The Haunting on Northcliffe Drive

Greetings all.

I would very much like to share with you all, the strange events of a few years ago. I will relate the facts as they occurred and let you the reader, decide as to whether or not this would fall under the genre of a " Ghost Story".

It was December of '96. My girlfriend and I had recently taken occupation of a non-descript house on the near-Westside of Cleveland. It was a 70 yr. old house. Colonial style, w/o much style, if you know what I mean. Aluminum sided and not much curb appeal. Placed about mid- way in the block of a very cramped neighbourhood. However, it was a deal at the price they were asking and even more so at the price we countered at.

The house required a lot of TLC and elbow grease. The last owner had died in the house the year prior. A hopeless alcoholic who, in her last years of life, was kept company by a pack of dogs. Approximately 8 small, medium and large dogs. Dead for 4 days before she was discovered. The dogs were not kind to the house as they struggled to get out and even less kind to the corpse. She was 46.

We moved in, and proceeded to gut the 1st floor living area. New kitchen, new flooring, new windows. I noticed that all the doors in the house had latches on either side of them. So, one could lock someone in or out if they so wished. All the doors, the hall doors, the bedroom doors, the closet doors, the attic door?hmmm. Strange I thought.

One day, while removing the sagging plaster in the dinning room, I came across a small bundle of plastic wrap bound by rubber bands. Intrigued, I reached between the studs and removed it. There was a fine black dust covering the package and a noticeable outline of the same where it had rested, evidently for sometime. It had been behind a solid wall of lat-board and plaster so it must have come from the 2nd floor or perhaps the attic. I opened the bundle and discovered old faded photos with the year 1962 printed on the borders. The photos were of a young girl (maybe 10-12), posing in lingerie looking quite uncomfortable. I was more than repulsed. I was overcome with a tremendous sadness for this person. Tears filled my eyes. I showed the photos to my girlfriend and we both agreed that it was pretty "******-up" to have found such a thing. We threw them out.

The days passed with out any incidents. We kept busy with school, work and the project that was all around us. One Saturday in February, as we worked on the upstairs bathroom, I was overcome with a most peculiar sensation. I was working on demolishing the wall behind the bathtub and she was roughing-in the plumbing. We were holding a conversation while we worked, as we often did. I was removing nails from the floorboards with a "cat's paw" or a small crowbar. I was prone on the floor, wedged between the bathtub and the wall. Suddenly, this vivid image entered my mind. An image of my girlfriend's head, her lovely, long red hair and a crushing blow to the skull from behind. Her hair quickly matting from the dark, red blood. It was I.

I was bludgeoning her with the cat's paw from behind and above her. I literally had to shake it off. I was puzzled as to why this image would pop into my head. I turned back to work when the image came to me again, except more vivid, more intense. I removed myself from the house for the rest of the day.

Was I going insane? Afterward, the image would come to me wherever in the house I might be working at. What the hell is going on in my head? Am I mad? Is this what it is like to be crazy?

I threw myself into professional work, seven days a week, long hours and weekends. I preferred not to be in the house alone and definitely not to work with a heavy object I my hands. I started early that year on the backyard. Staying busy clearing trees and landscaping. The inside work was proceeding very slowly.

Early one April evening, as I got in from work and my girlfriend was returning from school, we ran into our young neighbour, Laura. She was returning from school, as well. We struck up a conversation and enjoyed the delightful evening there in the front yard. We were all about the same age, and all worked in the same field. Laura had lived next to the house all her life. She remembered Corky, the woman who had died in the house, when she was growing up. We ended by suggesting she come over for a cup of coffee, if not that night, perhaps the following week. She eagerly agreed and then stopped?looking up at the house; her demeanour had changed in a heartbeat. She shook her head in amazement and said, "I never, ever thought I'd consider going into "that" house." I looked at my girlfriend and she at me and we asked the neighbour at the same time, why? Long pause as she stared at us. "You mean, you two don't know the history of this house?" We thought she meant the lady dying in the house last year. She went on to inform us, of how the lady's mother had been bludgeoned to death on Christmas Eve 15 years earlier. Also, she told us of the father's "questionable" suicide, the year prior to that. See, it was the lady's home for all her life. It was her in the pictures as a girl. It was her, who killed her mother that Christmas Eve. I stopped the neighbour short of revealing to us where the murders had happened because, I already knew. I told her that it happened in the bathroom while the mother was taking a bath. She informed us it was while in the bath for both parents.

I haven't been back to the house since.

I have since meet another woman and am enjoying a lovely marriage with her. We expect our first child this December. The ex-girlfriend, she still lives there.