Ghosts

by Hans Holzer

  But if Mrs. Harvey’s mother had joined the ghostly crew in the house, she was by no means furnishing the bulk of the phenomena—not by a long shot. Lolita’s room upstairs seemed to be the center of many activities, with her brother Don’s room next to hers also very much involved. Someone was walking from her bureau to her closet, and her brother heard the footsteps too. Lolita looked up and saw a man in a uniform with gold buttons, standing in the back of her closet. At other times she smelled perfume and heard the sound of someone dressing near her bureau. All the time she heard people going up the front stairs mumbling, then going into her closet where the sound stopped abruptly. Yet, they could not see anyone on such occasions.

  Daughter Jane wasn’t left out of any of this either. Many nights she would feel someone standing next to her bed, between the bed and the wall. She saw three different people, and felt hands trying to lift her out of bed. To be sure, she could not see their faces; their shapes were like dark shadows. Marjorie, sleeping in the room next to Jane’s, also experienced an attempt by some unseen forces to get her out of bed. She grabbed the headboard to stop herself from falling when she noticed the apparition of the same old woman whom Mrs. Harvey had seen the time she heard several people leave her room for the front hall.

  One night she awoke to catch a glimpse of someone in a long black coat hurrying through the hall. Mumbling was heard in that direction, so she put her ear against the door to see if she could hear any words, but she couldn’t make out any. Marjorie, too, saw the old woman standing at the foot of her bed—the same old woman whom Mrs. Harvey had seen when she was twelve years old. Of course, that isn’t too surprising; the room Marjorie slept in used to be Julia’s a long time ago. Lolita also had her share of experiences: sound coming up from the cellar bothering her, footsteps, voices, even the sound of chains. It seemed to her that they came right out of the wall by her head, where there used to be stairs. Finally, it got so bad that Lolita asked her mother to sleep with her. When Mrs. Harvey complied, the two women clearly saw a glow come in from the living room and go to where the shelves used to be. Then there was the sound of dishes, and even the smell of food.

  Obviously, the ghostly presences were still keeping house in their own fashion, reliving some happy or at least busy moments from their own past. By now Mr. Harvey was firmly convinced that he shared the house with a number of dead relatives, if not friends. Several times he woke to the sound of bottles being placed on the bureau. One night he awoke because the bottom of the bed was shaking hard; as soon as he was fully awake, it stopped. This was followed by a night in which Mrs. Harvey could see a glow pass through the room at the bottom of the bed. When “they” got to the hall door, which was shut, she could hear it open, but it actually did not move. Yet the sound was that of a door opening. Next she heard several individuals walk up the stairs, mumbling as they went.

  The following night a light stopped by their fireplace, and as she looked closely it resembled a figure bending down. It got so that they compared notes almost every morning to see what had happened next in their very busy home. One moonlit night Mrs. Harvey woke to see the covers of her bed folded in half, down the entire length of the bed. Her husband was fully covered, but she was totally uncovered. At the same time, she saw some dark shadows by the side of the bed. She felt someone’s hand holding her own, pulling her gently. Terrified, she couldn’t move, and just lay there wondering what would happen next. Then the blankets were replaced as before, she felt something cold touch her forehead, and the ghosts left. But the stay-behinds were benign, and meant no harm. Some nights, Mrs. Harvey would wake up because of the cold air, and notice that the blankets were standing up straight from the bed as if held by someone. Even after she pushed them back hard, they would not stay in place.

  On the other hand, there were times when she accidentally uncovered herself at night and felt someone putting the covers back on her, as if to protect her from the night chills. This was more important, as the house has no central heating. Of course it wasn’t always clear what the ghosts wanted from her. On the other hand, they were clearly concerned with her well-being and that of the family; on the other, they seemed to crave attention for themselves also.

