NOW I BELIEVE Hello, before I start the story, I'm going to tell you a little bit about me and the story alright?? Ok. I'm 18 now, but when this happened, I was around ten or eleven...or close to that, maybe older. Whatever age I was, I remember what happened as if it just happened moments ago. Well, I'll guess I'll just start and let you read...This wasn't written to impress, IT ALL REALLY HAPPENED. Whether you believe it or not doesn't bother me, but I know some of you will =). My family, me, my mother, younger brother and sister, had been living with my grandparents for at least a few years, being we had to move out of our previous house from Oil City due to unkillable sewer rats... Mom, always wanting to have her own house to primp and priss and make pretty, searched and searched and searched. Her searches were all in vain though it seemed. Because the houses she found were either too much money, weren't big enough, were falling apart, or had the same unkillable rats. Finally she found a cheap, available, trailer for rent at a trailer court. She paid to move in and was ecstatic about how well it was, it was like brand new, though we were the only ones who wanted it. When we were all moved in, except my grandparents, being the curious little children that we were, we asked how she got it. She told us blankly and told no lies, "It was cheaper because the guy that lived here before died." None of us believed in ghosts, and what he died from, no one knew, so it seemed just like good luck on our part. We made friends with many of the other children there, and had a lot of little child adventures, mainly going where we weren't supposed to, thinking we were some big adventurers. All of us lived there at least for two or three years before weird things started to happen. They were ignorable and small things, but strange nonetheless. All of the cupboards in the kitchen would open by themselves and then close, and do it over and over. They didn't do it fast like in some horror movie, but slowly, like they were falling apart. So mom called the landlord and he said that nothing was wrong with them, so we pretty much just ignored it and let them do their thing, never thinking that it might be a ghost or the like. Then the front door would do it, the handle would TURN and it would open. Again we thought the knob was broken, and it didn't do it when the door was locked, so we ignored it too. This ghost was probably pretty annoyed at our stupidity, but he kept trying. The door to my younger brothers room did the same thing, and he was like...6...so of course it spooked him, he thought the bogeyman was trying to get him. The doors that did it the most though, were the doors to my mothers bedroom, the guys old bedroom, and the bathroom, right beside it. We carried on like a normal family with our swinging doors and cupboards. Then the more creepier things started to happen. I remember I was sleeping in my sisters room on the bottom bunk, and awoke to my mothers screaming. Instinctively I jumped out of bed and shook my sister awake and then ran to my brothers room and told him to follow me. When the three of us got into moms room, her boyfriend, who ocasionally lived with us, was standing in the door way asking her what the matter was. Mom was sitting up in her bed screaming, "THERE IS A GUY IN THE TRAILER! JIM GET HIM! HE MIGHT KILL THE KIDS!" But she stopped and then looked at the bottom of her bed with the weirdest expression. "Where did you see him?" Jim, her boyfriend, asked. "He was standing at the end of my bed, and he was trying to talk to me, but I started screaming and throwing stuff at him. But...nothing hit him, and then...he...just wasn't there anymore." She explained. Jim shook his head and told her she was crazy, but naturally we believed her, to an extent. I told her it was just a bad dream and she agreed with me. Though in the morning I probed her about what he looked like. She wouldn't say, she refused to detail him, and I thought that was really weird, though at the time I had no clue it was the previous owner of the trailer that she had seen. A couple days later the phone rang and I answered it. But all I got in response was breathing. "Uhm, hello???" Just breathing. "Who is this, do you want to talk to mom?" I asked. The breathing got louder, and then whoever it was hung up. Mom had been in the shower and she asked who it was and I explained what happened. She told us not to answer the phone anymore and told the landlord to watch for anyone that was stalking us children (my mother is a very paranoid person when it comes to us.). The calling kept coming, and mom finally lost her temper, screaming into the phone that she was going to call the cops, after calling him some pretty harsh names that made us all cringe. Two days passed and no calling, but then, someone knocked on the door and she asked who it was. No one answered, so she opened the door. It was a guy, just a normal guy, with blonde graying hair and blue eyes, wearing a plaid shirt and brown pants. "Where's John?" he asked while peering inside. "There's no one that lives here named John. You have the wrong trailer." Mom prepared to shut the door, and he stopped it with his hand. "This IS the right trailer." He spoke coincidentally, but nicely, I knew all this because I was standing there watching. "If you don't leave right now I'm calling the cops." Mom said shakily. The guy just gently but firmly pushed my mom in through the door, until he had his head inside, and then started screaming, "John! Where are you! John! I know you're in here!! John!!!" Mom was..pretty mad. She pushed him out on the porch on his bottom, and slammed the door shut. "Wasn't John the name of the guy who died here? You should have told him he's dead." I said. "You're right, his name was John, I don't know HOW he knew that...I just think he was some petty robber trying to get in here to steal our stuff. Don't worry about it." She patted me on the head and continued washing the dishes. I sneaked to the back door and slowly stepped out. But when I searched, like through the whole court, I couldn't find the guy. I told my little brother and our best friend, and the three of us swung on his swing