Three True Tales of Terror: A True Hauntings' Collection

by Rebecca Patrick-Howard

  And Betty was a mean cook. She could make anything country-style you wanted.

  I noticed that the longer we lived in our new house, the more frequent our trips to Betty’s became. I also noticed that our stays became longer. I wasn’t blind. I just wasn’t sure why this was happening.

  In the beginning, we’d go for a chat and stay an hour. Soon, we were going two or three times a week and staying until the late hours of the evening, even eating supper with her. We were a little tight on money, so I figured it might have been for the benefit of the food. Betty always insisted we stay for whatever meal was coming up next and our cupboards were often bare.

  I didn’t mind going to Betty’s at all. Her grandkids were my age (they were also cousins) and they stayed with her a lot. I enjoyed having someone to play with. I am a little ashamed to admit that Brian scared me some, however. I didn’t remember a time when he was able to talk, walk, and eat like a healthy man so to me he’d always been the person in the hospital bed that moaned and shouted a lot–never any words I could understand. Betty referred to him as “Baby Brian” and had her grandkids convinced that God protected him as something special. Indeed, a tornado had ripped through Mount Sterling a few years earlier and the kids hid under Brian’s hospital bed. Several houses on her road were destroyed. The pictures in every room in her house were shaken off the walls. Not a thing was touched in Brian’s room.

  But back to our visits…

  One afternoon we were getting ready to visit Betty and I remembered I’d left something upstairs in my bedroom. I didn’t use my bedroom for sleeping at the time. We were sleeping in the guest room next to it because my room was still full of boxes and Mom hadn’t unpacked hers yet, either. I ran up to get it while Mom waited downstairs in the car for me. I wasn’t that excited about getting my room cleaned up and ready for sleeping. The idea of staying in it made me nervous. The first few days it had seemed fine. I played in there, tried to organize things, and decorated. Sure, it was hot and stuffy but nothing I couldn’t handle.

  Then, something turned me off. I constantly felt like someone was watching me. Little movements would catch from the corner of my eye and I’d turn, only to find that nobody was there. It was an uncomfortable feeling, like I was being spied on by a teacher or parent. It made me feel like I was doing something wrong. I often talked to myself when I was playing with my Barbie’s or toys but when I was upstairs I kept my voice low, hushed, as if someone was listening to the words I was saying and weighing them.

  In the beginning, I laughed it off and joked about it and even hesitantly called out to Nana, but received no reply. Instead, the hairs on my arms stood up and the utter stillness that met me in return made me think someone, or something, was hiding rather than not present at all.

  There was also something a little stifling about the room, a little thick. I thought it might have just been because we didn’t have central heat and air and the air conditioner didn’t always reach all the way up there. But it felt different than mere heat. Sometimes I had difficulty catching my breath, as though I was chest-deep in water and had to hoist myself out to get the air deep into my lungs. When I spent time at the swimming pool the heat outside wrapped around me like a flower, warming me from head to toe and making me feel alive. This heat wrapped around me like a thick, scratchy blanket. I was starting to have misgivings about choosing that room for mine.

  At any rate, there was a little rocking chair with a red velvet seat cover in the corner of the room. My dad had reupholstered it for me the year before last for Christmas. The red in the chair caught my eye as I was leaving the room and, as I turned back around, I was startled to see it gently rocking back and forth.

  I was so surprised to see it moving that I couldn’t take my eyes off it and stopped in my tracks. There was nothing in the room touching it and no air currents or wind strong enough to reach it to make it rock. It was just…rocking. It wasn’t a gentle movement, but a particular rocky motion, as though someone was making it move on purpose. It stopped and started in spurts, disjointed, and I was mesmerized by it. I stood rooted to the floor for at least thirty seconds, although it felt much longer, and then it came to an abrupt stop. I ran down the stairs and out the door.

