#1 — The Closet

To this day I swear there is something evil in my closet.

Whenever I hide in there to get away from people, I feel Death looming over me like a sweaty hand.

One day my brother woke up in his room at midnight and saw what he calls “The Burning Man.”

The Burning man was standing near a wall — a wall whose other side formed my closet.

It was then I realized I had to do something. So me and my brother sat in my closet with a bunch of fake candles. I realized that this was silly. Two kids pretending to see ghosts.

But hey, it couldn’t hurt...

I held up an owl necklace, one I figured has enough spook value to lure in ghosts (stupid children seeing ghosts). I read somewhere that if the necklace moved from side to side, it meant no. If it moved in a circle, it meant yes (stupid children seeing ghosts). Since we didn’t have a ouiji board, we were limited to yes and no answers. I decided to start with the basics, pinching my hands firmly around the chain. It didn’t move. Perfect.

“Are there ghosts in this house?” For a few moments, there was nothing, and I was almost convinced that we were (stupid chidren seeing ghosts) wrong. There were no ghosts.

But then the necklace began to spin. In circles, over and over and over. My brother stares with wide eyes.

“Are you moving that?” He asks. I shake my head, my eyes equally round.

“You ask a question.”

“How many ghosts are there?”

“You can’t ask that!” I hiss. “It’s only yes or no.”

“Is there one ghost?” No.

“Is there two?”

Still no.

“Is there three?” Another resolute no. How high would we have to count? Ten? Eighty? A hundred? A million?”

“Is there four?” my brother asks in a small voice. Both of us stare at the pendant.

(stupid children seeing ghosts) It swirls in a beautiful circle.

Four ghosts. In my house. Oh shit.

“Is one of you the burning man?” My brother stares intently at the pendant.

Yes. One of them is the burning man. An elliptical spiral illustrates that and now both of us are officially scared (stupid children seeing ghosts).

“Do you want to hurt us?” I ask. Side to side.

“Is there a ghost who does.”

After a long pause, the necklace finally moves in a tight circle. I drop the necklace and instantly everything stops. A strange wind chills me to the bone. I look at my brother.

“We have ghosts in our house,” I say. He nods, his face lighting up with anxious excitement. “Oh my God.”(stupid children seeing ghosts)

My brother saw the burning man three more times after that. I saw a young boy, who gave me a high five.

Can I just say, never ever high five a ghost. His hand went through mine and my whole wrist shook and got really cold and tingly. It was terrifying. It took a long time for the feeling to go away.

After that I didn’t high five any more ghosts.

But my closet still felt... evil...

God only knows if there is a ghost in there who wants to hurt us. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe we were just stupid chidren seeing ghosts.

But that closet is evil. Ghosts or no.

#2 — The Graveyard

I used to go to this summer camp as a child. It was ages 5 to 11. It was the place my brother went to preschool and it was near a deep forest. I have always loved to go exploring in forests, I find it fun and interesting. So I was the first to volunteer when someone said they were taking a group out into the woods. We walked past a "fairy garden," where several tiny pieces of furniture were set up to look like a mini house. But the real fun came when we passed a graveyard. The teacher stopped us before we went in.

"Don't take anything," she said. "We don't want to disturb the dead."

"I heard that if you talk in a graveyard then ghosts will come get you," says a boy next to me.

"That's not true," I say. "Watch." I ran through the mossy, worn down stones and stood in front of it.

"See? No ghosts!" The boy runs in after me.

"Yeah I bet ghosts are not real."

"Oh they are," I say with unusual solemnity. "But they don't care if you talk in a graveyard. They only care if you touch something or take it." Me and him made a game of running around and touching every single headstone. As we were doing that, I found one where something was loose on the top.

"Hey," I say. "Look at this! I found something!" The boy comes running over to me, along with several other children.

"It's a dog tag," says one girl. "What's it say?" I squint at the rusted, worn away print.

"It's some kind of prayer, I think." The dog tag was passed around our small circle.

"Maybe this guy was in the military."

"Obviously he was in a religious family." We couldn't read the name other than a few letters, ones which I can not remember.

