Untitled Story No. 17

Ihad just moved into my first apartment in New Haven, a college town. For about a month, all was quiet, nothing to make me suspect that I was sharing my space with some 'otherworldly being'. First let me explain the apartment. The walls were all wooden planks, not like paneling, but real wood, which means the apartment was very old because no builder wants to spend the money on such expensive materials anymore. It was a converted attic, so the ceilings were all cathedral, about 15 feet high, and wood beams running through the living room and bedroom. We never actually saw the ghost, but its manifestations.

One night (early a.m.) in the bedroom listening to music, my boyfriend and distinctly heard a young male voice say "turn it up," we were wide awake and not dreaming. We looked at each other, we were both kind of nervous. It had sounded like it was right near us, not like someone yelling from outside or from the hall. We replayed the song over and over and could not find "turn it up," on the tape anywhere. I had mentioned this experience to a religious friend of mine, and she wanted to come over with holy water and put it on the windows and doors. My front door has three locks, two bolts and a doorknob. There are only keys to two of the locks, the third key being lost well before I moved it (the landlord doesn't even have it) When we got to my apartment, armed with holy water and a statue of St. Michael, I unlocked my door but couldn't get in, because the bolt lock with no key had been locked. It can only be locked from the inside and there was no one in the apartment at all. I would also have experiences like paralyzations, when I would wake up but couldn't move at all. On one occasion, I think the ghost was trying to scare me on purpose, but in a helpful way. Two minutes after I became un-paralyzed, and had decided to smoke a cigarette and calm down before going back to bed, my doorbell rang (it was close to 3 a.m.) There was a young man at my door trying to convince me to let him in to use my phone, as he had just broken his key in his lock. He was very well dressed and well spoken. Because I had been startled by the ghost, I did not let him in. Later I found out that this same man fit the description of a man stalking nurses at Yale New Haven Hospital, and had also knocked on some of my neighbor's doors. All of his visits were to women who lived alone, and in the very early a.m. hours. I thought that the ghost was trying to startle me in order to protect me from this man.

I moved out before my lease was up. I was tired of sharing it with something I couldn't see. I did have paranormal investigators from Phantasm (based in CT and connected with Ed and Lorraine Warren) and a psychic both come in and they both found nothing, but I know what happened couldn't be explained in any other way but haunting.