Ghosts

by Hans Holzer

  I had to wash some clothes that night and it was after dark when I hung them on the line. While I was doing that, Andy came to the door and advised me that bugs and slugs were flying all over the house. I told him I thought I had heard something thud against the dog house near the clothesline. He checked and picked up a little leather wallet about the size of a billfold, which we had seen earlier in John’s room, filled with loose tobacco. I told him to put it into the garbage can at the end of the house. The can had a lid on it. When I got through, it was time to take a bath and go to bed. While I was in the tub and Andy in the den, I heard something that sounded like a shotgun just outside the bathroom window. I called Andy to run out and see what he could find; he had heard the noise too. Just beneath the window he picked up the same leather purse he had put into the garbage can an hour earlier! It had hit the house flat, I suppose, near the bathroom window, to cause such a loud noise.

  During the preceding days we had found several other notes, all written or printed in the same peculiar way, as a little child might write. I had no idea what they meant, if anything, but some examples are:

  Johnnie Beaird Joe Bailey—1972 Amy Beaird

  Reid Lesser—1966 The End

  1913 Murder Tink Byford—1964

  Bill Robertson—1967

  The dog—leave 1965

  Die 1972

  In a little notebook we found:

  Allie L. Lewis (This woman worked for the same company we did, and probably still does).

  Luther Anderson (He owns a truck line that hauls salt).

  Die 1980

  Jeraldine Fail (This woman used to be a good friend of John’s).

  Die 1977

  Louise Beaird (This is my sister, who would be 118 years of age in 2018).

  Die 2018

  One day we found an old wooden box where John had kept her canceled checks. She had burned something in it, as the ashes were still in the box. The only thing left was one half of a calling card saying, “burn spirit burn.” On just a scratch of paper were the words, “Johnnie Beaird—Death 1991.”

  There were many more. Note the peculiar use of capital letters. All of these notes were printed:

  On a Canton bank blank check was written in the “pay to” line: Johnnie B. Walker $1,000,000; in the “for” line: Bill is NUTTY, and on the “signature” line; ha ha.

  The ghastly events continued through October and into November, when they seemed to be letting up a little. One day early in the month when I got home from work Andy took me into John’s room. Lined up under the edge of her bed but behind the spread were some pictures in little frames of various kinds. There was one of Amy, of John and Andy, of me, of Thelma Lowrie, who had been John’s best friend and who had died in 1951, and several others. I don’t know what significance they were supposed to have, but I left them right there. I assumed that John had been to the house that day. Bugs, dead and alive, continued to bombard us every night; even the slugs started flying through the air, smashing against the blinds and walls, making an awful mess wherever they hit.

  I decided to clean up both bedrooms as soon as I could, and to start taking up the carpets. While I was doing that Andy found a note in John’s room saying: “Bugs will end for ThursDay Dec. 29.” I think the 23rd was the day I cleaned up our room, and the bugs were worse than ever that night, so we decided that maybe it was meant that the 23rd would be the last night. The next night, strangely enough, was pretty quiet.

  On the 24th I took up the carpet in John’s room. While doing that I was hit by hundreds of bugs, slugs, and even some of the nails I pulled out of the floor simply flew through the air and hit against the blinds. Finally I was able to completely clean the room, paint the walls and woodwork, put up curtains, and the room looked very nice when I was finished.

  On November 26 I cleaned the house thoroughly, and no unusual activity took place that night. On the 27th bugs were everywhere. Just before dark I was taking a bath, and when I was through, standing up in the tub, I saw something hit the screen but could not tell what it was. I called Andy from the den and told him to go out to see what it was. It turned out to be one of John’s rubber gloves I had put out beside the garbage can to be hauled off.

  On Thanksgiving day I took all of our outside locks and had Andy take them to a locksmith in town the next morning to have them changed and get new keys, as I was convinced that John had been somehow coming from Daingerfield and using her keys to get in. I put the locks in place on Saturday. On Wednesday, December 1, 1965, somebody (I supposed it was John) punched a hole in the back screen door near the hook and unhooked the door. If it was John, though, her key would not fit.

