Echoes of a Haunting - Revisited Read online

  In addition, my mother and father had three auto accidents while returning from visits. I had an auto accident while Christmas shopping in Buffalo in November of 1971. Mike had a severe auto accident on October 21, 1973 and almost died. Five weeks later, Beth’s boyfriend, having just brought his new car up to show us, had an accident and, two years later, was still unable to work.

  The list goes on: we had four auto accidents in two weeks in early 1974–Keith, a friend who was staying with us at the time, was going to a school dance in Phil’s car. On his way over a narrow bridge, a car with no headlights ran right into him. The boys in Mike’s class got together and repaired the damage. A few days later Mike was taking it down the hill in icy weather when the steering wheel refused to respond and he hit a tree. At this point the car had to be replaced. Phil bought a used car from a neighbor. Again, the boys borrowed it to go into Olean and a man ran a red light and plowed right into the side of them. Of course, none of these accidents was covered by insurance. Luckily, Mike’s serious accident was covered. He used his insurance money to buy a beautiful red 1970 Maverick. Since he planned on going to college, we knew he’d need a reliable car. A week later Phil had to borrow it to go to work. His car was not running the way it should and, besides, he wanted to try the Maverick out on a long trip. As he was on his way home in the middle of the night, a truck approached in his lane and ran him off the road. The car skidded across the road and rolled over three times, pinning him in the car upside down. The police gave him a ticket for failure to keep right.

  Besides the accidents, the car trouble we were having was becoming legendary. We had traded our 1970 wagon in on a 1972. Everything that could possibly go wrong with a car went wrong with that one. It got so the service manager in the Agency knew my voice on the telephone. In fact, we were so well known that a relative of one of the Agency employees was able to trace us through the mention of the car trouble in the paper. The problem wasn’t just with our cars either. People would drive up to visit and, on parking in our yard, their exhaust systems would fall off or their brakes would fail or their transmissions suddenly refuse to work.

  Also alarming to us was the sudden mortality among our animals. We have always had pets and had none die except of old age. However, since we moved into the house we lost: two finches, one canary, one cat, two parakeets, one dog, three guinea pigs and a raccoon. In Mary’s room three of the animals, a guinea pig, a canary and a parakeet died within a two month period with no apparent cause. Our vet finally advised us to keep pets out of that room.

  In fact, it wasn’t too long until we had to keep people out of that room. Suddenly, sums of money began disappearing. Usually small, it nevertheless taxed our limited finances. The money always disappeared when there was no one around to take it and often from a locked container. Our financial situation steadily worsened and we began to have the distinct feeling we weren’t wanted in the house. Please remember that all the events described happened within the period we were living in the house, from July 1970 until October 1974. However, we were not alarmed, as yet, by the possibility of spirits.

  Does it seem as if we were slow to react? I guess it would to someone who hadn’t been there. But, you know, when you’re in the middle of strange happenings, it’s easier to explain them away or deny they happened than to be forced to re-examine all your preconceived notions. There are no such things as ghosts! There is no such thing as an “unfriendly house”! In addition, these events occurred over a period of time, not all at once. There were “reasonable” explanations for all of them. That is, until you put them all together and the total was more than equal to the sum of individual occurrences.

  Trying to find the incidents which puzzled us at the time but now seem to make a macabre kind of sense is a very difficult task. I remember one incident in 1970. I was working at the time and arrived home to find the kids quite upset. They were very uncomfortable and insisted that someone had broken into the house. Since, by this time, we had three big dogs, I found this hard to believe. However, I was forced to admit that someone (using hindsight–something?) had been in the house. The clothes had been pulled out of the drawers in my dresser and the girls’ dressers. Neither Phil’s nor Mike’s clothes had been touched. Money and guns in Mike’s room were also still in their usual places in plain sight. Mary’s record player had been hurled across her room and lay on the floor in the corner. Our oldest dog, Binky, had been with us for 13 years and could be quite vicious when it came to intruders but, when the kids arrived home, he was slinking around the house. Obviously, he had been frightened by something. Draw your own conclusions. I still have none.

  Another threatening incident occurred in the winter of 1972. It was early in the year. Mike and Beth were attending a record hop at school one dreary Friday night. Mike was not yet old enough to drive so I always picked them up at midnight when the dances were over. It was an open winter and I remember there wasn’t much snow on the ground. The unsettling thing was that sheets of lightning kept flashing across the sky, lighting the landscape and turning it into an otherworldly tableau. My only companion on the eight mile round trip was Mary’s dog, Lassie. Her company kept me from getting too alarmed by the anger of the elements.

  We reached the bend in the road just before it begins to dip to a low point. There, it crosses a small stream in a gully and then climbs again to meet the main road. A flash of light suddenly lit up the sky in front of us. Just before the dip in the road is a dead tree next to an old broken down barn or shed. The fallen branches of the tree frequently blocked our way after a wind storm. This night, however, it was not fallen branches that frightened me but the silhouette of a body hanging from the dead tree and swinging in the wind. I saw it long enough to notice that it had a hood or hat over its head but not long enough to know for sure whether it was a man or a woman.