  Twice they tried to lift Mrs. Harvey out of her bed. She felt herself raised several inches above it by unseen hands, and tried to call out to her husband but somehow couldn’t utter a single word. This was followed by a strange, dreamlike state, in which she remembered being taken to the attic and shown something. Unfortunately she could not remember it afterwards, except that she had been to the attic and how the floorboards looked there; she also recalled that the attic was covered with black dust. When morning came, she took a look at her feet: they were dusty, and the bottom of her bed was grayish as if from dust. Just as she was contemplating these undeniable facts, her husband asked her what had been the matter with her during the night. Evidently he had awakened to find her gone from the bed.

  One night daughter Marjorie was out on a date. Mrs. Harvey awoke to the sound of a car pulling into the driveway, bringing Marjorie home. From her bed she could clearly see four steps of the back stairs. As she lay there, she saw the shape of a woman coming down without any sound, sort of floating down the stairs. She was dressed in a white chiffon dress. At the same moment, her daughter Marjorie entered the living room. She too saw the girl in the chiffon dress come down the stairs into the living room and disappear through a door to the other bedroom. Even though the door was open wide and there was plenty of room to go through the opening, evidently the ghostly lady preferred to walk through the door.

  The miscellaneous stay-behinds tried hard to take part in the daily lives of the flesh-and-blood people in the house. Many times the plants in the living room would be rearranged and attended to by unseen hands. The Harveys could clearly see the plants move, yet no one was near them; no one, that is, visible to the human eye. There was a lot of mumbling about now, and eventually they could make out some words. One day daughter Marjorie heard her late grandmother say to her that “they” would be back in three weeks. Sure enough, not a single incident of a ghostly nature occurred for three weeks. To the day, after the three weeks were up, the phenomena began again. Where had the ghosts gone in the meantime? On another occasion, Marjorie heard someone say, “That is Jane on that side of the bed, but who is that on the other side? The bed looks so smooth.” The remark made sense to Mrs. Harvey. Her late mother sometimes slept with Jane, when she was still in good health. On the other hand, daughter Marjorie likes to sleep perfectly flat, so her bed does look rather smooth.

  Average people believe ghosts only walk at night. Nothing could be further from the truth, as Mrs. Harvey will testify. Frequently, when she was alone in the house during the daytime, she would hear doors upstairs bang shut and open again. One particular day, she heard the sound of someone putting things on Jane’s bureau, so she tried to go up and see what it was. Carefully tiptoeing up the stairs to peek into her door to see if she could actually trap a ghost, she found herself halfway along the hall when she heard footsteps coming along the foot of son Don’s bed, in her direction. Quickly, she hurried back down the stairs and stopped halfway down. The footsteps sounded like a woman’s, and suddenly there was the rustle of a taffeta gown. With a whooshing sound, the ghost passed Mrs. Harvey and went into Jane’s room. Mrs. Harvey waited, rooted to the spot on the stairs.

  A moment later the woman’s footsteps came back, only this time someone walked with her, someone heavier. They went back through Don’s room, and ended up in Lolita’s closet—the place where Lolita had seen the man in the uniform with the shining gold buttons. Mrs. Harvey did not follow immediately, but that night she decided to go up to Lolita’s room and have another look at the closet. As she approached the door to the room it opened, which wasn’t unusual since it was in the habit of opening at the slightest vibration. But before Mrs. Harvey could close it, it shut itself tight and the latch moved into place of its own accord. Mrs. Harvey did
n’t wait around for anything further that night.

  For a while there was peace. But in October the phenomena resumed. One night Mrs. Harvey woke up when she saw a shadow blocking the light coming from the dining room. She looked towards the door and saw a lady dressed all in black come into her bedroom and stand close to her side of the bed. This time she clearly heard her speak.

  “Are you ready? It is almost time to go.”

  With that, the apparition turned and started up the stairs. The stairs looked unusually light, as if moonlight were illuminating them. When the woman in black got to the top step, all was quiet and the stairs were dark again, as before. Mrs. Harvey could see her clothes plainly enough, but not her face. She noticed that the apparition had carried a pouch-style pocketbook, which she had put over her arm so that her hands would be free to lift up her skirts as she went up the stairs. The next morning, Mrs. Harvey told her husband of the visitation. He assured her she must have dreamt it all. But before she could answer, her daughter Marjorie came in and said that she had heard someone talking in the night, something about coming, and it being almost time. She saw a figure at the foot of her bed, which she described as similar to what Mrs. Harvey had seen.