"Alright kids," said the lady in charge. "Time to go." Some kids hadn't gone in the graveyard at all, full of fear. Those who had, like me, gloated about it and the dog tag we found.

We made it all the way back to the building before it happened.

We were in a large, open room, one that seemed to be designed as a playground for children. There were no toys or structures to climb on. Just open space. Everyone was running around, havin fun, until someone screamed.

The kid who I was joking around with in the graveyard had bitten someone. He had a crazy look in his eyes and was running around chasing down everyone. We all stared at him and flinched if he came near us. Finally, one of the councilors managed to snap him out of it.

"What's wrong with you?" yells the lady from the graveyard walk. "Get a grip." The boy looks up at her, confused.

"What? I don't know what you're talking about!" The lady grabs his arm.

"You bit Daniela (IDK her actual name) over there and were running around like a lunatic!" The boy looks horrified.

"I don't remember any of that," he says, and then looks down in shame and fear. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the dog tag.

"The ghost made him do it!" someone screamed, sending everyone in hysterics. The woman grabbed the dog tag and sent over an old lady to watch us while she returned it. I went over to the kid.

"Bro, do you really not rememer any of that? Spooky."

"No I don't," he said. "I guess I shouldn't have taken that dog tag." Then he smiles. "But how cool! I was possessed by a ghost!"

"This is literally the coolest thing ever," I said, laughing. "I told you ghosts are real."

#3 — The Window Man

I am a major insomniac. Or, was. I take medicine these days. One one day, I couldn't get to sleep except in hour intervals. I woke up at one, fiddled around, then went back to sleep.

It was two in the morning when my door opened and a dark shadow walked around my room. I stared at it. It was probably my mom, come in to check on me. As I stared, it walked aover to my window. As I stared, it spun around and saw me. And I saw him. That's right. This was not my mother. Or my father. Or my brother. It was an old man, with a long beard and thin, brittle bones. His skin clung to him like a mosquito clings to me and drinks my blood. Then I blinked, and he vanished.

The next morning, I went to my mom to make sure I wasn't imagining the man.

"Did anyone come into my room last night?" She shook her head.

"No. Why?" I stared at her.

"No reason."

I never saw the old man again. But I am convinced he was a ghost, and not a dream.

I know you won't believe me

No one ever does

But I have dreamt the future

Between my nightmare sludge

It started out so innocent

A simple dream of math

But only a few weeks later

I became aghast

For in this bland dream of mine

A kid that I knew well

Complained for use of calculator

But teacher did dispell

A weird dream without context

The kind we all forget

To my knowledge, no such class

Had existed yet

But as happens with school classes

Old replaced with new

And in this new classroom setup

It matched my dream true

But thoughts of this predictive dream

Did not come to mind

Until the dreamt day snuck up on me

It became test time

There was a single difference of note

I witnessed in my dream

The entire conversation from my seat

Of teacher and of teen

Yet when the true time came

I was not there

It was as I walked to the bathroom

The similarity I heard

The future, I had dreamed of it

I swear it is true

And this was not the only time

Just the first of few

I may be the writing nurse but I am also a psychic, palm reader and medium. The following story is true. It is a rewrite with even more details. Hold on to your skin..

I was called once again by the City Paranormal Society to consult on a case they were asked to investigate. A Mrs. Cooper who lived on a nearby lake had been having many disturbances in and around her double wide trailer home. My friend, Cindy, from the society, explained that Mrs. Cooper was not able to sleep at night from the noise coming from the master bedroom. Her back door would slam and lock itself. Her favorite clear tumbler would be placed in the hallway at night. Her daughter’s framed picture was shattered.

“Is two o’clock good?”

“Yes, Cindy, you know where I live, come pick me up?”

“OK, Bye.”

To make things move along quicker, I began my calm sitting. My eyes were closed. I reached out and there she was. The pretty little girl Hanna, sat enjoying her tree swing. Mrs. Cooper is her grandmother.

At two o’clock I stood looking out the apartment window watching Cindy’s truck make its way over the slow bumps.