  December 4 was the worst. It was Saturday, and we went to bed about 10:30. Something that sounded exactly like fingers drummed lightly on the bed. Although we were under the covers we could feel whatever it was tugging at the sheets, actually trying to jerk the covers off us! We would turn on the light and the tugging would stop. There were no bugs that night, but when the lights were off both Andy and I could feel something on our arms that seemed like small flying bugs bouncing up and down, sort of like gnats might do. We would slap at them, but there was absolutely nothing there. We would turn the lights on and see nothing. We sprayed the air everywhere with insect spray but it did no good. It felt exactly like someone lightly grabbing the hair on your arms with the thumb and forefinger, not actually pulling very hard at first, but later jerking the hair hard enough to hurt.

  While we were lying in bed with the light on, my shoes, weighing possibly two pounds each, flew right over our heads and landed on the other side of the bed. Andy’s house shoes got up from the floor and flung themselves against the blinds. My clothes, which were hanging in the closet with the door closed, got out of there somehow without the door being opened and landed across the room. Finally we turned off the lights and heard a strange sound we could not identify. It was under the bed, and sounded like bed rollers being turned rapidly with the fingers; but the bed was not even on rollers! Suddenly something hit the blind like a bullet. We turned on the light and found that the handle from the gas jet under the bed had unscrewed itself, and both the bolt and the handle had flung themselves against the blind. Then the bed started moving away from the wall. We would roll it back again only to have it do the same thing over and over. That was about all we could stand, and as it was 2 A.M. Sunday, I told Andy to put on his clothes. We went to a motel to spend the rest of the night.

  As we were walking down the driveway, after closing and locking the door, a handkerchief still folded hit me on the back of the neck. Just as we got in the car another handkerchief I had left on the bedside table hit me on the back after I had closed the car doors.

  We were so weary that we were asleep almost by the time we were in bed at the motel, and nothing happened to us while we were there. We came home about 9:30 the next morning. Some of John’s clothes were in my closet, and most of mine were in hers. All sorts of weird notes were flying all about the house. I cleaned the house, and just as I was through, a big cigar hit the back of my neck from out of nowhere. I put it in the kitchen waste basket. Andy wanted some soup, so I started to a Cabell grocery store a few blocks away. Just as I left the house Andy saw the cigar jump up out of the waste basket and land on the floor. He put it back in the basket. When he came to the door to tell me about it I was getting into the car parked at the foot of the driveway, and when I turned toward him I saw the cigar come sailing over his head and land at the side of the car, about 60 feet from the house. When I came back and stepped in the door from the garage to the kitchen I saw a clean shirt of mine coming flying from the den and land near the back door of the kitchen.

  By this time I had decided that it did absolutely no good to change the locks on the doors, although John had not broken in, if, indeed, this was John. Apparently whoever it was did not need a door, nor did he need to break in. Andy and I were standing in the kitchen watching things fly through the air, when all of a sudden his c
ap, which had been resting on the refrigerator, hit me in the back of the head. A roll of paper towels flew through the air; a can of soup on the cabinet top jumped off onto the floor several times after Andy picked it up and put it back.

  All of a sudden we heard a click. The toaster had been turned on, and the click meant it had turned itself off. There was a piece of soap in it, melted! A note nearby read “clean toaster.” I felt something like a slight brush on my shoulder and heard Andy shout, “Look out!” He saw the faint outline of a hand which looked like his mother’s vanish near my head.