  Several nights later, my cousin April (Betty’s granddaughter) was spending the night with me. We were upstairs in my room, playing, when April suddenly shrieked, causing me to drop the doll whose hair I was brushing. The radio was on in the corner and George Strait was softly singing about drinking champagne and all I could think of was that I was annoyed with April for interrupting the song.

  “What? What’s the matter?” I asked, irritated. I thought she’d been bitten by a spider or something. I’d seen a lot of those around lately. Big, brown things the size of my hand.

  “Look!” she pointed, gesturing wildly with her hand.

  The red rocking chair was moving again, this time even faster. April jumped over a pile of dolls and stood by me, clasping my arm in fright. She buried her face in my shoulder and whimpered a little, but all I could do was watch in fascination. As we stood there and listened to George sing and watched the chair moving on its own accord, neither one of us could move. “What’s going on? What’s doing that?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered back. The chair was pointed at us so not only was it rocking, it had turned almost completely around. Whatever was there was watching us and wanted us to know it. I was sure of that. This frightened me more than the actual movement. I knew someone was in the room with us just as sure as I would have been had I actually seen a person in the chair. And it wasn’t a good feeling. This was not Great Aunt Ellen, Nana, or one of my grandpas. This was something else. And I was scared.

  Then, just as soon as it seemed to start, it stopped. The chair came to a gentle standstill and ceased motion, like someone had laid a tender hand on it and steadied it.

  With that, we both took off and ran downstairs. I didn’t even stop and turn the radio off. It played for three days until my mom finally went in the room and turned it off.

  A week later we were over at Betty’s when Mom excused herself from the table and went to the bathroom. Betty and I were sitting at the kitchen table, eating ice cream and talking. She was Mom’s age, but I felt like I could talk to her like a friend.

  Sensing a good time to bring it up, I took a chance. “Betty,” I started. “Do you think a house can be haunted by someone who isn’t your relative?”

  “I think so,” she said, very serious-like. “I think a house can be haunted by just about anyone. Do you think yours is?”

  I quickly told her about the rocking chair and about some of the other things I’d seen and heard. They hadn’t been big, just things out of the corner of my eye, but they’d been enough to spook me. I was starting to have nightmares. I was also starting to look over my shoulder a lot and no longer enjoyed playing in the cellar alone.

  “What makes you think it’s not your nana or someone you know doing it?” she asked. I loved how she wasn’t making fun of me and acted like I was an adult.

  “Because Nana wouldn’t scare me,” I answered. “She would show herself or say something. She wouldn’t make me scared.”

  “I don’t think most ghosts try to scare people. I think maybe they just can’t help it. We’re the ones that get afraid of them because we don’t understand their world and what they want.”

  “I don’t know,” I shook my head. “I think there’s something in our house and it doesn’t want us there. And it’s trying to scare us on purpose. Or trying to scare me. It doesn’t feel right.”

  Betty took this answer in stride and agreed. “I see what you’re saying,” she said. “But maybe these ghosts don’t want to hurt you. Maybe they just don’t know what else to do. Have you tried talking to them?”

  No, I hadn’t, but I thought I might try that next.

  A few days later I was in the living room, alone, while Mom was outside bringing things in from the car.
A noise in the kitchen got my attention and thinking it might have been our cat (she wouldn’t come inside but maybe she’d changed her mind) I went in to check. Two of the cabinet doors I’d previously closed were standing wide open.

  Seeing my opportunity to try out Betty’s advice, I planted myself firmly on the floor and took a deep breath. “Hello!” I called. “How are you? I’m Rebecca.”

  In unison, both cabinet doors slammed shut and a sound I can only describe as a low growl filled the air. I tripped over my own feet as I scurried out of the room and raced to the front door, nearly colliding with Mom.

  I didn’t try to speak to the ghosts again.

  Uncle Junior

  Eight weeks after moving into the house, we received word that my uncle Junior and his girlfriend would be coming to stay with us.

