During the mid 1950s my father, who lived in the United
States, would, on occasions, drive to Mexico, his home
country, to visit family.
On one bright moonlit night as he was driving he began to
notice the isolation of the countryside around him. In
fact he had not seen a car for about an hour. The country
he was traveling through was desert and was relatively
flat.
As he was driving along he spotted a pack of coyotes gathered
about a 100 yards, on the right side of the road. He was
tired so decided to park on the side of the road to
stretch. He parked his car and got out. He had a pistol
that he wanted to test fire it. He took it out of his
glove compartment and went a few feet off the road, and
began to fire at the coyote pack.
He didn’t hit a thing and when he ran out of bullets, he
headed back towards his car.
The highway had been empty and no cars had passed for a
while. As he was getting into his car, he noticed on the
opposite side of the road…a pack of dogs.
Now this was really curious. They were surrounding a
Mesquite tree and where barking looking up at the tree.
My father assumed that they had treed some sort of a
animal. As he looked more closely he realized that there
was something in the tree, but it seemed to be a human.
He stood on the driver’s side of the car and couldn’t
decide whether to get in or assist this person, who might
need help. He said during this time, his hair, on his neck
began to tingle and felt as though it was standing.
A cloud passed and the moonlight was blocked and it became
dark, then the night was lit again as the cloud passed.
My father looked and all the dogs now were silent and
looking in his direction.
The figure was still in the tree. My father was getting
somewhat unnerved, because suddenly you could not hear the
normal sound of cicadas and crickets, it was silent.
My father called out "Hey…you…you need any help, are you
okay?” There was no response. My father repeated what he
had said, in Spanish….but still no response. He saw the
person shift around in the tree. As he squinted his eyes…
he realized that it was a woman sitting in the tree. She
seemed to be wearing a long robe…as parts of it were
draping around the branches.
He jumped into his car and nervously tried to put the key
in the ignition. He glanced at the tree and noticed that
the dogs were now starting to come towards him, and the
woman was no longer on the tree. He glanced at his gun,
but it was empty and useless…and he felt he needed to get
out ASAP.
He started the car. It sputtered, and my father’s heart
sank….the dogs…which he said looked like wolves were now
about twenty feet away and steadily approaching. Just when
he thought the car was about to die it roared to life. He
put the car in gear…and started forward. He glanced in his
rear view mirror and the woman was standing at the back of the
car…staring at him….with an evil smile…..
Needless to say, my father tore the heck out of there at a
very high rate of speed, which was probably not a lot in
those days.
Some stories that I read here
remind me of something that happened to me and members of
my family at the house that we lived in, in Oakland,
Calif. The house was haunted.
Oakland is a fairly “old” town. Most of the houses were
probably built after the great San Francisco Earth Quake of
1906.
The neighborhood we lived there was “old.” Each house has
it own characteristic, unlike the cookie cutter suburban
homes of today.
The people that lived there were characters.
There was Jimmy the Wino, who drank himself to death. He
was an old crusty old man, I believe he was an ex-sailor.
After he died, his house was deserted for some time, before
it was torn down. But on some nights, we could a white
light glowing in his bathroom window.
Then there was the “witch” who was a strange little old
lady, who lived around the corner from us. We were
petrified of her, she was very eccentric. My mother
forbade us to take anything from her. The old lady would
give us candy when she saw us playing. As soon as she
walked away, we would throw it in the bushes. Now you know
kids have to be really scared to throw candy away like
that.
It was a colorful neighborhood, colorful people, colorful
and different times, than today. We had Chinese, Mexicans,
Blacks and Whites all in the same neighborhood.
We spent hot summers playing baseball, football and on hot
nights we sitting around talking with our friends, till the
late hours. There were no drive-bys, no gangs, just
fishing and sports.
Ours was a house that had tar shingling, at least it looked
like it. It was two stories.
It had a redwood tree in the backyard. The foundations of
the house were made of redwood. In the basement there was
a wine cellar, when, during prohibition, it was said that
the owners would make their own wine.