  Later, while in the den, I began to ask questions aloud, such as: “John, tell me where we stayed last night?” A few seconds later a note came floating down in front of us, reading: “Motel on T. B. Road. Couldn’t get in.” “Got to go, you’ve ruined me.” We did spend the night before at a motel on the road to the Tuberculosis Hospital where I work. I then said aloud, trying to sound funny in a totally unfunny situation: “With all that power, why don’t you just drop $5,000 on us?” Almost immediately a check with nothing but $5,000 written on the face dropped from out of nowhere. I said, “John, why don’t you appear here before us right this minute?” In about five seconds a note came down saying, “Can’t come ToDay haPPy YuLeTide.” I then asked, “Are we going to be able to sleep tonight?” This answer came down to us: “CaN’t maKE aNyTHing haPPen tONighT you BROKE MY POWER Call HOUsTon.”

  Previously she told me to call Houston police and ask them about a witch who had solved the murder of a man named Gonzales. I felt like a fool, but I did call the Houston police department. I told them they could think I was drunk, crazy, or anything they wished to, but I just wanted a yes or no answer, and asked if they had any record of a witch ever helping the Houston police solve a murder of a man named Gonzales. The man I talked to did not appear surprised and simply asked me to wait a moment, and a few seconds later said that he could find no record of any such event.

  John had also given us directions for breaking her power. It was to “break an egg, mix with a little water and a dash of salt and then throw it out in the back yard.”

  I have never been superstitious before, and this sounded awfully silly to me, but I think I would have done absolutely anything I was told if it meant a chance to put an end to these uncanny events, so I told Andy to go ahead and follow the directions. That night we had a few bugs and a note came floating down reading, “power will end at 10 o’clock give or take an hour.”

  For several days we received what seemed like hundreds of notes from right out of nowhere, simply materializing in midair, some folding themselves as they came toward us. Some time after he had seen the hand vanish near my head, Andy was sitting in the den facing the outside windows. For a few fleeting seconds he saw the outline of John in front of the windows. Her back was to him as she looked out the windows, and Andy heard a faint “goodbye” just as the figure melted in the air.

  We heard other voices after talking with John. All seemed very strained, especially the female speakers, and they would often say that they had a “mist” in their throat and could not continue talking to me, although they could always talk to Andy and he would hear them. I have dozens of notes that fell down to us from somewhere above, and most of them are from the same two people who stayed with us for the longest period of time. One of these was Mrs. Elliott, who had been dead for three or four years when all this began to happen. The other was from Mr. Gree, of whom I had never heard, but who seemed eager to help Andy and me with advice especially concerning the care of Andy’s cats and dogs. We were “visited” by a great variety of “people,” some long since dead, some still living, most of whom we know, or knew, but also some well-known public figures whose names were often in the news. I dated the notes from then on, but at times so many descended on us at once that I did not try to record the exact order in which we received them.

  It was Henry Anglin who tormented us from the very beginning, and who caused us to move out of the house. One night Anglin came to our room after we had gone to bed and his voice asked if he could cook himself an egg. We heard nothing else from him that night, but the next morning when I went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, there in a teflon-lined skillet on the stove burner which was turned down low was an egg burned to a crisp!

  Another night Anglin came to our room and insisted that I call Houston. This was about the time he was beginning to be so terribly mean. I told him that I had already made one silly call to the Houston police, and that I had no intention of doing it again. He countered that I had not questioned them enough, and for me to phone them again. I refused, and he tormented us relentlessly. Finally he said he would leave us alone if we would drive around the loop, which was a distance of a little over twenty miles around the city of Tyler. Andy and I put on our clothes and did just that. We drove completely around the town, and sure enough, when we got home we were able to sleep the rest of the night without further trouble.

  A few nights after this, both Mrs. Elliott and Mrs. Snow told me verbally, while I was working in my shop, that they had taken Henry Anglin “back to his grave,” and had driven a stake, prepared by Mr. Gree, through Anglin’s heart. They promised that he would not bother us again.