  I should take a moment here to describe my Uncle Junior. At the time, he was a tattooed truck driver who liked his beer, country music, and his Native American girlfriend (Johnnie) equally. This was not a weak man; this was a man who’d run away from home as a young teenager and joined a tribe on an Indian Reservation. He had skin like leather, talked with grit in his voice, and had spent time in jail with Chuck Berry for trying to sneak underage girls across the state line.

  Anyway, Uncle Junior and Johnnie (not technically my aunt since Junior was still married to my Aunt Anneda) came to stay with us. They were planning on being there for a month, at least.

  We prepared for their arrival a week in advance. At this time, we were sleeping upstairs in the guest room. Mom still hadn’t completely unpacked her bedroom downstairs yet but the guest room didn’t have much in it. Plus, I could play in my bedroom while she was in bed. I’d stopped that, of course, since the whole rocking chair incident. Now I mostly played with my toys in the family room which was still full of boxes but kind of felt like a cave.

  In preparation for the arrival of Uncle Junior and Johnnie we tried to clean the house the best we could, went grocery shopping, and planned some things we could do with them while they were there. We figured on putting them in Mom’s room downstairs when they arrived so they could be close to the bathroom while we continued to sleep upstairs.

  Something changed that plan, though.

  One morning, I awoke to an awful sight on our bed sheets. It was still summertime and hot so we weren’t sleeping with more than a flat sheet over us. This one was white and although it had been clean when we went to bed, now it was sprinkled with flecks of red. It looked as though someone had taken a pepper shaker and dusted us with red paint. I touched the spots but they were dry.

  “Mom?” I shook her awake. “Mom, what is this?”

  My mother sat up and looked at the sheets and gasped. “Are you okay?” she asked me as she took hold of me and searched my face and hands.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Because that’s blood,” she pointed. And, on closer inspection, she proved to be right. Some of the spots were bright red, others were almost black, but they definitely looked like blood stains. They weren’t any larger than a pin prick in most places but a few dollops were the size of a quarter.

  Neither one of us had any injuries that would have bled during the night, nor did we have any signs that our noses or mouths might have caused such a thing to happen. The sheet was covered, though.

  “Well, maybe it’s just a fluke. Maybe it was there from the cat or something and we didn’t notice it when we went to bed,” Mom suggested. But she didn’t sound completely convinced. We quickly tossed the sheet off us and threw it in the floor. Neither one of us wanted to touch it to take it downstairs.

  The next night, we changed the sheets on our bed and went to sleep.

  When I awoke that next morning, I was greeted by the same sight: Our top sheet was once again covered with flecks of blood.

  “Um, Mom,” I woke her up again. “The blood is back.”

  For three nights in a row we woke up covered in blood spots. Finally, we gave it up and decided to sleep downstairs in her room. It was almost organized in time for Uncle Junior’s arrival anyway so we might as well take it. They could have the guest room. It might not have been very hospitable of us, but we couldn’t sleep in there anymore.

  Uncle Junior and Johnnie loved the house. They loved the old rooms, the floors, the staircase, and even the cellar. They looked forward to spending a month with us. During that first week we tried to make it fun for them as we ate out at restaurants, went shopping, and even went hiking at a local waterfall. At night, Uncle Junior would sometimes get out his guitar and we’d sit there in the kitchen while he sang songs like “Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind” and “Don’t Close Your Eyes.”

  Neither Junior nor Johnnie ever said anything bad about the house. They both continued to profess their love for it. Two weeks into their stay, however, they packed up and informed us they had to leave. When we woke up to go to school that morning, Uncle Junior was already packing his bags while Johnnie sat at the kitchen table, nervously chewing on her fingernail. She wouldn’t look at us in the eye. We were sad and disappointed. I wanted to cry. I had so been looking forward to their stay and couldn’t understand why they would simply leave without talking about it with us first.

  “Is everything okay?” Mom asked Uncle Junior as he loaded up his car. He was on his way back to Oklahoma. “Did something happen?”