  I slammed on the brakes so hard that poor Lassie wound up on the floor. Even though the next lightning flash showed the figure to be gone, no one will ever know how hard it was to drive under that tree. My scalp was prickling and icy fingers were playing havoc with my spine. It’s funny how easy it was to dismiss this event from my mind just as we continually dismissed any event we couldn’t explain. We just couldn’t admit there was something very weird going on. It was much easier to blame it on being unused to country life or being tired or nervous, etc. ad nauseam.

  But one of the most incredible and frightening of the phenomena happened in the spring of 1971. By that time, some of the campers had begun to come up to spend weekends on their property which was directly above us. Perhaps I should explain that the original land holding for our farm had been many acres. At the time we moved in, it consisted of only eight. The rest had been turned into campsites which were situated on the hills above and behind our house. By this time, I had been spoiled by the blissful solitude and it was always with a sense of relief that I watched the last of the campers go back to their homes.

  One Sunday in May I decided to take a walk up the camp roads. The day was approaching twilight so I didn’t anticipate meeting anyone. Only Lassie went with me. As we reached the top of the road, Lassie stopped dead with her ears up and every muscle at attention. Following her lead, I, too, stopped and heard the sound that had frozen her in her tracks. To my untrained ears, it sounded like a choir rehearsal. The only explanation I could think of at the time was that a group of boy scouts was practicing. The high pitched voices reminded me of the old-time castrati in Rome. The sing-song chant continued and I expected to come upon a group of singers at any moment.

  As we rounded a bend in the road, however, I could no longer hear the music. Mentally shrugging, I signaled Lassie and we continued our interrupted walk. With an effort, I shook off the creepy feeling in my spine. When we reached the last cabin on the road, Lassie and I turned around to go home. Retracing our steps, we started down the steep hill. As soon as we reached the spot just before the final descent to the road, we heard the singing again. Once more, Lassie
stopped and turned her head toward the mountains to the west.

  This time I tried to place the sound and figure out just what it was they were singing. I was determined to be very scientific about the whole thing. The music seemed to be coming from the top of the mountain situated behind some of the camp sites and the only thing I could associate the style with was Gregorian Chant. Of course, that assumption may have been caused by my Catholic upbringing. Continuing down the road toward home, I became more and more puzzled.

  Actually the incident didn’t concern me too much at first. I probably wouldn’t have made anything of it except for Mike’s reaction. Casually, I mentioned to my blasé son, only half joking, that I thought we had ghosts up the camp road. In that tone of voice that every mother of a teenage son knows, he uttered, “Oh, Mother!” That did it! I told the whole story and found a much more receptive audience in my three daughters.

  The next evening at first dark I naturally decided to go up and see if the whole thing had been my imagination. This time I was accompanied by our three dogs and my two youngest daughters. Before we reached THE PLACE, we had been joined by Beth and Pat.

  After having had the night to reflect, I was sure no one would hear anything but when we reached the top of the road, sure enough, the song came through loud and clear. The girls, too, thought it was chanting and we continued walking along the road with Mary hanging onto my blouse (can’t say that I blamed her). We discussed what we had heard but didn’t come up with any solutions. On our way back home we halted again. As we listened, the singing stopped abruptly and, after a pause of perhaps thirty seconds, a single male voice began a monotone prayer. It didn’t sound like Latin though so I guess I can rule out Gregorian Chant. If the singing was eerie, the prayer was worse.

  Till my dying day, I’ll remember the look on Pat’s face. She had her pigtails pulled up over her head (I guess to hear better), her face was as white as a sheet so that her freckles stood out in bold relief and her mouth was open. In short, she looked like I felt. My skin was crawling. Needless to say, we lost no time in getting home. I told Phil about our experience and, to my surprise, he at least pretended to believe me. Every night we continued to go up the hill for the “concert” but we noticed that each time we did the sound grew more indistinct.

  About a week after the day I had first heard the ghostly choir, Mike decided to investigate. He asked me to go along but, as I have always felt that discretion was the better part of valor, I politely, but firmly, declined. Matt, the worst skeptic around, agreed to go with him. Bob, surprisingly, wanted nothing to do with it. I knew Matt would love to make fools of us by proving our singing had a logical cause. As they climbed the steep slope to the top of the mountain, suddenly Matt said they shouldn’t go any further. He was frightened. My intrepid son talked him into going all the way to the top.

  Just as they had almost reached their goal, what sounded like a woman’s scream stopped them cold. They must have broken all existing track records to get back to our house. Now, it may have been a bobcat they heard, but the fact remains that it ended our nightly concerts. I heard, from time to time, of different people hearing this mysterious singing, the last time in October of 1974 just before we left. Most people assumed there was a church nearby. There isn’t–at least not one you can see.

  Gradually, as the months passed, we began to realize that, at times, there was an “umbrella” descending on our house. An umbrella of fear, horror, unknown–what? I’m still not sure. On these nights the animals were restless, the birds acted crazy and no one slept. The house felt as though it sat in the center of a vacuum. Any other night I could walk down the road in the pitch dark with no qualms. On these “umbrella” nights the very atmosphere made my flesh crawl.

