Volume 3: Ghost Stories from Texas (Joe Kwon's True Ghost Stories from Around the World) (5 page)

Lower Lake Lane

Magnolia, Texas

This all occurs in a house in Magnolia, Texas. I believe the house had two ghosts; there was a child ghost, and an older male ghost.

My younger sister and I shared a room that had a vanity and mirrored backsplash with which you could see down the hallway into another bedroom. (This used to be the master bedroom before my parents built onto the house.) We both had seen at separate times the light being turned off and on in the bedroom at the end of the hall. We also would play with our toys and be looking for a particular part of a set and could not find it. Moments later the item we were looking for would simply be sitting in the middle of our toys with all other toys moved in a circle around it.

Both things my sister and I did not discuss until we were older. When we were younger, we tried to dismiss them as imagination.

These occurrences seem trivial, until one day when I was talking to my mom about it (I was older then of course), she explained to me that she experienced something bizarre in the same room. Before they built onto the house, when it was my parents room, she was in bed and heard the door open then close and the pressure of someone getting into bed. When she reached over to touch my step-dad there was no one in bed with her. I would say it was her imagination, but my step-dad on a separate occasion felt someone sitting at the foot of the bed. Thinking it was my mom, he asked a questions only to discover that he was alone. This all came to light at different times and we had never shared with one another what happened until many years later.

These are just a few experiences with separate people in my family regarding one room in the house. I was young experiencing these things, and talking with my mom and now late grandmother these things run in my family. Apparently, the people in my family are attune to the paranormal.

Ghost Under the Altar

Dallas, Texas

Priests and preachers don't believe in ghosts. Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust, and all that. Asleep until the end times and the resurrection. I have never had to really think of ghosts. There is some thought that they are evil spirits and demons, and not the dead. But it didn't matter to me. I am among the living, saving their souls for when they die. Who cares about ghosts and what they are?

Every evening at 9:30 it is my habit to go to the church and pray at the altar. I have done this for the two years I have been in charge of this congregation. It is my duty.

But for almost a week now I have not gone. Because there is a ghost under the altar.

The ghost mimics me. Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? I usually pray out loud. But, kneeling there at the altar a week ago, I said, "Our Father, who art in heaven..." and a voice from under the altar repeated the words after me. Like an echo. A man's voice, an old man, with a quavering voice.

I jumped up from my knees and looked around me in surprise. I thought one of my parishioners had come in to pray too. But no one was there. I settled down after a bit and resumed praying. But the voice started right back in again, copying me.

I shouted at him to leave. I commanded him to leave. And, as best an old man's quivering voice could do so, he copied everything I said, even trying to shout with my same tone of voice.
I left in desperation. I returned the following night, hoping it was gone. But no such luck. I was afraid last Sunday that the service would be ruined, and when I stood to speak I hesitated for an echo. But fortunately, he was totally silent.

I do not know yet if I have to be alone for him to copy me, or if it is the evening time that brings him out. But Monday evening I was back to say my prayers and he was back too, copying me, mimicking me.

My plan is to continue my evening prayers, but to pray silently. I do not know what the reaction will be, if any. But this is odd, and strange, and very scary.

I hesitate to tell any of my congregation, or my superiors in the church...

My Dead Grandpa

Saginaw, Texas

A week after my grandpa had passed away, my grandmother gave my mother my grandfather's watch.

Mom let me see it and made the comment that it didn't work, but when I looked at it, it began working just fine. At that moment for some reason I looked behind me, and there he was... right there smiling at me for just a moment. I was so happy to see him.

About two months later the watch stopped working. I took it as a sign that he was sorry that he had to go.

The Farmhouse

Lubbock, Texas

In 2000, my mom told me a story that literally made the hairs on my neck and head stand up on end, and totally freaked me out. It's a little long, but here goes…

My mom was talking to a friend one night, and the conversation turned to the friend sharing how she experienced some paranormal activity in the house she lived in as a young girl. The house was an old farmhouse. When her parents bought it, it needed a lot of work done to it. The linoleum in the kitchen was coming up in certain parts of the floor (kind of like a bubbles) so if you stepped on it, it would make a sticking sound. You always knew when someone was walking in the kitchen. Besides that, the house had an old wood floor. Anyway, whenever she would hear walking or the linoleum "stick", she'd get up reluctantly to investigate but no one was there. Her parents would be sound asleep and she had no siblings.

She would also hear the toilet flush by itself numerous times at night and sometimes even during the day. No one was in there. The house only had one bathroom and it was right by her bedroom. She could literally see if someone went in or came out.