“Hey girl. Good to see you again!”

Cindy was very obese. She always wore an odd application of eyeliner and dark red lipstick. Her long stringy black hair was parted in the middle and it swayed wildly because of her compensating gait.

“Hey.” Cindy didn’t bring her recording devices or energy detectors. We wouldn’t need them on an initial visit.

I locked up and bounced down the stairs in my jeans and solid blue tee shirt. Cindy didn’t mind me drinking a beer or having a smoke while riding shotgun in the truck. She never seemed to notice how different we appeared.

“I saw Hanna.” I paused. “She was on a tree swing.”

The truck swerved. “That is Mrs. Cooper’s granddaughter! Hanna!”

I said, “There is fear. There is rage. It’s not clear yet but I’m on this.”

It didn’t take long upon the narrow black top roads. We were surrounded by overhanging trees as we neared the double wide home set back off the road. The driveway was pale brown dirt. In the front yard the large oak tree branches swayed in the breeze.

Mrs. Cooper was standing in the yard. Cindy opened her door and went to greet her.

I smoked another cigarette feeling for the spirits. What did they want me to see? Who was doing the talking? I confidently sensed Marcos.

After introductions, Mrs. Cooper opened her front door atop the few cement block steps.

“Come in.” She was sixty-ish and stocky with short salty blonde hair. Dressed in leggings and flowery shirt, she motioned towards the curved couch. Her blue eyes and worn face seemed to say, “Don’t look at me and just listen.” She badly needed a dentist.

She repeated what we had heard about the noises, slamming door and tumbler in the hall.

She stood motioning for us to follow to the bar surrounding the kitchen. Mrs. Cooper opened her laptop.

She said, “I recorded all night to see what was making noise. Look! Did you see that?!”

On the screen a darkened, swirling, teardrop shaped shadow bounced off the room walls of the master bedroom. The room was dimly lit with a small table lamp on a night stand. The bed filled the room.

“Do you mind if we walk around?” I said. “Is this the room?” I knew where it was.

Mrs. Cooper had the look of shock when I told her of Hanna. The swing was old and unsafe and had recently been removed.

Cindy and I entered the master bedroom. I tuned in to Cindy’s open mind; I’m sure she was doing the same.

I was drawn to the windows; one facing the road, the other was at the far end of the trailer.

In some areas of both windows, bright calking slightly overlapped fresh paint.

“This is where de fight start!” Marcos said in a heavy Hispanic accent. “We tear this room apart! I ran outside. Denny, he follow me.”

“I’m going outside Mrs. Cooper,” I said. Cindy and Mrs. Cooper followed.

A canal of murky lake water made its way near to the trailer only on this side.

I saw once depressed tall muddy grass was springing back. It also appeared that time was removing the traces of truck tires leading into the water.

Again Marcos spoke. “He beat me. I fall on ground and hear the truck to come. He push my insides out my mouth. I in de back yard.”

Mrs. Cooper followed us to the side of the home but she would not go in to the back yard. She said nothing.

As we walked to the back yard I told Cindy about Marcos. She was silent. I wasn’t sure why but her face was in agreement. Just at the water’s edge a fire pit made of stone was raised above the ground a foot or so. It was full of black scorched tree limbs and unrecognizable debris.

Mrs. Cooper strained to hear our words. She cupped her face and rubbed her arms.

Cindy lowered her voice, turned away and said, “Her son is Denny. His wife claimed he was abusive and she left him. Hanna’s mother allowed visits here at grandmas.”

I continued, “Marcos was her new lover, an illegal Mexican man.”

“I was good to them!” Marcos interjected. “Denny was drunk. I come to pick up Hanna to her mother. He crazy! Son of bitch he kill me! I am here! He put me under fire pit. She will no say!”

Cindy and I could feel the anger from Marcos.

“I slam de door. I bang on walls! I no give them rest! She get drunk too with de tumbler full of devil’s blood.”

We walked back to the trailer.

Mrs. Cooper had gone inside. She prayed her murderous son would not be revealed. Secretly she thought if the psychics can’t figure it out, her boy would be safe.

