My Own Personal Ghost

I am not sure what it is that I have following me, but I think it maybe a ghost of some sort.

When I was 13, my mother and I moved into a house in Harpers Ferry, WV, with my aunt, uncle, and younger cousin. I have always heard the ghost stories about Harpers Ferry, but since the house was not in the actual town, I did not think I had anything to worry about. Apparently, I was wrong!

We moved in, thinking that it would be a pleasant place, because it was quite big, and was in a quiet neighborhood. Nothing really happened for a few months. However, when things did start happening, they did not go unnoticed. At first, they were just like what you hear in everyone else’s stories. We would hear moaning, and people talking. Nevertheless, as time went on, it got worse.

My mom and my uncle were at home, alone one night. They were sitting in the upstairs living room. They heard something big, fall and make a huge bang. My uncle (Jay) went through the upstairs rooms, while my mom went downstairs to see what had fallen. They both came back empty handed. Another night, all of us were sitting in the same room, talking. When everything got quiet, it sounded like someone was walking up the steps. (The house was a split-level, and the stairs creaked when someone was walking on them.) The footsteps, along with the creaking noise, seemed to stop at the front door, then continue up the steps. It seemed like it lasted for hours. Everyone was really freaked. That is not the worst part, my younger cousin (Jess), was about 8 or 9 years old. She had never really been the scared type, not afraid of the dark or anything. However, she would never want to be in her room alone for some reason. My aunt (Tammy) always blew it off as Jess being scared, but one night, after Jess had gone to bed, Tammy and Jay were watching TV in their bedroom, across the hall.

Jay heard what he said sounded like someone scratching at the door. He got up to check it out, but there was no one there. He went into Jess’s room to see if she had waked up. She was still sleeping in her bed, but her bedroom light was on, with the switch on the “off” position, and her closet door was open. Jay said he did not know what to think, so he turned the light off (to the “on” position) and just went back into his room. The next morning, he went to wake Jess up for school. The light was still off, but this time it was on the “off” position. Weird? Jess started getting ready for school, and got some clothes out of her closet. She called Jay in the room, because she said her closet door would not close. Jay tried to close it, but it would not budge. He started looking to see what was wrong, and he saw a huge hole in the ceiling of the closet. Well, he went to the attic to see if it was possibly a rat or something. Nothing! There was absolutely no possible way an animal could have gotten in there.

My aunt and uncle had two dogs at the time, and one of them had killed a kitten that my mom had gotten me. I buried her in the back yard, by the tree line. One day, I was out visiting her grave, I looked up in front of me, and there stood this white shadow looking thing. It was not like a human form, nor was it animal. It had a head, but the body was rounded, and no feet appeared. Of course, it scared me, so I turned, and ran towards the house. As I was running, I looked back to see if it was chasing me. Sure enough, it was. However, this time, it looked like a white dog or some kind of four legged animal. I reached the house, and slammed the back door behind me. I looked out the door, but there was nothing there. I told my mom about it, but of course she thought I was nuts!

I do not think there was anything that happened to my mom or my aunt, but we did not live there long.

After leaving there, everything seemed to be normal. A little while later, when I was 15, my mom, step-dad, and I moved into Avon Bend (a little community, a few miles from Harpers Ferry). At first, everything WAS normal. We lived with another family for about a year, before they moved out. Right before they moved, I was sleeping in my roommate’s bedroom, which was the finished attic. She and I were very close friends. We stayed up half the night, talking and making plans for the weekend. She had fallen asleep, and I was just about there, myself. I suddenly heard someone scooting their feet across the carpet. Half asleep, I looked up and saw this person standing at the top of the steps, staring at me. I was not scared, but startled. I sat up in bed, and stared back, until this person faded away. The next morning, I told my friend about it, telling her, what the figure looked like and how it made me feel. I was in church at the time, so I thought it might have been an angel, or something to that affect. She told me that she thought it was her grandmother, because she comes to “visit” occasionally. Why would she come to see me? Even though I was a churchgoer, I still felt an evil presence in the house.

My grandfather, who is a preacher, came over one day to pray and bless the house. I kept hearing people talk, and move through the house. There was even an instance that drove me to leave for a while. I was on the bottom floor of the house (in the living), and started to walk up the stairs to my bedroom. There was no one else there, so I had my music up loud. As I turned the corner to the steps, I heard fast footsteps behind me; they kept getting closer and closer. It scared me, so I ran up the step, but could still hear them to be what sounded like right behind me. They were so loud; I could hear them over my music. When I got to the top, I did not stop until I got to my room. I shut and locked the door behind me. I turned the music off, and started calling out to see if it was my mom or someone I knew. No one answered me everything was silent. I was TERRIFIED, but I eventually got enough courage to open the door, bat in hand. I did that little creeping search of the house. You know, the one you do, late at night when you hear a strange noise. Peeking around every corner, I did not find anything. I did notice, however that there were muddy footprints on the stairs, but nowhere else in the house. They were not there earlier. I left shortly after that. I did not come home for 2 weeks.

I live in Charles Town, still. I do not live in an old house, but still get visited by something. When I was pregnant with my son, I use to stay up at night, while my boyfriend slept. I was sitting on the couch one night, watching TV. My boyfriend was snoring in the bedroom. I swear, someone said my name in a whisper! It came from what is now, my son’s bedroom. Now my son is 6 months old. When I hold him, he looks over my shoulder and laughs. I look behind me, and of course, there is nothing there. He does not do it to anyone else, just me. Sometimes I am afraid to go into his bedroom. I feel like someone is watching me, or looking over my shoulder. I was lying in bed one night, and woke up to see a man standing at the foot of the bed. I woke up boyfriend up, but he faded away, making me out to be a liar.

My boyfriend thinks that all these things are just in my head. He does not believe in ghosts. I KNOW they are real! Nevertheless, I do not understand why I keep feeling and seeing them. Is there one that is with me all the time, or that follows me? It seems like no matter where I go, or live, there is always something strange about it. Whoever, or whatever it is, I wish it would go away so I can have a normal life!