The previous owner was a man that we knew as Mr. McDonald.
Mr. McDonald committed suicide on the stairwell banister in
the attic. There were clear rope marks on the post, a four
by four, were Mr. McDonald ended his life.
Thats were my three brothers and I slept.
My story starts when I was about four years old.
The first occurrence happened when I was about four years
old one early morning. I awoke early and saw the top flap
of a cardboard box, where we stored our toys, begin to move
by itself. I was not scared, but sat up on the bed and
watched them moving, fascinated. I got up out of the bed
and went to it, but as soon as I approached the box, the
flaps stopped moving. I then went back to my bed and
looked at my two brothers who were sound asleep. I sat on
the bed and watch the box top begin to move again, but as
soon as I got up, it stopped. This “game” went on for some
time. I finally got tired and went to bed and turned my
back on the activity. As soon as I did that, someone
slapped me on the shoulder, as though mad that I had
stopped looking. I stayed under my covers frightened,
until it got lighter and told my mother. I believe she and
my grandmother, who was staying with us at the time, knew
that there was something wrong with the house.
One night I was asleep in my grandmother’s room asleep on
one of the beds, I was not sure why I was sleeping there.
Usually when we were sick we would sleep there. There were
two doors in the room. When exited out to the bathroom and
the other to the back porch. I don’t believe my
grandmother was there that night.
I was sleeping when suddenly the door to the back porch,
which was by the foot of my bed, burst open. I woke up,
groggy, and the door was open, but no one was there. I
went back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning I
checked the door, and it was locked with a latch.
On another night I had to use the bathroom. I went
downstairs and I saw a figure of man sitting on our couch,
which was by the window. He had the curtains parted and
was peering out of the corner of the window. I thought it
was my father, who frequently suffered from insomnia. I
could not make out a face, but all I could tell is that it
was dark and it was an adult male. I greeted the
figure, “Papa, I’m going to the bathroom.”
It appeared to jump, as though startled, and whirled around
on the sofa, facing me. I thought it odd that my father
did not answer me. I was a bit groggy from sleep. I
continued to walk to the bathroom I did my business and
then as I was going up the stairs, I could see the figure,
still staring at me, as though startled. Startled is the
only impression I got. The next morning I asked my father
what he was doing staring out the window, and he said it
wasn’t him. Yikes…then who was it!!!??
On some nights we could hear someone coming up the stairs
to the attic where us boys slept. But we would never see
anybody. The railing was made of steel pipe and made a
distinctive sound when I hand touched it when someone was
going up the stairs. We heard this along with the
footsteps. This occurred frequently. My younger brother,
who was younger, his bed was by the top of the
stairs….would be pertrified…he would call out for us, but
as soon as it would hit the top…nobody would be there.
Then the wall poundings began. This happened for about a
month. Something began pounding the walls in the attic
area were we slept. The pounding would go from on end of
the roof to another. They were loud, short, fast and
violent. We thought there was a animal stuck in there, but
when we checked, there was nothing there. It finally
stopped.
We eventually had the house remodeled. When this
happened, the attic was shut. The only way to reach it was
through a trap door. Then we could hear, on occasions,
like sand being spilled, them something heavy being dragged
across the floor.
There are many more stories…but this one occurred when we
were young adults. We had a family gathering. We were
sitting in the dining room when suddenly a silhouette of
skeleton arm appeared on one of the shades. We stared at
it for a while and being tough Oaktown boys we pulled the
shade to see what was on the other side, nothing. We put
our arms in there to try to duplicate it, but didn’t have
the same effect. We left the shade alone, then, it came
back. We were used to it and shrugged our shoulders.
After a while, we lost all fear of Mr. McDonald.
My father claimed that on one of his drinking binges that
the ghost actually sat next to him, comforting him.
We moved our parents out of the house in 1984. The house
is still standing, I would like to talk to the current
owners, who have extensively remodeled it, making it into a
duplex, and ask them…have you met Mr. McDonald yet?
Submitted From: USA