“What do you think?” Mrs. Cooper said.

“Well,” Cindy said, “We’re really not sure.”

Mrs. Cooper said, “It really was my son’s idea, we heard about you guys. Thanks for coming.”

Riding home in Cindy’s truck felt strange. I said, “He was an illegal. No detective in this town is going to touch that.”

“You’re right. I heard Hanna’s mother took the child away and Denny has not been back as of yet.”

“Did you see her face? She’s so protecting Denny. She knows what he did. But she doesn’t know we know.”

Cindy and I decided to keep it at that. What else could we do? We didn’t want Denny to come looking for us.

Marcos can bug the shit out of them all he wants.

So, I have limited experience with paranormal things. Either I'm not receptive to it, or I've just been really lucky for most of my life. However this particular story still lingers with me, and I hope it's believeable, cause I think I'm crazy for even seeing it.

There's a highway west of my home. It stretches into the desert mountains for miles and miles without a single streetlamp or house. Winding and dipping over the land, it's been around since before I was born (though granted, it hasn't been that long - I'm only 23). My girlfriend and I like to drive on the highway at night, when the moon is dark and the stars are at their brightest. We'd dance in the street, pretending we knew how to waltz. It was safe to do so, no one would drive in the mountains at 3am.

One night we were driving back from stargazing, the road black and empty before us. The only light came from pale yellow headlights, illuminating pieces of sharp desert fauna zipping past. I was in the passenger seat, I guess that's why I remember so much.

I saw it first, the figure on the roadside.

Its body was human, and it walked with a slow, shuffling gait. I could tell by the way it swayed at the border of our light. As we got closer, more details became clear. A scarf wrapped around their head, and they were hunched over a stroller with blankets inside. A strange woman, person? Just wandering through the desert in the middle of the night. As we passed, they looked up and over. The headlight caught a glare, like there were mirrors in their eyes. I can't remember much after that, the panic had gripped me. I looked over at my girlfriend and saw my own fear and disbelief painted on her face. She gunned the engine, and we left with haste.

As we drove, I took a look behind. The figure was still shuffling, and eventually they were swallowed by the night.

I don't know if it was ghost, or a demon, or whatever. All I know is that no one should be wandering an isolated highway with a baby stroller at 3am, looking like a babushka. Anyway that's my story, hope you enjoyed!

My grandmother knew she was dying. Before she did so, she left a list of her posessions and who she wanted to receive them. To me she left a cheap gold "angel on your shoulder." A tacky pin that you were supposed to affix to your shoulder to make sure you were being watched over. At the time, I was jealous because my cousin's gift was a beautiful heart pendant that I was hurt was not left to me, her only female grandchild. This "cousin" was actually my uncle's second wife's sister's daughter, so technically not blood related. It hurt me that I got this cheap piece of jewelry rather than the beautiful necklace. But Mom-mom did strange things that often didn't make sense. So I honored her memory by pinning the angel to my bra strap.

Mom-mom knew about my struggles about being single. It was always her wish that I would meet The One, settle down, and get married. About four months after her death, I started dating someone. I liked him but I had my insecurities and I needed to work things out. One day, he was over at my apartment for a visit. When he left, I noticed that my angel pin was missing. I called him up in a panic. He looked around and finally found it stuck to the bottom of his shoe. I believe this was a message from my Mom-mom from the grave telling me to stop looking, this was the one that she liked.

We celebrated our 20th anniversary this summer.

This is unbelievable, and I never would have believed it if I hadn’t been a part of this. Just fair warning.

A family friend owns a vacation house in the middle of the woods. I’ve stayed there three or four times before, and I’ve always felt there was something off about the house. I feel like it is the kind of house where there would be a treasure hidden inside, and I’ve looked, but never was able to find anything.

I stay in a bedroom in the basement with floor to ceiling windows and three beds. Last summer, we were staying with the family who owns the house and the owner casually asked, in passing, if we had any weird dreams in that room.