  The night before that Thanksgiving, Marjorie heard footsteps come down the stairs. She was in bed and tried to get up to see who it was, but somehow couldn’t move at all, except to open her eyes to see five people standing at the foot of her bed! Two of them were women, the others seemed just outlines or shadows. One of the two women wore an old-fashioned shaped hat, and she looked very stern. As Marjorie was watching the group, she managed to roll over a little in her bed and felt someone next to her. She felt relieved at the thought that it was her mother, but then whoever it was got up and left with the others in the group. All the time they kept talking among themselves, but Marjorie could not understand what was being said. Still talking, the ghostly visitors went back up the stairs.

  Nothing much happened until Christmas time. Again the footsteps running up and down the stairs resumed, yet no one was seen. Christmas night, Jane and her mother heard walking in the room above the living room, where Mrs. Harvey’s mother used to sleep. At that time, Mr. Harvey was quite ill and was sleeping in what used to be the sewing room so as not to awaken when his wife got up early.

  On two different occasions Mrs. Harvey had “visitors.” The first time someone lifted her a few inches off the bed. Evidently someone else was next to her in bed, for when she extended her hand that person got up and left. Next she heard footsteps going up the stairs and someone laughing, then all was quiet again. About a week later, she woke one night to feel someone pulling hard on her elbow and ankle. She hung onto the top of her bed with her other hand. But the unseen entities pushed, forcing her to brace herself against the wall.

  Suddenly it all stopped, yet there were no sounds of anyone leaving. Mrs. Harvey jumped out of bed and tried to turn the light on. It wouldn’t go on. She went back to bed when she heard a voice telling her not to worry, that her husband would be all right. She felt relieved at the thought, when the voice added, “But you won’t be.” Then the unseen voice calmly informed her that she would die in an accident caused by a piece of bark from some sort of tree. That was all the voice chose to tell her, but it was enough to start her worrying. Under the circumstances, and in order not to upset her family, she kept quiet about it, eventually thinking that she had dreamed the whole incident. After all, if it were just a dream, there was no point in telling anyone, and if it were true, there was nothing she could do anyway, so there was no point in worrying her family. She had almost forgotten the incident when she did have an accident about a week later. She hurt her head rather badly in the woodshed, requiring medical attention. While she was still wondering whether that was the incident referred to by the ghostly voice, she had a second accident: a heavy fork fell on her and knocked her unconscious.

  But the voice had said that she would die in an accident, so Mrs. Harvey wasn’t at all sure that the two incidents, painful though they had been, were what the voice had referred to. Evidently, ghosts get a vicarious thrill out of making people worry, because Mrs. Harvey is alive and well, years after the unseen voice had told her she would die in an accident.

  But if it were not enough to cope with ghost people, Mrs. Harvey also had the company of a ghost dog. Their favorite pet, Lucy, passed into eternal dogdom the previous March. Having been treated as a member of the family, she had been permitted to sleep in the master bedroom, but as she became older she started wetting the rug, so eventually she had to be kept out.

  After the dog’s death, Marjorie offered her mother another dog, but Mrs. Harvey didn’t want a replacement for Lucy; no other dog could take her place. Shortly after the offer and its refusal, Lolita heard a familiar scratch at the bathroom door. It sounded exactly as Lucy had always sounded when Lolita came home late at night. At first, Mrs. Harvey thought her daughter had just imagined it, but then the familiar wet spot reappeared on the bedroom rug. They tried to look for a possible leak in the ceiling, but could find no rational cause for the rug to be wet. The wet spot remained for about a month. During that time, several of the girls heard a noise that reminded them of Lucy walking about. Finally the rug dried out and Lucy’s ghost stopped walking.

  For several years the house has been quiet now. Have the ghosts gone on to their just rewards, been reincarnated, or have they simply tired of living with flesh-and-blood relatives? Stay-behinds generally stay indefinitely; unless, of course, they feel they are really not wanted. Or perhaps they just got bored with it all.

