Maryland Haunting c1974

[Sidhe]

Well here is another of my strange ghost stories. I'm pretty sure I had this one written up for some ghost story site, but I can't find it now.. so here goes.

It must've been the Summer of 1974.. We rented an old farmhouse on some 20ish acres I guess. I can't remember now but it seemed vast to me at the time. We had neighbors to our immediate left, a group of houses owned by one very large family, and then nothing else for miles. Certainly nothing within walking distance, and as a twelve year old, the concept of "walking distance" was very important. We were moving from the suburbs of Washington DC out to the countryside of La Plata Maryland.. not a move I was particularly happy with, mind you. But my parents had been reading some hippy "back to nature" crap and they were detirmined to make a go of it. So at the age of 12 I had to make the adjustment from total suburbanite to farm boy. It didn't come easily. I felt very remote and isolated.

The house had two levels above ground.. a spacious first floor with a living room, a large kitchen, a nice screened in back porch, and two bedrooms: a master bedroom, and a nursery across the hall. My little sister stayed in the nursery room, though she was no longer a baby. She would have been around four years old at this time. Her only experience in this house was that the door to her room would open and close by itself, but at the time, she thought that was just what doors do, as she says now.

The upper floor was two bedrooms linked by a hallway, along which was some sort of store room. I don't think we kept much there but maybe boxes and luggage. My older brother took the room on the right, and I got the room on the left. The interesting thing about my room was that it had a lot of graffitti on the walls of one of the walk-in closets, depicting varoius drug themes, and a few stylized dirty pictures, constructed so that they could look like two things at once. I enjoyed looking at the pictures in this closet, but my mom soon painted them over. I actually didn't notice the double nature of the dirty ones until my brother told me.

There was a basement, too, which was "finished" in painted cinderblock.. (it was *lovely*.. ). We used the basement for various purposes.. for one, since it had a back door that lead to the barn, it was our primary "work entrance". Also, we used it to incubate the chicks that we raised from the eggs my Dad bought at a local .. well, place that you'd buy that sort of thing.. whatever that is called..

As I've written in a post elsewhere, the first thing I noticed at this house was the "weird feeling" that overcame me. It's hard to describe.. it sort of starts like a familiar smell would. You don't necessarily notice it right away. It grows on your awareness slowly, sort of like the sound of a dripping faucet maybe. When you finally become aware of it, you realize it has been there a while.

This sensation was strongest in the basement, in the room in which the old man of the place was supposed to have lived his last days. To my knowledge, nothing ever happened in that room, but everyone felt "it" there.. my parents, very unbelieving of the paranormal at the time, assigned that room to be the storage room. I don't think it was accidental either..

Somewhere else in the house someone was supposed to have committed suicide, but I never knew the precise location.

The lot itself was fairly close to the rural route. It wasn't a busy route, but the cars that used it usually went pretty fast. I lost my favorite cat on that road.. The driveway from the road made a U shape around the back of the house so that there were two driveways, made of dirt and gravel. The driveways were well rutted too. Not a long distance from the back door of the house there was a drop off, covered with briar, but in the briar were thousands of liquor bottles from years of someone's hard drinking. I remember I found some bottles that had dates that went back into the forties. Of course I thought I was going to find something from the 1700s..

Actually, we did find two books there from the 1700s! But these did not mean the house was that old. It certainly didn't look that old. More likely, they were heirlooms of the old man who had apparently drunk himself to death. From what I know now I would guess the house had been built in the 1930s, with substantial parts remodled after that.. for instance, I think cinderblock didn't become an important part of building before that, and there was a large portion of the basement "added on" and built out of cinderblock.

Now you'll be saying to yourselves, "where are the ghosts, Sidhe!" I can hear it from where I'm sitting, so I'd better get on with the real business..

The first bit of weirdness I've already gone over. A strange feeling permeated the house, and concentrated most in the basement area. Yet there were no immediate signs of haunting inside the house. But soon after we moved in.. a couple of weeks I think, on a day that was near my best friend's birthday (which caused me to remember it that way), as the moon was rising and I was settling into my bed, an open window to my right (it was August and no air-conditioning), I began to hear the sounds of people walking in gravel. It's a very characteristic sound which most of you have heard, I'm sure. I noticed it and I thought to myself, "there really isn't anywhere for them to be walking except around my house!"

I thought it was a fairly large group from the sound of it. Maybe half a dozen or more. I could hear their voices and their bursts of laughter, but not enough to hear what they were saying. My curiosity was aroused, though. I wanted to get a good look at these people.. they sounded young, though maybe older than me. And by the sound of it, they were getting closer to my window, though that would be two and a half stories down from my window (the basement was half-buried in a slope that rose toward the road). I jumped out of bed, grabbed my glasses and looked. There was plenty of moonlight, though no other light shone there. I could clearly see the road. I could clearly hear the voices, and they sounded as if they were now *right under* me.. but I couldn't see anyone at all. I was dumbfounded! I stared as the voices grew less, and seemed to turn the corner around the house. I should have seen them..

I crawled back into bed with my mind racing. While I lay there, the group circled twice more around the house before they receded into nothing.

Obviously, I told myself, I've just witnessed something very unique.

I told my parents about it the next day and they laughed it off. They said I was imagining things, or that I'd had too much sugar.. it was the "back to nature" answer to everything for my mom.

It was strange enough as a singular occurrance, but it happened again a year later. On that same date, I heard again the group of young people walk around in the gravel drive of my house. Several times I heard a peal of laughter that I could recognize having heard the year before. By that time, however, I'd been scarred by a few more experiences, and I dare not look out the window..

Well, that's a start, and plenty long enough for one post. I'll put up more later.

[Kismit]

Thanx Sidhe ,

I read the whole thing . Your obviosly a writter by trade. the place your dad got the chickens was probably a hatchery (that's what there called in rural New zealand anyway). Only I'm still waiting for the poltergiest part of the story . It's the tactile nature of a spirit that interest's me .

Though the story was interesting and filled with lots of mood setting discription so I enjoyed it .

I promise to read part 2

[neen]

me to kismit i'm looking forward to the next installment.

[Bizarro]

ya, more please

[TheOracle]

Sidhe, I am eagerly awaiting the next installment

[Saru]

A very interesting and enjoyable read Sidhe - looking forward to the next installment

[Halo_Jones]

Wow! Sidhe your a very talented writer, You told your story in such an intresting and discriptive manner you have me waiting on the edge of my seat for the next installment.

Good Job

[Sidhe]

Thanks for the kind words folks! I'll get to work on the next bit right away.

It's a funny thing, I may be good at writing, but I'm terribly lazy and it seems such a chore.. but I love to tell the stories so that will get me started.

And now there is your encouragement too.

[SpaceyKC]

Sidhe, it's a very good story....so far!

I'm also ready for the next installment.

[Sidhe]

Thanks SpaceyKC! I enjoyed writing it, so I'm glad you enjoyed reading it. Everyone gets some joy!