Real Life Paranormal

With C.T Green

Haunted House

Hi there. It’s my turn in the Real Life Paranormal hot seat today and I’m sharing one of the eerie tales from the family home.

My grandfather built the house and moved his young family in and soon after strange things began to occur. Everyone in the immediate family, starting with my mother, has experienced odd happenings in the house. It’s provided for a lot of real life paranormal events!

I had my fair share of creepy experiences in the house, from hearing people walking around upstairs and someone calling my name (when I knew no one was home) to ‘feeling’ someone standing behind me in certain parts of the house.

The experience I’m sharing today happened two years ago and still sends shivers up my spine.

It was late afternoon and the sun had sunk below the hills. I was at the family home to feed my parent’s cats and dogs while Mum and Dad were on holiday in Europe. I’d left Miss Six and Master Ten in the car in the driveway in front of the house. I would only be a few minutes and it was cold outside. I left the big front door wide open so the children could see me as I passed by on my chores.

I went out the back and fed the dogs. My husky who was unusually restless, howled and the eerie sound in the twilight sent chills over my skin. My parent’s black Labrador laid on his bed and silently stared at me, his normal happy, snuffling friendliness absent. Shaking off the dog’s odd behaviour, I hurried inside and locked the back door after settling them.

Cursing my overactive writer’s imagination, which had me glancing into the long shadows, I went upstairs to settle the cats. Residual light coming through the windows provided enough illumination to see what I was doing…why bother turning on lights? I would just be giving in to the nervousness skittering up my spine. This was my family home – and I was doing mundane stuff – what on earth was there to scare me?

As I stood in the living room and called the cats the house was unusually quiet, dead quiet in fact – not even noise from the street disturbed the stillness. In the dimness it was easy to imagine someone else was with me, in fact the feeling was so strong I glanced behind me, half expecting my son to have come in to demand why I was taking so long. The wretched cats didn’t put in an appearance and as I hunted through the five bedrooms I ignored the prickling on the back of my neck.

I found the cats hiding under one of the beds, eyes huge and fur lightly bristling. They wouldn’t emerge and when I managed to pull one out, he shot back under as though his tail was on fire. Needless to say, it didn’t help my unease. Why were all the animals acting so weirdly? I knew no one was in the house with me, I’d been though every room and all was as it should be and locked up tight.

I then did what everyone does when they’ve got the chills. I talked out loud, listing what I had left to do. And yep, the sound of my own voice was comforting. This is all mundane…nothing to see here…no freaky things happening…

I walked past the front door to the kitchen and study to check phone messages before leaving. There was only one and when I pressed ‘play’ strange, ‘alive’ silence greeted me before the message clicked off. Okay, it was more than time to go. I hurried out and locked the front door. I grinned, thinking of the story of my own scaredy-cat behaviour I’d have for my husband.

I climbed into the car. “You guys okay?” I stared at the house as I put the key in the ignition.

“We’re fine, Mum.” My son answered. “Mum, what about the man in the house?”

(mock cover for upcoming release - Soul Mate)

I turned to my son, wondering what he was talking about. “What man?” I knew for sure no one was in the house. My son must have imagined it.

His expression was perfectly serious. “He wore a baseball cap and he seemed angry, though I couldn’t see his face, though I could see yours. It was weird.”

“What man in a cap? When was this?” Kids! Always waffling on about random stuff. I smiled as I waited for his answer.

He looked at me, worry evident in his expression. “The shadow man who followed you past the front door a moment ago, just before you came outside.”

Needless to say, next evening I lit the house up like Christmas.