Grandaddy's Old Pal

I come from a very small town in Southern Virginia. Its not far from either KY or TN and ghost stories are seemingly not something people believe in. My mother and father divorced when I was 12 or 13 and my mother and her new husband at the time purchased a seemingly old house, one of the oldest standing houses in town. It was gorgeous on the outside and in. The boards would creek here and there but overall it was great. We loved it! It had a huge yard, a small balcony and was across the street from where we played ball every year. She had a rent to own agreement with someone who she had worked with who had since retired. We moved in and everything was normal. Nothing out of the ordinary happened at first.

I had a room at the top of the stairs where the balcony was, my brother was down the hall to the left and my mother was across from him and there was a spare bed across the way from me. The basement was in the same small room where the laundry stuff was kept. It was just a door that no one EVER used. It was TERRIFYING day and night so it remained closed. All that was down there was some coal and spare wood if we ever needed it. Flash forward, I have always had the habit of staying up late and all we had was a desktop downstairs to play on right by the TV in our living room (next to a foyer and straight from there, the basement...). I would play on it, jamming out to Slipknot usually to the point where I couldn't hear anything around me. More times than I could count I would feel like I was being watched. I would be so scared, I wouldn't turn around. I would look into the window hoping I wouldn't see anyone, which I never did.

Later on down the line, we had koi fish the couple before us had left that stayed outside in a small pond, we took care of them but suddenly, they were dead. No explanation. Sometimes, I would be left alone in the house when my family would go to games or work late, I would be in my room--door shut, TV on and hear my name by a female voice. My mama has a distinct southern accent, she couldn't hide it if she tried but I keep hearing a female southern accent saying my name. Thinking she's home, I look downstairs and no one. No person, no voice, nothing; just a bunch of Yorkies looking at me like I'm an idiot. The same thing would happen, always at night, when she was home. I would hear it, walk out and nothing. I would ask her what she wanted and she would claim she hadn't said a word. Even after everyone was in bed all I would hear was my name being called until I got so frustrated I was fuming by having to get up from the TV to see what I thought my mother wanted to find she was in bed sound asleep. I refused to tell my mother what was going on.

Several nights downstairs I would hear footsteps coming up the steps of the basement. That was usually my way of knowing its time for bed. They would be so loud like someone wearing heavy steel-toed boots was just taking their time walking up. There wasn't even a way to break in from that way so I knew there was no way anyone was down there, much less not running into a wall, it was pitch black. I got brave once or twice and looked in the direction of that door, clutching a cross around my neck, but every time the steps got to the top step right by the door they stopped and ceased. That happened several times a week, usually when I was alone but rarely they would happen to the point where my stepdad would have a pistol loaded and ready to go only to find nothing.

My mother's dog refused to go into the laundry room or the room by the back door that lead to the laundry room, occasionally not even the dining room. He would just sit there and stare or growl. He would bark and moan at something that apparently only he could see. All four of our dogs acted weird. One of which was later found IN THE BASEMENT! How he got there, we don't know. He was basically blind from old age and was later buried on the property. Like I said, I was not about to tell my mother, my step father or my father what was happening because I was already an idiot in their eyes and didn't really feel like being committed so I let it all be. One night, we were at our father's for the week. My mother was home alone with the dogs, TV was on and she was just sitting around all day. Laundry had been done the day before so there was nothing to do with the washer or dryer. All of a sudden she said the lights began to flicker then the washer started rocking on its own just shaking and shacking: no water was running; but the unit itself was shaking as if in an earthquake, just going crazy. She had no idea what to do to get it to stop. I can't remember exactly was she said, but somehow it just stopped on its own. The lights quick flickering but she turned every light on in the house and waited for my step-dad to get home in which she said he noted that she was "pale as a ghost".

Time goes by, and I had the balcony room in which I had to put a cover on because after what my mother experienced, it was a running joke that we were not alone in the house. I was terrified I would see someone looking in through the door but after I would go to bed, the footsteps that I had heard from the basement started up the steps toward the upstairs....MY ROOM..NO THANK YOU, DEAD GUY (OR LADY)....but would stop when they got to my room. The real kicker came when my mother got fed up with us not helping around the house that she made us clean. So, I was in my room, "cleaning", my brother was in the living room and my mother was in the kitchen. No one was talking, there was no music aside from my mother humming who was sweeping. We heard her say something to my brother like, "Honey, I'm trying to sweep, can you please stand over there?" or "Excuse me, baby" before asking what he wanted in which he hollered from another room stating he wasn't in there. He had barely gotten the words out before she let out a blood curdling scream and dropped the broom. We thought she had fallen so we ran to her aid. She was trembling in fear asking us who that man was, where did he go, where did he come from, etc. As expected, we were confused. She said that she was sweeping and she saw what she thought were my brother's boots as if it were him, but when he called from another room...she looked up to see a tall man, VER Y PALE, he was older (around 60-70) He had a hat on similar to a cowboy hat that older men rarely wear now, a button up shirt that she mentioned was buttoned all the way to the top.

She said he just looked at her, staring with an empty gaze. He didn't move, didn't talk, just stood there and then disappeared into thin air. He was standing by the back door as if he walked from the room leading to the laundry room. We looked far and wide and found no one and NEVER saw him again. My father's father was a carpenter and had worked on half the houses and business in town whether he was building it or fixing it. My impression was that he had originally built the house that I lived in with my mother and that it was 40-60 years old tops. I hesitantly tell him what had happened (mind you, I did not find out about the top button until later) and he was a very cynical man: couldn't get BS past him. I expected to be told my mother was crazy or it was my imagination but he simply told me to ask her if the man had the top button buttoned which he had and he went on to say that the man's name was Lambert.

He was formerly a doctor and a handyman whom everyone called Old Man Lambert. He said he lived in the house and had helped my grandfather renovate it. Turns out, my grandfather DID NOT originally build the house, but merely made repairs because the house "THAT HOUSE HAS BEEN AROUND SINCE THE CONFEDERACY WAS HERE IN THE 1860's". He later on said that he repaired it in the late 50s, early 60s just before Lambert died. He also stated Lambert was not 60 or 70 but over 80 then, making his birth year around Reconstruction (1870-1890) He jokingly told my mom who he was stating, "He was a great guy. He just doesn't like what you're doing." (My mother had lived in the house with my step-dad BEFORE they were married briefly before or also known as "shacking up" where I'm from. The older generation does not believe in living with your spouse before you're married. Lambert especially). It not only offended my mom (who left my dad after an affair) it freaked her out.

They later split up and abandoned the house, She has since remarried. Upon asking the former owners, they had been afraid to mention that they had been touched, etc. in the time that they had lived there only to find no one was there to touch them. We never did find the ID of the female voice I kept hearing. The house has been repurchased and so far nothing out of the ordinary has been reported.