My True Ghost Story

Ghosts…

Among other things, my story, The Gangster’s Gold, has to do with ghosts. A ghost that needs help.  

If you go on television right now, you can view a plethora of ghostly related programs: Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures, Paranormal Witness, Celebrity Ghost Stories, etc.  There are innumerable books on ghosts – “true” ghost stories, local legends, and myths. Not to mention hundreds of movies and internet websites devoted to the paranormal.  Go to youtube and you can find tons of videos related to ghosts People simply love stories about ghosts and the supernatural.

Why do people love stories about ghosts? Is it because we like to be scared? Or perhaps it makes us happy to think there is something after we leave this mortal plane? I looked this up on the internet and answers ranged from “I like to be scared” and “I love the mystery” to “There’s always a naked girl in the movies”. Hmm.

Of course, the big question is, do ghosts really exist?

I think they do. Or at least some sort of energy we can’t explain does. I experienced this myself as a child. Here is my “real” ghost story.

When I was young, growing up in New Jersey, we lived on a dead end street. The last house before you got to the woods belonged to the Hoffmans and had a detached garage with an apartment above it. It always seemed rather creepy to us as kids.

One fall afternoon, my brother and wanted to try and make some money raking leaves. So, we decided to try the Hoffmans and see if they would hire us. No one answered the front door. As we were leaving, we noticed an old man looking down at us from one of the windows of the garage apartment. My brother asked if we could rake his leaves and the man nodded. So, off we went to the back yard to begin raking.

A short time later, a car drove up and an elderly woman got out and walked behind the garage to see what we were doing. We explained that the old man said we could rake the leaves. She was confused and asked us to describe the man, which we did.

For a long moment, the woman said nothing, just stared at us. Then she said, “That’s sounds like my husband but he died a year ago. You couldn’t have seen him.”

My brother and I looked at each other, then explained that he’d been looking at us through the window and nodded when we asked about raking the leaves. We knew we’d seen that old man! The woman seemed to get a little upset and told us to go home. Needless to say, we were seriously creeped out!

That was not my only experience with the Hoffman house. One early evening, my friend, Kim, and I were walking past it to the path leading to another friend’s house. I looked up and saw a person I thought was an old lady moving down the front yard towards us before disappearing behind a bush. I told Kim someone was coming but no one was there! Ooooeeeoooo.

Right now, my daughter lives in an apartment that appears to be haunted by the spirit of a little girl. She’s had mysterious writing appear on her refrigerator. Things have moved by themselves. For example, she had a plastic flower sitting on her kitchen counter. The next morning, she found it by her front door. That sort of thing has happened several times. She once watched a carton of milk move across her refrigerator shelf. More than once, she came into her kitchen and found every cabinet and drawer open. She’s heard voices and laughter and even saw a figure dash by her bedroom door. Although she’s gotten sort of used to all of this, she’s moving to a new apartment next month!

This was how she found her kitchen one morning.

 

 



So, ghosts…real or not?

In other news…editors from two more publishers have asked to see my manuscript! Keeping my fingers crossed one of them thinks it’s worthy of publication!