  * * *

  Several years ago, a tragic event took place at a major university campus in Kansas. A member of one of the smaller fraternities, TKE, was killed in a head-on automobile accident on September 21. His sudden death at so young an age—he was an undergraduate—brought home a sense of tragedy to other members of the fraternity, and it was decided that they would attend his funeral in New York en masse.

  Not quite a year after the tragic accident, several members of the fraternity were at their headquarters. Eventually, one of the brothers and his date were left behind alone, studying in the basement of the house. Upon completion of their schoolwork, they left. When they had reached the outside, the woman remembered she had left her purse in the basement and returned to get it. When she entered the basement, she noticed a man sitting at the poker table, playing with chips. She said something to him, explaining herself, then grabbed her purse and returned upstairs. There she asked her date who the man in the basement was, since she hadn’t noticed him before. He laughed and said that no one had been down there but the two of them. At that point, one of the other brothers went into the basement and was surprised to see a man get up from his chair and walk away. That man was none other than the young man who had been killed in the automobile crash a year before.

  One of the other members of the fraternity had also been in the same accident, but had only been injured, and survived. Several days after the incident in the fraternity house basement, this young man saw the dead man walking up the steps to the second floor of the house. By now the fraternity realized that their dead brother was still very much with them, drawn back to what was to him his true home—and so they accepted him as one of the crowd, even if he was invisible at times.

  * * *

  On January 7, Mr. and Mrs. S. moved into an older house on South Fourth Street, a rented, fully-furnished two-bedroom house in a medium-sized city in Oklahoma. Mrs. S.’s husband was a career service man in the Army, stationed at a nearby Army camp. They have a small boy, and looked forward to a pleasant stay in which the boy could play with neighborhood kids, while Mrs. S. tried to make friends in what to her was a new environment.

  She is a determined lady, not easily frightened off by anything she cannot explain, and the occult was the last thing on her mind. They had lived in the house for about two weeks, when she noticed light footsteps walking in the hall at night. When she checked on
them, there was no one there. Her ten-year-old son was sleeping across the hall, and she wondered if perhaps he was walking in his sleep. But each time she heard the footsteps and would check on her son, she found him sound asleep. The footsteps continued on and off, for a period of four months.

  Then, one Sunday afternoon at about 2 o’clock, when her husband was at his post and her son in the backyard playing, she found herself in the kitchen. Suddenly she heard a child crying very softly and mutedly, as if the child were afraid to cry aloud. At once she ran into the backyard to see if her son was hurt. There was nothing wrong with him, and she found him playing happily with a neighborhood boy. It then dawned on her that she could not hear the child crying outside the house, but immediately upon re-entering the house, the faint sobs were clearly audible again.

  She traced the sound to her bedroom, and when she entered the room, it ceased to be noticeable. This puzzled her to no end, since she had no idea what could cause the sounds. Added to this were strange thumping sounds, which frequently awakened her in the middle of the night. It sounded as if someone had fallen out of bed.

  On these occasions, she would get out of bed quickly and rush into her son’s room, only to find him fast asleep. A thorough check of the entire house revealed no source for the strange noises. But Mrs. S. noticed that their Siamese cat, who slept at the foot of her bed when these things happened, also reacted to them: his hair would bristle, his ears would fly back, and he would growl and stare into space at something or someone she could not see.

  About that time, her mother decided to visit them. Since her mother was physically challenged, Mrs. S. decided not to tell her about the strange phenomena in order to avoid upsetting her. She stayed at the house for three days, when one morning she wanted to know why Mrs. S. was up at two o’clock in the morning making coffee. Since the house had only two bedrooms, they had put a half-bed into the kitchen for her mother, especially as the kitchen was very large and she could see the television from where she was sleeping. Her mother insisted she had heard footsteps coming down the hall into the kitchen. She called out to what she assumed was her daughter, and when there was no answer, she assumed that her daughter and her son-in-law had had some sort of disagreement and she had gotten up to make some coffee.