I said no, but my brother mentioned that the last time we had stayed there, he thought he had seen a woman’s face in the reflection of a lamp near his bed. I remember dismissing him and saying he was crazy, just to go to bed.

The owner raised her eyebrows. “Well,” she said, “I wasn’t going to say anything, but I think that room is haunted.”

My brother and I exchanged a look and asked her to explain.

She started with the background of the house. It was built by a multimillionaire textile designer named Eve. Eve was in her sixties and had married a man named Jim, who was eighty or so.

Now Jim had a thing for marrying rich women who mysteriously died soon after..... and Eve was his fifth wife or so. Shortly after they married, they built this house together, and then she died. Jim sold the house, and everything in it, to my friend.

Eve was somewhat of a wordly woman, with strong opinions. She traveled the world and collected many things, many of which ended up in the house, and is still in the house today.

The owner of the house says she frequently talks to Eve, as she believes that she is still in the house. And she has good reason to.

Multiple people have stayed in the room, never talking to each other, but almost all have reported smelling a woman’s musty perfume during the night. One man claimed to have felt the presence of a woman standing over him in the middle of the night, and ran upstairs, screaming. Another said the scent of perfume was always lingering in the room every night. The owners never told any of the people their suspicions, though.

Eve also liked to mess things up. She had woven baskets from different countries up high places, and the new owner put some of her own cheap baskets up with them. Eve apparently did not like this, as she was somewhat of a worldly snob, and the owner would often return to the empty house to find that the cheap baskets had been knocked down onto the ground, and Eve’s baskets were left untouched.

Eve also left behind things. One day, the owner was alone and getting ready for company to come stay in the house. When she couldn’t find any sheets for the bed, she exclaimed aloud in frustration, “Eve, I don’t suppose you have any twin sized light brown duvet covers, do you?”

The next cabinet she opened, which she had opened a million times before that day, had three packages of brand new, light brown, twin sized duvet covers.

Another day, she was working out of the house, alone again. She was looking for a pen, but couldn’t find one anywhere in the house. She asked Eve for a pen, opened a drawer, and found a brand new box of ballpoint pens.

There were many more things she listed, but those would take too much time. Right after she told us these stories, I thought it was just a strange coincidence, until I was looking for a book five minutes later. I decided to ask Eve for it, as a joke, and was shocked when the book was on a shelf right next to me when I turned around, a shelf that I had checked over ten times before.

Shocked, I didn’t think to mention it, thinking I was going crazy. But my mom was visiting with us; and she had seen the whole thing.

She mentioned that her brother, my uncle, has always been able to talk to the other side.

The owner of the house begged her to contact my uncle and find out if he could communicate with Eve, in order to find out if Eve was happy with their family being in the house. If not, they were thinking about selling the house, as it was getting to be too much work, but they had not told anyone this yet.

My mom texted my uncle and said simply, “What do you get if I tell you a woman’s name..... Eve?”

He wrote back a few minutes later, “Do you want to know about the house?”

(Mind you, my uncle had no idea where we were, nor anything about this house. Just Eve’s first name.)

We were screaming. It was late at night, and we were sitting in the living room with floor-to-ceiling windows.

My mom wrote back, Yes.

He wrote back, “Eve says she has been at the house for quite some time now. He also texted back shortly, “She says to be careful in the creek.”

This house is situated on a creek, probably twenty feet across; and many people play and fish in the creek. The owner said that Eve had been very nervous about her grandkids in the creek, according to Jim.

The conversation went on like this for a while, with my uncle giving more spot on information, such as the fact that Eve was a textile designer. He also mentioned a barn, and the house is made of reclaimed barn wood, each piece picked for perfection.

Eventually, we decided just to call him. My mom had the phone and was acting as a mediator, listening to what he was saying and reporting it back to us, in case he said something horrible. We didn’t know what he was going to say.

At one point, he drew an accurate picture of the front of the house, where he has never been before or even seen pictures. He said he could see it in his head.

He said he could see a horse and a duck-like creature. We looked up and realized that there were statues of horses and a swan sitting in the living room with us. They were there from Eve’s travels.