  About this time we received notes allegedly from people who were still living, and also some from persons other than those previously mentioned who had been dead for several years. Among those still living were Mrs. W. H. Jarvis, and Odell Young, who lives in Grand Saline at this time. I also had one note from Mr. W. H. Quinn, who had been dead for several years. He used to be a railroad agent in Grand Saline. For a number of years I had occasion to have him sign numerous shipping papers, so I had become familiar with his handwriting. The note I got from him was written in the same backhand fashion. I believe that this note was written by him:

  Dear Howard and Andy,

  I pay tribute to you. You have put up with a lot from old man Anglin. It is all over now. Friday I am going to my grave to join my wife, whom I love. I am going to Marion’s house to see him once more. He is my favorite child. I have always like you, John and the boy and hope someday you will be together again.

  Hiram Quinn

  P.S. I enjoyed hearing about John going with Marion to get new teeth.

  The P.S. about his son’s false teeth refers to the time about thirty years ago when John and I went to see Marion just after he had received his first set of dentures. At that time we lived just across the street from Marion and his wife and were friendly with them.

  We also got notes allegedly from Marilyn Monroe, Dorothy Kilgallen, and former Governor Jim Allred, who sympathized with us for what Henry Anglin was doing to us and about John’s condition. Mrs. Snow and Mrs. Elliot had previously told us that Anglin had caused many deaths, some by auto accident, and some by switching a person’s pills, as they said he had done in the case of Dorothy Kilgallen. The note we received with her name also said that was the cause of her death. I am not certain, but I believe they also said Anglin caused Marilyn Monroe’s death.

  None of the people still living, except John, ever spoke to me; they just dropped their notes from the air. Mrs. Jarvis actually spoke to Andy, though, and had him tell me to answer aloud each of the questions she put in her note to me. Mr. Quinn’s note was struck in the grate between the kitchen and my shop.

  For the first few weeks in January 1966 only Mrs. Elliott and Mr. Jack Gree “visited” us. She and I had lots of conversations, but she gradually got so she could barely talk to me, although Andy could still hear her. The notes were written either on some note paper Andy kept in the kitchen or on some Canton, Texas, bank deposit slips in John’s room. If I was working in the shop she would stick the notes in the grill and bang on the wall to attract my attention, and then I would stoop down under the work bench and retrieve the note. Mr. Gree, who told us we had never heard of him, had a very low, deep, gruff voice. Most of his communications to me were in the form of notes, however, but he and Andy carried on lengthy conv
ersations nearly every day. He also used the grill “post office” for depositing his notes, then banged on the wall to let me know they were there.

  At times, when Andy and I were in the car, Mrs. Elliott or Mr. Gree would be with us. They would ride along for a while and then suddenly say they were going to Canada, Russia, Minnesota, or some other far-off place, saying it took only two or three minutes for them to travel those distances, and then we might not hear anything else from them until the next day or night. Early in January of 1966 Andy came out to my shop and said Mr. Gree wanted to know if it was OK for him to use the telephone, and of course I told him it was. I did not know what control I would have had over the situation anyway. That first time he said it was something personal and asked Andy if he would mind leaving the room. I could hear the phone being dialed, and stooped down near the floor so I could look through the grilled opening, but of course I could not see anyone there and could not quite see the phone itself. After that he used the phone many times, while I was working and while Andy was studying at the kitchen table in full view of the telephone. It was really spooky to see the receiver stand up on end by itself, and then after a while put itself back down where it belonged, but always upside down. Some nights he would dial many times after we had gone to bed, and we could hear the sound plainly in our bedroom. The next morning I would find the receiver on the phone upside down. One night while Andy was taking a bath Mr. Gree called somebody and I heard him say in a low, deep voice, “I’m weird...I’m unusual.” I thought to myself, “You can say that again.” He repeated it several times and then all I could hear would be a series of low grunts, from which I could not make out any real words. One evening while we were in the car coming home from the post office I asked Andy whom he supposed Mr. Gree called on the phone. Without a moment’s hesitation Mrs. Elliott, who we did not know was with us, spoke up and said he was calling her. We did not ask her where she was when she received the call!