A Ghostly Haunting by Chasity Nicole

A Ghostly Haunting
Copyright Chasity Nicole
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My life is far from ordinary, but who would expect a person that sees ghosts to have a normal life. I spend my days talking to people that do not physically exist—well they did at one time, but now they are dead. Usually these people have some form of unfinished business. They’re too scared to move on, or they simply don’t want to move on. Those who don’t want to move on, spend their entire afterlife haunting the living. They claim it is the only thing that makes them feel whole again—whatever that’s supposed to mean.
I was able to see the dead at a very young age, and it freaked my family out. Ever since I first realized that I could speak with the deceased, I have had a strong bond with both the spirit realm and the world we live in. I was the only one that understood my ability to see ghosts and communicate with them; everyone else pinned me off as nuts—until they needed my help because they were being haunted. Everyone calls the psychic chick when they need help, but, aside from that, I’m just your average seventeen-year-old nutcase that lives down the street.
I had received a call from my aunt that she thought her home was being haunted and decided to go take a look. Today was the day that I was heading to Harrisburg, North Carolina to stay with my aunt and uncle, to see what was really going on in their home.  As I pulled into the driveway I had a very eerie feeling that caused me to pause for a moment. Creeping closer to the house, I noticed its old Victorian structure. It was one of those old houses, that you just know is haunted, or has a very spooky past. From school, I knew that it was common for these style Victorian homes to be built upon the land that used to be slave plantations back before the Civil War. Not only did the house scream that it was built to cover up a slave plantation, but the land did also. Average acreage for a slave plantation was about one-thousand acres, and this neighborhood was about that, if not more. Each home had the same old Victorian structure. Yes, this had definitely been a slave plantation at one point in time—and one with a very disturbing past—I was sure of that. I stopped my car, short of the garage, and noticed a strange figure in the attic above the garage—someone was definitely haunting this house.  
“Mom, Harper is here,” my cousin cried from the front door of the bluish-white home.
“Oh dear heaven’s, child, stop that awful shoutin’. You’ll wake up your brother. It’s hard enough for me to get him to sleep in this haunted place. Now what did you say?” My aunt yelled from inside the house.
“I said, Harper is here,” my cousin shouted again as I ran up the stairs, to make the yelling stop. I had only been here a few seconds and already they were giving me a headache.
“Hey, Aunt Marissa. Laney was yelling about me arriving. My mom said yaw needed me to check out some troublesome ghosts that are wandering your house, so here I am.” Laney moved to the side, letting me in the house.
“Oh, hi dear. Yes, I called your mother about this house being haunted. Laney and Luke have such a hard time sleepin’ at night because of what is going on in this house. I have reached my last nerve on what to do about the pesky little things, so I called you to help us figure it out.” My aunt was wandering around her kitchen, clanging pots and pans—trying to get dinner cooking.
“Well I’ll do my best ma’am. But, I honestly don’t know what I can really do. I really can’t get rid of the spirits, but I can at least let yaw know if they are harmful and why they are still here. I can possibly help them crossover. But, I can’t make a promise that that’ll happen.”
“Come on, I’ll show you to your room.” Laney said, pulling my arm. I had a sinking feeling this was going to be a very long week for me. I felt so much activity in this place. I had already seen an apparition in the attic above the garage, and I knew something bad happened here—I could feel it.
“Oh Laney, don’t go a draggin’ her everywhere. Let her get settled in after you show her to her room. Don’t want to drive the girl bonkers before she even is here for a day.” My aunt laughed from inside the kitchen. No matter how old Laney was, she pulled me around like she was still four, an odd thing for a twelve year old to do.
“It’s ok, I’m used to being dragged around, Aunt Marissa.” Laney continued pulling me to the guest room. The room was plain white, furnished with a bed, bookcase, television, and its own private bathroom—thank goodness. “Want to show me around the house, Laney?”
“Uh-huh. But we gots ta be quiet. Luke is asleep, and he’s been very grumpy lately.” Laney giggled as she tugged me towards the living room. “Oh, you’ll see a…”
“Don’t tell me what ghosts I may or may not see. Let me find them on my own, that way I can figure out what is going on and help yaw. If you tell me where they are, they may not show themselves to me. Just give me the grand tour, without the haunted tour tacked on, please?”
