, not the house, because the hauntings followed them when they moved, and also happened at their summer home). Looking back, I'm less certain. Time has made most of the strange happenings blend into normalness. The wierder things that happened make less sense, I think my memory just exaggerated them. But I remember the feeling I had during the footsteps incident, and I've felt the same thing a couple of other times. I consider it my "ghost detector" feeling, even though I can't connect it to any other ghosts.
I don't know. Do ghosts exist? Perhaps. Have you met any?
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