On another occasion, Monica and a friend of hers went back to the house to conduct some more research. They were on the second floor and when they walked by one of the bedroom windows they saw a large, glowing white figure run across the front yard of the house. At that very same moment, they heard a man’s voice yell, “Get out! Get out!” from the same room they were in. It sounded as if the man was standing right next to them! Not wasting a moment, they fled from the house.
Monica and her friend went back to the house a couple days later and found an old book in one of the upstairs bedrooms. The book contained the genealogy of the Jenkins family.
Wanting to make copies of the book, Monica, without asking permission, took it home with her and spent almost the entire night reading the book. The next day, Monica and her friend drove by the house and stopped in front of it. She saw a large man with a full beard and mustache staring down at her. Monica knew it was Matthew Jenkins, due to the pictures we’d found while conducting our research into the history of the house.
From the moment they saw the man, they both became very ill. They experienced unexplained nausea and vomiting. It went on for a couple of days. During that period, I talked to Monica and she finally told me about the book they’d found, the man they saw at the Jenkins house, and how sick she was.
“It’s the book,” I told her. “You’ve got to put back the book. I’ll meet you at the house.”
A few minutes later, I pulled into the driveway of the house and found Monica waiting for me with the large book in her arms. Monica looked pale and weak.
We both gazed up at the house and in the far left, second-story bedroom window, I saw the apparition of the man Monica told me about.
“He wants the book back,” I told Monica. “You stole part of his family.”
“I didn’t steal anything,” Monica said. “I borrowed the book.”
“Without permission,” I explained. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“I’m not going in there with that man in there.” Monica shook her head.
“Give me the damn book,” I sighed. “I’ll do it. Where did you find this book?”
“In the room the man was in. It was on the stop shelf of the closet,” Monica said.
“Fine! But don’t ever take anything from any house again. Got it?”
“Got it,” Monica said, handing me the book and the key to the house, which the current owner had given us.
I let myself in the back door and made my way through the large kitchen area to the staircase at the front of the house. I tentatively climbed the stairs to the second floor.
“Mr. Jenkins, I know you’re upset about the book being taken, but I’m here to bring it back. My friend didn’t know what she was doing, and I’m very sorry. Nothing like this will ever happen again,” I explained to the spirit as I walked toward the bedroom.
I peered into the bedroom, but didn’t see or feel the spirit. I walked across the room to the big closet and put the large book on the top shelf. I pushed it as far back as it would go—virtually hiding it from sight. When I turned around to leave the bedroom, I felt the spirit standing in front of the window on the opposite side of the room.
“Goodbye, Mr. Jenkins. I hope you find peace,” I said, as I walked out of the bedroom toward the staircase. I let myself out the back door and rejoined Monica by the cars.
“I’m keeping the key to the house,” I told her. “I’ll get it back to the owner of the property.”
“But what if I want to go back in the house?” Monica said.
“You’re not going back into the house. Your exploring-
haunted-houses days are over, unless you’re with me. You just can’t seem to stay out of trouble,” I teased her.
“True.” She gave me a wry smile.
We both got into our cars, took one more look at the house, and drove away.
That was the last time I was in the house. The owners of the property spent several months lovingly restoring it to its former glory. They report that the paranormal activity has all but subsided, with the exception of one thing.
They always find the window open in the first floor bedroom—the very same room where the woman died—where she sits and stares forlornly out the window, into the front yard of the farmhouse.
While the current owners are aware of the history of the house, to them the rich history of the property makes the house more desirable. Monica spoke to the new owners after contacting one of the surviving relatives of the original owner, and verified as much information as she could.
[contents]
Chapter 8
The House of Horrors
To the casual observer, the old abandoned farmhouse that sits in the middle of nowhere, in upstate Iowa, wouldn’t even register in their minds as being a place of interest.
However, to those who have lived in that farmhouse, or crossed the threshold at one time or another, it is a house of terror-filled nights and tense, uneasy days. You see, the land and the house that no one really pays any attention to, are among the most haunted places I’ve personally ever heard of.
In all fairness, the house itself is not to blame. Before this house was built, another stood in its place. However, when the original house was torn down, the basement wasn’t removed, and the current home stands on the original foundation.
The catalyst that set off the tragic chain of events throughout the years all began with the land itself. Long ago, there was a Native American encampment in the woods behind where the house now stands. While history doesn’t tell us what exactly happened, it does tell us that the Native Americans were massacred.
The event was so traumatic that there have been reports of people seeing the ghosts of Native Americans still crossing the property. It’s my belief that this catastrophic event caused the land itself to become stained or cursed.
When this happens, any building or other structures and the people who inhabit them will also become victims of the massacre that took place so many years ago.