He also asked “Where’s the cat? Where did it go?” He was referring to a cat statue that used to sit on a table, facing the creek, but Jim took it with him. We told him this and he asked which way it faced: towards the water?

He kept repeating two numbers over and over, which we realized were the date of the owners daughters wedding, which happened right by the house.

Eve had gone to Paris and seen a door on a bakery she liked, so she bought it and put it as the pantry door. It had a pig on it.

My uncle asked if there was an element from the French countryside, then said, .....“a pig?”

(I told my friends this story in a public place, and as soon as I said the word pig, the lights went out. They came back on, but about ten minutes later, I said it again, and they went out again, and stayed like that for about twenty minutes.)

The most memorable part of this was when my mom gasped and suddenly started crying. We asked what was wrong and she said, “She said you can’t sell the house or her memory will be forgotten. You have to keep the house.” No one knew but them that they were thinking of selling it.

My uncle also kept saying that the house held secrets, and that we hadn’t even scratched the surface of all the discoveries. He kept talking about all the things to discover. He mentioned an attic: the house doesnt have an attic that we know of. However; we later discovered blueprints that had the words ”secret attic” on them. We also found a trapdoor in a small room under the stairs, but it was empty. No one knew it was there, however.

He said many more things (I think the tally was up to thirty three) but a lot of them would be hard to explain without you seeing them.

By the time we got to bed, it was past midnight, and we were reluctant to return to the room where it had all started. However, nothing major happened for the rest of the trip, but believe me or not, I know I will NEVER forget this.

I don't believe in ghosts. I don't believe that I ever have. Even when I see faces in the mirror or feel rustling across my skin, I still don't believe. I don't believe in ghosts, but I believe in a spiritual world that is interconnected with ours. I believe that beings from this supernatural plane will reach out to the physical world, manifesting in ways that leave impressions on our minds. They can't hurt us, but they can definitely make us remember.

The Bathroom Mirror

In high school, our humanities teacher took us to the old downtown library for a geneaology project. You may have heard of this library in Evansville, IN called Willard Library. It's hauntings have been on episodes of Ghost Hunter, several ghost cam streams, and hundreds of visitors a year wanting to get a peek at the residential entities.

Our teacher gave us an assignment to create our family trees based on the immigration and historical archives the library specializes in. My family had kept plenty of records of our history, so I hardly had to do a thing for my project. Which meant that for an hour on Fridays, I got to hang out and make mischief, and I did.

As the students all would make our way to the library, we'd scare each other with chilly tales of ghosts and gossip about how so-and-so and his brother saw the ghost for real. We'd laugh it off but would become more silent and serious as we approched the huge front doors. I would play tiny pranks on people.

I'd move their journals and folders when their backs were turned. I'd throw small rocks to make it sounds like someone was behind you. My personal favorite was when I hid on the other side of a bookshelf and slowly pushed books out the other side. I heard a girl say, "Yeah, really funny." But when I heard here run around the side, I hid from sight and looked at her shock and horror at no one being there. On the way home, we laughed at her insistance that something was knocking books off the shelves.

I was trying to find a bathroom one afternoon while the other students were studying. The librarian said the upstairs toilets were out of order, and I would need to use the staff bathroom in the basement. I headed downstairs and walked into the empty bathroom. While I was washing my hands, I looked up into the mirror and swung around in horror. Nothing was behind me. I looked back to the mirror and didn't see what had been there a moment before. I can only describe it as a inky black void hovering just a few inches to my left. To this day, I have no possible explanation to what I had seen. But after I sprinted back up the stairs, I didn't play pranks anymore.

Please Stop That

This one was witnessed by my dad, as well as, myself. I wouldn't have believed our house was haunted if this had never happened. We lived in a beautiful house that previously belonged to a skilled constructor. It had a vaulted skylight with gorgeous woodworking, a huge living room with custom made windows, storage space galore, and a cooling system that would make the strictest environmentalist jealous.