  This sensation is not easily described. Each, in his own way, the family members felt the pressure but interpreted its results differently. There were more arguments during these times and more tears. Gradually, it began to dawn on us that the uneasiness and tension weren’t self-generated but were being caused by an outside force. One by one, we came to an inward decision and when we shared our fears there was a collective sigh of relief. The pressure of each one thinking he was the only one who had made the discovery vanished.

  On one such “umbrella” night I realized that Jinx, one of our cats, was not in. I have always liked all the animals in the house at night. As was my custom, I took a flashlight and went out looking for her. Briskly, I started toward the road and stopped short at the end of our house. It was as though a physical force of some type stopped me. There was nothing menacing that I could see. The breeze sighed through the pine tree with its usual comforting sound; the night was balmy and the sky clear. Across the driveway, the crabapple tree waved in the wind. Nothing unusual, no phantoms, nothing out of place, only the feeling. Why then the threat?

  I had read about paranormal forces being able to force a person to a stop and, frankly, thought it was nonsense. I found out how wrong I had been. Whether I was physically restrained or only mentally, the effect was the same. I could not move. Giving in to a feeling I can only describe as atavistic, I turned and hurried into the house, my spine tingling.

  In the warm, well-let house with the sound of Simon and Garfunkel coming from the kids’ stereo, my fears seemed silly and I tried again. This time my flashlight picked up two eyes over by the crabapple tree. With a deep sense of relief, I realized it could only be Jinx. Walking quietly in that direction, I talked to Jinx while keeping the flashlight pointed at the eyes the whole time. When I reached the spot the “eyes” had disappeared. A thorough search of the area revealed nothing in the grass to account for the strange phenomenon.

  With my hair beginning to rise on the back of my neck, I slowly backed away, still with the flashlight glued to the spot where I had seen the “eyes”. I was about eight feet away when they reappeared. This time I didn’t investigate but beat an ignominious retreat to the house. Feeling a little foolish, I told no one. The story seemed too incredible. Besides, I still remembered the tone of the “Oh, Mother!”

  After waiting about half an hour, my courage was at least partially restored. On sudden impulse, I decided to ask Beth to go out with me, explaining that I didn’t feel right. She said it was probably because I had been alone. Leaving her homework, she took the flashlight from me and we both went out. She was about four feet ahead of me but she stopped dead at the same spot in the driveway and said, “Let’s get in the house, quick. There’s something wrong out here!” The only one who beat us in the house was a little black shadow named Jinx who came from the opposite side of the house.

  I must admit that from that day on we respected the times the house felt “strange”, the “umbrella nights”, and stayed inside. We tried keeping a record of these times to see if they might fall into some sort of a pattern but soon gave up. There seemed to be no logic involved whatsoever. At this point I think I’ll quote from a letter I received from Beth in October, 1974. Too bad hindsight is always better than foresight.

  “The first time I noticed something strange about the family or the house it was funny ‘cuz it was before Homecoming in my Sophomore year. I came home from a football game and you were doing the dishes and I walked over toward the sink and it was like a wall of hostility. You said you weren’t mad but I felt something was wrong. It was funny ‘cuz I remembered how you always used to sing when doing the dishes. Mary was uptight that day too. Pat was there that weekend and she kept waking me saying someone was ‘breathing down her neck’. Two days after that was the first umbrella night, I remember. I don’t know why I didn’t remember before. I guess maybe I never let myself. I kept trying to shut everything out of my mind but it really doesn’t work. I guess someday I’ll tell my kids and they’ll laugh and it suddenly won’t seem so horrible. I think the horror started when I noticed you seldom sang anymore. Well, now you can send the men in the white coats for me.”

  I have read and re-read this letter over the years and am still surp
rised at the reaction it arouses in me. Did we miss all the clues? Did we deliberately ignore them? Or did something outside ourselves not allow us to recognize them for what they were? I hate to think such a thing is possible and yet....I continue to wonder.

  Did primitive man at one time possess an ability to sense supernatural phenomena? Did we lose it in our striving for sophistication? Is it a deliberate attempt to ignore things we don’t understand? Can this knowledge, or instinct perhaps, be regained?

  We learn, during childhood, to interpret our “normal” feelings but, unfortunately, not our built-in instinct that warns us of “paranormal” happenings.

  Chapter 4

  A NEW “HAUNT”

  Now a new element entered the picture. It happened the first time when Beth and I had gone to the doctor’s office for a checkup of my neck (whiplash from an accident) and her broken arm. Between us, we made a great pair. Mike stayed home with Laura and Mary. All three were in the living room when the dogs started barking. Looking out the front window, they saw a young boy of about sixteen walking along our property line in front of the house. This would be at a distance of about 20 feet.

  Since he wasn’t actually on our property, Mike decided to watch him instead of storming out and questioning his presence. The boy seemed not to see the house nor hear the dogs barking. As the kids watched, he walked to our pond and, for all practical purposes, disappeared in front of their eyes. I think Mike tried to convince himself that the boy had fallen in a hole although no hole exists there or that the boy somehow got out of sight without their noticing. The girls would not go along with either of these theories, though, and we were forced to admit we might have another spirit.