  “Brenda,” he said, “it’s not you. You didn’t do anything. We just can’t stay in that house anymore.”

  They wouldn’t tell us what happened or what finally made them decide to cut their visit short, but by the end of the day they were gone. Unfortunately, Uncle Junior passed away without ever sharing his story with us.

  Bathroom Breaks

  I was ten years old when we moved into the house. Except for a few times when I was sick and couldn’t stop the nausea or control my stomach, I’d never been one to have bathroom issues in the middle of the night. I’d never wet the bed, for instance. I was as easy to potty train as any other child probably is.

  But something happened in that house that would cause me a major setback.

  The first night I wet the bed we laughed about it. “Did you dream you were peeing and couldn’t stop?” Mom laughed. She changed the sheets and blankets while I cleaned up in the bathroom. “Don’t worry about it. It happens to me sometimes. We’ll just clean it up.” I was embarrassed, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I didn’t even know I was peeing until I woke up on cold sheets.

  School had started by then. I was in the fifth grade. What would my new friends say if they knew I’d wet the bed? I was in the double digits now at the age of ten. I wasn’t a baby anymore.

  A few nights later, however, it happened again.

  “Well, maybe you need to stop drinking anything before you go to bed,” Mom suggested.

  So I stopped all liquids at around 8:00 pm. Since we didn’t usually go to bed until about midnight, that was a long time to stay up without a drink but I thought anything was worth a shot. I hated waking up with that cold, wet feeling and having to get up and groggily change the sheets when my eyes weren’t even all the way open.

  I peed in the bed again. This time, Mom didn’t think it was funny. At 3:00 am while she was changing the sheets, she grumbled and fussed. I sat on the toilet in the bathroom and cried, frustrated because I didn’t understand why I kept doing it.

  “Are you going to the bathroom before you go to bed?” she asked me. “You need to go before you go to sleep!”

  “Yes!” I shouted back. “I go right before I go to bed and I’m not drinking anything, either.” That time I’d felt the pee almost as soon as it started coming but I hadn’t been able to stop it. Even though I knew what I was doing, my body continued to stay asleep and I just couldn’t wake it up in time to go to the bathroom.

  It continued to happen for the next couple of weeks. Sometimes, Mom wouldn’t even change the sheets. We got to where we were so tired of getting up and changing the bedding that
she’d just put a towel down to cover up the wet spot and I’d go back to sleep. After all, we were running out of blankets and sheets and doing laundry didn’t hold the thrill it used to, now that we were afraid of burning the house down.

  One night, I peed in the bed and she changed the sheets and then I went back to bed and it happened again that very same night.

  Neither one of us were happy campers.

  Eventually, the nightly bed-wetting stopped the same way it started. I’d gone to the doctor and he couldn’t find any reason why I might be suddenly having the problems. When Mom was out of the room, though, he came back in and asked me the usual questions: Was anyone bothering me? Was anyone touching me in a way they shouldn’t be? Was I afraid? “Afraid of what?” I asked.

  “Of anything, really. Of going to the bathroom,” he said. “It might be that you’re afraid to get up and go to the bathroom so your mind won’t let your body wake up.”

  I thought about that for a long time. It made sense. Was I really afraid?

  Yes, I was. The house was scaring me. I was afraid to talk to Mom about it, but I felt uneasy there. I couldn’t always put my finger on why I felt afraid, but now even just stepping inside the front door felt like someone was throwing a blanket over my head and trying to suffocate me.

  A few weeks after Uncle Junior left, our friend Jackie came to stay with us. We’d met him and his wife years ago when they were both in college and he was like family to us. Several years younger than Mom, he was like the brother I never had and I always enjoyed his visits. Since he and his wife were relocating back to Kentucky from Florida he asked if he could stay with us for awhile until he found work and a place to live. His wife would be living with her family in West Virginia.