As you probably know, I've been telling my true life ghost stories all week. You can read here and here for the others. Also don't forget to comment on yesterday's post to win a copy of PERSONAL DEMONS by Lisa Desrochers.
And now for the pièce de résistance, this is this creepiest real life ghost story I’ve ever dealt with.
It started when I was living in Maryland. There was an apartment that was pretty close to everything I was looking for. 2 bedrooms (One for me and one for the kiddo), large rooms, and even larger windows. And best of all, it was available right then and they were even going to give me a discount on the rent. How could you pass that up?
I couldn’t. So I moved in immediately. Well, the first night I moved in, I still didn’t have all my stuff. I had to wait for that to come up from Florida, so I bought an air mattress and tried sleeping in my bedroom. Only I couldn’t. There was something unnerving about the room (the walk-in closet to be precise), so I pulled the mattress into the living room and slept there.
It was always a little eerie to be in the apartment by myself, and I always felt like I was being watched in the bathroom. It got so bad that I raced through my showers and never took baths, because I was sure there was someone on the other side of the curtain.
A few months later, I moved my son up with me, and I moved my bed into my bedroom. It was still eerie, but I just dealt with it, it would seem a little strange to my son that mommy was sleeping in the living room.
However, a few weeks later, I was reading a book and I hear my son talking to someone. I thought maybe he’d gotten the phone and called his daddy—who’d opted to stay in Florida with our house until I could come back from the military. So, I called to my son and asked him who he was talking to.
He yells back that he’s talking to Jefferey.
Not knowing who Jefferey was, I went to DS’s room and saw him sitting on his bed. I asked him, “Who?”
And he points next to him and says, “Jefferey. He says, “hi,” mommy.”
There was no one next to him. I freaked, but I didn’t want to alarm my son so I just nodded and told him to say hi back. And immediately called my husband. Who laughed at me and told me it was probably his imaginary friend.
Feeling stupid, I agreed and tried not to worry when DS would start talking to himself. It was probably nothing. Just like DH had said.
But I still always felt uncomfortable in my room and the bathroom. I could never shake it.
Then one night I had a friend over to babysit for me, so I could go out with some other friends for my birthday.
When I came home the next day, my friend met me at the door. She said she was sorry, but she could never baby sit for me at the apartment again. She’d be more than happy to watch DS at her house, but she wasn’t ever coming to my house again.
When I asked her why, she refused to answer. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. Just figured she was homesick.
A few months after that, my husband came to stay for the weekend. Almost immediately he started acting strange. He wouldn’t let me go into the bedroom alone and asked me to keep the bathroom door open if I went in.
Almost immediately he started making plans to move up. He would never tell me what was up, but I didn’t question it either. I missed him and was glad he wanted to try and move up with us.
For months he tried to find work up where I was, but couldn’t, so it was just DS and me.
Then I got a leak in the bathroom. I called maintenance and was told they’d be right there. No one showed. For almost a week, I couldn’t get any one to check out the leak. I finally had to get my CO involved.
The maintenance people agreed to come that day, but only if I was there. I agreed and when they finally showed up I asked them what had happened. They didn’t speak much English, and I don’t speak Spanish, but I remember what he said, because I had to ask my friend to interpret it later. “Fantasma.” Which means ghost apparently.
They fixed the leak and then left. They were there no longer than ten minutes.
The next day I asked my friend what it meant. The same one who stayed the night with my son. She told me, then asked me why. I told her and she finally told me the story of why she didn’t ever want to stay at my apartment.
She said that every time she’d try to sleep, she’d felt a tugging on her arm and a voice telling her to check on my son. She’d been so scared that she’d called in another friend to stay with her. She’d wanted to call me, but she felt stupid, so she called the other friend instead.
Of course, now I’m starting to put two and two together and called my husband to ask him why he’d behaved the way he had.
After almost fifteen minutes, I got my answer. He’d heard a male voice coming from my room and he’d felt hostility whenever he was in it. The same for the bathroom. He’d also heard children splashing in the tub, when he knew DS was either at school or asleep.
I finally did some research on the apartment. I needed to know what was going on. I found out from the elderly neighbor across the way that a man had lived there with his two children. A boy—named Jefferey, and a girl named Melanie. Apparently there was some kind of custody battle between the man and his wife or ex-wife. So, instead of letting the courts battle it out, he drown the kids in the bathtub and then killed himself in the closet. The same closet I was worried about in the beginning.
A few weeks after that, I moved my son back to Florida. And moved into the barracks at the Naval base (after a quick sea voyage to the Middle East). Now I know why the apartment was ready for move in and there was a discount.
I just hope that no one else had to go through what I did. Or that the apartment stayed empty.
