QotD: Ghost Story

Do you believe in ghosts?  Have you ever seen a ghost? 
Submitted by Nancy.

Yes, I believe in ghosts. No, I've never seen one, but I've seen her move things....

When I was a teenager, we lived in this tiny town in Alabama. Our house was haunted by the previous owner, who had suffered a heart attack and died in the kitchen. She was found later the morning she died by one of her surviving sons and his wife. I say 'surviving sons' because the son she lost has a direct bearing on the nature of the haunting.

Her name was Mrs. Gladys and she had worked at the grocery store in town ever since her sons had grown up and moved away from home. She had four sons, but lost one when he was about ten - he was riding his bike and got hit by a car. In all the confusion after his death, instead of being interred in the family cemetery with his grandparents he somehow ended up in the neighboring town's cemetery. Mrs. Glady told everyone who would listen that she wouldn't rest until her son was moved to the family plot. After her husband died, she became more vocal about her discontent but I guess she never had the money to afford the relocation. The first time my mother (who is a little sensitive to these sorts of things) walked up to the house, she saw what she described as a 'memory' of a little lady with close cropped grey hair, wearing a grocer's apron and holding open the screen door with a welcoming smile. Of course, my mother never met the lady so it couldn't possibly have been a real memory, but when she described the woman to the son giving the tour of the house he replied (very surprised, I might add) that my mother had just described his mother to a tee.

After we moved in, funny things started to happen and most of them centered around my little brother. He was about ten at the time (strange coincidence, you think?) and before we moved out, the poor kid refused to go into his closet. Swore the ghost lived in there. You could hear Mrs. Gladys stomping up and down the stairs at all hours of the day and night. Mother always said she thought the ghost was putting away her sons' laundry. She'd turn on the lamp in my parents' bedroom in the middle of the night. My sister-in-law owns the lamp now, and she says it's never turned itself on or off without her assistance since she's had it. Sometimes, mother and dad would wake in the middle of the night to the most noxious odor permeating the air in their bedroom. Mother always said that once you smelled decomposition, you never forgot it. Our normally calm dog would jump up and bark at empty air every so often. Our Christmas tree took a tumble, without breaking any of the fragile ornaments. And the glass-paned door to the butler's pantry in the kitchen always stayed open, no matter how much paper, cardboard, and matchsticks mother wedged under it to keep it shut.

I was always kind of glad that Mrs. Gladys never bothered me - she left me totally alone for the most part. But being a small town, my new best friend happened to be the granddaughter of Mrs. Gladys' best friend when she was alive. One night, I finally talked Beth Ann into spending the night at my house. It took me forever to convince her because she'd grown up hearing Mrs. Gladys say that she'd walk the earth until the boy's body was moved, and Beth was scared to death of the idea of a ghost in my house. Anyway, I finally convinced her and everything went well until we went to bed. Beth slept in my brother's room, and woke me up about 2am convinced that she had seen a face in the window. I told her she was dreaming...after all, the bedroom was on the second floor so how could there be a face in the window? I told her it was the oak trees blowing in the wind, but Beth refused to sleep in there by herself so she ended up on the floor of my bedroom. The next morning, I decided to make Beth an omelet for breakfast since she said she had never had one. While I was standing at the stove with Beth Ann wedged between me and the kitchen counter, I saw her face go pale and her big, brown doe eyes literally become as large as saucers. She started slowly climbing backwards up the kitchen cabinets and making a funny noise deep in her throat. She pointed to the back door next to us, and I looked over in time to watch the door nob turn, the door swing open, lift over both of the lumps in the floor that kept it from operating smoothly, and swing completely open. With no one behind it.

Creepy, huh?