One day, her dad was tearing up the wood floor in the bathroom because it was rotting out. When they pulled it up, they saw the dirt floor that was under the house.

That's not all they saw either. In the dirt floor, they could see the burnt outline of a human body.

This is not the part that freaked me out… this is:

Once the friend said this, my mom immediately asked where this house was located. When she told her, my mom nearly passed out.

You see, we lived in that house. My grandfather owned it and had sold it to the friend's parents in 1986. In 1984, my step dad was killed by accidental electrocution while replacing water pipes under the house... directly underneath the bathroom.

Mysterious Figure

San Angelo, Texas

These events occurred after my grandfather died, about ten years ago. My grandfather died in our house, just to add a little more back story.

I was asleep in the bed with my grandma and I woke up because I heard this loud talking and very clear words, not muffled. I didn't think anything of it and I went back to sleep.

I was awoken again by the same talking. The voice sounded like a woman talking on the phone. I kept hearing the voice, so I reached my arm over to feel if my grandma was there. I didn't feel her, so I reached all the way until my hand fell off the bed. She wasn't there. So I thought it was her on the phone, and I looked out my bedroom door and I saw this abnormally tall figure, about 7 or 8 feet tall.

I thought it was my eyes playing tricks on me but it wasn't, so I got out of bed and started walking into the living room, still hearing the voice. I got to the living room and there was nothing there: no voice, no figure, nothing. So I called out for my grandma. She didn't answer, so I called her name again. She answered... from the bedroom. I walked in there and she was sleeping in the bed.

I asked her where she was a minute ago. She said she was sleeping. Then I told her I felt for her, and she said that I didn't because she would have felt it. Now people, my grandma was NOT in the bed. I would have felt her. She wasn't there.

I still to this day don't know what it was. My grandma said I was dreaming or sleepwalking, but I know I wasn't. There was something there, I know it in my gut.

To add, we had used a Ouija board in the house after my grandfather died. I don't know what the figure was, but I have my ideas. What Do You Think?

New House, New Ghost?

Arlington, Texas

My husband and I purchased our first home in June 2009. The owners of the house had to sell due to her husband passing away and she could not afford the mortgage payment by herself with 2 kids. I am not sure how or where the husband passed away. All I know is he passed away due to an illness.

This story is not a past story, but is a story in the making.

We moved out of an apartment for which we lived in for 5 years. We got settled in our new home the end of June 2009. Everything was great, we were enjoying our new home and were proud to be home owners.

About a month after we moved in, weird things started happening. One night I was lying in bed reading a book waiting for my husband to get home from a friends house. As I was in my own little world of my book, I hear a loud bang on the ceiling that really startled me! After living in an apartment for 5 years I didn't really think much more of it as I was used to the noise of neighbors above us. Then a few minutes went by and I got to thinking of the noise I heard. I reminded myself, “Wait a minute! We aren’t in an apartment anymore! The noise came from my attic!”

I was so freaked out I did not want to get out of my bed! I called my husband to find out when he was going to be home and told him what had happened. He came home just shortly after the call and went into the attic to see what it could have been. He did not find anyone or anything. He does not believe in ghosts, so he didn't think much more of it.

A few months go by and we are sitting in the living watching TV and just talking about our day. I was sitting closer to the TV in the recliner and my husband was sitting on the couch. All of a sudden the TV turns off. I jump up and run over to sit by him. There was no power trip, all lights were on. He turned the TV right back on and everything was fine.

A few months later we are sitting at the dining room table eating dinner. All of a sudden the trash can turns completely sideways. My husband, not being a believer, thinks of several different odd reasons why the trash can would just turn sideways. He thinks it could have been a mouse. We do not have mice in our house. Even if it were a mouse, it would have bumped it, not turned it completely sideways!

We have lived in this house for a year and 4 months. Since then we have had several things happen such as me being in the bathroom in the morning getting ready for work and hear my husbands Harley fire up in the garage and shut off. Me being the only one home, I am thinking maybe my husband came back home to get his bike to ride to work since it was a nice morning. I go to the garage and nobody is there and the garage door is still shut! Or at night we would be sleeping at and hear such a loud bang for what we think was at the front door that it awakes us from our our sleep and my husband goes to check and nobody is there.

I believe that it could be the owner that passed away. Maybe he doesn't like loud noise like the TV or he was used to his house not having a trash can in the spot we had it and had accidentally ran into it. I am not sure, but it still freaks me out every time something happens. I am afraid of the dark and always have been so having things like this happen scares me every time. It of course doesn't bother my husband because he is not a believer.