Fred & The Cat

These two stories are true and are not at all scary.

My father was in the Air Force for the first 17 years of my life. He finally retired in the small Illinois town of Lebanon. We moved into a two story white house, one of those average 1950 homes. The second story consisted of myself and my older sisters bedrooms. At the bottom of the stairs was a light switch that would turn the lights on or off upstairs. It was very convenient for us, especially at night.

There had only been two owners of our home. The couple who owned the house had moved to Florida when the man retired. They did not smoke, and no one in our family did either. However, shortly after moving in we would smell cigarette smoke at times. It was strong, like someone had just blown a big puff into your face. We thought it was strange, but not as strange as what soon began to happen.

My mom would always yell at my sister and I for leaving the upstairs lights on when we left in the morning to go to school (we were in high school at the time). My sister and I swore we didn't leave it on, but she thought we were lying. "Well, Fred must have done it" she would say. My sister and I would both stand at the bottom of the steps in the morning, watch as one of us turned the switch off, and leave. Sure enough, when we would get home, the lights would be on. We knew we had a new family member, but my parents were slow coming around.

Fred liked our family, and we liked him. He soon began to show us he had a sense of humor. He would rearrange the food in our fridge. Sometimes we would open the door and everything would be alphabetical, or all the left-overs would be on one shelf while the packaged food would be on another. One time he crammed everything onto one shelf. My mom didn't like this and told him so, he never did it again. When my sister and I would be home alone, he would walk around. We would hear his steps upstairs or in the kitchen. I had always hoped I would see him, but none of us ever did.

Sadly, when I was 17 something very bad happened to me that left me traumatized and depressed. The first night I went to bed after the incident, I felt someone sit down next to me in bed. As it was early and dark, I thought it was my sister. I opened my eyes to find nothing there. I could see the indent in the bed, Fred had come to comfort me. I talked to him all night, letting my emotions go. He didn't leave until my mom came in the next morning to check on me, I felt him get up and go.

I went to college and never returned to the house to live, but every time I would visit Fred would say hello by sitting on my bed at night, turn on the lights, or move food around. My parents sold the house 2 years ago and I went back to help them move, I said good-by to Fred and secretly hoped he would move with my parents. So far, there is no sign of him and I miss him.

Shortly after the house was sold, my boyfriend and I moved to Savannah, GA. It is said to be the most haunted city in the US. We rented a hideous apartment that contained a ghost, but not one like Fred, this one had four legs.

I have two cats and they were not allowed to sleep with us at night. One morning I woke up and he said "One of the cats got in, it slept on my chest last night. I might be under the bed." I looked under the bed, no cat. Looked in the closet, no cat. When I opened the bedroom door, both of my cats sat outside, waiting to be fed.

I told him I thought we had a ghost, but he did not beleive in that sort of thing. He does now.

A few nights after the cat "slept" with us, he got up to go to the bathroom early one morning. It was still dark outside, and as he stumbled to the bathroom, he saw three cats lying on the kitchen floor. Being skeptical, he stopped and made sure that he was seeing what he thought he saw. Sure enough, three cats. When he turned on the lights, one cat disappeared. He wasn't freaked out, but he did wake me up just to let me know.

After that we saw the cat often. He was black and very friendly, our cats would sometimes play with him, sometimes they would chase each other around the apartment. When our lease expired we moved to a much better place. Our cat did not follow.

I have had experiences over the years, some nice and some not so nice. These two are the best.