I first noticed something was weird when our pets would randomly stare into open space. Our elderly cat would say her "hello" meow at random times night and day. (If you own cats, you know what I'm talking about.) I thought she was being senile, until our dog started acting suspiciously, going to look in the other room or barking at nothing. I never experienced anything except for sometimes feeling like someone was watching me when I was home alone.

One night, I was watching tv with my dad, and the lights began to flicker on and off. My dad, very calmy, said, "Please stop that." Before I could say I wasn't doing anything, the lights stopped blinking. I was completely still in terror, and my dad just continued in his calm voice, "Relax, it's just the guy who used to wn the place." "What!?" "The construction worker. He likes to hang around here and sometimes he screws up the lights."

Flabbergasted, I asked a ton of questions, and Dad was surprised I hadn't seen him. "I see him outside all the time. He'll sit on the tail end of my truck or be working in the garage. He's just making sure his house is taken care of."

It wasn't until years later that I accepted our paranormal experience in that house. It actually makes sense that someone who passed would visit their beloved home to make sure it was being taken care of. And anytime I started to get that feeling I was being watched, I would say out loud, "Hello, Mr Bill. Everything's alright" and the feeling would go away.

I Make Sure To Say Hello In Graveyards

I don't put much credit into feelings of cold, wrongness, or someone following you, because I'm quite anxious and paranoid by nature. Even if I take too much Tylenol, I'd be stricken with bouts of terror that their were hundreds of burglers in our house. Needless to say, my spouse is a very very patient person. (Love you, C!)

Because of my sensitivity, there are certain places where emotions run high that I try not to stay in for too long. For example, hospitals, graveyards (especially veteran burials), and churches give me the heeby-jeebys. Like I said, I don't believe in ghosts, but it's sometimes really hard to ignore the whispering or the sense of being drawn to a gravestone as you walk along.

It's sometimes difficult to listen to the doctor talking to you when something is poking you in your mind to get your attention. It makes me want to sob at a funeral when I keep thinking I hear a baby crying on the other side of graveyard. It's eerie to be praying while trying hard not to notice the cold seeping from underground where the monks and nuns are buried deep in the crypts.

But most of all, it's hard to not run as I'm walking through a room, and I feel something pulling at me to stay. To just turn off the lights and stay where I am. It would be so nice to sit in the quiet cold and think about nothing. Don't think about the feeling of ants on your skin. Don't think about the squeezing fingers in your mind. Just sit still and pretend you've always believed you were a worthless human being, unworthy to live.

Just sit...

Just listen to the whispers...

Ghosts don't exist, but something very evil does.

Hmm. So any kind of experience that's paranormal. Well I've had a lot through my years. Way too many to write and some I don't always remember. But let's try to remember some.

1. When I was a child, around the age of 5, I had a weird dream. In this dream I was running away from three men who wanted to kill and eat me. I was in a house that I remember being in before, but I couldn't remember the exact details of it so in the dream it was all messed up. I ran to the kitchen to hide in a drawer, but someone pulled me out before I could close it. I screamed, but the man put his hand over my mouth and told me to follow him quickly. When he let go I saw that it was my dad. We were running away and he told me that the only way to get back to the real world was to find my real life closet in the dream and run through it. He was a bit slow in the dream, so he constantly would tell me to leave him behind to quickly find it, but I stayed by his side. When I finally saw it in the distance, the three men coincidentally found us and began to chase us down. I was running and pulling my dad along, but the last 20-30 feet he let go of me and I ran ahead in fear, trusting that he would catch up. I jumped straight through and landed on my real life bed. And then I stuck only my head back through to see if he was almost there. He only got his arm through the closet when the guys caught him and I saw them eating him. I woke up instantly and looked at my closet. My dad's hand was formed on my bed with my covers exactly where he made it through and grabbed my bed in the dream.

