Raising The Dead

It’s time for Halloween, and with that comes those cheesy ghost stories. You know, the ones always involving some insane killer with a hook for a hand. Most people enjoy these stories and consider them nothing more than fiction. But what if I were to tell you that there are people who can tell true ghost stories? Ones they have actually lived through? What if I were to tell you I was one of those people?

When I was 12, my Grandparents still lived at the foot of a mountain in southern West Virginia. They have long since moved away, and are now living with my uncle.

Back then, in school, children used to talk about all the weird legends about the occult they had heard about. I remember someone saying that if you walked back to a grave so many times, it would raise the ghost of that person. They would do anything you said.

Several weeks later, my family went to visit my grandparents. When my dad was a boy, my grandparents used to live on top of the mountain in a house that had been the birth and death place of two generations.

My family even has a small graveyard near the house. While we were visiting them, my brother, sister and a cousin decided to go up the mountain and look around the old home. Of course, we ended up in the graveyard. We were fooling around and reading the headstones when I remember the legend that my classmate had told me about raising a dead person’s ghost.

I wanted to look cool so I told the group about it. Of course, they laughed and thought I was silly for believing that tale. My brother wanted to really tease me so he walked around the grave backward that number of times and said: “go haunt Charlene.”

At first, I was scared and very upset with my brother, but as the day went on nothing happened. I forgot about the incident. However, that night I would be horribly reminded.

The room I used to sleep in at my grandparents’ place had two windows that were high above the ground. One faced the side of the mountain, and the other’s view was obstructed by a large woodshed. That night as I lay curled in my bed, I looked out the window to see something very unnerving. I saw two small bright lights, almost like miniature headlights set an eye width apart, float past the window. I thought I was seeing things so I looked up again, and they floated by again. I could not explain this to myself no matter how hard I tried. The two windows were too high above the ground for it to be anyone walking by, and it couldn’t be any reflection from a passing vehicle since there wasn’t any going down the road at the time and the two windows were pretty well blocked off.

This occurrence continued to happen every time I went to visit my grandparents. Late at night, the two glowing eyes would float past the window. One time I even followed them from one window, then around the corner past the other. Night time became a dreaded thing for me for years when I went to visit my grandparents. And no matter how I tried to tell my family about what was happening, they wouldn’t believe me because it wouldn’t happen when they were looking. Finally, my grandparents moved away and thank goodness, the thing didn’t follow. I’ve learned my lesson From now on, I will not fool with anything having to do with raising the spirits or the dead. If I hear anything else about it, I sure won’t be telling my brother!