The first true haunting/ghost story I posted here was about Chester.
This one is about a lady ghost that I never named.
We lived in Phoenix, AZ for four years when I was growing up, from my 5th through 8th grade years. That was the age when my parents decided I was old enough to stay home alone after school or while they ran errands and what not (I am an only child, so this was a big deal for me).
The house was a typical, cracker-box, cookie-cutter, single-level, three bedroom, two bath on a corner lot in a shitty neighborhood. When my parents were home, I’d usually hang out in my room listening to music, reading, or writing stories (I was a nerd. Still am, I guess). Sometimes I would watch tv with mom and dad in the living room (we only had one television).
The ghost would only appear when I was home alone, and only when I was sitting on the left side of the sofa. It could be any time of day, or night, it didn’t matter. I would lounge on the couch in front of our crappy little 13-inch tv, and watch the usual tripe that kids enjoy. She would approach from my left, walking toward me from the kitchen. She always walked in slow motion.
The lady always looked exactly the same: Black hair, in rollers on top of her head. Pasty, white skin. She was over weight, but not fat…more pudgy than anything. She wore black rimmed glasses, of a style probably from the 60’s. She wore a flannel-type night gown, light blue with darker blue flowers printed on it…and I kid you not, big fuzzy slippers (also blue).
So she would be walking towards me slowly, from the kitchen, and I could see her as long as I didn’t look directly at her. As soon as I would turn to look at her full-on, she would of course vanish.
I was always scared that one day I’d look and she would remain, walking closer and closer…
When we moved from that house, I never saw her again. I’ve always wondered if subsequent families in that house ever saw her. I’ve driven past that house several times since we moved away, and the neighborhood is even scarier and more dangerous than when we lived there, so I doubt I’ll be stopping to ask.
That's a great story. You had wonderful description. It's those kind of details that interest me the most and the fact that she was seen with peripheral vision. It's often reported by people who witness such things that as soon as they turn and look head-on, it vanishes (just the same with shadowpeople). There's a few schools of thought on it, but I would tend towards the concept of a residual haunting, someone who had perhaps lived in that space and one of her actions (for reasons yet unknown) got caught in a loop that replays. What intrigues me the most is the specific place where you would see her. For conditions to be ideal to actually see this event, you needed to be in the right position. Another interesting idea being batted around that I tend to believe had some merit is that our television/computer watching generation actually has trained our eyes unconsciously to pick up things that might otherwise not been seen by eyes that weren't used to the continual refreshing of screens at very high rates of speed. It's worth a thought. Any way you look at it, I'd sure like to know the woman's story. Potentially, you could go to the city registrar and look up who owned the place before ya'all, maybe someone in the 60s. You could put a name to her and investigate to see if she's buried at any local cemeteries. Ghost hunting is part detective work.
ReplyDeleteExactly...I would only see her if I sat in that specific spot on our sofa...and only if I was home alone. If I sat there and other people were in the house, she didn't approach.
ReplyDeleteHow do you look up the previous owners of a home?