Haunted House

[IMGumsho]

I am familiar with this because I was the on-duty road supervisor reviewing reports when this came across my nose.It was just another day and just another report to review I thought to myself. Just one of many that I would review before the shift ends, and the night was still young. Some things are just too unbelievably bizarre that without writing about it, nobody would believe it. That is what I did over the years, jotting down notes and short details of the good, bad and oddities encountered over the years. After twenty five years I retired last year and devoted my time in searching for my cousin who went missing 32-years earlier, outside of the job. Less than two years later, I was successful, and feeling my work was finished, I decided the job changes, I changed, the people changed and it was time to retire.

This is a story read it, believe it or not, it occurred. A man called police reporting his intention to make a complaint report for of all things "his house was haunted and he was throwing out his property to prevent them from following him," he complained. It went on, "A citizen called police, without hesitation a car was sent ...the officer arrives a short time later ...," I continued reading.

Meanwhile back on the street, the officer locates the address and surveys the scene. It was his beat, his assigned area of responsibility and paused, double-checking the numbers by computer verifying the address before slowly pulling to the curb and stops. He glances around, grabs his microphone radioing the dispatcher and exits his car.

The house was an older white two-story wood frame structure with an overgrown lawn with weeds along one side and bits and pieces of shingles curled like potato chips. There were no stained transoms or beautiful gables, cornices, turrets or flowers and lush green ferns hanging from the porch. It was just another deteriorating rental with a history of turnovers. Early Victorian if I were to place my finger on it, sitting all alone at the end of the street less than a block from a Catholic church. In their day, these colorful houses were expressions of societal changes through abstract ideas and bright colors rightfully called, "painted ladies," but it reminded me more like that of a tearful girl with dripping mascara.

Police officers like to get as much information about a call as possible before they arrive on scene. The officer would soon learn that no amount of information about this particular call, could prepare him for what he would learn, and it provided no real hint as to the true nature of the call other than a man wishing to speak with an officer. Not particularly scholarly or a refined man, nobody could deny his honesty and hard work ethic either. Still untested in a lot ways, this square jaw officer with closely cropped hair personifies a no-nonsense sort of guy who thought he would just go there and figure it out then. The officer paused; his eyes scanning piles of personal household furnishings stacked haphazardly out front, as he approached the address alone. It was a scene reminiscent of the housing crash of 2008, people thrown out of their homes and displaced like discarded rubbish out front, he thought to himself.

"It looked like somebody was moving," he would later confide. He wondered if this was a property owner and tenant quarrel, in which case he would ask for another car to swing by. Either way he expected a confrontation and he still did not feel comfortable in confrontations without his sergeant or more seasoned officers present. He makes it to the door, knocks and waits for a response. Getting none, he glances over his shoulder looking around and knocks several more times. As the door opens a small demure man appears without greeting or waiting to hear a single word, he asks the officer to step inside and starts downstairs to the basement. There at the bottom of the steps in the musty old basement cluttered with a lifetime of personal belongings they find themselves standing on a large rug and he turns saying, "I want to show you something." Step off the rug he told the officer, and moves the old rug to one side. Staring up at the officer was a “pentagram painted in red on the basement floor, and it looked like it was painted in blood,” he thought. In fact, it looked so real, he thought it was fresh and real, he later told me. He listened as he kneeled dabbing his gloved finger in the red patina for any indication of soaking or transfer. He stared blankly at the man standing over him and felt hair rising on the nape of his neck. "Laugh and giggle about it, but officers will encounter things you just cannot understand, he remembered me saying years ago... ”Sometimes we have difficulty separating or compartmentalizing things. Some learn it, and others never will," I use to tell him.

Now by this time the officer is thinking, "this is just too bizarre" and genuinely felt uncomfortable especially since he was alone on this call. He leaned forward now signaling it was time to move upstairs and putting aside any other thoughts he started up stairs. Still bothered by what he seen and confused about the entire call, the officer asked, "How can I help you?" in a vain attempt to hide his uneasiness.

The man looked at him and paused ... almost as though he was puzzled the gave him a mischievous, but confident glance the officer did not know how to return, it was the same one that I would recognize weeks later. Finally he spoke, "I want to make a report because this place is haunted and nobody told me that before I moved in," he said matter-of-factly. So as they made their way back upstairs much to the pleasure of the officer the man begun unraveling a long series of experiences like a present being unwrapped for the first time. All of which he claimed have experienced since moving in. Among the experiences he shared with the reporting officer were sightings of men in strange early century dress walking up from the basement and through the house all hours of the night. It was this basement the officer reported strangeness and where two service workers say they were choked; they seen a cat levitating off the floor and spinning in circles months later.

As a means of validating his stories, he claimed he invited a Catholic priest and a Protestant pastor into his residence at difference times for a house blessing as many folks do, including myself. On both occasions, the holy men entered the front door for a short time dousing the threshold with holy water and leave abruptly not before telling him, "there is something wrong in the house," and they never returned. In other accounts of strange activity, he told this wide-eyed officer that he had seen orbs of lights also making their way up from the basement, sounds of footsteps at times, and full apparitions of men in period dress walking up and down the basement. Other times the man claimed he would hear voices. Still other times he watched orbs of light balls zip from room to room as though they had a life of their own. Then, on another occasion, he said an orb light sailed through his dinning room and entered the kitchen stove blowing out the double pane glass from the oven door inside out according to him. Therefore, he told the officer he was packing up and moving out, leaving behind anything "they" can possibly attach themselves to, and he did so.

The officer out fear of ridicule left many of these details out of his report. I knew where the house was located and always gave it wide berth not because of what I learned but for nauseous feelings that seemed to overwhelmed me when I was close to it. Months later without warning I was approached by a pair of service maintenance workers who themselves suffered a harrowing experience inside the basement and fled the house, leaving both of them embarrassed and confused. I know this to be true and accurate since I spoke the officer immediately after he submitted the report and later with resident complaining and more recently service workers all of whom recounted some very strange experiences.

[Talion]

Interesting accounts, but could be any small town story without locations.

[rashore]

Well that was very well written. Welcome to UM

I'm not sure if this is just a story, or someone elses tale you are recounting, or your own experience? At any rate, interesting