The land itself now holds the house, three silos, an old barn that pre-dates the house, a garage, and a long-abandoned chicken coop. There have been reports of paranormal activity occurring everywhere on the property, with the exception of the chicken coop and silos, as far as I know.
The long list of horrors that occurred after the massacre started when an influenza outbreak raced through the area in the mid- to late-1800s. At that time, there was a family with eight children living in the original home. Seven of the children died during the plague.
That house was eventually torn down and the existing house was built on the old foundation. According to lore, two little boys drowned in the ditch that lies at the front of the property during a flash flood. To this day, the spirits of the two boys can often be seen in the ditch, reliving the tragedy that befell them all those years ago. No one is quite sure when this happened, but it’s believed to be sometime in the 1940s.
Adding to the list of horrors that occurred on the land is the story of a carpetbagger who was staying in the barn for a night. He was found murdered the next morning. History doesn’t tell us who the man was, or whether his murder was ever solved, but according to the local historian, the event did take place, although he wouldn’t reveal his sources.
History does tell us that a man committed suicide in the home, although the details are sketchy at best. His ghost has been seen in the upstairs bedroom closet, so it’s assumed he hanged himself in that closet. This apparition has been seen many times throughout the years, by the various owners of the property.
One of the families that lived in the house employed a housekeeper who disappeared under what is termed “mysterious circumstances,” but no details were included in the paper. In fact, no one’s exactly sure if she disappeared by her own accord or if she was murdered. What is known is that the ghost of a woman who’s believed to be the housek
eeper, according to people who knew her when she was alive, appears on the staircase in the home from time to time.
Other ghostly activity around the property includes reports of disembodied voices and shadows. There have also been reports of a man hanging in the barn and two other men hanging in the garage—although no one knows who the men are or why they were hanged.
One of the sadder stories surrounding the house is that of a little girl who lived there at one time, who fell down the stairs. She broke her neck and died. What is presumed to be her ghost can still be seen skipping through the house, although she seems to prefer to hang out around the back porch of the house.
Perhaps the most intriguing story of all about this property happened in the recent past. A man and his wife bought the property sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
They lived there in what seemed to be perfect harmony, until one day the husband disappeared. The wife told everyone who asked that her husband abandoned her, and she soon moved out of the house but continues to own the property. However, given some bone-chilling events that have occurred in the house since, her story becomes rather suspect.
Since the husband’s disappearance, the wife has rented out the house to various people who, by all accounts, didn’t remain there very long. The house was rented out to a young family, who, by the way, are the last people to ever live in this house. They were thrilled to have such a large house. Regrettably, their euphoria didn’t last long.
Not long after moving in, the family began to experience eerie paranormal activity.
Their son, as did other members of the family, reported seeing a man in the closet of one of the bedrooms. It’s assumed this is the phantom of the man who hanged himself. On several occasions, the young housewife would be pushed toward the closet where the man committed suicide.
As if that wasn’t enough, the family would wake up every morning to find furniture and other objects moved around the house. In some cases, items would disappear altogether, especially objects kept in the kitchen. The television, washer, dryer, and microwave would also turn on by themselves.
The family began searching for a logical explanation for the strange events, so they called out an electrician to check the wiring, but no problems could be found with the wiring or the appliances.
It didn’t take long for the family to become terrified of their house, but with little money and an ironclad lease, they felt they had no choice but to stay. I suspect the lease was intentionally made so binding because of the mass exodus of previous tenants.
One of the most terrifying events in the house occurred when the young mother was walking by the basement door and something unseen gave her a hard shove toward the basement stairs. Luckily, she was able to catch herself before tumbling down the staircase to the hard floor of the basement.
Naturally, her husband became quite concerned about the unseen and seemingly negative ghosts in the house that were terrorizing and physically attacking his family, so he decided to investigate.
He made his way down to the basement and discovered an old cistern that had been sealed up. Judging by the appearance of the concrete, it hadn’t been sealed that long ago.
Further exploration led him to a newly cinder-blocked section of the basement which was the size of a door. Given the close proximity to the furnace, the man assumed the room behind the cinder blocks was probably the old coal room, used when the house had a coal furnace.
As he was making his way back to the staircase leading up to the kitchen, paint cans that had been stored on a shelf began to propel themselves off the shelf and pelted the man harshly.
Screaming in pain and fear, he covered his head with his arms and quickly made his way across the basement to the staircase. He rushed up the stairs, slammed the basement door behind him, and slid the lock into place—an act of futility because the next morning, the basement door was standing wide open.
That was the last straw. The family quickly packed up their belongings, threw them into the back of the husband’s pickup truck, and fled the property in fear.
