Trippy Tale # 30..."Spirits Within"

"I lived in a house visited by spirits.  My childhood home was a typical three bedroom brick house in a quiet little neighborhood.  It was a corner house with a tool shed in the back and a driveway that led up to a carport.  There were many fruit trees behind the house—fig, plum, and pear.  Nothing was very unusual about the appearance of the house.  But there were spirits within...


It all began very soon after we moved into the house when I was five years old.  My parents sometimes acted so odd, and it wasn’t until I was a little older that I found out why.  The spirits would do things to us kids like move pillows into the living room as we slept, hide our toys and jewelry in odd places like inside kitchen cabinets, and make strange noises at times, bees buzzing or footsteps.  But they would often torment my parents.  My poor mom would wake up in the middle of the night gagging on the smell of burned flesh.  There were other smells, like a pungent rose perfume in certain areas of the house that would come on suddenly.  One night, my sisters and I were at a friend’s birthday party and my parents were in the den watching television when they saw the shadow of a person walk across the room.  My dad investigated and found all the doors and windows locked.  No one was there.  Another time my dad was sitting before an easel painting a picture when he heard steps behind him, then he felt a hand settle on his shoulder.  He asked my mom what she thought of the picture.  When she didn’t respond, he glanced behind him.  But no one was there.


However, one of the spookiest things to have ever happened was after we lived in the house a few years.  My mom had taken us kids shopping one day, and my dad stayed behind.  He’s a great guy who thought to surprise my mom with cleaning the house while we were gone.  So, he was completely alone in the house.  My little sister had a plastic doll.  It was a very old doll, about four feet high, and had arms and legs that would move at the shoulders and hips.  It also had the kind of eyes that would open and close.  Well, my sister left the doll in the living room on the sofa, sitting with her arms and legs out before her, and her head straight.  My dad got the vacuum out and started on the right side of the room.  After a minute, he got a funny feeling and glanced over his shoulder.  The doll had turned her head and was looking right at him.  At first, he thought maybe he had been mistaken about how the doll had been facing.  So, he moved the vacuum over to the left side of the room.  After taking a deep breath, he turned around.  The doll was looking right at him.  Again, she had turned her head to watch him.

We moved from the house after living there about six years.  From what our neighbors would tell us, people who moved into the house after us didn’t stick around for very long.  

And I can't say that I blame them!"

Story by Tiffany Green @ "Authors By Moonlight"