“Okie doke. Well this is the living room. Momma doesn’t like it in here much. Neither does dad, so we have all our toys in here, well mostly Luke’s toys.” The living room was a disaster. It’s what you would expect from two kids with tons of toys. “This is the dining room; we rarely eat in here. We eat in the den mostly. It has comfy chairs.” We walked the rest of the house, my cousin pointing out each room to me.
My aunt’s house was rather large—larger than it had seemed from the outside. As I walked through each room, I could feel the activity that had occurred within its walls.
“Dinner’s ready!!” My cousin and I must’ve been touring the house for a while, because I hadn’t even noticed the smells flowing from the kitchen—it smelled amazing.
“Comin’ momma.” My cousin grabbed my shirt and pulled me to the kitchen. I slowly began to decipher the smells. I smelled beef, tomatoes, corn, green beans, carrots, and potatoes. “Yum, momma made beef stew, my favorite.”
“I wasn’t sure what to make for dinner, figured stew was great since it’s gettin’ a bit nippy outside.” Aunt Marissa sat the crockpot of stew down on the kitchen table with four bowls, four spoons, four glasses, a pitcher of sweet tea, and a pan of cornbread. The three of us sat down at the table just as my uncle, Mark, walked in the front door.
“Whose car is parked out front?” Uncle Mark must not have known I was coming today; he looked shocked to see me sitting at the dinner table beside my extremely hyper little cousin.
“Hey, Uncle Mark. I came to stay the week to help Aunt Marissa with a problem.”
“Is it that blasted ghost thing she keeps goin’ on about? I swear the neighbors are gonna think yaw are nuts. There ain’t no such thing as ghosts.” He shook his head as he put his jacket on the back of one of the chairs and took his seat.
“Well, let me take a look anyway. I can at least say if there are any or not. Worth a shot, and no one will know that’s why I am here, so your neighbors won’t think you’re nuts.” I smiled as we all scooped out our stew, and said grace before digging into our food.
Dinner was really quiet, as it was at my house when we had dinner together. I was used to the quietness around the dinner table, and I supposed that was something that most southern families did. Dinner was a time to eat dinner, not talk. Once dinner was finished, we went into the den and watched television. The show was soon interrupted by the sound of Luke crying.
“Oh for Pete’s sake, the baby is up. Cut that down, so I can go get him back to sleep.” My aunt walked out of the den to Luke’s room, coming back with my sleepy two-year-old cousin.
“Harpy, Harpy. I want Harpy.” Luke held his arms out as he reached for me.
“Hey Luke, you have a bad dream?” My aunt sat Luke down in my lap, and he snuggled up to me, closing his eyes.
“I had bad dream, Harpy.”
“It was only a dream though. It is ok now.” I rubbed his back as he began to softly snore—apparently I was good with kids.
“Goodness child, you’re here to de-ghost our house and you put our youngin’ to sleep.” My aunt smiled at me.
“Well, you’re family ma’am, so I’ll do what I can to help.” I smiled as I carried Luke and put him back in his bed. “I’m actually tuckered out myself, so I’m going to go to bed too. Night yaw.”
“Night, Harper,” Laney ran towards me and gave me a huge bear hug. After that, it was off for bed for all of us. It was going to be a rough night for me; different house, haunted with ghosts—I didn’t think sleep would come to me. Luckily I was wrong. As soon as my head hit the soft pillow, I was out.
••••
I awoke to the sound of something crashing in the kitchen. Turning to look at my clock I saw it was only one a.m. I was pretty tired, but I got up to investigate.
Sleepily walking out of my room, my skin instantly began to crawl as I felt an electrical current surge through my veins. I slowly turned and looked at the doorway leading into the kitchen where I saw a shadowy figure moving frantically around. I took a step backwards, glancing at the shadow that had now stopped in front of me. It had the shape of a male, a frail male, he looked scared of something, but what would a ghost have to fear? The air around me grew very cold, and I noticed the door knob to the side door was shaking violently as if someone were trying to come in and couldn’t. The shadowy figure began to step backwards, as if trying to escape.
“Is that what is scaring you, the door? Is someone at the door going to hurt you?” I asked, knowing that if the ghost said anything I wouldn’t be able to hear it—I didn’t have my EPV recorder on me. However, the ghost seemed to understand this and nodded his head at me; he was a smart ghost. “You don’t want me to open that door, do you?” The ghost shook his head, indicating a ‘no’. “I won’t then, but it is ok. Whatever it is cannot get you in here, ok?” The ghost nodded once more before vanishing into thin air, and I went back to bed.
••••
 “Harper, time to get up, ya sleepy head you.” My aunt called. I groggily got up only to fall back on the bed.