seat in deep thought, trying to solve this mystery like our idol, scooby doo, would. The calling kept coming. Then one night when everyone was asleep, me as well, is when I believed in ghosts. Like I said I was sleeping, but then I woke up, and standing at the edge of my bed was a man. He was tall, and was wearing a suit, sort of like a lawyers, his hair was pure black and cut short, and his eyes were blue. I could see him as clear as if he were standing in the sun, though in the middle of the night, it was nearly pitch black in my room. I still didn't think it was a ghost, my first thought was, OH MY GOD! IT'S THE ROBBER! HE IS REAL! I tried to scream, but my voice caught in my throat, and all I could do was lay there shaking, watching him. He smiled and outstretched his right arm, and then he spoke, and sounded like a normal person. "Don't be afraid, I won't hurt you." it's odd I know, but I felt calmer after he said that, though my voice still failed me. "I'm John, what's your name?" As if he were the one controlling my voice, I got it back, but it was small and quiet. "I'm Amy..." He smiled more, and then...he disappeared. Well not so much disappeared. It was really weird. It was like, he was there, and then he wasn't. I instantly got my strength back and I scrambled out of the bed, and I pawed my hands in the air where he had stood, and I looked up and down the hall, in all the rooms, and no one was there. I was one hundred percent sure that I had seen a ghost, and I was also sure that what I had just seen was what mother had seen at the end of her bed. So in the middle of the night I walked to her room and woke her up and explained it to her. "Tell me what the guy looked like." I made her tell me before I told her who I had seen. And guess what, she described who I had seen. I asked if it were John, and she nodded slowly. And that's my story, I know, nothing wonderful or scary or interesting. Why he showed himself to me, I have no clue, maybe it was because out of all of her children, I was the one who thought ghosts were nothing but something my Grandpa made up to scare me. I have another, encounter, but that's another story... Contact me here: fayorth_ca8@yahoo.com DIDN'T BELIEVE AGAIN, UNTIL A BABY CAME It's me, Amy, again! I don't know if you've read my other story, Now I Believe, on the august 2003 archive...But if you did, here is my second encounter with a ghost. I got a lot of fan mail from my last story, A LOT, and I didn't think I would! It's really made me happy, expecially after I seen all the other stories, guess mine was just one of the ones lucky enough to keep getting read. OK this story is not written to impress! IT REALLY DID HAPPEN, if you don't believe me, oh well, and if you do, that's great because this is the whole truth. Hope you like it and if I get mail from this one I will write my third encounter! I'm 18 now, this was just last year when I was 17, and it happened at my friend, Lisa's, house. This had been many years since the John incident, and now we lived with my grandparents again. It was really crowded, even more so since Jim and Mom had a baby, James. That made, papa, gram, jim, mom, sherri, corey, james, and me living in a three bedroom house! So naturally I was at Lisa's more than I was at home. Now my friend Lisa, she is a big ghost believer, imps, poltiergeists, apparitions, and all that. She even follows rules as to not make any spirits angry with her. I thought she was a little looney in that respect, because everytime before she left her house she spoke outloud to nothing, "I am leaving now! I will be back, do not come with me, stay here!" Then walk out. Well we were up in her room doing nothing, so she started talking about ghosts, and that her aunt was a medium (a ghost talker person and finder). Then she started telling me that her house was haunted by an entire family of ghosts: An elderly man, A young woman, A little girl, A little boy, A baby, And two men that never entered the house but were up in her barn. I thought she was freaking crazy and everything I ever thought about in ghosts frisked away. "Lisa, I don't believe you, how can I make them come out or something?" I asked. Lisa's eyes grew wide and she warned me, "Don't call for them! Because then imps can hear your call too and come and possess you!" I know I'm such a jerk at times, but I was bored then and loved to freak her out, so I stood up and called: "If any of you ghosts are really here! Let me see or hear one of you tonight! Then I'll believe Lisa and never mock her again!" ooohhh....Was she ever mad at me. "If you get imps attached to you, don't come crying to me to save you!" Then we went to bed, Lisa was sleeping in her bed, and I was sleeping on the floor on one of those fold out bed things. It was probably a couple hours of peace and quiet, and I'm an insomniac so I was just laying there staring at the ceiling, when I started hearing weird noises. Lisa has six dogs and they were all sleeping in the next room so I thought it was them whimpering. But then the sound got more defined, so I listened more carefully. It sounded like a baby whimper, you know, that thing they do right before they start wailing. Well Lisa also loves babydolls so I thought it was one of her dolls going off. So I ignored it and tried to go to sleep. Man then I heard this baby just bawling and bawling bloody murder. I knew right then that that was no doll making the sound and I sat bolt upright. Lisa didn't seem to hear it because she was sound asleep. So I walked to her parents room and they were asleep as well. The crying was coming from her toy room, so I walked in and flicked on the light. I could hear the baby as if it were crying right into my ear but I didn't see anything...So I checked all her dolls with batteries and they had none. "Ok I believe..." I whispered to myself and left the room, and as soon as I did, the crying stopped. Feeling numb and ignorant, I went back to bed and fell asleep, and when I told Lisa and her family the next morning they smiled and said that they were telling the truth. Soooooooooooooooo Hope you liked it! Email me if ya want to. Contact me here: fayorth_ca8@yahoo.com Submitted From: Amy Baggaley, PA, USA