2. When I was in third grade, I shared a room with my sister. We would always joke about how there was something living under our bed and how we'd sometimes hear it crawling around under there. Then one night, as I slept hugging my blue rabbit teddy that my sister had given to me as a present, I saw a doll that no one in the house had owned. I had woken up out of nowhere and it was dark. My eyes were pretty adjusted to it as I haven't seen light for quite some time and I looked around the room before turning to my side to go back to sleep and coming face to face with a smiling doll that I only recognized from the movie the puppet master. Not the main doll that killed people, but the one with the giant arms and tiny head. The one that smiled showing its teeth. That's what this doll looked like. And I was terrified. But - for an 8 year old - I handled it pretty well. I didn't make a scene. I just moved my blue rabbit teddy between me and this doll ever so slowly and went back to sleep. As I was dozing off, I heard something crawling under our bed extremely fast, but I decided not to think about it.

3. Ever since I could remember I've been seeing things that I know are not there. And it still happens to this day. It's hard to explain, but it's almost like I'm always seeing a TV screen in front of real world objects. Like I can look around and sometimes I just see TV static everywhere I look and if I look past it, I just see the normal world. Behind the static is the desk, the bed, the wall. When I was in kindergarten, this TV screen showed me nice things and sometimes things I wanted to see. I would see flowers and fireworks, the Power Rangers if I wanted to (I was a big fan as a child). Then I grew older and suddenly I would only see monsters, demons, dolls, scary shit, and eyes. So many fucking eyes always watching me. All kinds too. Human eyes, demonic eyes, dead ones, alive ones. I was scared to sleep and would constantly stay up through the night and only sleep in the mornings. Where it was light and the things I saw were so vague that I could ignore them. I wouldn't tell anyone cuz they'd think I was crazy so I just suffered through it alone. Finally I told someone around the time I was in middle school but they just kinda said "oh that must suck." No clue if they believed me or not. To this day I see that shit. Mornings and nights. Just basically all the time. I can ignore it just fine in the mornings and I've gotten used to ignoring it at nights too. But sometimes I'd make the mistake of paying attention to the eyes watching me and the demons playing at the foot of my bed or the monster trying to pounce at my face. Then I have trouble sleeping till I see the first light of the sun around 5-6 am. And closing my eyes doesn't help. I see that shit on my eyelids too.

I first saw her when at my husband's friend's house. She was young. Dripping wet in her yellow bathing suit. They had a pool. I imagined she was with her parents outside, neighbors perhaps. I stooped, to her eye level, and said hello.

My husband and his friend asked what I was doing, who I was talking to. They didn't see her! When I shared what I saw, my husband's friend told us a story.

Apparently, a bit more than a decade prior, a girl drowned at the house next door. They had a pool. No foul play was suspected.

Several times since, I seen that girl, timid but persistent in getting my attention. She's invaded my sleep. She's appeared on the side of the road as I drive. I became obsessed (and I think she'd have it no other way!)

Turns out, there were many poice calls for domestic violence at that address. Turns out Dad was home alone with the daughter when paramedics were called. Turns Dad answered the door with beer on his breath, TV on and wet hands when the paramedics arrived. These were small details written down, but not pursued. I tried to look up Dad. He had killed himself 8 years prior.

I like to think she felt heard. I don't see her now, except on Mother's Day.

I will always remember this moment very clearly in my mind. It was years ago, but the strangeness imprinted the moment in my mind. It was a summer night and I was driving down Whitmore Lake Road in Michigan. With me was my girlfriend at the time, and she was asleep in the passenger seat. She was using her arm to support her head, her elbow was on the car door where it ends and the window begins, with her hand against her head.

I had just left a lighted area of the street, my headlights illuminating the road ahead of me. It was then that I saw a man standing on the right side of the road. I can remember many of his features, a button up red and black flannel shirt, and blue jeans that covered work boots. He was just... standing there... staring at me as I rounded the corner.

It made me anxious, and I had no choice but to drive past him. At first, nothing happened and I went by, my anxiety lessened. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw motion. For an instant, maybe half a second, the man seemed to leap at us, his body flying through the air towards my car. His hand reached through the glass of the passenger window, grabbing my girlfriends wrist. He pulled, and her arm was pulled towards the window, her knuckles rapping against the glass. Then, he was gone. But I remember his bearded face, eyes filled with rage, and his mouth open wide as though he were screaming.

I'll never forget that face.