“What in the world?” I looked down at my leg. It was covered in blood. Something had cut me in my sleep.
“You ok, hun? Where’d those cuts come from? Those some deep cuts. Mark, I need the first aid kit, Harper is bleedin’ all over in here.”
“I have no idea. I was woken up by a ghost in the kitchen at one, then went back to bed. Then just now I wake up with these cuts. They burn like hell too.”
“Here dear. Dang child, what’d ya do, nick yourself in the middle of the night with a sharp knife, or somethin’?” My uncle handed my aunt the first aid kit as she walked over to me and pulled out the rubbing alcohol, and some bandages—this was going to hurt.
“Now sit still, youngin’, while I clean up this mess. This will only hurt for a minute ‘er so.” My aunt knelt down and poured the rubbing alcohol on my bloody leg.
I winced in pain as the liquid filled the cuts on my leg. It hurt way more than a minute. “You lied!” I sat there holding back tears as my aunt bandaged up my bloody leg. I noticed that all the blood was coming from three deep cuts on my leg. Three cuts all in a row, all jagged, and I knew exactly what that meant—I had been scratched by a demonic entity while I had slept, lovely.
“I’m sorry hun. You better be stayin’ off of that for a bit, to let those cuts clot up. Or you gonna soak through the bandages.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
“Well I am off to work, you two. Honey take care of Harper, looks like she is going to need it today, and I’ll see yaw this evening. Love you.” With that my uncle walked out of the room and out of the house.
“Come on, hun, we’ll get you set up in the den so you can be more comfortable, and watch some television. I’ll bring you breakfast in there.”
“If it is all the same, ma’am, I think I’ll just prop up in here and do some research on my laptop on what may have gone on in this house. I need to know what I’m heading into before I jump into it. Normally, I don’t care to know, but after the demonic cuts on my leg, I need to see what happened here.”
“Demonic cuts?”
“Three consecutive scratches, that burn like fire, and are jagged in nature, are the marks of the beast. Those scratches were not self-inflicted; some demonic entity scarred me sometime after one in the morning. I believe trying to scare me away from releasing some of your ghosts. I guess I pissed it off when I spoke with the ghost that lives in your kitchen.” My aunt stared at me blankly, not sure of what to say.
“That is pretty frightening. I’m assumin’ you think we need to be movin’, don’t ya child?” I nodded as she added, “I’ll bring your breakfast in here then. I have to get my youngins’ up first and then I’ll get breakfast goin’. We’ll talk to Mark, about getting us outta here tonight, the two of us.” She walked out of the room, her footsteps headed in the direction of my cousins’ rooms.
Sliding my legs back onto the bed, I pulled my laptop out of my bag and began booting it up. I checked my e-mail then was off to search for information on my aunt’s house, unsure of what I might find. After about an hour, my aunt brought me breakfast—scrambled eggs, cheese grits, crispy bacon, and hash browns.
“Any luck?”
“Nada. It seems that I may be searching for a good while. I have a friend doing some research at the local library to see what she can dig up, but so far we’re both coming up short. I’m determined to find it out though. I just want to know before I go talking to the kitchen ghost again.”
“Kitchen ghost?” A sleepy Laney asked as she walked into my guest room, before screaming, “What happened to your leg?”
“I was attacked in my sleep by something in the house. And I found a ghost in the kitchen; I spoke with him this morning. He seems harmless enough, though.” I smiled as Laney climbed in the bed with me.
“Oh, him, I call him George. He’s a nice ghosty. But something always freaks him out, something with the side door. That is why I refuse to go near it. I think he is warning me about it.” My aunt nodded her head as my cousin spoke.
“Any idea why he’s here? I figure you may know some of the house’s history, better than me.”
“Well, the man next door told me one time that two women died in this house of cancer, and that a man hung himself. Other than that, I really have no idea.” My aunt shrugged her shoulders.
“Well that is something for me to go on at least. I’m going to keep looking, maybe I can dig something up soon.”
 Another hour passed by before my cell phone went off. It was Hope, she had sent me a text message--Call me ASAP, I’ve found something I think you’ll find interesting. I dialed her number.
“Hey, what did you find?”
“You’re in the house where a young girl was brutally stabbed.”