That should be the end of this story, right? Unfortunately it’s not.
You see, the young housewife had an affinity for mirrors and enjoyed etching mirrors. When they moved into the house, a large mirror was on the mantle of the fireplace in the living room. The day they fled the house in panic, the woman grabbed the mirror off of the mantel and took it with them to their new home.
Much to their horror, soon after moving into their new house, the same type of activity they’d fled began to happen again. Furniture and other objects would be moved, unexplained voices could be heard, the appliances would turn themselves on, etc. This is when I was called in by a friend of the family’s, to figure out what was going on.
After hearing the whole story, one thing became perfectly clear: one of the most menacing entities that resided in their old house had come with them to their new home, and it was more than likely attached to the mirror.
The reason for this is that mirrors can act as a portal between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Ghosts, spirits, and any other types of entity can freely pass through this portal, as easily as you or I can walk through an open door.
In addition, it’s not uncommon for a spirit to attach itself to an object made of any porous material such as stone or wood. Thus, if the object is moved from place to place, or house to house, the spirit attached to that object would move right along with it.
To make matters worse, the young woman was emotionally unstable, and any etching she did on the mirror would only serve to invite a negative entity through the mirror and into their home.
Certain types of entities feed on negative emotions, or emotional upheaval, which feeds the entities and can make them stronger and more powerful than they already are.
My advice to the family was to immediately get rid of the mirror they’d brought with them from the other house. The wife was reluctant to do so, but the husband grabbed the mirror, took it outside, and shattered it into a million pieces in the garbage can. He then removed the garbage can from the property and drove it out to a local landfill where it remains to this day. Since the husband got rid of the mirror, the family is not experiencing any further paranormal activity.
My friend, whom I’ll call Kelly, lives near this house of horrors; she found the reported paranormal activity at the house irresistible, and is the person who initially told me about this house. So of course, she had to go check it out for herself.
She was curious as to whether the removal, and eventual destruction, of the mirror that once resided over the mantel had caused any paranormal activity to stop completely. Since the house was not lived in, and completely void of any furnishings (not to mention the home had been condemned), she made a beeline for the property.
Upon arriving at the house, she first inspected the garage. As she explored the space, she heard a noise behind her and turned around to see the shadows of two men hanging from the rafters of the garage, slowly swinging back and forth like pendulums on an old grandfather clock. Frozen in place, she stared in wonder at the two apparitions for a few seconds before snapping herself out of her trancelike state, and quickly exited the garage. Kelly isn’t sure how long the apparitions hung around, pardon the pun, but she didn’t stick around the garage long enough to find out.
Undaunted, she walked across the yard to the farmhouse. Upon entering the house, Kelly walked around the living room, not really noticing anything out of the ordinary.
She wandered around the second floor of the old house, tentatively checking every floorboard for sturdiness before taking each step, as the house was condemned and not in very good repair. Again, everything seemed to be in order, so she headed back down the staircase and into the kitchen.
As Kelly roamed around the kitchen, the air became heavy and she was finding it hard to breathe. It felt as though all
the air in the room was being sucked out by a vacuum.
Deciding to leave, she headed for the door to the back yard that lay on the opposite side of the kitchen. As she passed by the basement door, an unseen arm grabbed her around the waist and tried to drag her into the basement!
Kelly struggled to get free as this unseen entity inched her closer and closer to the basement stairs. Kelly was terrified and wrestled frantically to get away. She realized it pointless was to try to grab an arm she couldn’t even see.
“Let go of me!” she screamed, and with one final burst of energy she broke free from the entity and raced out the door in a blind panic. She leaped into her car and raced out of the driveway, only stopping when she felt she was far enough away to be out of the reach of the house and the entities that resided there.
After Kelly caught her breath, she called me and relayed the details of what just happened to her.
While I sympathized with her experience, I also admonished her for going out to that place by herself, knowing what type of seemingly dangerous paranormal activity occurred there. Kelly hasn’t been back to the property since her terrifying encounter with the unknown entity.
While it appears that this house and property have an overabundance of paranormal activity, in reality there’s only one intelligent entity that occupies the home—the entity that tried to pull Kelly into the basement.
The two little boys by the ditch, the little girl that runs through the house, the men hanging in the garage and barn, and the eerie sight of the ghosts of the Native Americans roaming around the property, would be considered a residual haunting, in my opinion. Residual hauntings aren’t ghosts; they represent the energy of past events, replayed over and over again.
It’s the entity in the basement that personally has me intrigued. While it may appear to be a violent, malevolent spirit, I’m not convinced it is. I believe the spirit is desperate.
Stalking Shadows Page 8