“Really? That explains these gashes on my leg then.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah, something got me overnight. Not a stab, more of a demonic gash type. Burns like fire.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Get the hell out of there Harper, before you’re killed!”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be careful. Let me know if you dig up anything else.” With that I hung up and went back to searching the web. Having a lead to go on, I typed in murder at my aunt’s address. Just as Hope said, there was a brutal stabbing of a young girl at this house. There were images of the house and it turned out the murder occurred in the same room I was sleeping in.   
I decided to pull my black-light out and looked around the room. As the light shone on the walls all sorts of smears came into view. I shivered as I thought of a bloody hand gliding across the wall, as the woman tried to get away. Out of nowhere, I was in a room with a young girl and a strange man. The man looked like he was up to something. The woman appeared to be drunk. It looked like a date that went wrong. Without warning the man pulled out a knife and began stabbing the young woman. Over and over he stabbed her and blood splattered all over the room. She tried to grab the door handle, trying to escape, but every time she moved the man caught her and stabbed her again. Eventually she just lay still covered in blood and the man left the room.
I came back then. Sitting on the bed, I decided to look up addresses of old slave plantations—because of the original feeling I had when I first arrived. With a bit of digging I uncovered that this house was built on top of an old slave plantation dating back to the Civil War. Thousands of slaves died one dreaded night when the owner decided to burn down all of his slave’s homes on January 1st, 1863, the day the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. The owner didn’t want to grant them freedom, so instead he killed every one of them, even throwing himself into the fire when the authorities arrived.
I sat back and stared at the information on my computer screen, shocked that I had just solved what was in this house—a confused male slave, a peeved slave master, a murderer, two cancer victims, a suicidal man, and a murder victim; but still I felt like something else was here, something evil.
••••
 “Did you find anythin’ hun? Feelin’ any better?” My aunt asked as she walked into my room, making me jump. I’d almost forgotten I was in her home.
“Yes, I’m feeling fine. I found out a ton. I’m going to speak with ‘George’ tomorrow and see what he can tell me. But I have a feeling yaw may want to start looking for another place. I think things are much worse than you can ever imagine.”
“Oh dear. We’ll talk to Mark about that after dinner. Speaking of which, you skipped lunch with all your researchin’, so dinner time. Up and attem’ girl, to the table you go.” I laughed at the way my aunt spoke as I hobbled to the dining room.
“So did you find anything?” my uncle asked between bites of his spaghetti. I simply nodded. “What’d ya find out?”
“We need to move, Mark.” My aunt blurted out before I could say anything.
“Now no child of my sisters’ is goin’ to come in here and tell me I need to move from my home!” He slammed his hand down on the table—I jumped.
“It’s just, this place isn’t safe, Uncle Mark. Something attacked me, and it’ll start attacking yaw too. It has a thirst for blood. The house has a murderer haunting it, two cancer victims, a suicidal man, a slave burned in a fire, an angry slave owner, a murder victim, and something far more sinister that I can’t figure out. You need to move, for the sake of your kids.” It was just then that something went flying in the living room, shattering against the wall in front of the door.
“What the hell was that?” My uncle ran into the living room. Family pictures lay broken, scattered all over the floor, with a note that said GET OUT! “Whose cruel prank is this?”
“No one’s, sir.” I tried to explain, “This thing is trying to kill yaw, and it will kill yaw. Why do you think it attacked me? Because it knows I will get yaw to move. It doesn’t want you to leave. Once you leave it will have nothing to feed off of—no negative energy exists if no one lives here.”
“The hell you will.”
“Listen to her, Honey. She is trained in this.”
“No.” That was all my uncle had to say before heading out of the house, slamming the front door.
“He doesn’t act this way. I wonder what has gotten’ into him?” My aunt said behind tear filled eyes.
“The demons are corrupting him, making him evil. The kids are next, then you. I got to stop this. You need to pack, with or without Uncle Mark’s agreement. Do it, and do it now.” It was then that a scream came from Laney’s bedroom. I darted for her room, to find her lying in her bed, pointing at her closet.
I peered, slowly, into the closet, to find an Ouija board floating in mid-air. There was my answer to the demonic entity haunting this house. Someone must have released a beastly creature while goofing off with that damned thing.
“Aunt Marissa, I found an Ouija board in Laney’s closet. Your house is haunted by one of the Devil’s henchmen. You got to get out of here.”
“Yes, yes we do. I just found a noose in my husband’s dresser. We are leaving today, and that is that.”
“Laney and Luke need to sleep with you tonight. It isn’t safe for them to be alone.”
“I want to stay with you,” Laney rubbed her sleepy eyes.
“I’m sorry sweetie. I have to do something dangerous tonight so yaw can move in peace tomorrow.” With that we all walked out of the room and headed for our bedrooms, I grabbed my Bible as soon as I walked into my room. This was a long shot, and I had never done it before—never needed to. I walked back into the living room and said a prayer that known as the Spiritual Warfare Prayer. Within a matter of minutes everything in the house calmed down.
I headed to my room to sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day. We were going to get everything moved out in less than twenty-four hours. Sleep did not come easy this time. Spirits haunted my dreams; George looking for a trinket of his daughters, a man burning in flames, and a woman being stabbed.
I awoke to a massive pain in my stomach, and to see blood spilling from my mid-section. Quickly, I stopped the bleeding and bandaged myself up—this house was definitely going to kill us if we didn’t leave soon. The prayer hadn’t worked. The demons were stronger than I had imagined. I sent a message to a few of my friends to come help with my aunt and uncle moving.
I stared at the wall blankly as I thought about all the information I had found out. The room suddenly went dark, and grew very hot. I was taken to the time of the Civil War, just after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. There sat George and his daughter working in the fields. The two looked relieved that they would soon be free. I realized that I had taken the appearance of a slave, and apparently one that the owner had some quarrels with because he came rushing up to me. The slave owner began whipping me. With each crack of his whip the pain grew worse, and the blood dripped down my back.
“Stop whippin’ my youngin’. She ain’t done nottin’ to you,” George, or my father, shouted as he charged at the slave owner, Chris Phifer.
“She ‘as, yaw are all free come night time. But don’t count yer chickens befer they hatch. Yaw ain’t goin’ no wheres. Ya ‘ere?” With that he stormed off for his home. Little did we know he would come out later that night.
At midnight our house seemed to grow extremely hot. My father ran to the window to see red flames roaring around. I darted for the door, trying to open it, but it simply would not budge. We were trapped. Chris had set the entire plantation on fire.  I panicked while I continued fighting with the door, until the flames engulfed the door, forcing my family into a huddle in the middle of our tiny home.  We sat there together, as we slowly burned.
••••
Daylight brightened up my room and I heard knocking at the door—I had forgotten I told my friends to come help us move today. I quickly ran for the door letting everyone in. They had boxes, tape, everything we needed to pack up a house. We began packing up my aunt and uncle’s entire life and taking it out to the moving truck my friends had rented to help.
“What’s all this now?” My uncle asked as he stumbled in to a now empty living room.
“We’re helping you move, sir. Ain’t safe here. Harper’s been stabbed twice now, next time it could be worse.” my friend Craig said backing away from my uncle.
“Where we gonna go child? Ya think of that?” My uncle asked.
“Yes sir, she did. My parents have a house similar to this one, a few miles up the road, which they are happy to rent to yaw at a cheaper price.” My friend Craig said with a warm smile.
“Really?” My uncle asked.
“Yes sir,” I smiled as he gave me a reassuring look, thanking me for my hard work, then he began helping us box up things. I guessed the demon released his grasp on my uncle, allowing him to finally realize that he needed to move, or it could’ve been because he didn’t have to worry about a place to go. I had gotten everything under control for him, so I suppose moving was no longer going to be a stress on him—nor was he going to say no. How could he say no, when all of his stuff was already being carried out, anyway?
A few hours passed by the time we finished packing up the entire house and taken it out to the moving truck. My aunt whipped up some lunch for everyone, and we took a break to eat, realizing we’d skipped breakfast. We grabbed the rest of the stuff and were out of there, except there was one last thing I needed to do.
I walked back into the home, with a trinket in my hand. I had found it while boxing up things in the attic above the garage. I stopped in front of where I had first seen George, laid the trinket on the ground and walked away.
“Thank ye, child,” George appeared in front of me—causing me to jump out of my skin—he spoke through my cell phone.
“You’re welcome. I figured I could help one of you in this house. I can’t help the others, because lives are at stake.”
“I know. Off with ye, child. He be comin’.” George disappeared and a weird feeling washed over me, as every window and door in the house slammed shut—locking me in.
I heard my aunt scream from outside as something cold pierced my body, taking control of me—I had been possessed.
Something unreal happened after that. George materialized, and went hand to hand with the demon that had possessed me. The trinket was what he needed in order to move on, but instead he chose to fight for my freedom. He chose to save me. A ghost saved my life. I made a vow from this day forth that I would continue helping those unseen, because you never truly know when one may save your life.